‘Test us?’ Leon stood up. He looked at Dave. He could guess where this was heading – how exactly they were going to be tested – even if the idea hadn’t yet been spoken out loud.
‘Look, come on . . . me and Grace, we’re just exactly the same people as when you picked us up!’
‘Isn’t that the point?’ Dave shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you and Grace were like. How do we know you were ever real people?’
‘Oh, this is just ridiculous!’ Freya got up. ‘They’re just regular people!’ She steadied her balance, knuckles down on the table beside her. ‘Dave, please tell me you’re not such a complete shit that you’re thinking of doing what I think you—’
‘We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to know . . . or they’re gonna have to leave!’
‘All right . . .’ Freya nodded. ‘All right, then, let them leave. Let them get their stuff and go. But, please, for Christ’s sake, you can’t just throw them in—’
‘Throw them in the storeroom?’ He shook his head. ‘Is that what you think I am? A psycho?’ He shook his head again. ‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking that.’ He looked at Leon and Grace. ‘We need to see what happens. You lot need to see exactly what I saw.’
Freya frowned. ‘So, what are you—’
‘Just a couple . . . just a few . . . That’s all. We put them together in one of the sauna rooms and we see what they do.’
‘Please! Please! . . . Don’t do this!’ screamed Grace. Terrified, she clung to Freya’s arm.
‘This isn’t right!’ said Freya. ‘This is frikkin barbaric!’
Dave, Iain and Phil had managed to capture a few of the creatures. It had been easier than they could have hoped. They’d Ip Dipped over who was going to have to go into the storeroom as bait, but in the end they’d only had to crack open the door and seconds later the nearest of the crabs had been drawn by the faint light, or perhaps the smell of them, and skittered out through the gap. Iain had slammed a large plastic bucket down, crushing one of them with the rim, but trapping another four or five inside.
‘Let us go!’ Leon struggled and tried to shake off the hands of Phil and Iain as Dave brought the bucket over. They were standing either side of him, leading him by the arms. ‘This is crazy!’
‘Hey, just relax, Leon,’ Dave said, patting his shoulder. ‘It’s just a few. It’s just a handful of—’
‘Me and Grace will just leave! OK? God! We’ll get our stuff and go!’
‘Huh?’ Dave tilted his head curiously. ‘Why would you do that? Why would you say that? Why don’t you want to do the test, huh? Unless you know something?’
‘For God’s sake look at her!’ Leon nodded at Grace. Her arms were wrapped tightly round Freya. ‘Grace is terrified of those things! They killed our mother . . .’
Dave tapped the plastic bucket. It stirred to life with the sound of scratching and rustling. They could see faint arachnid-like outlines shifting through the almost opaque green plastic. ‘It’s just a few. Nothing to get excited about. Nothing you can’t deal with on your own.’ He smiled.
Leon stared at him. ‘Oh my God . . . you’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?’
‘I know what I saw. His smile quickly disappeared. I want the rest of them to see what happened.’
‘For God’s sake . . . nothing happened!’
Dave shook his head. ‘Those things took a sample . . . and they stopped, Leon. They stopped dead, like someone just blew a half-time whistle. I’m sorry, mate, but we’ve got to find out why.’
Dave pulled the door to the sauna open. He switched on the light inside. ‘Just sit down in there – this won’t take long.’
‘I’m not doing this! Dave . . . this is just crazy. Mr Carnegie wouldn’t have—’
The paper-thin expression of sympathy on Dave’s face vanished in a flash. He balled his fist and punched Leon in the mouth. ‘Shut up with your stupid whining! We’re doing this! All right?’ He grabbed a fistful of Leon’s T-shirt and dragged him into the small room. Slats of pinewood deadened his voice. ‘Just sit down and shut up!’ He gestured at Iain and Phil to grab Leon’s arms and hold him there, then he turned round. ‘Freya! Bring her in here!’
‘No!’ Freya shook her head. She looked around at the others, gathered in a semicircle round the sauna’s entrance. Looked at them for support. She got absolutely nothing.
‘Nope. I’m not having anything to do with . . .’
‘Claire!’ he barked impatiently. ‘Get her in here!’
Claire stepped forward and grabbed Grace’s arm. ‘Come on, Miss Princess.’
Freya grabbed Claire’s wrist. ‘Shit! Leave her alone!’
‘Let go of me, you emo weirdo!’
Freya slapped her hard and Claire recoiled, both hands clasping her face. ‘She hit me!’ she bawled through her fingers. ‘You saw that! She hit meeeee!’
Dave stormed out of the sauna, grabbed Grace’s arm and tore it from round Freya’s hips. He twisted Freya’s wrist sharply. ‘You can leave with them when we’re done here, ’cause I’ve had just about enough of your shit.’
‘Please!’ cried Grace. ‘Please . . . Dave . . . please . . . I’m not a snark! I’m not a snark!’
He dragged her kicking and screaming into the sauna, and shoved her forward. ‘We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?’ He beckoned Iain and Phil to let go of Leon and together the three of them backed out of the small room and slammed the door shut.
Through the glass panel Dave watched Grace cuddle up to her brother, tucking her legs up off the floor on to the pinewood bench.
He grabbed the plastic bucket and held it up for everyone to see. ‘There’s just four or five of those things in here, that’s all! That’s not going to kill them! We’re just gonna see what they do! All right? That’s all we’re doing here. Does everyone understand?’
Heads nodded.
‘Does anyone disagree with what I’m doing?’ He glared at Freya.
‘You’re a total psycho,’ she snarled at him.
It was silent. No one else had anything to say. Through the thick glass they could hear the muffled sound of Grace’s sobbing.
‘Right then.’ Dave snapped the clasps off the lid to the bucket. ‘Phil?’
Phil pulled the door open. Dave whipped the lid off quickly and swung the bucket in with both hands. The creatures that had been clambering restlessly over each other in the bottom of it flew through the air into the room and the door thudded quickly shut behind them.
CHAPTER 45
Grace clung on to Leon tightly, her face buried in his chest, her sobs muffled.
‘Shh . . . Grace . . .’ he whispered as he watched the creatures flip over from their backs on to their bellies on the floor.
If we stay still? Stay perfectly silent?
Through the insulated glass in the sauna’s door, a torch shone in. It was aimed on the snarks, casting their jagged little shadows across the wooden-slat floor. Leon could see the silhouette of several heads crowding the window to peer in.
Enjoy the show, you shitheads.
He watched the crabs, four of them, subdued for the moment. It was the first time that he’d had an opportunity to study them closely. It occurred to him that he could just get up, draw them over to him by his motion, and then stamp on them. Four wasn’t enough to overpower them. Four were easily dealt with, in fact. But then that wasn’t what this was about, was it? Instead it was about proving to everyone outside this room that they were who they said they were. That they were real humans. Not like the horse. Not copies.
The four crabs were all slightly different; different in size, in the number of appendages they had, in the configurations of their protective shells. One had a single ovoid shell over its top, making it definitely crab-like, while the one next to it had overlapping C-shaped segments that reminded him of a croissant. The third one looked like a spider with no shell on its soft body, only on its seven spindle-thin legs, and the fourth . . . looked vaguely like a snail with
a spiralling shell like a Mr Whippy ice cream.
Leon found himself identifying them. Crab, Spider, Croissant and Whippy.
‘I’m scared,’ whispered Grace.
‘It’s OK . . . There are just four of them. Look.’
She turned slowly to look at them, sitting together on the floor, long whisker-like antennae twitching, flexing, touching each other’s. Her grasp on Leon eased slightly as she seemed to relax a little.
‘What . . . what are they doing?’
‘I don’t know . . . sniffing the room for us?’
They seemed to be communicating through their antennae, rubbing them together. He saw two touch then separate, leaving, for a moment, the tiniest string of sticky liquid dangling between them.
Exchanging fluid? Is that how they talk?
‘Grace . . . I know this isn’t good . . . but we need them to come for us. Everyone outside is looking in. We need them to see those crabs attack us.’
She shuddered. ‘Leon, please . . . don’t attract them over!’
‘It’s only four. We just need them to know we’re here and come towards us. Don’t worry . . . I’ll crush them. I’ll get them all.’
‘Oh God . . . they’re horrible!’
She was right – they were horrific creations: all jagged, serrated edges, their ghostly pale – in places, almost transparent – surfaces lit up by the stark beam of the torch light trained on them. He tried to make sense of how their limbs articulated, rigid crustacean sections linked by gooey strings of soft tissue. But, worst of all somehow, they had nothing that looked like eyes, nothing that remotely resembled a face.
‘They’re sharp,’ Grace whispered. ‘They cut . . . They dig—’
‘Shh . . . relax. It’s going to be fine. Only four of them. We can handle that. OK?’
He felt her head slowly nod against his chest.
‘I’m going to let them know we’re here . . . and when they attack I’ll get ’em. I promise.’
He looked up at the window and saw heads crowding at it, watching. Impulsively he flipped a finger at them. Screw you, Dave.
‘OK . . . OK . . . here goes.’ He stamped his foot down on the planked floor. The creatures reacted instantly to the movement, jerking in awareness and then scuttling quickly across the floor towards them.
Crap. Crap. Crap. His instinct was to yank his foot up, but for the benefit of their audience these things had to attack him. He clenched his teeth as he felt the first sharp appendages dig into his trainer, then the slight tugging sensation on his jeans as the first of them began to pull itself quickly up his lower leg.
‘Shit. Here they come . . . !’
As she caught sight of the first one pulling itself up over his knee, Grace suddenly let go of him and screamed, scrambling away, pulling herself along the sauna’s bench and huddling up in the corner as the creatures raced up Leon’s thighs, over the waistband of his jeans and up his torso.
The snail-like one – Whippy – stopped on Leon’s belly and its little scissor-like claws began cutting through his T-shirt while the other three continued their race up towards his neck.
In the background, through the glass, he could hear Freya or someone shouting to put a stop to this. Whippy was through his shirt now and Leon felt the sharp pain of its scalpel claws digging into his skin.
Enough.
‘No!’ he screamed, and swung his fist at it. The creature sensed a threat and tightened its hold on his belly, but the blow on its shell knocked it off, leaving several pale appendages clinging to the small bloody incision beside his belly button like the sting of a bee stubbornly left behind.
Leon jumped to his feet and flailed to knock the other three off his chest. He managed to grab hold of one, Spider, and wrench it off him. The other two, sensing easier prey, leapt off him on to the bench and skittered quickly towards Grace, who screamed in blind panic.
Leon tossed the squirming spider-like creature on to the floor, then stamped hard on it. Juice spattered out from its bulbous abdomen.
He stepped across the floor and thumped the window with his fist. ‘You satisfied now?’
He spun round to tackle the other two that had gone after Grace. He’d promised her he’d get them. He’d promised her . . .
She was frozen perfectly still, her eyes rounded in terror, her mouth agape with a scream that had stalled in her throat. Croissant and Crab were sitting on her chest, their long antennae probing her face cautiously, stroking her cheeks almost affectionately. The light of the torch was trained on her through the window. Her face and the two inquisitors sitting passively on her chest cast an absurd shadow on the wall.
Leon could see her whole body was trembling. Her eyes flickered towards him.
‘Leon . . .’ she whispered. ‘Help me . . .’
‘I won’t let them hurt you . . . Just . . . stay still.’
And then something happened. Something Leon couldn’t make any sense of as it occurred. A small lump began to grow from the skin just beneath Grace’s right ear. Like a blister, at first, then extending into a small polyp dangling lifelessly, then elongating to a fine tendril just eight or nine centimetres long. It flexed and curled and reached out, stretching towards the nearest antennae stroking her cheeks.
Her tendril and the antennae caressed each other gently, curled around each other like a tender lover’s embrace.
‘Oh Jesus!’ whispered Leon.
‘What?’ Grace looked at him, saw his expression. ‘What? . . . What’s happening?’ She couldn’t see.
Leon grabbed the crab-like one and tugged it off her chest, its claws hooking on to the material of her T-shirt as he pulled, squirming in his fingers until he managed to tear it free. He tossed it on the floor and stamped on it. Then did the same to the other.
He turned to the door of the sauna, his eyes blinking in the glare of the torch now aimed at his face. ‘They’re all dead! Can we come out now?’
Silence.
He winced in the glare and shaded his eyes. ‘I said . . . can we please come out now?’
The light shifted from his face and now he could see their silhouettes crammed at the window. He could just about make out the dark ovals of mouths hanging open.
They saw it. They saw that thing on Grace’s face.
All the same. He needed to say something. ‘For God’s sake! We did your frikkin test . . . now let us out!’
He turned back to look at Grace, the torch beam full on her now. She was huddled up, face buried in her arms her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
What just happened? It had happened so quickly, lasted just a couple of seconds . . . maybe he’d imagined it.
The latch snicked and the door swung open. Dave was standing in the open doorway.
‘You can come out.’
Leon puffed out air. A tiny part of him wanted to say thanks; a very tiny part. The rest of him wanted to throw a punch at the guy for putting both of them, particularly Grace, through this.
He turned to her. ‘Come on, sis . . . It’s all over.’
‘No! Just you, Leon. She’s staying right there.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, you saw it too, Leon. You saw . . . that thing on her face.’
‘What are you talking about—’
‘That thing . . . the growth . . . her face tentacle.’
The word sounded comical and out of place and Leon found himself laughing, more as a release of tension than anything else. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘She grew something out of the side of her face. We all saw it.’
Leon shook his head. ‘Oh, come on . . .’
But something did happen there. He blanked the thought out quickly.
‘Jeez . . . it was playing with her hair . . . It was, I dunno, curious about her hair!’
‘No, that’s not what happened,’ replied Dave. He stepped to one side to look at Grace, aiming his torch on her. ‘Hey . . . you! Show us your face!’
She ignored him and
remained as she was, curled up, arms wrapped round her knees and her face buried.
‘I said show us your face! Now!’
Slowly she moved, lifting her head up. She stared intently at the wall in front of her, showing them her profile, the left half of her face, pale and pink and shining with tears.
‘Look at me!’ barked Dave.
She ignored him. Leon could see her bottom lip quivering and curling, her chin dimpled like orange peel. He knew that face – the time she’d been accused of smashing another girl’s phone at school and Dad had been called at work about it and at dinner that night he’d demanded she own up to it, then forced her to ring the girl and apologize. That face.
‘Grace?’ said Leon softly. ‘It’s OK . . .’ He was still hoping that what he’d seen had been a trick of the light, or his eyes playing games. ‘Just show him you’re normal, sis.’
She turned her head slowly towards them, revealing her right cheek. Tears were streaming down and she looked terrified. There was something else in her expression: she looked ashamed.
‘Please . . .’ she whispered, ‘p-please . . . d-don’t hurt me . . .’
And there it was, looking almost like a flesh-coloured earring dangling below the small lobe of her ear. It curled and flexed like a kitten’s tail.
‘Bloody hell!’ gasped Dave.
Leon felt lightheaded, dizzy with conflicting emotions. Revulsion . . . sadness . . . fear. Fear, not of her, but for her. ‘Grace?’
‘Leon,’ she whimpered, ‘I’m not . . . a monster . . . I’m me. It’s me, it’s me, it’s me. Don’t leave me! Please . . . please . . . don’t let them hurt me!’
‘She’s . . . she’s a snark!’ said Dave. He grabbed Leon’s arm to pull him back.
Leon shook his hand off angrily. ‘Grace? What . . . what’s happened to you?’
‘It’s not your bloody sister!’
He ignored Dave. ‘Grace . . . come on, talk to me.’
‘I’m scared,’ she whimpered.
‘Were you infected? Is . . . is that . . . is that what happened?’
‘I didn’tknow!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t know, Leo! Honestly!’