by Andy Briggs
Marlow shot Boris an incredulous look. “A bird? That’s all you could think of? Was it a pterodactyl?”
“I had to make something up on the spot!” Boris snapped back.
Dan looked at his Grandpa with wide eyes. “Is this true?”
Marlow answered for him. “You hear of people seeing weird things in the night, monsters in the closet, strange big cats prowling country lanes, UFOs, they’re all Infiltrators from the other side. A nightmare realm built in what we call Innerspace; the place where dreams live, or at least the creatures that lurk in them. My family has been fighting them for generations.”
“Why?”
Marlow shrugged. “Somebody has to, right? And we have certain... skills needed to do it.”
“Miss Cornelius supposedly banished your nightmare last night,” said Bryony, squeezing Dan’s hand.
“So what happened in school... that wasn’t an escaped gorilla?”
“You really think that could’ve happened? A gorilla? Your classmates probably thought that’s what it was because it vaguely resembled one, but it would have been too confusing for them to make out anything specific. At least, any of the horrific details.”
Dan looked thoughtful. “So, if you banished my nightmare... why did I have one again today?”
“That’s exactly what we would like to know,” said Boris, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. “What happened to your guarantee? You’re not one of these rogue traders are you?”
“It’s not my fault your kid’s a freak!” snapped Marlow more harshly than she would have liked. She noticed Dan cringe at the insult, but her professional reputation was at stake here - even if she didn’t want such a reputation. “I got rid of the nightmare. What he manifested today was a daymare and that is a completely different price sheet.”
“So I had both?” asked Dan. There was fear in his voice now as he slowly grasped the reality he was being fed.
“Obviously,” Marlow huffed. “But you shouldn’t be able to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Conduits are fragile things. I don’t mean you physically, I mean up here.” She tapped his head. “The Infiltrators have to work long and hard to get through. It can take months. Once that beastie comes into our world and I kill it - it’s dead. Therefore their Conduit should close right up. But you...”
“I’m a freak.”
Marlow hesitated. She was about to agree, but some part of her knew that wasn’t the socially acceptable thing to do right now. She changed tact.
“Daymares are rare. Very rare. Sure, people who work nightshifts can form a Conduit, but the Infiltrators really don’t like daylight very much. It must have been desperate to get through for some reason.”
“That still doesn’t explain how he had two of those - those things,” said Bryony.
“I thought that whole–” Marlow mouthed the word ‘freak’, “–thing explained that?”
Dan scowled at her. “So will it happen again, Miss Expert?”
Marlow had disliked this kid the moment a refund was mentioned, but now she hated him. She drummed her fingers on the table as she tried to recall any reports of such a thing happening.
“This is unprecedented. If you want my professional opinion, ‘cause that’s what you’re paying for, then I suspect the answer is going to be: yeah.”
Bryony gasped and Boris rubbed the bags under his eyes. It was obvious that they were both at breaking point.
In almost a whisper, Boris spoke up. “Then what can we do?”
Marlow smiled. “Well, first of all, I think we need to discuss my rates.”
Dan refused to sleep.
“Come on kid. I thought you were a narcoleptic? Out like a light?”
“Usually. But there’s something that’s keeping me awake. It’s working better than caffeine.”
“What?”
“Well... I don’t know if it’s the big smelly troll in my bedroom or the shotgun resting across her knees.”
“Blunderbuss,” Marlow corrected as she scowled at him. If it were not for the dreaded refund then she would have been happy to walk away from the pain in the ass and let him suffer his nightmares.
Maybe that wasn’t completely true. Nobody should have to suffer Infiltration - that’s the term her Grandpa coined when compiling the Book of Nightmares for all future hunters. It was actually more of a scrapbook filled with spelling mistakes, until he added intricate details and impressively bound it for no other reason other than making it difficult to misplace.
“And I don’t smell that bad,” Marlow added.
“Trust me, you really do. Don’t you have a family? A husband? Somebody to tell you to shower once in a while?”
Marlow shifted in her seat and looked away, pretending to study the ply board that had been nailed across the window. She wondered how her husband was doing... well, her ex-husband. And her two children. Molly would be a couple of years younger than the bratty kid about now...
“I don’t suppose you do,” said Dan offhandedly.
“You always this nice? Or is it a personality defect?” said Marlow through gritted teeth. “Especially to people trying to help you.” She crossed over to the sealed window. Something about it was bugging her.
Dan didn’t say another word. Marlow was pleased; it was about time somebody made the kid realise just how much he affected people around him.
She tapped the wood panels nailed across the window. It was a particularly thick piece. Now she knew what was bothering him.
“Your gramp’s really serious about home security, ain’t he? Nailed from the inside too. The bastard’s trapped us in this room! Keep awake, least until I get a hammer and pull this thing off.”
Marlow turned to leave the room. The first thing she noticed was that Dan was now asleep. The second thing was that a tapered black tentacle the size of the boy was oozing from under the bed. It moved with purpose; serrated spikes, sharp enough to decapitate a man, ran down either side of it. Four glowing red eyes blinked in rapid sequence from the darkness under the bed - a hunter’s technique to ensure it always had three eyes open and its prey in sight.
Karkurium Nightmarus, recited Marlow from the pages she’d learnt as a child. This was the first time she’d seen one for real, and the waves of terror that pulsed from it made her legs wobble. She now regretted drawing a pair of glasses and a Groucho moustache on the hideous creature his grandpa had so carefully, and accurately, drawn.
Marlow raised her gun. The tentacle swiped the barrel aside just as she pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and the gun shot peppered the walls.
The limb swung back - tearing a sizeable gash in Marlow’s coat and shirt beneath and knocking the weapon from her hand. She fell back against the chest of drawers, scattering books and comics. Several smaller tentacles whipped from the darkness with such furry that the bed bounced.
Unarmed, Marlow grabbed the chair she had been sitting on and swung it with all the force she could muster. It bounced harmlessly off two rubbery tentacles - a third wrapped around it and yanked it from her hand.
“Kid! Wake up! WHOA!” The last came as a yelp as a tentacle, this one with a barbed tip like a scorpion’s stinger, punched towards her head. Marlow ducked just as it sank several inches into the plaster wall.
She jumped over another pair of tentacles snaking across the floor, these ones tipped with snapping beaks. She reached the bedroom door and was surprised to feel a trickle of guilt at leaving Dan alone with this thing, but she knew Infiltrators never harmed their Conduits.
The door was locked.
“What the...?”
Now she recalled a clicking sound as Boris had left them. The idiot had turned the key in the lock! Evidentially he didn’t want Marlow to bail out, but had now trapped her in a room with no way of escape.
Marlow suddenly didn’t feel sorry for Dan. She only felt sorry for herself.
The barbed limb slashed towards her. Marlow pushed flat against t
he wall and the spike missed her by inches before smashing through a thick door panel.
It was just what she needed. With a bellow, she charged the door focusing her weight on the splintered wood. She felt a tentacle strike her back, but it only added to her momentum.
Marlow Cornelius flew headlong through the door and wood splintered all around her. Had she remembered the layout of the house she would have handled her escape differently. The staircase was directly opposite Dan’s room.
With a series of heavy thuds, Marlow landed halfway down the stairs and slid the rest of the way on her back, coming to rest in the Glass’s hallway amid a pile of broken wood.
Boris and Bryony shot out of the living room. Marlow had demolished half the banister rails on her descent.
“Is it over with?” asked Boris, his eyes widening when he saw the blood seep through Marlow’s coat.
Marlow saw it too and winced when she touched the wound in her side. She was thinking of a caustic reply when a gurgling wet roar - like a slaughtered lion - came from upstairs as the Nightmare dragged itself from Dan’s room.
The light dimmed around it as it sucked up photons, keeping it in a permanent pool of shadow, but the slug-like body that was visible was enough to cause Bryony to scream and Boris to faint.
“Go!” shouted Marlow as she pushed Bryony back into the living room. She grabbed Boris by the legs and dragged him in too.
In several seconds, Bryony had gone from hysterical to hyperventilating shock.
“The ones we’ve seen... have always been smaller...” she whispered between breaths.
Marlow didn’t care. She dropped Boris’ legs and slammed the door shut with her foot. She pushed the sofa across the door for added protection.
“Go to the kitchen and get me the biggest knife you can find.”
Still exhibiting icy shock, Bryony nodded and ran into the kitchen, which was fortunately accessible both through the dining room and the hall.
The living room door suddenly buckled as the beast rammed it from behind. Marlow lent her weight on the sofa to keep it in place.
“Hurry!”
With a jolt that shook the walls, the living room door fell off its hinges, and the sofa - with Marlow still on it - was hurled towards the large TV.
Her head cracked the screen, which continued relentlessly playing Bryony’s soap opera. Marlow was dazed, but Bryony’s scream was enough for her to twist around so that she could see the Infiltrator fill the doorway, absorbing the light that came from the lights on the Christmas tree. Now it had moved, Marlow could make out something that wasn’t on her Grandpa ’s illustrations - a circular mouth of razor sharp teeth that spun around in its jaw like a blender. Tentacles oozed around the creature’s body as it seeped into the room.
Bryony stood at the kitchen door holding the entire cutlery draw.
“Give me a knife!” shouted Marlow desperately. “Any knife!”
At least some rational part of Bryony’s mind was functioning and she threw the entire drawer at Marlow. Fortunately it landed short so Marlow didn’t have to avoid any flying blades. She reached for the implements as a tentacle wrapped around her leg and began pulling her towards the mouth.
“Argh! Get off!” she used her untethered leg to kick the rubbery appendage but it had no effect. Her fingers found what she was looking for and she swung the knife into the heart of the beast.
It bounced off the hide.
Marlow looked at the blade incredulously, wondering just how blunt it was. Very, was the answer.
She was dragged across the floor so quickly that her coat and shirt rode up, and the skin on her exposed bare back suffered carpet burn. She whimpered with pain but the approaching teeth promised a whole new world of agony.
The limb hoisted Marlow so high off the ground she felt her foot press against the ceiling as the Infiltrator angled her above its gyrating jaw. It gave its gurgle-roar again and Marlow could smell rancid decomposing fish.
Out of sheer desperation, rather than a preconceived plan, she stabbed the blunt knife into one of the Nightmare’s four blood-red eyes. With a piercing scream the creature suddenly released her as a foul slime sprayed out of the injured eye under high pressure.
Marlow landed on her head and for a moment she blacked out. When she came to only seconds could have passed but the Nightmare had gone.
Bryony continued to scream.
Marlow clambered to her feet, noticing that there wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t hurt. She quickly fished a meat cleavers from the upturned draw and, ignoring Bryony’s continuous single-note wail, edged into the hallway expecting the nightmare to ambush her.
Wallpaper was ripped and pictures torn from hooks. Sapphire coloured slime covered the walls from where the beast had pressed against it, but it had vanished.
Then Marlow noticed Dan at the top of the stairs, looking at the destruction with wide eyes.
“What did I miss?”
Chapter Four
“That’s it, luv. Just a little closer.”
Marlow felt her father’s hand shove her nearer to the slavering mouth. She was sure there was a solid bodied creature there, but all she could see was a mass of gnashing teeth and spittle yards away. Even at eight years old, she thought it was an extreme way of learning a new skill, but her father had assured her this was how she’d best learn the family business.
Marlow raised the heavy sword with both hands. Despite her regular circuit training, press-ups and stomach crunches before school, she could barely lift the dense Japanese katana blade, which her father swore was a family heirloom carved from a meteor. Ideal for slaying Nightmares.
“Lift it higher, luv. It’ll soon as kill ya as give ya a chance to hurt it. Look for its weak spot - remember the Book!”
Marlow grunted with effort as she tried to lift the blade. The Infiltrator sensed her uncertainty and could certainly taste her fear, which her father had assured tasted metallic and bitter. It shot out a clawed fist that landed firmly in Marlow’s stomach. She dropped the sword and rolled over in agony.
She hated the hunting business and swore, when she grew up, she’d have no part in it. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds of her father slaying the beast while yelling at Marlow for being a coward. That was the first rib she had ever broken.
Marlow opened her eyes. She was in the shower and it was twenty-nine years later. She never dreamed, or even daydreamed, but she could recall childhood memories better than recent ones, watching them play over her mind’s eye in high-fidelity. It was a pity they were all bad.
She had broken pretty much every other bone since then and had become a dab hand at stitching up wounds as the network of scars across her body testified to. The very latest was the one across her abdomen from the night before. It still stung.
The telephone started to ring, its old speaker buzzing from the effort. She toyed with not answering it in case it was another job. They had become quite frequent as of late, which she put down to the fact word about her services was spreading since moving online. If it was a job it would mean more pain, but at least she would get paid. And now more than ever she needed the cash, especially with Christmas looming. She still hadn’t bought her kids anything; something they expected from their loser of a mother.
Marlow grabbed a towel and ran into the living room leaving soggy footprints in the carpet. She snatched the phone up.
“Marlow Cornelius.”
“So I dialled the correct number then?” came the sneering voice on the other end of the line. There was only one person who could cram so much sarcasm in such few words: her ex-husband Trebor. How she ever fell for a guy with such a dumb name, she didn’t know. “Hello Tree.”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. “You know I don’t like it.”
“Sorry, Tree.” She could hear the intake of breath as he resisted taking the bait.
“I’ve been trying to call you all day.”
“Congratul
ations, you figured out how to dial a number. I’ll send you a badge. How are the kids?” The words felt like lead in her mouth. She hadn’t seen her children for at least two year because Trebor always conveniently engineered them all too busy when she was free. When they had decided to get a divorce she knew that it would affect the children. It must be horrible to have your parents split up; and, as one of the parents, she wasn’t very happy about it either.
“It’s Jamie’s birthday this weekend,” said Trebor. Marlow perked up - she’d forgotten about that. It was too close to Christmas to stay in her memory. Could this finally be the invite she had longed for? “And I want to make sure you are nowhere near us at the time.”
“Tree, I want to see my children.”
“They don’t want to see you.” The words were a dagger in her chest. Marlow knew that, if her kids didn’t want anything to do with her, then she should at least hear it from them. However, it was difficult to sustain her indignation; she was afraid that Trebor was telling the truth. “I will, however, expect you to send money over for a present. And for their Christmas presents too.”
Marlow sighed. Almost everything she earned was sent to her children, or more correctly, to Trebor. She just hoped he was spending it on them.
“Sure.”
“Good. I will expect it soon.”
Trebor hung up before she could object. Marlow gently placed the phone down and stared into space. She’d once had the perfect marriage and they had been blessed with two wonderful children: Jamie and Molly. Despite her upbringing, she had hoped that her life was about to change for the better. But it was not to be. One night Trebor had discovered the true nature of her job, a fact she had shamefully kept from him for years. He gave her little chance to explain, terrified that their children would fall victim of some abdominal creature she would bring home. He had promptly thrown her out. Marlow knew the subsequent divorce was her own fault. She had lied from the very beginning of their relationship and she hated herself for that, but there was no way to un-sow a lie. And when it came to explaining herself during the divorce proceedings, the truth would only brand her insane.
