Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘I like you. For some northern sub-literate you’ve got a pair, but that won’t help.’

‘Fuck you,’ Beth said mildly and then turned to look at the people milling in the stands. Some looked wealthy; others didn’t. Some had hunger for whatever entertainment this was written all over their faces. Others seemed nervous. ‘And fuck your parasite friends.’ Then she turned away from him to watch the group heading towards her. She didn’t realise it, but simply ignoring McGurk had been the biggest insult she’d paid him. She didn’t even register McGurk striding towards one of the stands.

The four guards were each holding the end of a chain that led under the blanket. They got about fifteen feet away from Beth and stopped. The smell was unbearable. She saw they all wore surgical masks. She wished she had one.

They clicked some release on their ends of the chains and heard what she guessed were manacles springing open under the blanket. The escorts dragged the manacle-ended chains towards themselves and ran. Now Beth was really worried. She wondered if McGurk was crazy enough to make her fight a gorilla or a small bear.

She had expected some kind of growl. What she got was a low, wet, bubbly, rasping rattle.

The hands that grabbed the edge of the foul-looking blanket weren’t right. The skin was pale, wet and large amounts of it were peeling. There were webs of skin between the fingers, and what little she could see of the forearms also suggested more flaps of skin. It was the fingers that unnerved her the most. Each of them ended in long black hooked nails.

The blanket was torn off. Beth found herself retreating. She was reasonably sure it had once been human. She was surer that human flesh shouldn’t look like that.

Its flesh was pale to the point of being a faint blue colour, like a corpse left in water. It was hunched over as if the ragged long coat that it was wearing covered a multitude of twisted deformities. Its hair was a stringy dark mess, much of it missing, and its eyes were milky white with no irises or pupils to speak of. There were slits at its neck. The slits seemed to be moving. Beth couldn’t shake the feeling that they were gills and suddenly she didn’t like living so close to the sea.

She felt herself back into something. She had back-pedalled all the way to the stands. Someone shoved her forward. She turned to grab them, shove them between her and whatever the thing was, but she saw McGurk pointing the gun at her. She looked around for ways out, but McGurk had known what he was doing. There were people on each gate, and if she made it to a wall without being shot they’d catch her before she could climb over. Her only way out was through whatever this thing was.

She moved forward cautiously, showed it the blade.

‘We don’t have to do this, but if you come close I will fucking cut you, okay?’ Beth found herself reminded of conversations she’d had in prison.

It didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her. Its head was cocked to one side as if listening to something. The odd thing was, you took away the skin problems and deformities, she reckoned the thing would look like a very normal guy. It was difficult to gauge its age, but perhaps forties or fifties.

It didn’t move like a middle-aged man, however. Suddenly it darted forward, clawing at her. Beth felt a tug as she danced out of its way, the hook-like nails tearing through her leather, ripping it as she pulled away. It had moved so fast.

‘My jacket!’

Retaliation was more instinct than anything else. The knife was mostly for show, to frighten. She had killed someone once and was in no hurry to repeat that. However, the ferocity of its attack took her by surprise and before she knew it she was hammering the blade up into the side of its head. She stabbed three times in quick succession, felt the impacts down her arms, heard the sound of bone breaking under the blade, felt something wet on her hand as she struggled to hold on to it. She pulled the Balisong out and swung with the knuckles, catching it in the jaw with enough force to send it to its knees. Beth stepped back and kicked it hard in the chest, knocking it over.

‘Fucker!’ she screamed, fear and anger mixing.

It rolled back to its feet and flung itself at her, hooked claws outstretched. Beth tried to dodge the lunge but screamed as hooks pierced flesh and dragged her to the ground. She tried to roll it over but was desperate to hold on to the knife.

It was strong. It was on the top. She felt her skin tear, on her chest, her face, her head, as it clawed at her. At some subconscious level her brain acknowledged the sound of cheering and shouting. She stopped trying to push it off. Fingers still wearing knuckles grabbed its head. Her arm was clawed open. A mouth full of jagged, wicked-looking teeth opened and drooled on her before trying to bite her fingers.

The knife flashed out into its chest over and over again, viscous warm blood spraying her. Then she was stabbing its throat to the sound of booing. Then she was stabbing under its chin and into its mouth as it howled. Blood made the metal of the knife slippery and she lost her grip on it. The creature flinched away from the blade, not realising it was stuck in its flesh. Beth screamed and put all her force into punching it in the face. She felt bone crack under the blow from the knuckleduster. The thing’s head snapped around and it spat blood into the night air. Beth bucked her hips, grabbed its hair and dragged its head down towards the sand, rolling at the same time. The creature made strange keening sounds and rolled off her.

Beth was lying on the bloody sand next to the stinking thing. The moment’s respite let her body tell her just how much pain she was in. She had to suppress it. She swung her leg over herself, using the momentum to roll onto the creature, which was wriggling around on the sand in obvious agony. She straddled it and grabbed its slick head. Its blood looked thicker than she thought was normal and black, even in the light. She barely registered the ringing of a mobile phone as she powered her brass-knuckled fist repeatedly into its face, smashing and then powdering bone as she made the face look like something other than a face. It stopped moving. She didn’t stop hitting it. She didn’t notice McGurk leaving.

Eventually she stopped and looked up to see the crowd, silent, just staring at her. She got to her feet and staggered towards them. Some of them stepped back.

Beth heard the creature get up behind her. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. She clenched her fist around the brass knuckles. She had no fight left in her but that didn’t mean she was going to stop fighting. She heard a ripping sound as vicious spurs of bone shot through its coat from its elbows. Beth started to turn.

Then there was light everywhere, wind and noise, shouted voices telling her that they had guns and that she needed to get on the ground. Gunfire. It didn’t sound like it did on the telly. Shot after shot. Beth sank to her knees and then toppled forward onto the sand. The creature fell close enough for her to see its dead eyes.

A shadow blocked out some of the light. There was more shouting. Have to shout to be heard over the wind and the noise from the light in the sky , she thought. There was a pretty man – sandy-blond hair, blue eyes, well dressed in dark clothes – way out of her league. And he had a gun. A man with a gun was telling her to let go of the brass knuckles. Beth was worried that if she started laughing she wouldn’t stop. She was dead. She was sure of that. What danger is a dead woman with brass knuckles against shouting men with guns? she wondered.

She wasn’t dead. The paramedics had done a good job. The painkillers had done a better one. She was still a mess but she could walk and most of her limbs still worked. They had wanted to take her to hospital. Apparently she needed to be there. The blond man who seemed to be in charge had said no. There had been an argument, which he’d won. She was in an interview room in the big police station on Kingston Crescent. They had outdone themselves in making the room look institutional.