Scorched Flesh

by Ian Woodhead

  “Ask yourself why they would climb so high, only to drop back down?”

  I had no idea.

  “Judging from the blank look, I’m guessing that your mind is elsewhere?” His head dropped back down. “Let’s find out!” shouted the disembodied voice.

  Before common sense grabbed me by the balls and turned my body towards that fire escape, I did exactly what Stu wanted. I reached the edge, turned around, and climbed down into the warm hole.

  I blinked, gazing in confusion at the sight of dozens of shiny black slabs of matter stuck to the walls. We had found ourselves in a passageway just three feet high and about the same width. I knew for a fact that this wasn’t part of the original construction. Not unless the builders had access to alien technology.

  They melded wood, metal, and even chairs and desks to form this strange passageway. I didn’t think that after everything I’d seen, they had the power to surprise me anymore. Obviously, I’d gotten that wrong.

  “Okay, this is weird.”

  Stu nodded. “Oh, yeah, we’ve defiantly taken the wrong turn into Twilight Zone now. Come on, let’s see where it leads to.”

  I followed him without complaint. It felt like the right thing to do despite being terrified of meeting one of the Black Sentinels coming the other way.

  I silenced every one of the mental shouting voices, deciding for once to just go with the flow. After all, exactly what did we know about these fuckers? The simple answer was ‘Jack shit. This morning, Stu and Harry got into an argument on where we went from here and the urgency to gather information. Harry told him that he had no plans on doing anything right now apart from trying to stay alive. After all, they had enough food to last those years, why even bother purposely finding ways to die, a sentiment echoed by Joshua. For some reason Stu found this hilarious. Pointing out that if it hadn’t been for him, none of us would be in that preferable state right now.

  Stu shuffled forward on his hands and knees, taking his time. Every so often, he’d stop and run his fingers across one of the shiny black slabs before muttering something intelligible.

  His reply stopped Harry in his tracks but he still refused to budge. As far as he was concerned, it would be suicide to leave this place right now. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Harry had suggested that perhaps in another month or so the Black Sentinels might have given up looking for them. Why tempt fate? Stu had just turned around, and walked out of the room, still laughing.

  My dad once said to fight an enemy, one needs to know them, to understand their motives. I think he was quoting something from one of his silly space TV programmes. It didn’t matter where the quote came from; right now I think it could be one of the most pertinent mottos ever devised. We were never going to learn anything about them by either running away or hiding like terrified rabbits.

  I felt like I’d just been hit by a lightening bolt. Stu had got it right. “Jesus!”

  Stu shuddered to a halt, and turned his head. “Are you alright?”

  I smiled back at him. “Never better, my old…” I paused. “Bloody hell, I’ve just realised that I don’t know your last name.”

  “Shit the bed, Travis. I thought you were in trouble or something.”

  “You know, I’d piss myself if this corridor ends in a huge metal slide.”

  “You what?”

  “Come on, it must get a bit monotonous, spending all their time searching through empty houses every night. Perhaps all we’ve found here is a Black Sentinel playground. There might even be swings, and maybe even a roundabout somewhere in the town.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant about you acting more like Sherlock Holmes, but hey, whatever works.”

  The sheer fact that we were both in here at all should have already told me what I needed to know. I suppressed a chuckle. Stu had already known about this tunnel, or if he wasn’t aware of the tunnel, he would have at least known that something dodgy was going on in here. Why else would he lead myself and Charlie straight here?

  Automatically, those voices barged in, and I almost allowed them space to vent their questions. Instead, I did the impossible, and zipped up. What would have been the point of shouting out a torrent of banal questions, it’s not as if he’d spurt out a straight answer. I stopped beside one of the black slabs and leaned closer, noting that this one wasn’t as smooth as the others that I’d passed. There were four deep grooves running horizontal, and one running from top to bottom. “Now that’s weird.”

  “Halfway marker. That’s my guess. Why they’d want one is a more relevant question though. I’ll file that in the ‘What the fuck is all that about’ drawer. We had best hurry now, Travis. I don’t want to leave Charlie in that classroom for too long. His unwavering devotion only has a finite length. “

  “Shit, you already know what we’re going to find! Unreal, and it’s taken me this long to figure that out.”

  “The fact that you’ve figured it out at all causes my heart to jump for joy. Now come on, let’s get our limbs blurring. We really are running out of time.”

  Having said what I think was the highest ever compliment the man had given me, he set off, and this time Stu’s limbs did motor. I put my head down and attempted to keep up to his pace.

  A moment later, a dull crimson light began to seep into the tunnel. It made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, almost to the point of slowing down, wondering if this really was such a good idea after all.

  “Don’t back out now, Travis. “This is it; wonderland is the next stop.”

  Without warning, the ground beneath his feet opened up, and Stu vanished.

  I caught my breath and tensed up as the hard floor changed to sand and I fell, the tips of my fingers clawing down the sides of the wall before they, too, felt emptiness. With a sudden jolt, freezing water became my whole world. I opened my mouth and choked as the stuff rushed inside.

  The only thing that stopped me from drowning was finding myself being lifted up out of the water. I opened my eyes at the same time as almost coughing out my insides. “Oh, Christ, I didn’t expect that!”

  “I think it’s best to keep the voice volume down to a minimum,” hissed Stu. “We have company.”

  I blinked out the water and slowly stood up, shivering in the waist high water, and gaping at the hundreds of Black Sentinels grouped around the pair of us. Red light streamed from hundreds of tiny triangular holes in the four brick walls surrounding us.

  I thought that we had just dropped into hell, that notion only reinforced by the sight of numerous thin, red cables hanging from the ceiling high above us. There was something attached to the bottom to each cable, but the dim light made it difficult to see what it was. Stu pulled out a small penlight. “Is that such a good idea?”

  He gave no sign of hearing me, and even if he had, I doubt the man would have paid any attention. A small beam of white light shone from Stu’s hand, the beam hitting the object under the cable. I moaned quietly when the torch illuminated this place’s real horror.

  Each cable terminated with a severed human torso, the cable plunging into the neck stump. The Black Sentinel’s were directly under each torso, from the top of the body, a dozen stick-like poles connected the machine to the bottom of the torso.

  “I think I want to be sick. Are they feeding?”

  “I’ll go with that. They’re topping up before tonight’s activity. There’s another eight of them dotted around the town, all located in high buildings. This is their equivalent of a storehouse.”

  “This is fucking disgusting.”

  “I can’t agree more with that sentiment, Travis. It does bring up one important question though.”

  If he said anything about asking where the slides and roundabouts were, I think I’d have to lay him out. “Just the one question?” Several Black Sentinels lowered their bodies, and their feeding tubes retracted into the tops of their bodies. They turned as one, and scuttled to the far side of this room before ducking into the water. I counted to
up to ten before deciding they had gone.

  “Why set up this delicate operation in the middle of enemy territory?” He looked directly at me, and smiled. “Of course, I think I know why.”

  “Look, you’re going to tell me anyway, so just get on with it.”

  “Simple. I mean, who do you know keeps a microwave in their bedroom? This is just awesome. I think we’ve finally made a break through.”

  I could see that now. If we could deny their capability to feed, then the fuckers wouldn’t be able to scramble through the town every night. “It could cripple them, at least until they built them back up. Considering how quickly they put up the Spire Forest, I’m not too confident it would cripple them for long.”

  “I reckon that was a flat pack.”

  “What?”

  “Self assembly units, brought from wherever these things came from.” He pointed up. “This is a different kettle of fish. Can you hear that thumping?”

  I could, now that he’d pointed it out. It sounded like machinery.

  “They’re hearts, Travis. They’ve modified the body’s pump to suit their own purposes. If they were destroyed, it would take them a while to harvest fresh ones, meaning that the Black Sentinels won’t be able to feed.”

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Bet you’re glad that you didn’t stay in our shelter now, Travis. I provide the education as well as a tour around the most unusual parts of our fair town. Now, though, I think it’s time to head back and plan this.”

  That sounded like the best idea he’d come up with in hours. He’d never mentioned anything before setting off about going for a swim. “Just how do you plan to do that, Stu?” I said looking up. “Unless, that is, you have a set of ladders up shoved up your sleeve.”

  The three remaining Black Sentinels retraced their pipes, and began to scuttle towards the end of the chamber.

  “No ladders, no need. We follow them out.” Stu waded past the first one, heading over to where the others had submerged. “Come on, laddie, they won’t bother us.”

  The one nearest to Stu lifted its guns, and they followed his progress until he stepped in front of another one, before lowering them. We weren’t invisible to them, that much was obvious now. Shit, what the hell were we doing down here? “They can see us, Stu”

  He turned his head. The man didn’t speak, he just nodded and smiled.

  “For crying out loud, he knows.” I pushed my way through the cold water, not taking my eyes off the monster. What made everything a hundred times worse was the lack of head or eyes. I had no way of knowing what its next move could be. I passed it, and caught up to Stu. Then again, maybe that would be a bad idea. Did I really want a pair of malevolent eyes following me?

  “Of course they can detect us. They would be crappy sentinels if they couldn’t. We are not following specified patterns, therefore we are anomalies. Now, in normal circumstances that wouldn’t make any difference. If they were coming for you on the street, it wouldn’t matter if you ran, danced, crawled, or stayed immobile, you’d still end up as a stain on the road. Down here though, it’s different.”

  His calming tone helped to take the edge off my nerves, but that only lasted until the three monsters began to move. They were all heading towards us.

  “See, they can’t complete their programming because they’ll be forbidden to fire in here. It would be like striking a match to look for a gas leak.”

  I nodded, but didn’t believe a word. They were coming for us; they might not be able to melt us, but that didn’t stop them from wrapping those fucking black ropes around our bodies, and crushing the life out of us. As I watched, they started to uncoil. “Stu, do something!”

  He just stood there, shaking his head from side to side. “No,” he muttered, “this is wrong. You’re not supposed to act like this.”

  I closed my eyes. If I was going to die here, I didn’t want to see it. I heard the ropes lash out, but felt nothing. I did hear a single harsh scream, though, followed by a loud splash directly in front of me.

  “Oh, dear God, you fool. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  I opened my eyes, and saw the three creatures turn, and in single file, they scuttled past us before disappearing from sight, leaving behind a single body floating face down in water. It was Charlie. I looked away from the mutilated body and turned to Stu, unable to speak.

  ***

  That was the first time that I’d seen the man shed tears. It was also a major turning point for me. I guess that from what you have read so far, you have difficulty equating the man you know to this useless teenager that I’ve described so far. Let’s face it, I was hardly the inspiring leader of men, the grizzled commander, loved by his fellow soldiers; men who’d die for him because they all know that he’d do exactly the same for each and every one of them. Let’s not split hairs here. I’m coming across as a bit of a whiny little bitch. If you’ve already split that hair, you might as well try to split it again, and rename this the heroic journal of Traveller Stu. From how this reads, that man is obviously the hero of the hour.

  Yeah, well, I won’t apologise for my past old self. After all, according to Stu, my old self is exactly why he stuck to me like a limpet in those early days. True, it’s not like the man had a huge list of applicants desperately wanting to save the Earth from the slimy grasp of the little green men. Maybe I was just the best from a bad bunch? Or maybe he saw something in me that nobody else could?

  Looking back at moments just after seeing those three Black Sentinels beneath the water still fills me with alarm.

  Not because of just how close we obviously were to ending up dead, but of how the man next to me reacted once the machines had left us. We did follow through with what he mentioned had shot up the place. Would you believe that Stu had two handguns hidden in his jacket?

  He passed me one of the guns, but for reasons only known to him, didn’t supply any ammo. He stood there and shot every one of those torsos, each one a clean shot through the heart. It was the look on his face that I’ll never forget. I’ve seen misery and trauma in the looks of the survivors, but to see those same terrible emotions etched on his face almost killed me. Until that time, I never realised just how much we relied on his strength. The man did go. After three more nights, Stu left quietly one morning. Looking back, I think it was only myself and Ingrid who even noticed, or for that matter, cared. I know the others didn’t.

  ***

  Harry passed me his beloved shotgun. After checking the chambers, I ran towards the remainder of our unit, hoping to Christ that Mark would be okay. Ingrid had promised me faithfully that she wouldn’t let them harm him; I trusted her, and knew she wouldn’t let me down. She wasn’t the issue though. It was her dad. That fucking Joshua would do anything to get rid of him, especially after his last episode. Now that Stu was away again, this would have been an ideal time to go through with his promise.

  I hit the dirt when I heard the unmistakable sound of that vile whistling. Somewhere not far from here, another Black Sentinel beam weapon had just fired. As per tradition, I drew a cross on my chest with my forefinger in memory of anybody who could have been caught in that white hot fire.

  “We need to go back!” urged Harry.

  I shook off his hand. “Not a chance.” I peered over the top of this broken brick wall, and breathed a silent sigh of relief when I saw two of them heading in the opposite direction. “It was probably a fox they shot at. Anyway, they’re going now.” I didn’t bother waiting for him to reply with some other crap excuse. Beside, if he was determined to go back, then there was nothing I’d be able to do to stop him. I just didn’t want him to take the precious shotgun.

  Our compound was just three streets from this location. “Just one discharge,” I whispered. That meant, once again, our base had evaded detection. Fuck, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Ingrid. I closed my eyes and counted to three, but even with the calming mantra, I still found myself stroking the gun’s barrel. Oh, I knew exactly what I
’d do if they took her away. It would only take a couple of minutes to get there, if we ran. Believe me, the temptation to do just that was incredible. After all, it’s unlikely that there’d be any more of their machines. Not now. If those things had just swept the area, then it should be all clear. Stu’s intensive training took hold of me before I did anything stupid. Despite needing to be in Ingrid’s arms, I couldn’t let my heart rule my common sense. The aliens were beginning to change their tactics, learning new tricks. I needed to follow procedure. Stu was right, he was always right.

  The sound of a dull thump reached my ears at the same time as the ground rippled. I spun onto my back and sat up. One of the Black Sentinels was no more. Blue fire erupted from the top of its ravaged body. A moment later, it lost balance and crashed against the side of a post office.

  Predictably, Harry lost all common sense—not that he had much to begin with, and shouted out a ‘hell yeah!’ followed by ‘That’s one for us!’ Thankfully the other machine continued to stride away from its burning companion; it didn’t even pause.

  “Who the fuck sanctioned a hit?” I muttered. It had to be one of the new ones, none of the originals were insane enough to do this. Except Harry, but he was with me for that reason alone. He was a loose cannon. “This is bad. Hell, no. It’s worse than bad, we’re going to suffer for this now.”

  “You’re a fucking traitor to your own kind,” he growled.

  I saw his hands reaching for me, or to be more precisely, his gun, and jumped to the side. He had the advantage of weight on his side, but he wasn’t as fast as me. I also had a few more brain cells than he did. I placed the gun on the ground, and backed away. “Stu’s only been gone a couple of weeks, and already everything is falling apart.” His eyes never left me as he bent down and picked up the shotgun. He hadn’t pointed it at me, not yet, but I bet that would change. “Don’t you remember what Stu said about the Black Sentinels?”

  “Sure I do, I’m not that dumb.”

  I decided not to argue the toss over that one. “One of his better ones was trimming a hedge won’t kill the plant.”