Spinetinglers Anthology 2008 Read online

  The veins and arteries run longitudinally, Ethan remembered from secondary-school biology, so cutting across lost you more blood per inch of incision than slicing up and down. Feeling smug at his reasoning, he picked the silver-edged blade from the blood crusted floor and ran it lightly down the inside of his left thigh. The pleasure wave was initially sharp, but quickly died off, and then slowly built to a more acceptable intensity. Ethan was disappointed. He wanted an explosion. After waiting a little longer, he put the blade in the same wound and dug deep. The explosion came, pushing him beyond pleasure and into transcendence. Floating freely among the Gods for an eternity made instant, Ethan was truly at one with all things. He would have stayed there. He would have died a thousand horrific deaths for one more second, but the Gods drew back, and as they abandoned him, he wept. A weakness overtook him. He inspected the wound in his leg through tearful eyes. His femoral artery was open and his life was pouring out, spreading like a scarlet vine at his feet.

  He lurched over to where his clothes lay and scooped up his jeans. Ripping the thin leather belt from the loops, he wrapped it around his thigh at the groin and jerked it tight.

  He stood swaying in the dim candle light. There was fear. There was dread. There was realisation. The magic was failing. The potion was wearing off.

  He wanted more.

  Ethan wanted to live among the Gods again. He’d worked hard for it. He deserved it. To be away from them, only that was death.

  He screamed. He ran at the walls, kicking the damp plaster away, the bones of his toes shattered under the impact. Not enough. He punched the windows. The skin of his forearms peeled, and the tendons split and shrank back. Not enough. Each remorseless act bore waves of pleasure that died away like birth-strangled children.

  This was the moment that the berserker was born. Not in the gaining of his power, but at the loss of it. Screaming and crying, Ethan bowed his head and ran at the damp-stained wall. The cracking of his skull echoed through the cold, dark house, as finally he fell unconscious to the floor.

  Several hours later, as daylight hinted at the possibility of its arrival, Ethan awoke.

  The mist was lifting and Ethan knew the truth. Soon the magic of Tiw’s cup would be completely gone, and he’d be cast into a world of unimaginable pain. He reached down slowly and deliberately to untie the thin leather tourniquet from his thigh, and as the scarlet fount of his life spewed forth, Ethan thought that he may be lucky after all.

  What a fucking rush.

  The Film

  by Emily Gee

  Time passes and details go with it. Still, the fact remains that around forty people walked into that theatre and, as far as I know, I am the only one who ever walked out. That’s a lot of people who ceased to exist, who just stopped being alive.

  Three of them were my friends. Tim, Katy, and Mark. The rest were strangers. But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. I think, in my dreams, I still see their faces, their eyes wide with fear or dull with resignation, their features twisted in pain.

  Then, I wake up and they fade away, as if they’re dying all over again, and I’m left with this strange, twisted feeling in my stomach, which, in some ways, is worse still. It’s getting harder now to recall the little things about them; the way they were dressed, what they were saying.

  I think Mark got the tickets, it seems like the kind of thing he would have thought was cool. Scariest movie ever made, only one showing in our area, out in the middle of nowhere ’cause the commercial theatres wouldn’t touch it. I think that’s how the line went. And it was free, of course, to ensure a full house. You just had to know the right kind of people to get a ticket. Which Mark did. Mark was the right kind of people.

  I remember Tim having doubts, saying it sounded suspicious, but we needed his car, so we all nagged until he gave in. Not that it took long once Katy joined in. I think he would have done anything to impress her. Anyway, he agreed, and the next thing I can really remember is all of us scrambling into the ancient Ford Escort he had, salvaged from scrap a couple of years before. It had no air conditioning to fight against the dense, late-summer air and even with all the windows down, it was baking hot inside. No one dared complain though, since none of us had transport of any kind. Besides, we were young, free from adult supervision, and just enjoying those two simple facts.

  The elation didn’t last long. Just outside the town limits, the road started to get rough. It was getting dark as well, and Mark was complaining that we were going to miss the start. There hadn’t been any sign of civilisation for at least an hour, just fields and trees crowding in ever closer on the shrinking road. We didn’t stop though, or talk about turning back. We persevered, with the blind ignorance of fools. And, eventually, the jaundiced glow of the headlights picked out other vehicles at the side of the road.

  Still without speaking, we seemed to reach a unanimous decision to leave the car and walk the rest of the way, following the trail of human debris, fag ends, and the like. Even as we got out of the car though, I remember wishing I were back inside. It was just too quiet, and when any of us did speak, it was in a hushed whisper, as though we were afraid the air might break. The creeping darkness hadn’t made it any cooler either. My shirt was clinging, the back of my neck was damp, the air in my lungs felt too hot and thick. My stomach was cold though, and filled with these tight worms of unease which, at the time, I thought were all part of the fun.

  The theatre itself looked as though it had been built at least a century ago, square and low with mossy bricks and a sagging roof. Out of place this deep into the countryside, yet somehow still blending in. I remember thinking of one of those “magic-eye” pictures we used to love as kids. The ones where, if you concentrated long enough, you’d see another image lying just behind the obvious. That’s what it felt like. Like there was something else behind the façade.

  A spattering of people watched our arrival from their protective huddles. My heart beat a little quicker at the sight of them. Some of them looked just like us; regular people from regular backgrounds, lured by the idea of something to get their adrenaline pumping.

  But the others were different.

  You could tell it just by looking at them. They stood huddled in clumps of three or four, skin too pale, faces too thin, and eyes that already looked haunted by too much horror. Junkies of the worst kind. The kind who needed to be scared, always needed something bigger and better to frighten away the horror of their realities. But, even they had never seen anything like what we were about to experience. Nobody had. At least nobody who had lived long enough to tell the world. I’m sure of that, above all else.

  Mark muttered something about “Fucking smack heads,” and spat into the dirt as though the very sight of them left a foul taste in his mouth. Nothing seemed to be happening. The one visible entrance looked sealed tight; there was very little movement from the rest of the crowd. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do, so we just found our own rough patch of ground and sat down.

  I can’t remember how long we waited, or what we did in that time. Dawn hadn’t arrived by the time the doors opened though. The night still hung around us, too warm and humid, concealing the opening toward which we shuffled as effectively as a shroud. Like ants, or zombies, people fell into step behind one another. It took us a while to reach the front, shuffling along in silence, until a man came and took the scraps of card that passed as tickets. He was small, hunched, with thin greying hair and quick, marble eyes. His smile was more like an involuntary spasm of his thick, pale lips. I smiled back, tried to catch his eye, thinking it would reassure me, but he avoided my gaze and continued down the line.

  We didn’t talk then. At least I don’t think we did. I think the fear inside us all was finally choking off the words. Katy took my hand, hers cold and slick with sweat. In the dim light, I could see her face was pale, her eyes wide, yet she still seemed to be smiling bravely.

  Eventually, we stepped inside the theatre, following the snaking line
until the room opened out at the other end. It was smaller than I had expected, just ten rows or so of closely-packed seats and the screen at the end. There were no other exits that I could see, aside from the one in which we stood. It was decorated in deep shades of red and purple, faded and worn, with a peeling skin of old paint. The air was thick and hot, hotter than outside even, filled with a thick, unidentifiable smell.

  That much I remember.

  After that, a lot of things have disappeared.

  We sat down, somewhere near the back, I think. Katy was beside me, still clutching my hand. I suppose we chatted a little as everyone else filed in, and the lights faded. But, when the first image appeared, an absolute silence fell that was somehow more oppressive than the heat and the smell and the fear. I don’t even remember what we saw at first, just that the walls seemed to come to life. Instantly it was all around us.

  And the screams started almost straight away. Shrill, wailing, siren-like screams, cutting through the air.

  They seemed only to make the images come faster, feeding on them. The walls seemed to pulsate with the images. Pictures of death and horror, of creatures that could not possibly exist outside of the screen. But they weren’t just pictures. They were alive. Not just on the screens, but behind them. The sides of the room bulged with the effort of keeping them back.

  Until it became too much. I saw one ragged claw tear through the thin fabric where the walls had been. A hulking shape lunged through the gap. For a moment, I couldn’t accept what I was seeing, grappling with the idea that it was all part of the show. But the thing was alive. Its skin glistened with sweat, its bulbous, yellow eyes shone, thick veins pulsated in its neck. And it wasn’t alone. People tried to run, of course, but the room was so small and so hot and the air was too thick to breathe. They began to fall in the aisles, still screaming and crying, blocking the way for those behind them.

  And at the front, the things were beginning their feast.

  I think it might have been that image that finally jolted me into action.

  Or maybe it was the realisation that Katy wasn’t screaming anymore. She wasn’t doing anything anymore. I remember looking over at her, at the empty seats where Mark and Tim had been. Her face was waxy, mouth open, a thin trail of saliva hung from her lower lip. Her eyes were open and rimmed in red. The tears on her cheeks weren’t even dry.

  Whatever it was, it was enough. I think I tried to stand, but ended up on all fours, heaving my lunch onto the threadbare carpet. There were people lying everywhere, hundreds of them it seemed. I remember a boy, not much older than me, sitting on the floor a few feet from where I emerged at the end of the aisle. He was crying and rocking, clawing at his face. One of his eyes was gone, replaced by a bloody chasm in his face, blood slick on his arms and legs. I think I saw Mark, too, lying among them. But he was already dead, the lower part of his face gone completely. Looking back, it seems like I crawled for an eternity, over and under them, feeling their warmth ebbing. There were still noises coming from the walls, shrill, pulsating sirens of noise. The things that had come from the wall were still busy at the front, too. The soft, wet noises they made were almost drowned out. Almost.

  There was a set of stairs leading down. A dark, musty underground room. Lots of videocassettes on the walls, no titles, just dates going back years, to before I was born. Then a window, high up. It was crusted with grime, but still letting in weak streaks of hazy sunlight.

  I broke it somehow, and climbed out. I remember thinking it seemed wrong somehow that the day had broken warm and bright, the kind of day where nothing bad could happen. But I could hear the things upstairs getting closer, could smell their skin and their hunger.

  I ran. Into the woods, away from the noises, not caring about the direction. I think I fell, there was a lot of blood on my clothes, and running down my legs. It didn’t really register.

  When I stopped, nothing looked familiar, just trees on all sides. The air was still, no birds or insects, but most importantly, nothing following me. At some point I lay down. That’s where they found me. Sleeping in the dirt.

  Home just isn’t the same. With my friends gone, everything is just too quiet, too normal. I haven’t told anyone what happened. People didn’t ask too many questions, they didn’t really want to know. And, truthfully, I don’t know what I would tell them if they did. The people who are responsible will not have left a trail, they’re too smart for that. They must be to have gotten away with it for so long. And I don’t even know why they do it; to enjoy the suffering, to simply feed the things I saw. Who knows?

  I do know this isn’t the end of it. But knowing that won’t save me.

  Nothing will.

  It is only a matter of time before they come back. I’ll just wait.

  Maybe I’ll forget. Maybe.

  Time passes, after all. And details go with it.

  Transmission

  by Matt Leyshon

  The building was a dismal three-storey concrete office block. Inside, it smelled of mushrooms, and the corridors were as grey as clouds of spores. My workplace matched my mood perfectly: bored and morose. My floor was leased to the Home Office and housed a small team dedicated to collating statistics and report writing. Each office was like a prison cell, and the convicted occupants, like myself, shabby shirts and toothpaste- stained ties, gazed blankly at their computer screens and waited for five o’clock.

  I tried to look busy at manipulating facts and twisting fictions, but I could only manage to shuffle paper and doodle onto my telephone message pad. The outcome of my report had already been decided; I knew what I had to prove long before the statistics appeared on my desk; the facts were virtually irrelevant. My task today was to create a report that would distract the public from rather disturbing evidence, which showed how living in certain areas greatly increased one’s chances of developing cancer and dying young.

  Before me was a list of postcodes, where figures showed that residents had a three in four chance of developing cancer and an average life span that met those one might expect in a Third-World country, stricken with famine, plague, and whatever else the four horsemen of the apocalypse chose to unleash on the impoverished. It was there, in black and white; signing a tenancy in one of those areas was like signing a death wish. This was no postcode lottery. My remit was to emphasise how people outside of those areas develop cancer, too, they have a one in four chance, apparently. Therefore, there’s a good chance you’re going to get ill at some point anyway, wherever you might live, so why not get ill where we, the government, would like you to get ill.

  The ultimate aim of the report I was writing was to regenerate these areas without the government actually investing any money. At present, houses were remaining unsold for years, and businesses were relocating out of the area every week. Alcoholism and drug abuse were rife, prospects amounted to little more than unemployment, followed by a slow and painful death from cancerous growths. I needed to show that you could get a slow and painful death anywhere, so why not move to one of these hotspots where property is cheaper. There was a macabre logic to it that I could appreciate; it was however, very depressing. The advantage I had in writing this report was that it was impossible to make that one in four chance look positive, and I was half-tempted to move to one of the hotspots myself; in some of them, I could buy a whole street for the price of a crumbling terrace here in Manchester. I could live out my days getting wasted and watching daytime TV, instead of composing drivel for cunning ministers. Government spin was like an opiate; it dulls the senses and destroys thought processes. It was turning me into the living dead, and if I were going to be a zombie, then I’d rather be one that owns a whole street, instead of a grotty flat with noisy students for neighbours.

  I scanned again over the sheets of postcodes. Each A4 sheet listed the number of deaths from cancer over the last ten years against each postcode, along with the postcode’s population. I could not resist looking at my postcode, the population was two hundred and
fourteen and there had been thirty-two deaths from cancer. It was not bad odds, but had more to do with the fact that I lived in an area popular with students and young professionals. A short distance away, into the next postcode where property was more expensive and the residents typically older and wealthier, the number of deaths tripled, while the population remained consistent.

  The report was getting me down; I was becoming terminally weak of will. I decided to flick through the sheets in search of something positive. I was wondering if there were any postcodes with a cancer rate of nil. I had been flicking through the pages of figures for a good five minutes and I was on the verge of giving up, when I spotted one. It was actually in Manchester, the population was double that of where I live, and there had been no deaths from cancer, not one in ten years. This struck me as bizarre, so I carried on searching. There were no others in Manchester, but I soon found one in York. The population was much lower, it was only just over one hundred, but again there were no deaths from cancer. I continued searching, and by lunchtime, I had found nine areas with populations over one hundred and where there had been no deaths from cancer. I had searched the whole of England.

  I got myself a coffee from the vending machine and returned to my office. I switched the radio on and began looking up each postcode on the government’s census Web site. The music kept fading into static and then returning, but I guessed it was due to atmospheric conditions and I left the radio on, waiting for the reception to improve. This had happened before and in the past, the reception had soon returned to full strength.

  Looking up each postcode, I failed to find any link between the nine areas. Some were poor, some were wealthy, most were predominantly Christian, but two had high Muslim populations. Only three had unemployment above the national average, and only one had a one hundred percent white population. Four were inner city areas, two were suburbs, and three were in small towns that I had never heard of. I wondered if anyone had ever picked these postcodes out before. Were ministers aware of them? I contemplated telling my manager, but opted against it, for fear of it making my report more complicated. I wanted this one piece of spin doctoring finished as soon as I could, but the nine postcodes I had discovered intrigued me.