Rich Hawkins: The Last Plague

A grin twisted her pink, fleshy lips. Her face was so slack it seemed like the skin would slough off her skull the next time she shook her head.

“What’s wrong with you?” No air was left in Frank’s lungs. He grasped for his inhaler but his hand couldn’t find it.

She didn’t answer. Her body began to buckle and dance, her limbs flailing, her fingers clawing at the air. She let out a small moan and raised her head towards the sky, her mouth still open. A silent scream from the darkness of her throat.

The blood drained from Frank’s face. His heart stuck in his gullet. He couldn’t take his eyes away from her.

Bones clicked and joints popped wetly. Something changed in her face, and the skin stretched tighter over her cheekbones. She held out her hands and the fingers upon them lengthened.

She stared at Frank and let out a screech that wasn’t a human sound. Her breath came in shivering fits.

Frank stepped back.

She came for him.

They were sitting on the floor.

“I need a piss,” said Magnus.

Ralph shrugged. He was squeezing his stress ball. “You don’t need my permission.”

Joel looked at them but said nothing.

“Is the toilet upstairs?”

Ralph nodded. “Knock yourself out.”

Magnus looked unsure.

“Aren’t scared of the dark, are you?” Ralph said. “Piss in the kitchen sink if you have to.”

“That’s disgusting,” said Joel.

Ralph let out a tired, short laugh. “Just go upstairs, Magnus. You’ll be fine. The bad things are outside, not in here.”

Magnus swallowed. A draught passed through the room and touched him with icy fingers. He fought back a shiver.

Ralph handed Joel’s torch to Magnus. “Have a good one.”

Magnus rose, switched on the torch and went out into the hallway. He checked the barricaded front door then stood at the foot of the stairway. He pointed the torch up the stairs, staring at the shadows created by the invading light. He put his free hand on the bannister, breathed in then breathed out. His bladder felt tight and swollen. He noticed the beige carpet, darkened with grime over the years, beneath his feet and around him.

He thought of Debbie and the boys. He checked his mobile again. No signal. Only a few hours left in the battery.

“I’m sorry, Debbie,” he whispered, staring at the phone.

Something creaked upstairs; the shifting and shrinking of floorboards. He shook his head. There was a dry lump in his throat. The muscles in his face were stiff and the blood quickened in his veins.

A hand on his shoulder; Magnus whirled. Ralph looked at him.

“What’re you doing, Ralph? Almost scared me to death.”

“Sorry.” He held up his hands. “I’ll wait here for you, mate.”

Magnus nodded. “Cheers.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Same here.”

Magnus started up the stairs.

Up there, beyond the wooden hill, the darkness waited for him and seemed to thicken in anticipation.

Magnus emptied his bladder. He didn’t flush the toilet; he was too worried about making any loud noises. He closed the toilet lid, sat down upon it. Looked at his trembling hands. He thought of the thing he’d seen in the sky. The thing – the presence – had touched him, he was sure of it.

He held his face in his hands. Took off his glasses, rubbed his tired eyes and squeezed them shut. When he opened them, white spots danced in his vision. He exhaled through gritted teeth. He stared at the floor until his eyes dried and his vision cleared.

The bathroom was a small, neat space. No mould in the damp, shadowed places where moisture gathered. The roll of toilet paper was nearly used up. There was a hint of bleach in the air.

Magnus walked to the sink. A child’s toothbrush in a glass jar. Wisps of matted hair around the plughole. He squirted liquid soap on to his palms, rubbed his hands together. He rinsed away the lather then dried his hands on a towel.

He stared at himself in the mirror above the sink. The reflection of a dead-eyed man with narrow shoulders and a glass jaw. A ghost. Shadows under his eyes. Every wrinkle and crease in his face was starkly visible in the torchlight. The stress of being married to Debbie, of her constant demands and insecurities, was ageing him. He patted his stomach; he had a paunch. A pair of soft man-breasts developing slowly. He was skinny everywhere else. His bones felt frail and brittle, yet his limbs felt heavy, as if they were full of water.

“Getting old,” he muttered.

He used to play football for the village team each week, along with Frank and Joel; Ralph was too lazy to play football so he just watched from the touchline, shouting abuse and grunting advice. They had been young men then. Before his sons were born. Before Debbie’s ‘condition’ had fully infested her mind and made her a burden.

Good old days, he thought. Nostalgia was like a drug.

He almost laughed, but then remembered Frank was out there.

They should have been out there searching for him.

The ceiling creaked. He looked up, listened. He placed his hands on the sink.

There it was again. Pressure upon wood and plaster.

Something in the attic. But Ralph had said they checked the house for anyone alive.

They had forgotten about the attic.

A dull ache formed at the front of his skull. He spat into the sink, watched his phlegm dribble into the plughole. He was relieved to see it was bloodless.

More creaking, moving away from him. Light, quick footfalls. Something small. Magnus’s eyes tracked them.

He pointed the torch at the ceiling, followed the footfalls out of the bathroom and onto the landing.

The footfalls stopped above him, next to the closed attic hatch.

The wooden cover on the hatch shifted with a quiet scrape. Magnus tensed. The torchlight trembled upon the ceiling. A thin line of darkness appeared at the hatch. The smell of dust and neglect came to him, and the undeniable sense he was being watched, scrutinised, maybe even evaluated as a threat; or even worse, something to be hunted and chased.

The dark line widened. The hatch cover moved. He saw a glint of gleaming eyes and a face that was all bone and sallow skin.

Magnus turned and stumbled down the stairs.

Ralph was waiting for him. “What’s wrong?”

“Something up there. Something in the attic.”

Ralph looked up the stairs. “We didn’t check the attic.”

“What’s wrong?” Joel asked from the living room.

There was a soft thud on the landing. The creak of a door.

“We woke someone up,” said Magnus.

The woman was on Frank’s heels, her ragged panting in his ears, draining the strength from his body. Part of him just wanted to fall down and let her take him.

He didn’t look back.

Almost full dark. Almost night. He ran past empty gardens and dark houses. His legs throbbed and screamed. His chest grew tighter as he went. Fear and adrenaline were a chemical mixture clouding his mind. His heartbeat was a metallic drumming in his ears.

The woman screamed. He felt her foul hot breath on the back of his neck.

Frank cried out. His body was jelly.

He stumbled and tripped on a patch of uneven road, twisted and fell onto his back; the woman scrambled onto him, very eager and very hungry. He held the crowbar under her jaw and pushed to stop her from snapping her head forwards. Her mouth opened. Dull ivory teeth. He caught a whiff of hellish gingivitis. Her tongue was like a worm feeling for somewhere to burrow. She radiated a terrible, stinking heat. Her body was a sack of sharp bones straddling him. His cock went hard.