Part Four - Michelle

A relentless drumbeat pounded at Michelle’s ears. Her other senses returned sluggishly, feeling creeping back into her limbs and a groaning certainty of the events of the night crawling into the front of her mind.

The horrors had not been a dream. There was no comforting sense of distance, no relief that at least it was now all over. It had been real and worse still; the nameless horrors were still out there. Even more terrifying was the realisation that maybe there were imminent dangers in here, in the bar with her.

The dripping went on. Drip after pounding drip after drip. Why wouldn’t that terrible sound stop?

Michelle forced her eyes to open, the need to know what was happening overpowering the terror of what she might see. It took a few blinking seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and take in her surroundings.

A small puddle of dark liquid was forming beside her head. Instinctively, she pulled away. The ominous dripping continued, small drops falling every couple of seconds from above. An upturned glass of beer was hanging half over the edge of the pool table above her, the dregs dripping onto the floor next to her where she lay. It was a relief to know it was only beer, although she didn’t know what she’d thought it would be. Blood? Something worse?

She lifted her head off the floor a little to get a better look around. The lights in the bar had gone out when the third tremor had hit them, just before the crushing impact that had demolished the front half of the bar. She shuddered at the memory. The force of the walls caving in had thrown her back. She must have had hit her head when she fell against the pool table at the back of the bar. That would explain how she’d been knocked out, and the pulsating throb at the back of her skull.

It seemed ridiculous now that she had run back here after seeing the monstrous toe smash into the street with such terrifying force. She had grabbed a pool cue as though she had any hope of defending herself against such colossal and incomprehensible terrors. But the instinct to fight for self-preservation, no matter how delusional such desperate hopes were, had saved her life. If she had remained at the front of the bar she would have been killed instantly, crushed under the shattered glass and crumpled supports of the building.

Retreating to the back of the bar meant she was still alive. At least for now.

She looked around. It was dark but it wasn’t complete blackness. She could see the outlines of the ruins of the bar around her; a graveyard of shattered furniture, broken glass and crumpled walls covered in dust. The lifeless torso of a man protruded from underneath a pile of rubble about ten feet in front of her. Even in the shadows she could see his chest had been crushed by the large fluorescent light fitting that had fallen on him, and his dead eyes shone out with a bright emptiness.

She didn’t want to look too closely at the other glimpses she caught of twisted limbs and shadowy shapes in the ruins after that. She needed to look past the decimation of the bar, to see if there was any indication of what was happening out there and what she should do.

There was no shortage of light in the street. A couple of street lights, the ones that hadn’t been crushed, were still standing, trickling out sickly yellow light. The silhouette of the one that had stood directly outside the bar was bent over, the top half hanging limp like a flower whose flimsy stem had been snapped to breaking point.

However, a more potent light source from above seemed to bathe the whole street in a pale, unnatural hue. She moved forward to get a better look at the sky. The front two thirds of the bar was now roofless apart from a few crumbling tiles and beams that clung tenaciously to the broken metal girders jutting precariously downwards.

Michelle stepped carefully out onto the uneven floor of rubble and debris, and looked up into the night.

Nothing stood between her and the infinite sky. The whole skyline was washed with a glow stronger than moonlight, as beautiful as it was menacing. The stars were blotted out by clouds but pulsating green flashes danced behind them, too bright and vivid to be hidden. Even the heaviest clouds were no more than diaphanous veils, floating and swaying to the rhythm of the flashing emerald lights. Michelle stood transfixed in awe and wonder, just like when she’d watched fireworks on Guy Fawkes as a kid. It felt safe there at that moment, gazing up at the sky.

Another dazzling flash filled the sky, overwhelming her eyes. She had to look away for a second as a sharp beam of light stretched down towards the ground in the distance. She felt sad watching it, wished it had been her that the light had reached down to touch.

Her eyes lowered to her shadowy surroundings. She had to get out of there. Maybe if she could make it to the place where the light shone she’d feel safe again. Maybe that light would even reach down for her.

She went back to grab the pool cue and then started to make her way out over the wreckage-covered floor. She stopped though as she approached the booth where the four men who been driven crazy with thirst had been. The booth they’d been at was undamaged even though it was further forward than the pool tables. For some unfathomable reason this one area had been untouched by the devastation. Not so much as a chair leg had been broken.

It hadn’t done them any good though.

The three bodies of the men lay in contorted positions on the floor, a pool of muddy water surrounding them. There was something unnatural about the bodies too. Even in the dim light their skin seemed wrong. It was too loose and stretched. It hung limply over the bones at the wrists and necks, like they were deflated rubber dolls.

They were completely motionless, lying face down in the pool of brown liquid but she couldn’t be certain. Were they really dead?

Michelle drew in a deep breath in the eerie quiet of the ruined bar. She gingerly poked the closest body with the end of the pool cue. It didn’t respond. She slid the cue under the shoulder of the body, its saggy skin dripping liquid as it was shifted. It was surprisingly light, like a husk of a body rather than a corpse and she flipped it over without really meaning to. Squelching folds of loose skin oozed back down towards the floor like molten wax pulling hard against the hollow bones. The head rocked from side to side before settling back to face her, two sunken dark pits where the man’s eyes had been staring in her direction.

His hand, the skin seeping off the fingers and sagging at the wrist, started to twitch.

Michelle screamed and jumped back. She swung around, cue braced and ready to defend herself from someone or something that was about to attack her from behind but there was nothing there. The sound of her cry echoed in the silent void of the bar.

Without caring when she tripped or scraped herself she fled over the detritus and left the bar.

The street seemed dimmer now that she was out in it. Darker clouds had passed overhead and they were dampening down the green light from above. Signs of destruction lay everywhere. Cars, vans, even a city bus had been flattened like squashed aluminium cans, a sea of glass around them twinkling green as the light above pulsed. Buildings for blocks and blocks were demolished, nothing but small mountains of rubble and smashed concrete to show that they ever existed. Shops, street lights, billboards, road signs - all obliterated so that she could see the expanse of the city in ruins stretching out around her.

It used to feel so comforting to walk through town, the tall buildings separating out different streets from each other, each maintaining its own private and distinctive territory. The devastation of the city had ripped it open and it lay in waste; an empty and horrifying wasteland that bore little resemblance to its former self. Occasionally, she spotted lone buildings or structures that had escaped destruction. They seemed all the more piteous for surviving when so much was destroyed around them, like single plastic teeth jutting out on an old broken comb, looking vulnerable and useless, standing in solitary weakness without support around them.

She walked for some time without seeing another soul.

The sense of isolation closed in around her. It was even worse than empty quiet of the bar had been, left alone with the crushed and twisted bodies of all those poor people who had died and those shrivelled, twitching husks. A horrible thought struck her. Perhaps she should have checked for survivors? Somebody might have been alive under all that rubble, lying there injured and breathing, praying for help.

A wave of regret washed over her at the terrible realisation. She could go back of course but even under the sickening weight of guilt she knew she would not. The horrors she had seen there, those husk-like bodies with their sagging skins stretched over them and their dark, eyeless cavities in their heads terrified her more than the barren landscape of the destroyed city.

Nothing could make her go back to the bar.

She kept walking, her footsteps resounding on the cracked concrete. The destruction seemed to ease a bit as she headed towards Lambton Quay. Many of the buildings still lay in waste but more remained intact here than see had previously seen, enough that the long road seemed recognisable to her. She headed along the quay, every unharmed shop giving her hope of finding survivors or some way out of this disaster. Perhaps things were not as doomed as she feared. Perhaps she would still make it through this.

The faint sounds of voices trickled down from the distance. The light seemed brighter, warmer here than it had by the bar. She increased her pace as the road coiled round towards Parliament.

Her footsteps suddenly faltered as it all came into view in one sudden and overpowering flash.

Ahead in the distance, the Beehive stood out like an ominous beacon, a blazing dome of flickering orange. Fire had engulfed the whole building, the flames spewing out from every level and lighting the horizon with a smouldering amber haze.

A mass of people had gathered near the base of the cenotaph nearby, watching the terrifying spectacle. Michelle forced her limbs to move and hurried over to join them. She could hear that there were people at the front shouting orders to the crowd. She pushed forward, eager to be of some help this time, or perhaps just desperate to be included and interact with living people again.

“What can I do?” she yelled over the drone of muttering voices as she pushed past a couple of tall men at the back of the crowd.

One of the men she had jostled turned to face her. She recognised the dark, sunken pits where his eyes had been and the skin starting to droop away from his cheekbones. He opened his mouth to speak and a surge of rust-coloured water gushed from his lips.

Michelle leapt back to dodge the stream of vile-smelling brown liquid but someone behind her grabbed her arm. Without thinking, she spun round and drove the pool cue down with all the force she could muster on her assailant. Stunned, the man staggered back, coughing and spewing brown water as he went.

The mass of people uttered a wordless groan and turned on her. She swung the cue wildly at anyone who approached, fighting with every ounce of determination that she had but it wasn’t enough. Soon the force of numbers overwhelmed her and the mob had her beaten. They clawed at her with bony hands, the skin sagging off their fingers and their dry nails tearing holes in her skin. Helpless and beaten, she was hoisted over their heads, roughly bundled along to the front of the crowd.

Two of the eyeless ones then lowered her to her feet in front of them, their tight grasps fixing her in place.

Michelle saw then what they were really gathered round. They hadn’t been watching the huge, burning structure of the Beehive; they were making a nest.

A mound of bulbous sacks was being piled up in front of the crowd, each blob big enough to house the two or three adult-sized shapes she could see below the surface. Dozens of lumbering figures with skin sagging from their limbs rolled more of the translucent globules up to the growing mound. Each sack attached to the next when they touched, their glutinous membranes gluing together with the ooze that seeped out of them.

The mound of blobs, slick with grease, glistened in the firelight. It seemed to pulsate with the warmth and light. Mindlessly, eyeless ones were dragging bits of burning wreckage down from the Beehive towards the mound; some of them caught fire themselves but didn’t appear to notice. The dark shapes wriggled and pressed themselves against the front of the membranes whenever a fiery offering was brought forward. The whole mound seemed to feed off the flames, burgeoning outwards and throbbing as it consumed energy from the fire.

She looked around, desperate for a means of escape. The mass of writhing shapes in the blobs scared her more than anything else she had seen that night.

A few other people were being held like her at the front of the crowd by the eyeless ones. A man in a business suit struggled helplessly against his captors about ten feet away; a woman wearing headphones stood further past him also held in place, her arms pinned behind her back.

There were others too, ones who hadn’t lost their eyes but were still part of this. They stood free and watched, smiling at the growing mound. A couple of them marched around, shouting orders at the eyeless ones.

A thundering crash resounded through the night and the ground trembled ever so slightly. Michelle looked up and saw that a massive section of the Beehive had caved in, flaming parts of the framework falling with a shuddering impact.

An excited murmur rose up and the crowd, as if commanded by some unheard orders, pressed forward towards the mound. Michelle struggled and fought but she was pushed towards the mass of blobs by the tide of movement from the mob; she was powerless to resist.

Panic coursed through her body; a fear so primal and intense that it seemed it should kill her. Didn’t people say you could die from fright? She hoped it was true, not just a meaningless expression. It seemed a nicer alternative.

But even that one pathetic strand of hope was broken. She was crushed up next to one of the greasy, pulsating blobs. Her face pressed up against its warm membrane. The violent smash of her face against its slick surface hurt more than she’d expected; the sacks were harder than they looked.

The figures inside sprung forward as soon as she touched the blob. One of them was a man; the other a woman. They both looked about the same age as Michelle. They seemed quite human except for the enlarged black pupils that dominated their eyes and leered out with a ravenous greed. She could feel the membrane stretching and thinning underneath her skin. She struggled and thrashed to break free but her arms were held tightly behind her back and her captors kept pushing her up against the blob.

The man and woman were in a frenzy now. They licked the inside of the blob excitedly and even started gnawing at the glutinous sack with their teeth. Michelle knew why they were so getting so impatient to break through.

They were going to eat her.

With a piercing liquid shriek, they started to rip through the membrane; pungent ooze trickled down from the tear and ran down Michelle’s cheek. She kicked and thrashed for one last chance of survival but the eyeless ones’ grip was iron tight.

A blinding flash washed over the sky above. Michelle squinted as long, slithering tendrils of light reached down to the mound, sending it into quivering convulsions.

The hands holding her arms dropped away but it was too late. The man and woman, dripping with blobs of oily jelly, had burst through the translucent sack.

With one fierce, synchronised lunge, they threw her to the ground and sunk their teeth into her scratched and bloodied arms.