Scorched Flesh

by Ian Woodhead

  “Stu, shut up about pissing junk mail. Come on, let’s get a move on. It’s taken us over three hours to get here, and we’re not even halfway to the mall.”

  “That’s three hours of extra life that you owe me, young man.”

  His face dropped, then Stu fell to the floor, and peered through the bus shelter window. “Get ready to run,” he hissed. “We have company.”

  I expected to see one of the humanlike things walking towards us. When I joined him at the window, my heart almost gave out at the sight of what could only be described as a six foot cranefly scuttling down the middle of the road. The thin legs looked identical to the black ropes, the stalks used to catch their prey. It was the dark purple teardrop shaped body that terrified the crap out of me. “Oh no, I’ve seen that before.” It was one of the pod things attached to that blood tree.

  It scuttled past the bus shelter, not taking any notice of me, even when I stood up and walked out into the road, not listening to Stu’s urgent calling for me to get back in there. The huge cranefly headed towards the nearest stalk planted directly in front of a bookmakers on the opposite side of the road. “I hope you both eat each other,” I growled. I started to walk forwards, I needed to see what would happen when they met, only I never got the chance as Stu grabbed my collar, and pulled me back into the shelter. “Get off me!”

  He shook his head, and pointed behind him. There were hundreds of them, and they were all heading this way. “Time to go, Travis. This is going to give me nightmares for years. I can’t tell you how much I hate daddy long legs.” He left the shelter and ran into the nearest shop, only pausing at the doorway to make sure that I was following.

  I only went after Stu once I’d watched what happened when the two things met. My wish of them attacking each other faded as soon as the cranefly reached the stalk.

  Its legs grew until its body was at the same level as the stalk’s cap. The new creature then moved forward and straddled the stalk. The pod then sunk into the top of the cap, lifting its legs straight up as it continued to sink inside the stalk. Within seconds, there were only the three tips of its legs remaining.

  “They’re almost on top of us! Come on, man, get over here. Just because we were ignored by that one, it doesn’t mean the others will act the same.”

  I nodded, and followed Stu into the shop, trying to work out exactly what I’d just seen. Has it gone to its death, or was there something else at work here? Yet again, I wished that my dad was here. He’d probably know. I watched their progress through the shop window. Just like the first one, they too all headed towards a stalk, and set about going through the same motions.

  “They’re joining,” muttered Stu. “I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen next. Whatever it is, you can guarantee that it’s going to be bad for our health.” He grabbed hold of my arm. “Come on, let’s see if we can find a back way out of here without bumping into anything weird and pissed off.”

  “Wait, what do you mean that they’re joining? How can you be so sure?”

  He skidded to a halt. “Has anybody told you that you act just like your dad when he was your age?” He smiled. “I guess not. Look, I’m a people watcher. Do you know what they are?”

  “Hazarding a guess, “a person who watches people,” I muttered.

  The man giggled. “There’s the dad in you again.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, I was nothing like him.

  “I’ve made it a habit to study people. Not just people either, but everything from traffic, to the weather, to animals, and I’m telling you that they have joined up. Two has become one, and the one will be far greater than the two. That much I’ll stake my life on. In fact, if we don’t make ourselves scarce, it’ll be both of our lives on the line here.”

  I turned away from the window, trying not to imagine just how it could get if Stu was right. “You mean, they might even be able to move?”

  He shrugged. “They might already be able to do that anyway, but choose not to.” He opened a fridge door and pulled out a can of coke, then, after a moments deliberation, he carefully put it back and took out a pint of fresh milk instead. “It’s a bit warm,” he twisted off the top and took a small sip, “but, it’s still drinkable.” He threw me a bottle. “Here, drink it. This might be the last time you taste milk.”

  I stared at him in confusion. “How can you be calm about all of this?”

  “Son, I’m anything but calm.” Stu finished off his milk, and placed the now empty bottle on the counter, then stuffed several Mars Bars into his pocket. “Believe me, I’m fucking terrified. The fear is what is keeping me going, the fear of turning into one of those things, the fear of dying.” He looked directly at me, and licked his lips. “The fear of being alone.”

  I opened the bottle and drank the contents, surprised at how thirsty I was.

  “Travis.”

  I looked up.

  “This plan to return to the mall, are you still intent on going? You know what awaits us in there.” He pointed at the shop window. “So far, we’ve only seen a scattering of them. You know as well as I do just how busy that mall got on a Saturday.”

  “You don’t need to come with me,” I said quietly.

  “I didn’t ask you that. I know how important this is for you, and I have no plans to talk you out of anything. My only concern is the view.”

  I shook my head; once again, this man had utterly confused me. Stu brushed past me, and wandered down the next aisle. “What the hell are you doing?” I gasped aloud as a small disk of intense white light hit me in the face. “Are you trying to fucking blind me?”

  He flicked off the torch, dropped it into his pocket, and casually picked up a packet of crisps. “Best way to blind someone would be to stab your index and forefinger into their eyes, and hope that they don’t either jerk back or turn their head.” He opened the packet, and offered me one. “Travis, walk the Mall’s main concourse for me, and count the windows. Once you have done that, pop in a few hundred six foot columns of alien carnivorous monstrosities.” He patted his pocket. “Tell me when you’ve done that, while I see if I can find you a torch as well.”

  “The view, oh fuck. There won’t be any view. All the lights are out.”

  He nodded. “Right now, the moon is up, the stars are out, and the sun has gone to sleep. This looks as good a place as any, plus we don’t have to go far for food.”

  “The last thing I want to do is sleep, Stu.” I marched past the man, and pushed open the first door I came to. The last thing I wanted to do was to stay here. Couldn’t he see that? The dark room offered no other means to get out of here. No door, no window, just the outline of what looked like an armchair at the back of the room. “You stop here, if you want. I’m going to the mall.” I ran my fingers along the wall until I found the light switch. The socket was there, but after several tries, the light failed to come on. “Fuck you! Stu, give me that torch.”

  It took me a moment to realise that the man was no longer behind me. I spun around, looking down the length of the shop, trying to see the man. I saw nothing but his empty bottle of milk perched on the top of a magazine rack next to the open front door. “Oh, no, the fucker has left me.” I ran to the other door and looked up and down the dark street. The only movement I saw were a couple of tripod things scuttling past the shop. There was no sign of Stu; he really had left me here.

  For the first time since this nightmare had started, I was truly alone. I rested the palm of my hand against the edge of the door, watching the remaining tripod thing stride over a garden fence, and over to the front door of a stone cottage. Through the bedroom window, I saw the shape of one of the stalks resting its bulk against the glass. I jumped when I heard the sound of splintering wood. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I moaned, when I saw the tripod push its thing body through a large hole that it had made in that door. “Stu, why did you have to leave me? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

  I sh
ut the door, leaned against the glass, and slid down to the floor, not knowing what to do now. He would have headed back to the scrapyard, I was sure of that. After all, where else would he go? Then again, maybe he would find somewhere else to hole up until it got light again. After all, it had been him who had suggested the idea in the first bloody place.

  “Shit. What do I do now?”

  Outside, I heard more sounds of splintering wood, as well as breaking glass. It looked like nothing would stop those tripod things from reaching the stalks. I then remembered the portacabin in the scrapyard. Would that, too, soon have a tripod trying to get inside? The image of a dozen black ropes whipping through a broken door and grabbing Stu filled my mind. I didn’t want him to die.

  No matter how hard I tried, those gruesome images of my new friend being killed wouldn’t leave my mind. I couldn’t stay here, not anymore. At least I knew for a fact that, unlike my mum, he still lived; he was still human.

  I jumped to my feet, grabbed the door handle, and stopped as my ears picked up a shuffling sound at the back of the shop. I slowly turned my head. “Stu, is that you?” A silhouette framed the open doorway. The sheer bulk of the body convinced me that it wasn’t him.

  The shape moved closer into the shop, and stood in front of the counter. I saw his face and felt my bladder loosen at the sight of the man’s distorted features. It looked as though somebody had blowtorched his face; then, I watched in disbelief as his flesh melted like warm butter, and rearranged to form the shape of a bald man who looked to be in his late fifties.

  The man quickly moved around the counter, and I now saw the huge screwdriver held in his left hand. He stopped again, and tilted his head to one side. I felt the door handle digging into my back. I still had time to get out of here, yet no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get my legs to move. They felt as though they were glued to the floorboards.

  This was my first meeting with one of these creatures, and it was likely to be my last all because of…

  I shrieked out in shock when somebody knocked three times on the other side of the door. I found myself grinning. It had to be Stu, it just had to be! I spun around, and came face to face with yet another stranger. I screamed even louder when I saw the cricket bat held in his hand.

  His face flowed like quicksilver, changing from his initial appearance of a young man into… I moaned loudly as it set. Now he looked exactly like the bastard at the counter! I slammed the bolt home just as he jumped forward, smashing into the door. His howl of frustration followed me as I dived to the side and ran into the corner of the shop.

  The bastard with the screwdriver marched straight past where I was cowering; he reached the door, slid back the bolt, and turned the handle. The other now identical man walked into the shop. They both turned to face me, raised their improvised weapons, and took one step forward.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted, pressing my back against the shelves of tinned food. My fingers curled around one of the tins. “I said, leave me alone!” Without thinking, I threw the tin as hard as I could, finding myself grinning when it slammed into the face of the one on the left. “Fuck you!” I picked up another one and threw that one before scrambling away, running towards the counter, and listening to their heavy footsteps as they chased after me.

  There was another way out of here. Hidden behind a pile of boxes, I spotted another doorway, dozens of multi-coloured plastic streamers hung down from the top of the door frame. I couldn’t believe it, how had I missed this? Maybe it led to another room and another way out of here? It had to; there had to be a fire door in here somewhere.

  I was inches from that counter when I felt something grip my ankle. I looked down, staring in horror at the huge hand belonging to one of the things. I fell to the floor when he jerked me backwards. The other one was nowhere to be seen, but what did that matter when this one was already about to kill me? He viciously turned me onto my back and sat down on my knees before pressing his screwdriver against the underside of my chin.

  “Are you going to give up so easily, Travis?”

  Another shadow appeared above me.

  “Fight it or die.”

  The humanlike thing took his eyes off me for just a second. I reached out, my desperate fingers clambering over the shelf beside me. This time, I found a can of antiperspirant. “Oi, dickhead!” When he looked back at me, I sprayed the contents straight into his eyes. He howled, and brought both his hands up to his face, dropping the screwdriver on my chest, but he didn’t move off my body.

  “Get the fuck off me!” I screamed, slamming the bottom of the can into his nose over and over, turning the flesh into a bloodied mush, but despite my efforts, he still wouldn’t move.

  “Here you go, Travis.”

  I turned to the side and saw Stu crouched beside me. He held my attacker’s screwdriver.

  “Take it, and push the pointy bit into his neck. Do it, it’s the only way you’ll ever be free.”

  “I can’t! I can’t kill him, it’s not his fault!”

  Stu shrugged. “Fair enough.” He placed the screwdriver on my chest and stood up. “I’ll be seeing you then.” He walked past the moaning hulk, then looked back at me. “Or maybe not.”

  I picked up the screwdriver, gripping the handle tight, tears rolled down the side of my face. I couldn’t do it.

  “Your mum is dead, Travis. You know that. No, worse than dead. They turned her into some vile monster. Do you think she felt pain? I bet she did, you know. One minute she’s wondering whether to have a cup of tea, the next she’s in agony, going through the worse pain she’s ever felt, and then her flesh begins to stretch and reshape.

  “Stop it, shut the fuck up!”

  “It’s happening to everybody all around her; she screams, she howls out, her voice joining the others. You were in there, you heard it, Travis. Can you even imagine what her last few moments were like before those bastards finally reshaped them into what they became?”

  The humanlike turned his head, his warm blood dripping onto my waist. He saw that I had his screwdriver, and reached for it.

  “She’s still out there, you know, along with all the others, just waiting for one of the few that survive to come within range of her black ropes, or maybe this fucker will take you to her, a tearful reunion as he feeds your pieces to her, one at a time, bit by bit.”

  I slammed the end of the screwdriver into the side of the humanlike’s neck, pulled it out, and pushed it deep into his eye. Like a huge bag of flour, it simply rolled off my legs and smacked into the bottom of the shelf.

  Stu gently opened my fingers, allowing the screwdriver to clatter onto the floor. He then helped me to my feet and half carried me towards the other door. As I passed through the plastic curtain, I caught a glimpse of the other humanlike Stu had dealt with it without me even noticing. He’d cut its throat. Just before the view of the shop disappeared, I saw something else beside the humanlike’s head. It looked like a huge black spider.

  “I thought you had left me,” I murmured, easing myself into a high backed chair. My legs ached. “Where did you go, Stu?”

  The man walked over to the window, and gazed through the glass. “I didn’t go anywhere, my young Fitzpatrick. I was here all along, just doing what I do best.” I turned around. “I was watching, observing the things around the pair of us, as well as doing some thinking. Oh, I may have eaten a couple of chocolate bars as well. Yeah, I did do that, yum.”

  “Would you have really left me?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that one, my friend. Now, as I was saying, I think it will be an astounding idea to bed down here for the night, don’t you think so? We can make our way to the mall at first light—that’s if you still want to go.”

  He didn’t answer my question, and no, I didn’t know the answer to his. In fact, I didn’t know much of fucking anything now, only that I’d just murdered somebody and this quirky man, stood by the window, wasn’t that mostly harmless homeless guy anymore, not t
hat I think he ever was. For crying out loud, he was able to take out that other humanlike without any problems. Killing is probably second nature to him, about as taxing as putting on a hat.

  Stu left the window, pulled me out of the chair, and wrapped his arms tight around my waist. “You did well, Travis. Seriously, I wasn’t totally sure that you would come through. You have won the equivalent of the lottery, Travis. In fact, you won it yesterday as well as today. I believe that you’ll win it tomorrow as well.”

  “What are you talking about now?” I was too tired and confused to work out what his roundabout words meant anymore.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He released me and smiled. “Now shall we see if we can find some sheets, blankets, maybe even a couple of quilts?” He nodded over to a door at the far end of this room. “I reckon that will lead to a flight of stairs. In fact, I’m sure of it, considering our fire door is in the room where Mr Screwdriver man came out of. Tell you what, I’ll even let you take the bed. I’m used to sleeping under the stairs anyway, so either a carpet or sofa will do for me.”

  This was just too much. That poor bloke was bleeding out across his shop floor, and now the murderer was going to sleep in his bed? That was the ultimate insult. Not a chance; I had to get out of here. “Stu, do you not think we should look elsewhere?”

  “Come over here,” he said.

  He was back at the window again. Hell, I hadn’t even noticed that he’d left me. “Why?” I wanted to sit down. My legs still ached, yet if I did that, I’d not want to get up again.

  “It’s about your lottery numbers, Travis. Come on, you need to see this.”

  I sighed, and did as I was asked.

  “It didn’t click until a few minutes ago, Travis. Now, I realise just how dumb I’d been. There had to be a logic behind the operation. It’s only ‘after the fact’ when I now see it. It’s ironic really. Your dad always said I was a bit lacking in the upstairs department.”

  He moved aside and held the net curtain, giving me a full view of the shop’s alleyway. Five security lights shined on two of the abominations standing close to a collection of trade-bins. My heart jumped into my mouth. I wanted to cry, I wanted to hide under a table. I wanted my mum.