Blood streamed from Hannah’s broken jaw, soaking her shirt. Her effort to remain upright now impossible. The electrical buzzing giants dragged her between two rows of similar glowing creatures, all assembled on transparent pews. Everything glinted, everything seemed made of glass. Her feet slipped in blood.
A bitter sulphurous stench issued from the creatures, but she could still smell her burnt and blistered skin. It was a million times worse than the sunburn from that holiday in Greece, which seemed like a billion years ago.
She had to do something, anything.
Her arms shot out to the side, reaching for the nearest surface.
The monstrous creatures that held her jerked to a standstill. Blue lightning fired beneath their translucent skin and crackled across their featureless faces. Electrical tendrils whipped under their immense bodies, struggling to hold her. She clawed at the nearest pew, her stinging fingertips snatching at the glass.
Gasps echoed around the court room, and many electrical creatures leapt to their feet. They shot backwards, hurdling benches, and clambered over one another. Twists of lightning struck the floor, trailing ash.
She ignored the chaos and screeches that sliced the air, and clutched a smooth armrest. Her blistered hands slipped and her face whacked the floor. Blood bubbled between her teeth with each rattling breath. The creatures lashed more tendrils around her arms, and buzzing coils burned through remnants of her clothes to leave her naked. They yanked her limp body towards the gigantic doors at the end of the room, her feet squeaking across the glass.
The onlookers twisted for a better view, their gangly bodies contorted around each other in a sea of electric blue.
They slammed her into a frosty metal chair. Her head swam and she struggled to regain focus. Wishing the pain away, her entire body throbbed. They wrenched her arms onto the rests, ice crumbled away in a shower of crystal filaments.
The extraction chamber was sparse, devoid of the courtroom chatter. Only two glowing creatures skittered around the electric chair which stood in the centre of the room.
One monstrous creature pulled a hide glove over its spindly fingers. Flexing, it ran its hand down the length of her face, and squeezed her shattered jaw. She howled and kicked out. It slopped a wet sponge atop her matted hair. Icy trickles ran down her face, stung her eyes and seeped into her open mouth. A familiar sting of pool water from years of lessons, but this reeked like a stagnant pond.
She wrenched her head sideways, her neck crunched. A worn chin-strap cinched and pulled a large rusted dome against her scalp, forcing shut her misshapen mouth. She screamed through gritted teeth, choking on the residual water and blood.
The creature nodded to a second one behind the chair. It rested its hands atop a colossal glass orb on an elegant metal podium behind the chair. At its touch the orb pulsed, glowed, and emitted a mechanical screech.
* * *
Hannah’s laptop buzzed, its dusty fan not so efficient anymore. Her phone’s familiar alarm punctured the drone and roused her: it was one o’clock. As a night-owl, she often went to sleep at peculiar hours only to wake having lost half the day.
She unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth, and scratched crusty drool from the corners of her downturned lips.
The alarm sounded again. She rubbed her eyes with sweaty hands, threw off the covers, and yanked her phone free from its worn charger cable. Being a slave to social media, she caught up with an array of messages on Facebook before leaving her bed. A loud ping drew her attention to the noisy laptop. She tapped the stiff spacebar.
Your battery is charged above 70%. If you continue to charge the battery above this level for extended periods, it can cause permanent damage.
Despite the warning, her laptop was continually plugged in to the over-filled extension lead beside her bed. Not the most organised of people, various cables lay knotted, creeping from under her bed. She closed the PC window, and left her laptop to continue its extensive download list.
She headed downstairs, though the cluttered lounge and to the kitchen – which wasn’t much better. Fragrant coffee leaked from a cracked mug, pooling on the counter. She shrugged, threw a dishtowel over it and made a fresh one.
Cold struck her bare legs and left a line of goose bumps. The fridge was open. Dropping to her knees, she peered inside. Not sure if she’d caught the door in her pre-caffeinated haze or left it open all night, she grabbed the milk. A guarded sniff, followed by a bout of retching, told her this was an all-night job. Clots of white coated the inside of the bottle. She booted the door shut and poured the pungent chunks down the sink,
Sipping the black coffee, she headed for the lounge to collapse onto the sofa. She thumbed the TV remote.
A newsreader’s voice burst from the huge TV’s speakers: “Detective Pascal gives updates on the attacks in the Alnwick area. Live at four. How long until we have a real answer to what’s happened?” asked the frowning newsreader.
He slammed his fist down on a small pile of paperwork that littered the neon-lit desk, and scattered the sheets.
A female reporter paced in front of a vast brick building. “Well, John, this seems to tie in with the large number of freak occurrences across The Midlands over the past year. Can we talk spontaneous human combustion for a minute?”
John shook his head. “Despite the strange goings on, I think we can agree to disagree this is a hoax.”
“Three bodies in the last year John, three.” The reporter pouted, and waved her microphone at the camera.
“Yes, well…” He fiddled with the clip on his tie, and straightened himself in his chair. “Are they investigating these events? No, they’ve kept it all hushed. It seems pretty suspect to me,” she shook her flabby arm at the building behind her. The camera man panned to the police station logo above the front door.
“Suzie, I think we’ll have to see how Pascal’s investigation progresses.” With a nod, he signalled the station to cut her feed. “Now over to Heather with the Weather.” He shook his head and grimaced.
Cameras flipped to a bouncy young woman with waist-length dreadlocks, gesturing to a map of the British Isles.
“Hey, John, it’s going to be a balmy twenty-five degrees tomorrow, so avoid that Sunday sun and—”
More weird happenings.
She’d noticed an increase in strange reports on the news: Men found comatose on their beds, and entire towns with clocks frozen at the same hour. And now they were talking about spontaneous human combustion. Freaky.
Bounding into the kitchen, she poured out dregs of cold coffee and swilled residual chunks of milk down the drain.
Upstairs, scrambling around the bed for her hairdryer, she shifted a grey cloud of dust bunnies. She coughed and sneezed a few times, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a baggy shirt while she continued her search. This was the usual arrangement, given that she was forever losing electrical appliances. Some were left in sockets around the house, others simply chucked into empty draws, or discarded under her bed. Alas, this time her hairdryer evaded her.
She forced her damp, lilac-scented hair into a loose knot above her head. Residual auburn dye stained the collar of her shirt. She shrugged, it always came out in the wash.
Ping. Her laptop announced its download was complete.
She swiped her finger across the pockmarked screen and selected the next movie in her list. The buzzing machine concurred and got to work. She loved having a large collection of films to watch. TV content had taken a turn for the worse recently: shitty shows about couples on islands, and far too much sport. She had switched to illegally downloading movies to satisfy her needs. Horror was her genre of choice.
She plopped onto the soft double-bed and scrolled through notifications on her phone. Several from her mother reminded her that they had arrangements for lunch. Punctuality was never her strong point, and repeatedly got her into trouble at her last job. Now working from home as a reviewer, it was too easy to ignore the clock.
Texting a quick apology to her mother who was determined to go out for food, she agreed to meet her at a local café. At least they made good coffee at Café Nerd, as she called it.
Downstairs, the TV still mumbled in the lounge. She rarely turned it off, nor the lights. The house was, as her dad would say, “Constantly lit up like Christmas.” She grabbed her bag from the wobbly rack beside the front door, and stuffed her phone and keys inside. They tumbled and chimed against her purse. The walk was only ten minutes, so she didn’t bother with a jacket.
She set off down the road.
It had been yonks since she’d ventured out. Preferring to avoid raucous crowds, and being far from her beloved internet, drove her slightly crazy.
The café was quiet. A few groups of teenagers milled about drinking tall iced coffees, slurping cream and chocolate sauce from their straws. Now twenty-nine, and wiser than a few years ago. Years filled with banana milkshake, cakes, and candy. She now avoided sugary drinks. She’d even quit putting sweetener in her coffee. “Clean eating for a better body,” her friend had said.
Her squat mother’s chatter was punctuated by the staccato tap of fork against plate. Hannah added the occasional yes, no and hmm into the conversational mix, and stabbed at her chicken salad. Tepid pieces of mayonnaise-soaked meat skidded around, and kept her entertained for a while.
The door opened a few times: an elderly couple, a woman with bouffant blonde hair, and lastly a rugged guy in combat trousers, his arms covered in intricate tattoos.
She found herself admiring the swirls and symbols on the guy’s arms. It was nice to see body art more often now. People covered it up less, the old stigma was gone. She thought about her unfinished back tattoo. Her mother had paid for it when she was twenty-one, but she couldn’t bring herself to get anymore done, couldn’t handle the pain. Like her, it remained a work-in-progress.
A young barista shuffled through a door behind the marble counter, and shot a huge grin at the guy.
“On your own again, Liam?” The barista rolled up her coffee-stained sleeves, and began to press grounds into one of the handles.
“Yeah, it’s all good. I’ll just take this one to go, today,” he said, mirroring her smile.
“Oh, that’s no fun.” The barista looked up at him, and ran her fingers through a tangle of hair.
Hannah fought back a snigger. Watching the barista try to flirt was far more entertaining than listening to her mother’s list of issues with the dog’s anal glands.
Tattoo guy lifted his baseball cap, and ran his hand over the back of his head before replacing it again. “Rhea’s been busy at work. You’ve seen the news?”
She could see the barista nodding, but couldn’t hear her response over the whirr of milk being foamed in a large metal jug. BANG.
The jug caught the counter top and splashed steaming foam across the baristas hand. She shrieked, dropped it on the counter, and ran through a door to the rear.
Raising an eyebrow, Hannah looked back to her mother, who hadn’t noticed nor stopped talking. It was worrying that her mother was oblivious to the world outside of her own conversation. They only met up for lunch a couple times a month, but it was more than Hannah could handle, preferring online conversation to the real thing.
Tattoo guy peered through a small round window in the door, no barista. He shrugged, turned, and rested his back against the counter.
He grabbed his phone from a pocket and punched in a few digits that clicked loudly. Phone to his ear, he headed towards the door. “Rhea, Rhea Pascal please.”
She watched the door snap shut behind him, thinking of that surname. Pascal, the detective’s name they mentioned earlier on the news.
The barista rushed through the door. She looked around for the tattooed guy, her hand now wrapped in soggy kitchen roll. She huffed, and ran a cloth over the mess of foamed milk that coated the counter.
Her mother waved a hand in front of her face. “Hello, I was talking to you.”
“Huh?” She snatched her gaze away from the counter and back to her mother. “What’s up?”
“I’ve got to go soon,” she said, and drained the dregs from her mug sliding it to the centre of the table. It scraped through loose sugar granules.
“Oh, sure. Sorry, I got distracted.” Hannah offered a weak smile.
Her mother rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
She pushed her bowl and mug to the centre. “Well I’m good to go.”
“Okay, sweetie.” Her mother grabbed her in a bear hug, and slipped folded banknote into her hand. “I’ll see you for lunch next weekend?”
Hannah nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll try to be on time.”
She knew she wouldn’t be.
The sun had set by the time she reached home. It was dark and quiet inside the house, she slapped around for the light switch. Maybe there was a power cut? The lights clicked on, she squinted. Odd. She hadn’t turned them off before she left, nor the TV. Placing her palm against the screen it gave off no heat. When her parents complained about the extortionate electricity bills, she claimed living alone as an excuse. The constant light and sound made her feel safe.
Perplexed, she grabbed the remote and hammered the standby button. Nothing. Peering behind the TV unit, mired by cobwebs. The wall sockets were off. She couldn’t reach them without moving the unit. This was starting to creep her out.
The stiff un-used switches fought her as she turned them on. Static hummed and the babble of TV voices filled the room.
A quick tour of the house revealed nothing. She pressed her face against the cold glass of the lounge window and peered outside. Breathing heavily, her nostrils flared and spread condensation over the glossy pane. She tripped over loose wires, and plodded through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
The TV died with a loud snap.
Irritated, she ran back to the lounge.
The sockets were off, again. An unusual sulphurous odour hung near the TV. She wondered if there was an electrical fault. Maybe it was a safety feature, things get too hot and the power cuts out. Melted plastic couldn’t smell this bad. She remembered the stench of her overheating hairdryer after it ate a chunk of her hair.
Thump. She yanked the plugs from their sockets and inspected them. No obvious damage. The TV powered on without issue. Stupid fucking technology.
Crashing on the sofa, she forgot about the tea stewing in her mug. Alien was on. She grinned and curled up under a blanket.
She managed twenty minutes of the film before she nodded off.
* * *
Blood spurted from the man’s chest. He screamed and shook. A pasty, throbbing creature tore through his ribcage.
An enormous dark spot rippled at the centre of the TV screen. It smothered the lurid image, and killed the sound. Globules of smoking plasma dripped and converged on the outer frame. Fingers of blue light stuttered on spindly arms of static, which pierced the gloom. A mire of ozone and sulphur saturated the air, penetrating her nostrils. She retched, the foul odour jerking her awake.
She focused on the intense light. Like a blowtorch flame, it hurt to look directly at it. At them.
Monstrous creatures, their gigantic bodies made of lightning that writhed below a transparent skin. They had no faces, only voids where their eyes should be. Sparks of energy hissed and danced between them. Their elongated bodies travelled on glowing tentacles, which scoured the room. Hunting.
Clamping hands over her mouth muted a guttural scream. The stench tore through her clasped fingers. She vomited, and choked on the chunks of acidic meat.
Struggling to her feet, she dodged the electrical giants and leapt into the kitchen. She swung her arms blindly, reaching for the knife block and striking a pile of washing up. Porcelain cups fragmented and clattered across the tiled floor. She grabbed a carving knife from the block. The other blades unsheathed and skidded across the mucky surface.
Years of watching horror films, promising she’d never be the idiot who backed herself into a corner, and there she was: no escape.
The doorway to the kitchen grew brighter. Electrified fronds cascaded across the walls and ceiling, illuminating the room. Coils of energy snapped and tore at metal. Hooks gave way to a molten ooze that popped, and dribbled from holes. Taps warped and sealed themselves into shapeless silver lumps that clung to the sink.
She trembled, and backed away from the buzzing light. Her shallow rasping breaths punctuated the hum of electricity. Ridges from the oven bore into her side, her body pressed hard against the door. She knew metal and electricity was a bad idea, but still flailed the knife towards the open door.
The noxious creatures ducked the doorframe, lightning skittering over broken porcelain.
Raising its arm, one of the creatures fired a hot electrical coil. It crackled through the air, and struck her neck hard, snapping it backwards. The coil constricted her throat. She dropped the knife, and strained to release the burning noose, it gripped tighter. Her flesh bubbled and leaked acrid fluid from sizzling wounds on her hands and neck.
The reek of burning flesh urged her to fight harder against the noose, the pain was too intense for words. She’d had an accident working in a restaurant many years ago. A hob left on overnight and touched for a second. She’d lost the palm of her left hand. That pain, the pain of skin sloughed from her hand was nothing compared to this. Her vision faded to black.
The creatures lifted her limp body. Parts of her jeans and shirt smouldered and fell away in smoky clumps, leaving a trail of ash through the lounge.
They skittered through the blackened portal that scarred the TV. The portal hissed and shrank, until it was only a blemish on the screen.
* * *
Awake, Hannah lay contorted on the floor. Sparks flew from rusted metal poles that stood in the corners of the glass room.
Her eyes crossed as she looked through the ceiling. Layers of distorted people filled the cells above her. She raised her hands to her face, each finger was red and blistered. The wounds wept where tight skin had split. Her hands shook as she lowered them again, wincing.
Waves of static pulsed like bass music and made her body throb. She knew she was in a cell, a glass prison cell.
A creature approached, its blue hue warped by the thick walls. Vines of electricity twisted into the room, peeling layers of molten glass, like a zipper on a pair of jeans. Its stench saturated the room.
She gagged and rolled onto her side. Her empty stomach contracted, and forced her knees to her chest. Hot tears streamed down her face and struck the floor sending vines of lightning snaking across the floor. If she closed her eyes tight, she could pretend this wasn’t real. Monsters weren’t real, she knew that. But the pain from her neck, and stench of her burned flesh, that was real.
A series of clicks and whistles issued from the mouthless creature, repeating until they formed words: “Time. To. Go.” Its voice hurt her ears.
She remained foetal, squeezing her eyes shut.
It slithered towards her. “So. Be. It.”
A twist of blue energy crackled from its hand and crept across the floor. It snared her ankle, blistered her skin and wrenched her closer. She twisted and clawed at the ground, her fingers leaving red streaks.
“Walk,” it hissed, and threatened her with another coiled tendril.
She acknowledged its request, and scrambled to her feet.
* * *
A creature fired lightning at her heels, ushering her through a buzzing glass corridor. It was full of cells like her own. People cowered in corners, sweaty, naked, and hammering on walls. At the end of the corridor was a bright, square room. Its walls covered with thousands of small TV screens like some 1990s MTV display. Each TV exhibited a different location.
Horrified, she understood. These were people’s homes. This was how they’d watched her, how they knew where she was. A creature approached one of the TVs and it touched the screen. A portal appeared and it stepped inside.
“Holding. Cell,” the creature behind her hissed, and forced her through a door at the end of the room. The door slammed, she was alone again.
Hannah’s shaking legs gave out, and she collapsed to the floor. Time stood still, or moved too quickly, she couldn’t tell anymore. It could have been hours, or days since they brought her here. Closing her eyes, she drifted into an exhausted sleep. Rings of steam escaped her sore lips.
She didn’t hear the wall open, or the creature pass through.
“Do. You. Know. Why. You’re. Here?” it boomed.
Startled, she crawled towards a corner. “I’m not here. This isn’t real,” she shouted, and smacked her forehead against the wall in the hope that it would wake her from this nightmare.
A tiny crack appeared. She watched it grow and mar the pristine surface.
The monstrous creature released a sequence of clicks which formed an unmistakable laugh. “You. Are. To. Stand. Trial,” it said.
A crystalline chair and table erupted from the floor, and they clattered towards the centre of the room. Standing, she flattened herself against the wall. The creature gestured to the seat. She didn’t obey. It fired a warning shot of lightning at her feet. She jumped forward to avoid it. The frozen chair veered behind her and slammed into her calves, forcing her to sit. It escorted her to the table.
She couldn’t understand why they wanted her, what she’d done. It made no sense. They couldn’t keep her here much longer, could they? Then the questioning began…
“I’ve not abused anyone,” she stated again, and again. After hours of interrogation her eyes were still trained on the growing crack in the wall, “I shouldn’t be here!”
She edged her glass chair back from the table.
“You. Abused. Power.”
“What do you mean, I abused power?” She demanded.
Sparks fired rapidly beneath its translucent skin. Ignoring her, it tapped its fingers against the table. Strands of lightning danced across its surface towards her.
“Wasted. Used. Too. Much.” The creature’s voice grew more menacing with every crackled syllable. “Not. Long. Now.”
She had to make a move. Her only option was the crack in the wall.
Gripping the edge of the table, she slammed into the body of the creature. The glass warped on contact, melted, slowed the creature’s movements. She wrenched her chair from the ground and swung hard at the cracked glass wall. The chair crumbled.
Jagged lines splintered the wall’s fragile beauty. It crunched, creaked, and began to fragment. Chunks fell from the shattered wall and smashed at her feet. A ragged hole opened in front of her but it was too small to climb through.
The creature struggled to untangle its self from the molten table.
It was going to hurt possibly more than her burns, but she knew she had no choice. Running, she slammed her shoulder against the hole, forcing it to widen. Splinters pierced her upper-arm and fragmented. She howled, fighting her way through the broken glass. Blood seeped down her arms. Tatters of her flesh clung to the jagged hole.
Free from the room, she ran.
The creature thrashed at the wall. Its tendrils whipped and tore through the glass.
It wasn’t far behind her.
She bolted into the gigantic room of TVs.
A deafening shriek filled the air. More creatures gouged clefts in the slippery floor as they sped after her. With her heart screaming in her ears, she dove for one of the screens. It split with a strident crack and she disappeared through.
Fuzzy carpet broke her fall. She rolled and smashed into a liquor cabinet. Colourful bottles rattled and tumbled over each other.
Ignoring the pain from her bloody shoulder, she raced to the front door and wrenched the handle. It didn’t budge. Grabbing coats from a wrack she hunted through the pockets for keys. There was nothing. No keys, no knives, not even a lighter.
That familiar stench poured into room and stung her nostrils. Bursting through another door, she spotted the stairs and scrambled up.
A bedroom door hung open revealing a varnished wooden floor, illuminated by sunlight. She spotted the window and tried to force it. Resisting her attempts, it creaked and stuck partially open. She struggled and pounded her fists into the panel. It didn’t budge. A loud crackle came from the open door. There was no option left but to fight. If she could get to another room maybe there was a way out. She hunted for a weapon.
Blue coils scorched the doorframe, and licked towards her. It was here.
She grabbed the first item: a china cup of water. She flung it towards the creature in the doorway. It exploded on impact. China and water flew in all directions. Screaming, its grotesque body contorted and fragile skin buckled. Tentacles flailed and struck nearby furniture. Giant spurs of lightning smothered the bed with flames.
Hannah gasped. She couldn’t believe one cup of water could do so much damage.
Hiding behind the door, she watched the creature begin to disintegrate. Flimsy sections of translucent membrane sloughed from its torso. Its broad chest tore open, and released the crackling energy beneath. The creature was reduced to a glowing pile of gore.
She crept round the door.
It was too late…There was another.
CRACK. An electrified vine whipped through the air, and hurled her against a wall. She smashed through a bookcase, wedged between its splintered wooden shelves and fell onto the ream of books below. Deep electrical burns smouldered on her misshapen cheek. Blood poured from her mouth and soaked into the pages.
* * *
“Wake. Up,” a voice echoed.
It was hard to move, her stiff back crunched as she straightened it.
Every inch ached. She remembered destroying one of the creatures. Beyond that it was a blur.
She stood in a vast court room, hunched over a crystal podium. Seated on frosted glass pews encircling her, hundreds of glowing creatures bobbed and weaved with nervous energy. Her heart drummed in the crisp silence of the room.
Sat at the colossal raised bench was a grotesque electrical creature that dwarfed the others. Its body quivered like jelly, flabby arms undulating. Its tendrils, thick like tentacles, slapped against the bench as it spoke.
“You. Wasted…You. Killed,” the creature boomed.
She attempted to answer, but her mouth wouldn’t move. A strand of crimson drool spattered the clear stand in front. Her face numb, she raised a hand and ran it along her slack jaw. A chunk had pierced through her cheek. No energy left to panic, tears streamed down her face. The salt stung her wounds.
“There. Is. No. Choice,” it hissed, leaning over the bench.
She tongued her cracked lips and tried to speak. “I …”
It interrupted and pointed at her. “Words. Do. Not. Matter.”
She spluttered more blood across the podium, and lifted her swollen head. The creature’s vacant face, a swirl of pulsating green, morphed with every word.
The crowds shuffled and chattered, their angry cries echoing. A charged frond of electricity soared from within the surge of movement and struck the back of her head. The shock slammed her face into the congealed gore that coated the glass, and plumes of smoke spiralled from scorched hair.
“Take. Her. Spark,” it commanded.
She trembled, unable to answer.
“Extraction. Chamber. Immediately.”
She was dragged from the court room, a quivering, bloody mess. Sparks hissed and flew in her direction from the chanting crowd. The room was a blur of light as she skidded in her own blood.
She didn’t understand what he meant by, “Take her spark.” She didn’t have any sparks. Exhausted and broken, she tried to free herself from their grip. Scorching fronds tore at her body, burning through the remains of her tattered clothes, and left her naked. The pain crippled her further. Collapsed on the floor, they yanked her through huge doors at the end of the room.
The dark extraction chamber held a solitary metal chair, filling the centre of the room. Hannah had seen one of these before. An electric chair. But she’d never seen one entirely made of metal. Worn straps hung from the arms, tarnished buckles scraped the floor. A rusty dome hovered above the back rest. Behind the chair a transparent sphere, its bulk dwarfed elegant glass podium it balanced on.
A creature hovered nearby.
She struggled as they slammed her into the seat and strapped her down.
It was too late. The creature touched the orb. It pulsed, glowed, and emitted a mechanical screech.
Every muscle tensed, contorting her limbs. And Agony tore through her chest.
SNAP. A bone in her twisted leg fractured, a large fragment piercing her skin. Hot blood spurted down her quivering thighs. She howled. Her body convulsed.
No more thoughts, no more feelings.
She vomited thick red clots onto her thrashing lap.
The glass orb crackled beneath the creature’s hands. Bolts of lightning swirled inside. The creatures watched the spark of life siphon from her crippled body.
Her fingertips blackened, like a gangrenous progression. The darkness crawled up her limbs, reducing them to charcoal. There was no more pain, no more blood. Her body slumped in the chair, the darkness clawed its way up her mutilated neck, and smothered her scarred face. Char and ash rained from her open mouth.
A small light flicked within the sphere, gravitating towards the creature’s hands. In an instant, it was gone.
* * *
BANG.
“Hello?” a man’s voice called from outside the front door to Hannah’s house.
BANG.
The policeman pulled a torch from his back pocket, and shone it through the front window. No movement. He scurried back to the door and knelt. Peering into the lock, his light wouldn’t penetrate the mechanism. The key was evidently still inside.
He booted the door. It shot open and splintered the frame.
He wrinkled his nose.
“Hello?”
Torch in his teeth, he steadied himself and found the light switch. No power.
“This is Constable Jefferies. Is there anyone there?” he called into the darkness.
Entering the lounge, Hannah’s scorched body lay hunched on the sofa. Black cracked skin covered her naked body. Her limbs hung awkwardly giving the appearance of a disfigured marionette. Eyes now lumps of coal, wide open. Her face contorted into a terrified scream. A breeze from the open door stroked her body, her face crumbled.
He forced his hands over his mouth, and tripped as he lurched from the room. A stench of burned flesh followed him thorough the house, knocking books across the floor as he ran. The door slammed behind him, and he collapsed on the wet grass.
“Jones. Jones!” he shouted into his radio.
“What’s up Brian?” a voice returned.
“Its…Its…” Brian stumbled over his words. He struggled with every breath still hunched on the grass.
“Spit it out, man,” said the sharp radio voice.
“There’s been another attack. Get detective Pascal on the line.”
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #21 ‘In for a Shock’ by Pippa Bailey – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
