CHAPTER ONE – INFECTION
Deep within the dark and ruined heart of Africa, new forms emerge, minute genetic variations fermenting within the vast pressure-cooker of Darwinian struggle. Unseen to the human eye, undetectable to all, these micro-developments occur within species, infinitesimal stages in the evolution of life. Vast numbers of minute mutations live briefly and then die, leaving behind no trace of its potentialities or bearing no real differences to the gene pool whence it sprang. Some, however, cherish their tenacity to live on, adding to the possibilities of each creature. The more adaptable, and the more adept, survive. The brutal struggle for life crushes out all the weak, and the lumbering and stupid also.
As each variation is tested within the crucible of life, the variations may help, and breed on, self-fulfilling, adding to their difference with exponential strength. In the dense, steaming, life-crammed central African jungle, what survived were the traits which aided the survival of the species, in particular the qualities which were suited to the carnivorous creatures which lurked beneath the broad African sky. Some developed sharper teeth, some a keener eye, some a faster sprint, some a more devastating swoop – all facets encouraged by the desperate struggle for survival. Just as in the deeps of the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean, there lurk creatures with ever greater adaptation to their environment, with stronger scales, more luminous bodies to alight the unfathomable levels of the blackest oceans, ever-more incisive teeth. Nor are the developments restricted to physical variations; characteristics of the species vary as much as physical. Some may grow more vicious and blood-thirsty, some more intelligent, some more patient and animal-cunning, as the genetic strains which reward each characteristic are reproduced and integrated into the lifestream of the species.
So it was that the Congolese Flesh-Eating Monkey grew and developed, till it was supreme predator within the teeming Congolese jungle. Teeth grown ever sharper, the monkeys grew to be unparalleled predators within the vast plantations of lush verdant trees from which they sprang with manner-born ease. Yet this did not satisfy them. A new strain came upon them, a new trait, where merely to be top of the food chain within their locality did not sate their thirst for blood. Like humans, they conceived of the desire to hunt for sport, to demonstrate one’s prowess, to stake a claim in the omnipresent status-hierarchy which afflicts all mammals. As they grew now to truly fearsome dimensions, selection favouring the larger and more imposing apes, none could challenge their dominance, for none had their numbers, none had their awesome ability to come hurling down through branch and vine, jaw opened to reveal insatiable fangs.
So hunting came to be their means of pack dominance. Some could claim a gorilla, large and stupid; some an ailing lion or yet-maturing tiger; some preferred to strike into herds of zebra or wildebeest, to cause unparalleled panic and awesome carnage. The desire to kill, to slaughter, to wreak the utmost havoc, grew ever more distinct. Under the infinity of the African sky, lit up by the enormous silver bowl of the full moon, the monkeys poured through the jungle, a cascading tsunami of fur and fang, their shill cries sending death-stalked tremors through all who heard. Avaricious, utterly pitiless, they slaughtered all in their path, and all who dared cross into their domain. Bestriding the apex of the food chain like simian Caesars, their bloodlust grew ever more potent, and their dominance unchallengeable, inconceivable.
Then man – fleshy, tangy man - stumbled into their path. Like some virulent plague, man grew ever more populous, tribes becoming villages, villages sprouting to become swollen enclaves of pathetic, skinny, hairless mammals. The monkeys scorned them – they seemed no challenge, and if one or two stayed their way, they were happy to devour them. Yet as the Congolese Monkeys were unique to their area around the sinister African jungle surrounding the dread river of the Congo, man spread with far greater rapidity than might have been expected, and so sought out new grounds. Man is a social being, yet not that social that large numbers wanted to stay together. The monkeys became a dread rumour, a terrifying tale told by village elders to warn children from straying too far from the village. Shamen dressed in elaborate head-dresses held enraptured clans spellbound, telling flesh-crawling legends of dark enclaves of the jungle, shadowy, death-filled lairs, where no man or woman would ever escape from should they enter, with bones of human and animal lying ever more thickly as one approached. The tribes closest to the monkey’s domain cowered under primitive huts in the night, howls and shrieks chilling their bones like ominous portents of imminent death. It became a simple law: Do Not Go Near The Realm Of The Monkeys. Man does not enter where it does not profit him; the laws of the jungle run deep in his mental hardwiring, however rational he may think himself.
Time slept, unmeasured, in the deep of the Congo, as men kept their distance and the monkeys slaughtered all in their path. Whether baboon, man or tiger, they killed for food and slaughtered for sport, and none could challenge their sadistic ferocity or sate their desire for blood. Then deep in the heart of Africa, a new opportunity arose for men. A sacred fluid was discovered deep underground. Vast steel constructions were hurriedly erected, thrusting their proboscis through the skin of the earth and into the tectonic plates below. These metal machines raped the contents of the ages, as men lusting for power and domination sought new sources of wealth. They pillaged and plundered the mineral wealth formed over countless millennia, ravaging the geological treasure for temporary gain. The monkeys watched, intent, and waited. Here was a new opportunity. Ever deeper into the jungle did men roam, nearing territories where no human had stepped since time immemorial. The Shamen, with the wisdom of the ages, tried to warn the men of science, but in vain. Nothing could stop those in pursuit of wealth – free enterprise, they called it. And so the huddled tribes of the Congo were swept away by the incomers. And the monkeys watched and waited, as men grew ever nearer.
With the new industries springing up, there came the inevitable, subsequent detritus. Shanty towns sprang up, like noxious mushrooms sprouting overnight, to serve the transitory commerce of providing for the new workers. Fetid, rank bazaars stalked the disposable incomes of men seeking brief respite from grimly dangerous jobs; grotesque prostitutes, haggard and gap-toothed, patrolled dim-lit streets, like vultures seeking the weak and vulnerable; scowling unemployed teens gathered on corners, eyeing the unfamiliar with contempt and aggression. The wealth, of course, was never intended for the locals, and slipped maddeningly through their fingers, seventh-hand helicopters and airplanes transporting Western workers to and from, profits disappearing into the ether. Little trickled down.
Yet even the natives living nearby scraped a living, selling gaudy trinkets, running life-threatening restaurants, and running hell-hole bars policed by machetes and shotguns. The men who ran the enormous platforms which ravaged the oilfields still required some respite, and would brave the nearby towns, seeking dismal pleasure. They would drink until near-incontinent and be mugged by hulking adolescents, or bunker down with dried-out street women on piss-stained mattresses in dreadful shanty huts, driven by animal forces beyond their powers to control. But any who wondered, any who left the relative safety of the town, soon found himself beyond the sphere of men and into the realm of the monkeys.
One boy, brought up in the shadow of the jungle, did not heed these warnings. The warnings of the Shamen had been swept away with much else, becoming an old wives’ tale to frighten young children and keep them in line, stopping them from wandering too far. Or so he thought. Sent out to sell trinkets by his father, admonished by beatings and guilty reminders of his nine younger brothers and sisters, he walked the night streets, searching for drunkards who would listen to his tale with sympathy. Only fifteen, he was nonetheless accustomed to this, and knew to beware the women, the men up the alleyways, and the marauding groups of whities who grew in bravery and attitude when in groups of five or more. The laws of the jungle run deep. He walked, a sack full of trashy trinkets – authentically African – looking for eyes that were sympathetic rather than predatory, so he could give them that pleading look: the pouting, protuberant lips, the large white eyes so soft within his richly brown face. It took some time.
But as the night wore on, the main street lit up by rasping banks of neon incongruously garish over tumbledown buildings, he had some success. He begged and scrimped his way through numerous victims (as he, too, thought of them) and managed to emerge with over twenty dollars. What success! There being no fixed price, he had been far more successful than usual, coming into contact with a man from England who was missing his sons for instance. He could give his father ten dollars and keep the rest! He could buy something for his girl, and really take her out. Pleasant daydreams of how to spend this newfound wealth floated amiably through his mind. First, though, he would have to hide the money, as Father would search all through his things for any more money. There was a spot out of town, a deep culvert of jungle that he had seen long ago. No-one went there; it was dark, overgrown, and would make a brilliant hiding spot. Yes! Highly pleased with his night’s work, he followed the dirt track that lead to the very limit of the town, humming a sensuous tribal rhythm.
As he walked, the light soon dimmed. The trees, vines and savagely verdant shrubs loomed high and oppressive over him, and he paused. No sound, except from the dull roar of the town, now fading. He walked on, fear nestling into his back now, and looked for a spot on the ground to bury his booty. But everything was too exposed in the clearing; he would have to enter the jungle. He swallowed thickly, nervous apprehension prickling the hair on the back if his neck, as he brushed aside trailers of plants and outstretched branches. Still he walked on, into the blackened jaw of the deep jungle. Unseen shadows, glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, seemed to move, but when he turned to attempt to see what it was, there was nothing – no sound, no movement, barely any light to distinguish any objects from the utter darkness that seemed about to engulf him. Panic gripped his soul, and he hurriedly squatted down, frenziedly clawing at the earth. He wrapped some notes in a plastic bag and covered it with earth, marking it with a plastic knife.
Relief washed over him, gladness that he could make his way back home. He turned to face the glowing lights of his home town, which had rarely seemed so welcoming, so homely. He sighed and stepped off – when a blood-curdling scream came suddenly from behind him, instantly followed by an agonizing pain in his back, as some creature leapt onto him, thrashing his head and biting down onto his neck and shoulders. He turned, terror-stricken, trying to throw the thing off him, but found himself facing a swarm of enormous monkeys. Some were as large as baboons or gorillas. His heart almost failed, as a deathly paralysis took him, and unable to fight they leapt onto him, even as he fell to the ground. Vicious, victorious skirls and shrieks howled into the broad African sky, underscored only by the wrenching sound of flesh being torn to shreds and stuffed into blood-dripping mouths.
Next day his father, hungover and unshaved, without any money and worried that the boy had run away, sent helpful neighbours and the rest of his children out to find him. Late in the afternoon, a search party braving the edge of the accursed jungle found the grim remains. A skull grinned up at them from a blood-soaked ground, skeletal remains scattered nearby. All that remained to distinguish him were the stumps of his lower legs and feet, still clad in the white socks and trainers (now maroon with drying blood) he had so liked.
Following this brutal carnage, the dreadful reputation of the area revived; yet the new industries were so lucrative that the town had to adjust to living in fear at what lurked at its very doorstep. Myth, rumour and legend, formerly fading from ancestral memory, bloomed with a vengeful rapidity. But men need power, and power requires wealth; the oilwells continued their plunder undisturbed. Only the incomers, workers from Europe operating the machinery and refining the booty, paid little or no heed, for what were tribal tales to them, but stuff and nonsense from backward natives?
So parties of workers continued to taste the unusual pleasure which the town offered them, taking a few nights of their pleasure before flying home to wives and mortgages. They were warned off straying too far and few did, for there was nothing outside to please them. They preferred the dive bars, squalid cafes, and cheap prostitutes, which kept the town thriving. But these pleasures had their own risks. One man, following a four-week tour of duty, was preparing to return home to Scotland and had had an evening drinking. Single, and quite exhausted with the pornography he had amassed on his laptop, he attempted to find a woman to have sex with but had no luck. Drunk and disheveled were never great attractors. He found a prostitute, who led him back to a shadowy back-alley where a doorway offered a little shelter. He unbuckled his belt and let his trousers fall as she knelt down in front of him, taking him in her mouth. He groaned gently – oh, it’d been so long. Her head bobbed pneumatically, trying to get the job over and done with. But it went on and on, and nothing happened, as he’d drunk too much, and couldn’t climax. He tried thrusting her head down, angry with himself, inadequate, but she resisted and stopped, saying his time was up. He begged her to keep going, had to pay another ten dollars, but still couldn’t climax. It was useless, and in the end he even deflated grotesquely. She stood up, wiped her mouth and headed insouciantly back into the town. He leant against the doorway, panting, stomach curdling with self-disgust and his failure of sexual prowess.
Consoling himself, he went for a walk through the town, looking for some respite (and still, someone to fuck). But the aura of contempt and angst-ridden energy flowed from him, and his eye remained firmly uncontacted; even the trinket-sellers and prostitutes avoided him, as he stalked angrily through the heaving, throbbing streets. The roads thinned and lights dimmed as he neared the periphery, but this made no difference to him. In fact, the freshening air helped clear his mind, and he kept on walking on the dirt tracks leading into the deathly blackness.
He walked past the hurriedly-constructed shanty huts, their low-level hubbub soothing after the endless bustle of the town’s commercial centre, the night air cool on his reddened skin. Ahead, he saw greenery swaying beatifically. That was the place for him, and he strolled on. Virulent, violent thoughts still pummeled his distracted mind; scenarios of prostitute-beating, or winning bare-knuckle fights to demonstrate his masculinity, haunted his imagination. But the fine African air, the scent of night-blooming shrubs, acted as balms on his tormented soul. He saw a tree ahead and went to lean on it, turning to face the phosphorescence of its lights, sighing and thinking sadly how stupid he’d been –
But his reverie was cut short, as a sudden shriek came from the branches above. A monkey, a lone stalker scouting for solitary targets, leapt down from its hiding spot and landed on his back, plunging its teeth deep into the back of his neck. He gave a terrified cry, but the life-instinct kicked in immediately, and he thrust his hands behind him, took a hold of it and flung it over his head. The feral monkey landed painfully on the dirt, winded, but swiftly leapt up and made straight for his stomach. It would tear out his bowels and make for his heart. An unhappy choice, for as it leapt up, it managed to sink its teeth in - but not deep enough. The man squealed in agony at this dive-bomber attack but got his hands around its neck and squeezed with all his work-induced might. Even then the ferocious monkey clamped its jaws down, in a final, dying attempt to inflict pain and suffering. The man’s powerful, calloused hands kept wrenched around its neck as it weakened and faded; only then could he prise open its jaws, tossing it aside disgustedly, and hurriedly returned to town.
He returned to his accommodation and passed out in a stupor of alcohol and exhaustion. Next day he returned to work, as a chemist in the refineries. He made an appointment to see the Medical Officer in the afternoon, the soonest he could, but until then the unforgiving routines of work continued. His job was to analyse the contents of test drills, assessing the levels of the precious hydrocarbons and whether drilling was worthwhile. But who could have foreseen the eldritch interminglings of compounds and chemicals that had lain, undisturbed within the earth’s crust since the dawn of time, to which he would be exposed? Corrosive benzoates, intense acids, radioactive ions, and heavy metals – they all combined to create compounds never dreamt of or seen yet by the eye of man. Nor, for that matter, that ancient viruses and diseases borne by creatures that walked in prehistoric times would commingle with these arcane substances, to create some new viral infection, which would in turn react with the DNA of the flesh-eating monkeys which he had ingested into his bodily fluids. A new strain was created, of a level of potency hitherto unimaginable. Yet as it reacted with his immune system, it took time to translate its vigour into an effective, human-infecting virus.
He was patched up with some antibiotics, received some exquisitely stinging antiseptic on the cuts and grazes and admonished for walking by himself through the town (embarrassed by his misadventures, he had told the Officer that he had been mugged by some youths). “Hadn’t you been told often enough?” the doctor said, sternly. “You shouldn’t go about by yourself at night. That town’s dangerous.”
CHAPTER TWO – OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
Although it was usual to feel nervous and excited after a long trip away, Alan had to admit to himself that he just didn’t feel quite right. He’d commented during the flight to other workers returning to Aberdeen from the oil wells and refineries of central Africa that his stomach was churning with anticipation at getting home and going on the prowl for a lassie, but they had laughed and nodded. “You’re telling me,” an older guy, Scott, had agreed. “Four weeks away without a shag? Bloody murder! I’ve the wife to go home to though, so I’m alright,” he added sagely, “but you’re a young boy, you’ll be alright, eh! Plenty of lassies looking for a guy that works offshore.” Alan had just nodded. He had worked in distant countries and their various oil platforms before, and knew the condition called “the bends”, that gnawing sense of anticipation at retuning home after a lengthy trip away form home, the urge to get out for the night and seek out female company for carnal riot.
But never had it been so strong! His heart beat tremulously, rapidly but seemingly arhythmically, he could barely swallow, so thick was his Adam’s apple, and visions of sexual conquests to come floated around his mind, tantalising and enthralling: breasts, asses, fingers, pouting lips. If he didn’t get any sex, and soon… well, he just didn’t know what he’d do.
Fortunately, there were others with him who felt the same, if less intensely, and they had agreed to get home as soon as possible, get their gear away and changed into their pulling clothes, and meet up for a night on the town. So Alan found himself with three others men who had been working with him, unattached and seeking a night of pleasure. It was quite simple – either they’d find a girl to take home and shag senseless, or they’d drink until they were incapable, and return home with a consoling kebab. Either way sounded good after four weeks at work, away from the temptations and pleasures of city-life. John, Craig and Phil were, like Alan, in their late twenties to mid-thirties, all dressed in smart shirts and hair slicked back with gel, watches and rings denoting their financial security and desirability.
The first port of call that warm July’s Saturday evening was “Chicago Rock”, a cattle-market of an establishment in the West End, attended by the desperate, optimistic and deluded. It advertised itself as “ABERDEEN’S ULTIMATE PARTY VENUE!” and with staff dancing on the bar, a selection of dancy chart songs familiar to all, and drinks promotions was normally a place where those elements could disguise the basic function of the bar. However at 7pm on a Saturday night it was relatively quiet, and the atmosphere in the large cavernous bar seemed pitiful, the occasional glib exhortations of the DJ futilely optimistic. The men surveyed the scene, sipping their Budweisers with contemptuous scorn.
“This place is shite,” pronounced John, who at thirty-five and already divorced considered himself the elder of the group. “It’s not bad when it’s busy mind, but this is too early-doors.”
“Where to then?” queried Craig, fiddling with his mobile phone. “There’s all them places on Justice Mill Lane,” he said, naming a nearby side-street filled with party bars and cheesy discos.
“Ach, it’s still to early for all that,” John said. “We should go to a pub and get a lash on, so we’re in the mood for it later on.”
“The Bells is just up the road,” offered Phil.
“That place is shite!” John barked. “Filled with schemies and neds. Maybe your cup of tea, but no mine.”
Phil backed down quickly. “I’m just making suggestions,” he said. “There’s Paramount as well, down the road, or Soul.”
Alan, who had been sitting quietly and scanning the place intently, said, “What about Private Eyes, that strip place? Get a show before going out in the pull, eh?”
They looked at each other for a quick moment. “Why no?” Craig said. “It’s only about seven, plenty of time yet.”
“Aye,” Phil agreed, “some decent tits and that, gets you in the mood!”
“You’re always in the mood, you dirty bastard,” laughed John. “But why not? I’ve not been there in a while, but there were always some fine-looking birds when I went. Fuck sake, I mind one time, we took my brother-in-law there, before he was married, likes. We got him this gorgeous bird but he was totally terrified in case Shirley, my sister, heard anything of this.”
“And did she?” grinned Craig.
“Did she! Did half of us not have cameras!” John laughed, his beefy stomach rising and falling. “He had a hard time talking her round after that, he was in the doghouse for weeks!”
“Come on then”, Alan urged. “Let’s head round!”
“We’ll finish these drinks first,” John said. “Hold your jets.” Alan promptly downed his Bud and got his jacket on.
“Whoa!” laughed Craig. “Check the boy! Have you got the horn something bad!” However, the rest of them quickly polished off their drinks and made their way to Private Eyes.
At the club the doorman, sixteen gruff stones topped off by a fiercely shaved head and handlebar moustache, saw them approach and eyed them carefully, establishing their socio-economic status. Clothes, bearing and age quickly identified them as fairly young oilworkers or professionals. He then made eye-contact with each of them as they entered, determining levels of drunkenness or potential for trouble; but they nodded respectfully as they went in. They wouldn’t be trouble. Funnily enough, he thought, it was that very age-group which caused most trouble in nightclubs that was the least bother in the stripclub; the real bother was with drunken students, acting like idiots, or with the richer men who were besotted with particular girls, giving cars and diamond rings in efforts to buy their affections. But men of that age generally weren’t under any illusions about the dancers.
The men stepped inside, left Phil to get in a round of drinks, and sat on an ample, yielding sofa. They surveyed the scene. The club was luxuriously decorated, richly painted in reds and golds, with heavy, expensive drapes cast over a group of doorways on one side of the club, a bar with fine malts and a selection of the rarer spirits tended by a enthusiastic young female student, and sofas fit to burst were placed strategically around, ensuring that anyone not at the bar was available to be chatted to. Scantily-clad women, busty, long-legged and sultry, sat around on the sofas, entranced by the conversation of men telling them about their jobs or wives who just didn’t understand. Several sat about idly chatting amongst themselves, casting avaricious eyes on anyone entering. The men weren’t top catches – corporate entertainments were generally the most lucrative - but young men with plenty to spend weren’t to be sniffed at.
Quickly they found themselves joined by four alluring ladies keen to enjoin them in conversation. One was lusciously dark-skinned, a red dress flowing from nipple to thigh, while another was pertly-bosomed and blonde, haughty lips lustily marked out with blazing red lip-stick; the third red-haired, with pale, blemishless skin, while the fourth was tall and Amazonian. Entranced and enraptured, Phil, Craig and Alan found it difficult to strike up a conversation, letting John assert his dominance by leading off about how they had just come back from a month in Africa – “Oh, wow, Africa!” the women cooed sweetly – and were in town for a good time. “You’ve come to the right place, sweety,” said the first girl, in a tone so suggestive that Phil had to cross his legs to hide his straining erection.
When the dancers suggested that they give them private dances, John agreed affably, “Oh aye, go on then.” They all stood up – except Alan, sitting looking into space, nervous and twitchy. “Alan, mate,” John said quizzically. “Come on mate, there’s a dance for you!”
The dancers giggled nervously as Alan stood up and Craig remarked, “First timers, eh!” The red-head took him by the arm and lead him into a booth, closing the drape curtain behind her.
Inside the booth Alan felt as though he was on the edge of something, barely unable to control himself in the throes of extreme lust. The girl sat him down on the chair, introduced herself as Suzy and said, “You can’t touch me, alright? But I can touch you.” Alan paid up and nodded, unable to speak, his blood thundering through him like sexual desire on a bullet train.
Suzy turned round and bent over, wiggling her ass in the air like a ghetto hooker. Alan eye’s locked onto her like heat-seeking missiles on a Baghdad hospital. She turned to face him, running her hands over her body, dancing to the inane chart beat for all she was worth, thrusting a finger in her mouth and sucking on it suggestively. She turned on him again, bent over and slowly started to peel her dress off, revealing black silken knickers.
All of this had an intense effect upon Alan. All evening he had been sitting, trying to contain the furious lust within him, the raging desire to thrust himself deep into a woman, even to ravage and rape if his instincts were denied. The pouting, extremely attractive woman posing suggestively in front him sent these emotions within him haywire. Unbeknown to him, the DNA of the flesh-eating monkeys had mutated with the commingled unknown compounds dredged up from the very crust of the earth, creating some deadly pestilence ready to strike with savage virulence. His human immune system had fought it valiantly, denying the bloody urges surging through him, until now, leaving him teetering on the brink of possession by a demonic plague. Ignorant of all this, and assuming that she had simply acquired a customer who was a gangling mass of nerves, Suzy danced on. She turned to face him, noting with professional disappointment that Alan seemed less than enraptured by her. She pushed him back a little so he leant against the wall behind him, and sat on top of his thighs, her pendulous breasts swaying in front of his face, their sweet scent tickling his nostrils like the smell of apple-blossom in a spring-blooming meadow. Now Alan looked as though this was having some effect upon him; his breathing grew more rapid, and he looked with incredible intensity at her breasts dangling before him. She started to move rhythmically, encouraging him to do similarly, moaning in a rapt pretence of sex.
Encouraged, Alan thrust his head into her breasts. Suzy sighed, feeling oddly maternal – when all of a sudden Alan bit down ferociously on her right breast, piercing through the skin and the soft flesh, almost biting right through. Suzy screamed in sudden agony and appallede terror that she might have encountered a raving nutter, and quickly stood up, picking up her dress and fleeing to the safety of the staffroom. The duty doormen registered her terror-struck run from the booth and three of them walked forcefully through the club to Alan’s booth. Alan sat there stupidly , blood and gore dripping down his face, an uncomprehending look on his face.
“Sir! You’re going to have to leave!” barked Colin, the head doorman. “Can you step out the booth now, please?” It was no request, but the words and their vigorous tone somehow failed to register with Alan. “Sir, stand up right now, come on now!” he tried again. Nothing. He furrowed a ginger eyebrow, then moved into the booth and grabbed Alan by his shirt collar, and dragged him through the club towards the door. The other doorman followed in case he gave any trouble; which was just as well, for Alan suddenly turned his head round as he was being frogmarched out, and bit Colin in the ear, tearing off a piece of his upper earlobe.
Colin yowled in agony. “Cunt! Cunt! Fucking bit me, the cunt!” he cried. At such times, professional standards and bearing went out of the window, and the three doormen got Alan out the doorway and beat seven shades of shit out of him, booting into his prostrate figure with vehement force. After a minute or two, Colin pulled up Barry and David, his junior doormen, stopping them after several brutal kicks to Alan’s ribs.
“Whoa there, boys,” he said, dabbing his ear with a tissue. Breaking any bones could easily lose all three of them their professional licenses. He pulled up Alan’s fetal figure to his feet, holding him steady. “Now you, sunshine,” he said, smiling with lethal menace. “If I see you anywhere near this place again, you’ll wish you hadn’t been born. Is that clear?”
Alan was clearly dazed, and could barely focus on Colin. Yet somehow it seemed to Colin that the bloke was suffering from more than a kicking, like he completely out of it on drugs, or something; his pupils were enormous, his fingernails seemed unusually long for a bloke, and there were burst blood vessels up and down his cheeks. But that wasn’t Colin’s concern: he had to keep the club orderly, and find out how Suzy was. He pushed Alan away, watching him stagger off to be swallowed up by the night. “Alright Barry,” Colin said. “You stay on the door, we’ll head inside and find out what happened with Suzy. Radio the other doormen about and give them a description.”
Back inside, they found Suzy in a dressing gown, recovering from crying, being comforted by Emma and Nicky, two of Suzy’s friends amongst the dancers, and Tracy. Tracy was rather older than most of the dancers, being in her thirties, and acted as an unofficial shop-steward for them with the club owner, as well as a sounding board and giver of good advice. She turned to Colin as soon as he entered. “Who the fuck was that guy? Suzy’s been sitting here crying here eyes out for the past ten minutes.”
“Well, he’s away now,” Colin replied, trying to soothe things. “Come one now Suzy, you’re okay now, eh?” Suzy nodded, snuffling. He added, “He must have seemed alright if she went with him into the booth.”
“Well he damn well wasn’t!” Tracy cried out angrily. “That fucking prick went totally ape! Have you seen what he did to her?”
Colin had to admit he hadn’t, so Tracy tried to pull aside Suzy’s gown to reveal her breast. Suzy seemed suddenly shy and reluctant to let them see. Colin chuckled; he had seen all of their tits more often than he cared to remember. “C’mon, Suze, there’s no need to be shy, it’s nothing we haven’t all seen.”
She let it fall. Tracy lifted the pad from her breast, Suzy gasping in pain, to reveal the dreadful gouge, a good half of a mouthful taken from her, with ugly, savage teeth marks scored right through. “Holy Jesus fuck!” Colin said, aghast. “If I’d’ve known he did that to you… well, he wouldn’t be walking down the road just now, put it that way.” He softened his tone. “I’ll phone a taxi to take you to A and E, quine. Do you want anything just now?”
“Just a fag, if you’ve got one,” Suzy snuffled, covering herself back up.
“No problem.” He took one out, lit it and handed it to her. “Anyone else?” he asked, offering them round. Emma and Nicky, sitting nearby, took one, whilst Colin popped into the office to call a taxi and inform the manager what had happened.
Suzy sneezed, unable to cover her mouth with the cigarette in her hand. “Christ,” she said, “That’s the last thing I need, to come down with a cold as well.”
“I hope you haven’t caught anything from that guy!” joked David. The thought settled upon them all uncomfortably, like a blanket of dark fear. Their faces fell as grim, raw anxiety fluttered its wings around the room. Realising that he’d spoken their unspoken thoughts, David quickly tried to backtrack, saying, “You can’t really catch anything from sneezes, eh. It’s just dust in this place.”
“They did say they’d been working abroad,” Suzy said, as fear threatened to crumble her briefly-regained calm; her eyes, glistening with damp eyelashes, were large and deerlike.
“Ah, but you’ve to have all your shots before you go offshore,” Emma said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Tracy added supportively. “You can’t really bring anything nasty back.”
Colin returned. “The taxi’ll just be a couple of minutes,” he said, smiling, dabbing his ear with fresh tissues to stop the blood from dripping onto his white shirt.
*
Alan made his way down the road and onto Justice Mill Lane. He was lusting to consume human flesh; bestial thoughts of murder and cannibalism pounded through his destroyed mind. No longer subject to rational thought, he had become a demon, a zombie, one of the undead and undying. Stiff and shambling, he shuffled down the street, lips split, head tumultuously bruised, ankle twisted, mouth bloodied. Things were happening to him that would have horrified him, had he been able to realise what was taking place. His fingernails had split, hard and samurai-sharp claws coming through, inches long. His front teeth had fallen out, dislodged by fangs Dracula would have been proud of, whilst his incisors had grown incredibly, jutting out past his lips. His eyes were either entirely bloodshot or had taken on a grotesque blood-red hue, whilst luminous-green drool dripped from slobbering lips onto his shirt.
He reached “Dusk”, a cocktail bar aiming for a stylish clientele. Though it missed by some way, it was still choosy with its door policy, appearing to aim for a sunbed and fake handbag look. As Alan ambled his way to the door, the doorman took a brisk look at him. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “No goths. There’s a night on in Moshulu, on Windmill Brae, for you lot”
Alan looked at the doorman, eyes smoldering. He grunted gutturally, “Let me in, now.”
The doorman, Pete, looked bored and impassive. There were always more arseholes during the weekend. “Sorry mate. You’ll just have to head somewhere else.” His CB radio went then, warning of a male, drunk, and potentially very dangerous. As he was listening intently to the description, and starting to realise that he had that very man in front of him, Alan made a burst for the club, trying to push past and run into the darkened club. But as he ran, he slipped on the tiled floor and landed painfully on his back. A meaty arm turned him over and pulled his own arm sharply up his back.
“Right!” Pete barked, roughly escorting Alan from the premises. “Get out now! Move it on!” Defeated, Alan had no choice but continue on down the road. He shuffled on, dimly aware of the potential danger to him but suffused by the overwhelming desire to kill and devour. He avidly gazed into the eyes of those passing by him, but none would meet his glance. The hunting instinct was evident all around him. Dolled-up packs of young women gave predatory eyes to men in smart shirts, who themselves sought out vulnerable flesh and solitary victims. It was no place for Alan; it was far too exposed, far too busy. The West End of the city was no use to him. He had to go deeper. He would go further down towards the harbour, where the animals roamed free and the baser instincts could be given free rein. He continued his painful zombie walk, down Justice Mill Lane, down Windmill Brae, as the streets declined and led down to the older, less commercialised parts of the city. The air changed. It no longer smelled of perfumes and sugary alcopops, but of sweat, labour and the coarser spirits. That was the place for him. He shuffled on, slowly, inexorably.
CHAPTER THREE – ENDEMIC
Meanwhile Emma and Nicky had returned to the luxurious sofas in the club. There were no men available to chat to and ask if they wanted dances, so they had to wait for anyone coming in. They looked around the club bitterly, bitchily noting that young Tanya and her friend Mel had joined two wealthy-looking middle-aged men in suits – the prize catch of the night so far. And those two bitches had of course gone straight in for them! They exchanged contemptuous glances at the girls, at how they laughed at whatever the men were saying with such transparent insincerity, how they flattered them and made them believe that they were really, really interesting. They both seethed with fervid hostility, necks straining with tension, foreheads marked with a throbbing vein. Bitches. They eyed the rest of the club with baleful glances. Slim pickings – a group of students celebrating a birthday, a pair of men in their twenties sitting with their pints and looking about the club embarrassed, and a few older, desperate men dressed too cheaply to worth bothering about. And they had all already been taken, anyway. All of the dancers paid to work there, so lucrative was it, but they had to make their time worthwhile. Emma and Nicky knew that, and their frustration grew and grew as they saw the other dancers work the room successfully – frustration growing into anger, anger into seething rage, and rage into…
Fortunately some young men came into the club, which prevented Emma and Nicky from brooding over such unpleasant thoughts. A small group of students, just, but it was better than nothing. They grinned malevolently, as though thinking the same evil thoughts, and went to join them.
Emma quickly sweet-talked one of the students into going for a dance. He was a slender nineteen year-old who had read far more than he had experienced, with blonde hair childishly centre-parted and glasses too large for his face. He followed behind Emma, like a nervous, hopeful Andrex puppy being taken somewhere he didn’t know by a master it didn’t quite trust.
Inside the booth, once he’d paid her, she started to laugh inwardly as he tried to engage her in smalltalk, telling her his name was Chris, saying what subject he studied and asking her name. She put a finger over his lips and sat him down on the chair. She started to dance, pouting, thrusting and bending over, drinking in Chris’ rapt, utterly aroused, gaze. Her lip curled in contempt, even as she faced him, pulled off her top and let her skirt fall.
“You like that?” she asked, clutching her skimpy knickers at her hips.
“Yes…” he sighed.
She slowly, teasingly, almost sadistically, peeled her pants off, and then lay on the ground, legs akimbo and pointing down her stomach to her neatly-trimmed pubic hair. “Phwoah…” Chris panted excitedly. Emma grinned, despising Chris yet loving his appreciation, and stood up, running her hands over her breasts and plucking at her nipples to arouse them. By now Chris would gladly have spent his entire life savings on her, but for once Emma wasn’t interested in money. She sat over him, naked as the day she was born, and started nibbling gently on his neck. He moaned in absolute rapture, and started pitifully thrusting his crotch upwards. She started gnawing harder and harder, encouraged by his utter enrapture, until he began to experience acute pain and start to wriggle away from her. Undeterred, she thrust her oddly-sharper teeth into his neck, drawing warm, salty blood. Chris squealed like a gelded pig and pushed her off.
“What’s the heck are you doing?” he asked, in injured tones; he had been so enjoying that. He clasped his hand to his neck.
Emma stood there, chest heaving slightly. What had that been about? She customarily felt contemptuous of her customers; it was one way to keep her distance from them mentally, as well as preventing her job from getting to her. But that was ridiculous – she’d felt like tearing a strip from the boy. “I’m sorry,” she said stumblingly. “I don’t know what I was doing there. Do you want me to finish?”
Noticing that he was bleeding, and in fact bleeding quite heavily, Chris’ wounded pride turned into genuine fear. “No way! You’re off your head.” He walked manfully past her, erection thankfully deflating, into the club. David, patrolling, noted the injury and assumed that he had been in some kind of scrap with Emma in the booth, and rushed over to him.
“Right mate! I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Chris looked at the beefy, stern face, insulted and injured. “What?! I’ve just been assaulted in there and I’m getting chucked out?”
David felt a blazing desire to stomp the irritating little pipsqueak but restrained himself. “Sorry, sir,” he said, “but it looks like you’ve been in an altercation, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“But it was her!” Chris protested. “She bit me! Look,” he said, proffering his neck, with the evil-looking gouge.
David, however, could feel nothing but utter contempt for the gobshite standing in front of him and whining about being touched by one of the dancers. Typical fucking students, he thought; never happy, always wanting more. He turned Chris round, whipped his left arm savagely up his own back and marched him forwards to the club door. He nodded to Barry. “This little prick’s been thrown out. Make sure he doesn’t get back in.” Barry grunted in affirmation, as David headed back inside to check on Emma.
Inside, Emma was back on one of the couches, awaiting a customer. She gave David a toothy smile as he approached, and explained that she’d had to defend herself against unwanted advances. “You saw what kind of guy he was,” she said. “They always think they can get away with things, those little pricks,” she added, sadistic distaste souring her expression.
“That’s what I thought,” David agreed. “Little tosser. Ah well, if I seem him again, he’d dead meat.”
“Not if I get there first,” Emma added.
The evening wore on. Men came and went, the dancers danced, money and the illusion of sex and power were traded. At one point, Emma and Nicky were sitting together on a sofa, waiting for the next catch of the evening. Four men, carrying themselves with the aura of money and power, came into the club. David, behind them on the door, gave a wink to Emma, indicating their entry. She looked over at them as they self-assuredly prowled their way through the club, and licked her top lip suggestively. Once they returned from buying drinks at the bar, they looked in her direction. Both Emma and Nicky were looking over at them, bidding them to join them. That was all the invitation they needed. They walked over, unknowingly, to their doom.
Jan Langhaard and Gert Riseth were executives with NorOil, a supply-chain company which provided the nascent Norwegian oil industry with infrastructure and labour, and had grown rapidly under the owner and founder, Stig Byornebye. As the corporation had grown, Stig had had to expand not only the company but the board too, recruiting men with the expertise which he required. The oil platforms which poured in wealth for Norway (and for Stig) were situated amidst the bible-black and artery-freezing cold of the North Sea and Atlantic Oceans, inhospitable places toiled through only by the hardiest of ice-breaker ships or Russian submarines on the grimmest of expeditions. Now those oil platforms were home to dozens of men striving to extract the mineral wealth secreted beneath the oceans, and battered by howling, furious winds and raging oceans driven on by enormously powerful waves. They had to be strong. Jan Langhaard and Gert Riseth were engineers to trade, and with considerable experience in the oil industry already were perfect matches for NorOil, both commencing employment around the same time, as Stig expansion plans came to bountiful fruition.
Amongst their various tasks, Jan and Gert were required to liaise with similar companies in Aberdeen. As the oil capital of Europe (as it frequently reminded itself and all who visited), there was substantial expertise in Aberdeen in the unceasing developments of the industry. They visited twice a year, making contacts and keeping NorOil abreast of developments, Stig aware that competitiveness was based on more than price, that the pitiless oceans required the best technologies.
Although he had run the company as a fiefdom, as he reached his venerable seventies, Stig had started eased off his control of NorOil and increasingly leaned on his executives.
Opportunities for abusing travel claims and the like had started to appear, and while Jan and Gert were very well paid by Norwegian standards, the exorbitant tax rate they were subjected to left them far behind financially in comparison to their Aberdonian counterparts. True, they were surprised and disgusted that there were actually beggars in the seemingly-wealthy streets of Aberdeen, pleading for pennies alongside cash machines. But seeing the conspicuous wealth of Queens Road (the main financial and corporate area) was similarly unusual, after the homogeneity and social consciousness of Oslo. They returned home, envious and oddly ashamed of their lack of Ferraris and Ralph Lauren clothes. What they had suddenly seemed shabby, backward. Thus they began to fly aboard with the budget airlines rather than British Airways, pocketing the difference, and numerous other scams. Stig was too trusting to ask for receipts, and they knew that others in the company were up to similar entrepreneurial activities.
In Aberdeen, one main business NorOil dealt with was AberTech, a logistics company. Jan and Gert had made good contacts with two of the executives, Jim Moir and Kenny McStay, and there had grown up a tradition them exchanging corporate
entertainment twice annually. Both companies had a substantial fund for corporate entertainment, the better to smooth the wheels of business, and so when in Aberdeen they celebrated their outstanding business acumen with the rewards they felt they deserved. They pushed the envelope, thought outside the box and prevented the boiling of frogs, while keeping time for blue sky thinking: it was only right that they received pay rises several times the rate of the junior employees and received privileged perks.
So in a small, exclusive French restaurant on Queens Road that balmy July evening, all four men had treated themselves to the finest food that their companies could afford – amouse-bouche, homard bleu, suc lie de truffe noire et basilic pile, chicken breast demi-deuil, truffles in a crsip green salad, coupe glacee with liquid chocolate and brioche to dip in, all washed down with several bottles of Louis Roederer champagne and large Remy Martin cognacs.
“Well gentlemen,” Kenny said, immense feline satisfaction coursing through his well-fed face, “That was one superb meal.”
“Yes, excellent,” said Gert in his accented but excellent English, lighting up a Cuban cigar.
“Now what do we do?” asked Jan, leaning back on his chair and feeling his stomach strain over the top of his suit trousers.
Kenny and Jim looked at each other, Jim raising an eyebrow. “A good question!” he asked. “And I think I can answer that…” he said, lingering over the words like a ham actor.
The Norwegians were intrigued, as Jim intended, although he noted that their poker faces were good enough to convey merely a polite interest.
“Yes?” said Jan.
“Now am I right in guessing that you both like good-looking ladies?”
“Pretty girls, we like, yes.”
“Right. Okay.” Jim continued. Well, how does going somewhere there will be lots of pretty girls – and all of them available?”
Visions of a seedy brothel or motels and callgirls made Jan and Gert feel dubious; they had wives at home, and this was not the sort of thing they were after. Kenny drank in their concern and laughed uproariously.
“Got you worried there!” he chuckled. “No, really, what we’re talking about is some traditional corporate entertainment. The two of you are our guests and we’d like to show you the best Aberdeen has to offer. A strictly “look but don’t touch” affair, if you catch my drift.”
They got the idea. A Razor mobile summoned a taxi, which arrived promptly and took the four men to Private Eyes… and their deaths.
Once in the club, ushered in by a deferential doorman, Jim quickly made the arrangements, handing over the corporate credit card. Two dancers led all four of them through to a private room, which had a number of soft chairs at one end, soft lighting and mirrored walls, locking the door discreetly behind them. Emma and Nicky gestured the men onto the chairs, and began to perform a dance for them. They writhed over and undressed each other, licking their lips lasciviously, running their hands eclectically over each others svelte bodies, miming sexual activity with the convincingness of a British soft-porn film. The men were delighted, and cheered and wolf-whistled appreciatively, drinking in the willingness of the dancers to perform for them. What power they had!
But, as Jim had requested, the tables could be turned. Emma took Jan out onto the floor and began teasing him, Nicky doing similarly with Gert, making him kneel down in front of her as she thrust her crotch at him, or bent over and thrust her fulsome buttocks in his face. Jim and Kenny laughed and cheered enthusiastically, calling out, “Go on son! Give her one for me!” Then the dancers put the reluctant men onto all fours and began to ride them like recalcitrant horses, bucking up and down on them like cowboys on amphetamines. “Ride him! Ride him like the bitch he is!” Kenny called out, while Jim sat back appreciatively, enjoying his handiwork, as the dancers humiliated their friends under the guise of comedy.
Emma and Nicky had been undergoing powerful transformations during the course of the night. The deadly pestilential zombie-disease which Alan had incubated on his way back from Africa had mutated, adapting to its human environment with startling rapidity. Deadlier than AIDS, as contagious as the common cold, it destroyed the mind of any who contracted it, rendering them rabid demonic zombies which would stop at nothing to find and consume human flesh. The sadistic instincts of the flesh-eating monkeys had increased exponentially when combined with the aggression and strength of the human. Infected some time ago, the disease had spread from Emma and Nicky, through the soft drinks they had consumed, through the girl on the bar, and from there through half of the people – dancers, staff and customers – all incubating, waiting on some unforeseen signal to spring forward and destroy its carrier. Emma and Nicky, as the longest carriers, had been teetering on the brink of mental breakdown, almost entirely in thrall to the plague engulfing their waking minds. All they needed was a slight nudge, and now, with those men in their absolute power, they were utterly consumed by the raging desire to kill and devour which exploded through them, like detonations of impending death.
The men knew nothing of this. The dancers seemed to happy enough complying with what they had asked for, and in fact looked remarkably into what they were doing. After riding on Gert and Jan, they dismounted and took things a step further. Emma took Jan’s belt off and fastened it around his neck, slapping him on the ass and treating him like a dog. He was inwardly overcoming his discomfort and enjoying the comedy of the evening, and so he obliged by shuffling round the room on all fours, as Emma kept up a steady stream of orders, saying “Walk, doggy! Whoa, doggy!”, pulling back on the belt when he strayed too far. Meanwhile, Nicky took Gert into the middle of the floor and made him lie on his back. She straddled him at his stomach and began thrusting her crotch up and down on him, miming fucking him. Jim and Kenny were utterly delighted, almost astounded at this development, and cheered all the louder, shrilly wolf-whistling and stamping their feet on the wooden floor. “Good doggy!” Kenny shouted, “Who’s a good boy?”
At this point the virus turned on Nicky and Emma. Nicky moved her body further up on Gert, until her vagina was directly over his face. She thrust it down savagely over his mouth, pushing down with all her might. She felt his tongue probing upwards, attempting to lick her cunt, a pitiful worm striving to pleasure her. Kenny applauded, gesturing at Jim what was happening. “Go on son,” he shouted, “Lick her out! That’s it quine, sit on his face!” They stamped their feet and applauded like Jerry Springer audience members. Nicky bore down on him like a seagull on a discarded Big Mac, squeezing the air out of him and preventing any entering. Quickly Gert realized he couldn’t breathe and started to struggle, writhing and trying to push her off – to no avail, as she thrust down on him with all her might. She looked up briefly at Emma, seeing her pulling the belt tighter and tighter, holding onto Jan’s shoulder and pulling it close with superhuman, demonic strength, as Jan tried to wedge his fingers under the belt as it bit unforgivingly into his soft jowelly neck. “Go on Gert!”, Kenny cried. “You can’t let her get the better of you!” Nicky grinned evilly as Gert’s tongue began to wither, his struggle yielding to tormented, eye-bulging failure, as he died, tormented and asphyxiated by her deadly vagina.
In the soft, half-light of the room, and within the hazy fugue of mild intoxication, Jim and Kenny both realized, almost simultaneously what was happening – the girls weren’t pretending to torture Gert and Jan, they were really doing it! The strippers were killing them! They stood up quickly, ready to step in and save their Nordic friends. “Let him go!” Kenny called, “Now!” Emma let the belt go, Jan falling dead to the floor, as Nicky dismounted the prostrate Gert, and turned to face their challengers. Only now, in the light of the red bulbs, did the men notice how the dancers’ faces had changed – enormous teeth bursting from their mouths with seemingly deadly intent, fingernails more like huge cruel talons, eyes red and bulging from faces that were almost entirely vein-ridden, whilst ominous green goo ran from their lips, as though they were salivating excitedly at the murderous thoughts which their expressions conveyed. The men turned and fled, making it to the only door but finding the door locked. They pounded in a frenzied panic on the door, as the demonic zombie lesbian flesh-eaters approached them slowly, intently, almost savouring the fear and horror written in livid expressions upon their gibbering, pleading faces.
“PLEASE!” Jim screamed as he battered the door with all his might. The door was insulated to prevent any noisy raucousness seeping into the club, and only a mild thumping could be heard. David, patrolling the club, heard the thump like a dog hearing a dog-whistle – it was a sign. The zombie virus neared deadly fruition with him, and all the other hosts. Emma and Nicky lunged towards the cowering men, and thrust their deadly talons into the fleshy necks. Huge arcs of blood pulsed out past their fingers, burst arties flooding the room with blood, ghastly gargling sounds replacing dying screams and shrieks. Jim and Kenny twitched and jerked spasmodically, hands desperately trying to piece their bodies back together, but only falling to the floor, where large pools of blood formed, shining darkly in the dim red lighting.
The zombie lesbian flesh-eaters howled a triumphant scream, a horrifying, blood-curdling banshee-howl. They had tasted blood, and, their appetites merely whetted, now they craved to pursue further carnage, death and destruction. All within the club heard the call…
CHAPTER FOUR – GRUESOME DEATH
Bathed in a mild heroin withdrawal sweat, Debby Heaney stood in a shadow-darkened nook in Exchange Lane, a small alleyway which paralleled Market Street. As the umbilical link between the smarter, Union Street end of Aberdeen and the older, uncommercialised harbour area with sea-dog pubs, sea-faring offices and cheap hotels, it declined downhill from Union Street down towards the harbour, leading past it towards Torry, the fishwife district south of the River Dee. Market Street itself was a curious mixture of both aspects, closing-down cheap clotheshops adjacent to busy wine bars, working-class pubs next to Wi-Fi cafes. Exchange Lane, where the east-facing buildings backed onto, was a dark narrow alley, an unlit back lane with air vents, bricked-up doorways, and fire escapes. It had no shopfronts but was sometimes temporary home to the oldest business of them all, giving squalid shelter to a few scuffling couples throughout the night. Many men stayed overnight in Aberdeen before heading offshore, and prostitutes, like the bars and fast-food businesses, sought out their trade along Market Street, and Guild Street which bisected it.
Debby has been on the gear for a number of years, longer than she dared remember. It was epochal; nothing had been the same since she had got a habit. She had been part of the great Love Generation of 1988, feeding euphorically on Es like they were Smarties. One thing, as always, had lead to another. Needing something to help her come down from the manic wired state of one too many pills, she had discovered smoking the gear took the edge off wonderfully; then preferred it to raving; then it had consumed her, leaving the thin, squalid wretch shivering and waiting for someone to mug. All this took place over a number of years, her gradual decline charted by the falling away of her looks to a sallow-faced, yellow-toothed, scrawny thing, her friends turning through time to fellow junkies, scam-artists and thieves who thought nothing of turning over someone they knew and liked, if the chance arose. Debby had been victim to this but had also done similar deeds herself, when the need for money grew to desperation, and the bitterness of her reaction to being fucked over was half at losing out on money, but half on being naïve enough to leave others with opportunities. They all knew that desperation.
She normally did the route for a few hours every night, earning enough to get the monkey off her back, getting temporary respite from the insistent demands of heroin withdrawal. It was bearable, with the thought of getting some gear in the back of her mind like a beacon of hope, an oasis that she could hide and shelter from the brute realities of her present situation. Some of the guys were poor things, desperate for some love or affection, only able to get anywhere near that by buying sex. Some just wanted to talk; talk about anything, odd meandering conversations, where they came close to sharing some intimacy, but for awkwardness and inarticulacy. Those punters could actually feel more invasive than the guys who just wanted a quick fuck – they wanted to know about her, why she did it, what she got out of it (“money, you fucking idiot”, she thought), had she a bloke, if she had any regular punters? There were even guys who got her services for their adolescent sons, ushering her into a nearby hotel past the tipped-off night-porter to a room with a gawky nervous boy. But there were total bastards as well, who wanted to abuse women, and she’d developed an acute sensory awareness of any impending dangers. Not always successfully, as her gaping smile reminded her – but she could easily have come off worse than one tooth down.
That night she had been too late getting some cash together and the grim symptoms of need were in full flow. The thought of even being touched by some sweating, desperate drunkard made her shudder; she could never bear being touched in this condition. Her already graying flesh looked almost jaundiced, and her muscles suffered mild spasms, shaking and quivering, while sweat like frost on a car roof chilled her back. It was time. The dealer, Mikey, had the stuff of course, but no pleas or promises could move him. He’d stopped answering her pleading mobile phone, wouldn’t respond to any texts. Cash or nothing: that was the deal. But she couldn’t whore for money, not in that state; someone ape of a bloke pulling at her, running his grubby hands over her, thrusting his sweaty cock in her… the thought revolted her. If she’d had a hit, it was bearable, but not now, not on the brutal comedown. Her jagged nerves screamed for relief, but there was only one she could think of. So she was hidden in a doorway, waiting for some drunken fool to stagger past, donner kebab in hand and on the look-out for a prostitute to fuck badly, that she could mug.
There. She heard a shuffling ahead, at the mouth of the alleyway. Slow steps, unsure. Bingo: a drunkard by the sound of it. She gripped the knife in her hand, and tried to make herself as small as possible so whoever it was didn’t notice her as he (or she – but most likely he) staggered past.
Alan continued to shuffle on. The darkness of the alley had attracted his zombie instincts. It seemed the right kind of place, where he could pick off some kind of victim, or at least remain unseen. He walked, dazedly, arms out, clutching for whatever he could find. Halfway through the lane a shadow came from behind him, pressing a cold, sharp knife up against his throat.
“Alright mate, you want to take it easy and hand over your wallet?” Debby whispered desperately into Alan’s ear. Before she knew what was happening, Alan had grabbed her knife-wielding arm and flung her over his back. She landed with an “OOF!” on the cobblestones, winded and unable to get up in time, even as terrified panic tried to spur her on. Alan fell on her like an avaricious seagull on a quarry of fish, squawking his delight. He straddled her, brutally beating her head against the cobblestones, again and again and again, until any fight was completely gone from Debby, her jerking legs and arms subsiding, her broken neck limp as a flaccid penis.
Alan was delighted with his handiwork, demonic delight lighting up his face like Christmas lights being turned on. He lifted her head up, and found a section of her skull was completely caved in. He pulled her hair aside and thrust his bestially clawed hands into the blood-red wound, scooping out handfuls of brains. He ate them up greedily, gobbling them down as fast as he could, pieces getting smeared on his face or falling to the ground. He ate up all the brains he could. They’d make him twice as clever.
He stood up, and moved on, making his way through the side-street and onto Market Street itself. Suddenly a quiver went straight through him – something had happened, somewhere. Something… good. A deadly grin settled on his zombie features. He had work to do, true, but now there were more of them. He avoided the gazes of those walking past and made his way to the nearest nightclub, The Pelican. It was underground, dark and dingy, with thumping electronic music already drowning out the potential for conversations. Just the place for him. The doorgirl, interrupted from her “Heat” magazine, said “Free before 11pm” and let him past with barely a look. There were all sorts who went into The Pelican. Some people who were right states, too.
In Private Eyes, the whole freakshow exploded with shocking suddenness and horrifying intensity. Emma and Nicky burst out of the private room like a powerjet of liquid death, fangs already dripping blood, still naked, gore-smeared and rabid. All those who had been incubating their little stranger flipped and turned into ravenous zombies, eyes a rat-like blood-red, teeth and fingernails growing and hardening into deadly weapons. They turned on all those uninfected around them and set about their gruesome slaughter, sparing none. Women turned on men, men on women, dancers on clients, doormen on customers, customers on bar staff. The violence was immediate and ferocious; death, dismemberment and disembowelment the sole aims.
Nicky and Emma ran amok through the club, thrusting their fangs anywhere they could, Emma raking her talons deep into the stomach of the chubby DJ who fell, desperately trying to tuck his bowels back in. Nicky drove straight for a gaggle of dancers on a sofa, attacking them like a Tasmanian Devil with rabies, biting off any body parts she could, slicing off one girl’s face cleanly to expose an insanely grinning skull, thrusting her claws into another’s neck, chomping down on another’s leg to prevent her getting away, then falling on her ravenously, devouring her, working through her breasts and working into her ribcage, seeking out the still-beating heart and the major organs, which she pulled out her teeth, thrusting aside to lie on the floor, oozing blood and body fluids. David had gone berserk, turning on Candy, a dancer he had long harboured romantic and more prosaic feelings for. He had pulled her head off with his bare hands, and grasped it by her long blonde hair. He tied the trailing, bloody stump by its luscious locks to a door handle at the far side of the club. Then he unzipped his trousers and began fucking the dead head in the mouth. He ejaculated his demonic seed into the eyes, which were still bulging from Candy’s horror at how she was dying, the cum blistering and burning through them like some highly corrosive acid, smoking acridly. A customer that had been infected had pulled off one of his friend’s legs and was clubbing people to death with it, even as his friend bled to death, screaming in agony, “PAUL! PAUL! MY LEG! MY LEG!” Another dancer thrust her hand deep into a man she had been chatting to and pulled put his entire tongue, throwing it behind her, where it landed on a pint of lager, looking like an enormous gherkin in a large jar of piss, as the man choked on a cascading torrent of blood. The slaughter went on and on, jets of blood cascading on the floor, shreds of human flesh being thrown about savagely, occasional stumps of limbs tossed through the air, heads pummeled on the ground leaking brains and brain fluid onto the soft carpeting. David and Colin had torn off one further head each and placed them on their erect penises, holding dismembered limbs and seeking out further victims to batter to unceremonious death.
All who could turned to flee from the sudden nightmare they beheld. Barry stood at the doorway, a zombie colossus, eviscerating the panicking hordes who were packed up in front of him, his vicious claws and enormous strength taking out anyone foolish or terrified enough to attempt to get through him. A large and still-growing pile of disemboweled and dismembered corpses lay just in front of him, testament to his pitiless dedication to his reversed role to keep everyone inside. Emma noted the crowd jammed up against Barry, and leapt over to join in with the deadly melee, jumping onto the back of the man nearest her, biting off an ear, then as he struggled to pull her off, grabbing a hold of his neck and breaking it with a sudden new-found strength.
Amidst the carnage and torrents of blood and gore, a dancer called Laura had just come back from the staffroom, where she had been taking a break, reading a copy of “Hello” and smoking a cigarette. She stepped through the door to be greeted with the unholy sight of a number of rabid, feral zombies – who yet still resembled the people they had once been – mercilessly slaughtering everyone else who was in the club. The sight stunned her mind and almost popped her eyeballs, yet she retained enough sanity to turn back into the staffroom, where there was a fire exit to a side street. Nicky noticed her rapid turn and exit, and followed her into the staffroom.
Just as Laura was managing to move the fire hydrants and large rubbish bin that had been placed in front of the exit, Nicky entered the room. Laura turned and looked at her, in horror… and with some pity. Nicky had been a friend of hers. They had shared eyeliner and coke, laughed together about imbecilic customers and grumbled about managers, gone on nights out together, been friends together. Now she was a naked, blood-spattered, gore-smeared zombie. Their friendship was never going to survive that.
“Nicky…” Laura said gently. “Nicky… it’s me, Laura. Remember me?” Nicky slowed her approach and paused, looking directly at Laura, as some glimmer of her former humanity seemed to re-enter her shattered mind. Laura continued, “Something… something’s happened to you. I don’t know what. I’ve got to leave… please understand!” she begged.
A low, inhuman growl came from Nicky’s mouth. “Go…” She turned back towards the door.
Laura turned back to the fire escape, feeling as though she had had a reprieve on her life, and started to push on the stiff, unyielding bar to open the door. It slowly scraped across the concrete outside, and Laura slipped through as soon as she could. But just as she was pressing herself through the narrow escape, Nicky turned and, snarling, thrust her clawed hand out at Laura. The evil talons scratched painfully down Laura’s side, and caught on her top, tearing off the mid-section to reveal her toned mid-riff. But she heroically managed to push herself free, ignoring the despairing howl from Nicky, out of the satanic club and into the street. Laura ran, she ran like the wind, down Rose Street and onto Union Street, aiming for Queen Street, where she would find the police station.
The thing which used to be Nicky turned back for the club. The slaughter was coming to an end, the final sorry victims in their death throws. The zombies, utterly victorious, turned to face each other and howled a massive roar, a terrifying scream. But this was only the first part of the night. The grotesque slaughter had merely whetted their appetites. The whole city would be theirs! All would perish in the brutal carnage. They flung their heads to the sky, and the cry went up: “DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!”
CHAPTER FIVE - INSPECTION
Detective Inspector John McDougal sat behind his desk, brow furrowed, trying to comprehend just what it was that the young woman was trying to tell him. It would have to happen to him, of course. Just a few months to go on the force before contented retirement. Just a few months before moving from the suburbs to the house in the Aberdeenshire countryside, downsizing now that all the kids were grown up, with even young Donna at university now. He hated having to be in charge of the police operations on a Friday or Saturday night nowadays, too, but the luck of the duty roster had placed him there that Saturday night. He just couldn’t understand why the young people wanted to get so completely out of it, what they got from it, why they hurled such potentially lethal quantities of drink (and god knows what else, he thought) into themselves. He knew himself well enough to recognize that this was mostly just a sign of age. He had had his own fun when he was young, when courting Mary for instance. But that was almost thirty-five years back now. He was almost sixty, an avuncular, portly, yet recognizably fit man, carrying his former rugby-players frame with firm presence. Respected by his subordinates (and admired more than he realized), he had been highly comfortable in his job, having carved out a niche on the force where he felt like a fixture, a permanence. Having policed in Aberdeen and London since leaving school, there was little he hadn’t seen and less which surprised him.
And yet… the girl was babbling out a story which seemed the utmost nonsense, but with tremendous conviction. A bloodbath of sorts at the stripclub she worked in. (He groaned inside, loathing those dens of iniquity – he was a steadfastly religious man). Many people dead – staff, customers, all. Who or what had killed them? The girl hesitated – a classic sign of making the story up on the hoof. She looked clearly agitated, too. Was it aliens? Nazis? Had a bomb gone off – not that anything had been reported? Or was it some fire that had swept through the place (without smoke to alert anyone to it)? What he wasn’t prepared for was her answer.
“Zombies…” she said, as though hardly able to bring herself to say it. “It was like half the people in there had turned into… zombies.”
McDougal looked at her, frank disbelief written across his face. “Zombies,” he said flatly.
“Look, I’m just telling you what I saw!” she cried. “I came out of the staffroom after taking a break, so I’d been in there for about fifteen minutes. I came back in and there was a massacre going on in there. And the people… and the things doing it… they weren’t human.”
“No? In what way?” This was getting better and better.
“They had like… their teeth were really long, sharp and pointy, and they had these claws for fingernails, and their eyes were all red. Oh, they looked so disgusting…” she said, breaking down into uncontrollable sobs.
McDougal sat there dryly, waiting for Laura to regain control of herself. He studied her, as he had been trained to. No sign of intoxication on alcohol or drugs. 5’4”, slender, almost boyish build, shoulder-length brown hair, a few light girly freckles on a petite nose, blue eyes. Probably about twenty years of age. Why did those girls feel the need to strip for money? God only what he would do if Donna took it up: she was about the same age. But he knew exactly why they did it – money. There was rich pickings for a good-looking girl, and McDougal guessed she earned well, seeing how well groomed she was, the elegant few pieces of jewellery, the warm glow of a blemishless complexion.
“I ran out and my friend Nicky followed me,” she continued, head bowed. “But she wasn’t Nicky any more… she was… all wrong, not herself any more. She had blood and goo dripping from her mouth, and there was this expression on her face, like no expression, like it wasn’t her any more.” She looked up, only to see McDougal’s sceptical look. “Look, please believe me! Why would I make this up? What could I get from it? Please, just go and have a look, send out a car, anything! You can arrest me if it’s all bullshit, but I swear, I’m telling you what I saw!”
The vehemence of her appeal, despite his every rational belief, moved him. It wouldn’t do any harm to pay a visit to the club and keep the management on their toes, for drugs and prostitution were always liable to creep into such venues, and he could drop her off there, with an admonishment for wasting police time. He picked up his radio.
“Davey, can you get a car ready? I’m going to pay a visit to Private Eyes on Rose Street. Should be about half an hour. I’ll be there in five minutes. Thanks pal.” He stood up and looked Laura square in the eye. “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I’ll have a look. God only knows what you’ve seen, but maybe something’s happened there. You can come with me.”
“Okay,” Laura said. “I’m being honest, really I am.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
The car sped along Queen Street and into the melee of Union Street on a Saturday night, delayed by interminable traffic lights and drunken revelers crossing roads with little care and less attention. Laura, sitting in the front, noticed McDougal drumming his fingers agitatedly on the steering wheel as he waited for a gaggle of high-heeled and mini-skirted girls to cross the road, raucous laughter skirling through the air like banshee wails arranging a time to meet again. “Silly things,” he said sternly. “They’ll do themselves an injury.”
Laura nervously nodded acquiescence, sensing McDougal didn’t want a discussion on the matter. Still in her work outfit, the skimpy dress felt more revealing than ever before. McDougal however kept his gaze straight forwards, total concentration on the pulsating streets.
They reached Private Eyes, parking (Laura was privately amused to notice) on the double-yellow by the doorway. They got out the car, McDougal first reaching into the glove compartment for something which he bundled into his pocket. Laura held back, waiting to follow him, but he stood there by the car.
“Hmm,” he said, looking about carefully up and down the street. With a thrill of fear and adrenalin Laura realized that he was nervous, even scared about going into the club. “There’s normally people going in and out, isn’t there?” he said. “Something might well be up. Stay close to me.”
Herself quivering with fear at what they would find, Laura agreed readily. She followed McDougal’s comforting, aging prize-fighter bulk up the pathway to the club.
The solid black door was closed. McDougal pushed it with one hand but couldn’t open it. “It shouldn’t be closed,” Laura said anxiously.
“I know,” he said brusquely. He leaned on it, pressing his solid weight firmly onto the door. Still it wouldn’t shift. “Right,” he said, moving a few steps back, preparing himself. “Watch yourself!”
Laura stepped back and watched fearfully, as McDougal took a run at the door and smashed his shoulder into it, giving a quick scream as he burst through the door and into the club. She followed him quickly, dreading to enter the foul maw of hell yet afraid to leave his protective aura.
As soon as she entered, she saw two things: McDougal standing with a look of appalled horror on his face, and what exactly it was that had been blocking the door. The impact of McDougal’s entrance had sent scattering a collection of severed arms, hands, legs, feet and (foulest of all) heads which had been stacked up against the door. They both looked about the place, an ominous quiet hanging in the air along with a fetid stench which grasped eagerly at their throats.
There was no-one there.
No-one there, true, but Hell had been here. Heads evidently torn off rather than severed (going by the roughness of the tear) had been thrust onto the beer pumps. Numerous limbs lay strewn around the place like toys in an unruly child’s bedroom, askew and mangled. A number of headless corpses – including, Laura saw tearfully, what looked like the remains of Tracy, her best friend in the whole stinking place – were lying in awkward positions throughout the place, slumped and leaking fluids from the neck. Torn strips of flesh were streaked all through the place, on the large mirrors, on the tiled bar, on the chairs. Vast pools of blood were seeping into the luxurious carpet. A portion of intestines had been flung onto the lighting system, the heat from the bulbs cooking the thin tissue and causing a nauseating reek. Hearts, livers, spleens, kidneys and eyeballs, leaking vital fluids, were scattered throughout, randomly punctuating the décor with marks of meaningless violence. In the toilets innards had been smeared across the clean tiled wall, the blood on the lights casting a malevolent crimson aura. The staffroom and managers office were similarly overwhelmed with the remains of a staggering violence.
They returned after checking the club thoroughly to the centre of the club. McDougal took a look at Laura, his face a pallid grey, and vomited profusely, knees buckling as shock and awe swept through him. “Jesus Christ our Lord,” he said, pulling himself up when finally able. “Oh God Almighty,” he said sorrowfully. “How can… how can this have happened?!”
Laura looked despondently at him. “I don’t know.” She looked about the club, heart pangs tearing through her as she recognized the gruesome remains of former colleagues and clients. “I just came into the club, out of that door there - ” pointing out the staffroom door – “and saw this massacre going on. Then I turned and ran.”
McDougal looked at her, once more questioningly – but this time because he was desperate to know. “And these things weren’t human, you said?”
“No… it was like they had got some horrible disease or something, somehow they’d changed into these… monsters.”
“And all this was done by hand?” he pressed her.
“That’s what I saw,” she said, softly. “Just all tearing into everyone, clawing them, biting them, tearing limbs off - ”
“Alright,” McDougal stopped her, before she became overwrought. “How many do you think there were?”
She paused, thinking, loathing having to recall those foul memories flooding through her brain. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe ten, maybe a dozen or so.”
“Oh… Oh boy. So there could be a dozen of these things going about the town?” he said. “Sweet Jesus.”
“But - ”
“But?” he pressed.
“That’s how many I saw do it. But there were a lot more people than that in here. Some of them are here, but there’s a lot more limbs and things lying about than there are bodies. Some people must have been able to leave when they’d had their arms or legs torn off.”
The grim implication of this statement took some time to settle into McDougal’s mind, a mind which desperately wanted to reject the horror which was confronting it, and the future horrors which were unfolding before him. “My good God,” he whispered hoarsely., eyes bulging “This can’t be happening!”
“Do you believe me now?” Laura asked bitterly.
“Aye, quine. I do.” He took out his radio. “Come in, Alpha Bravo One, this is Juliet Mike Charlie.”
The radio crackled into life. “Alpha Bravo One here.”
“We’ve got a Code Red position here, folks.”
“Code Red?” came the voice in disbelief.
“Code Red.”
“C’mon, John, April Fools Day was three months ago - ”
“This is no joke!” he shouted angrily. “Code Red! Get it into your skull right away and get your thumb out your arse!”
“Sorry chief. I’m right on it. Are you okay there?”
“I’ve got a car outside, I’ll be okay. Get all men contacted, all cars contacted, and get the guns assigned. This could be a national state of emergency here!”
“Holy fuck sir, I’ll see you shortly.”
“Hopefully.”
“I hear you. Over and out.”
McDougal turned urgently to Laura. “We’d better get back to HQ. I’ll need you to brief our people there.”
“Me?” she said in utter surprise.
“Yes, you!” he said. “You were there at the beginning. You figured out what’s happening as well. This could be an epidemic of unimaginable proportions, Laura. We have to deal with this as quickly as possible, or the entire city could be doomed!”
Nodding to her, they walked briskly out of the club, hurriedly got into the car and returned through the busy streets to the Queen Street Head Quarters.
Alan - or the thing that was formerly known as Alan - sat in a corner of The Pelican, hidden amidst the shadows and pulsating music of the club. Clubbers desperately sought for the attention of the harassed barstaff or exuded a manic energy which belied their consumption of less common intoxicants. The older hands sat nonchalantly on dance-floor viewing chairs, whilst those less familiar with the club stood, their territory not yet marked out, clasping proprietary bottles of beer and alcopops. Other shadowy figures stood around, almost incongruous, sought out only by the initiated for their illicit wares. The dancefloor jerked and throbbed with amphetamine energy, with dissonant sounds grinding over unforgiving beats, the lighting casting endlessly-shifting colours and patterns without ever fully illuminating the area and breaking its spell. It was just the place for Alan, a place for secret trysts in gloomy corners or hidden deals in murky areas, where the rule of law had receded with the light. He surreptitiously supped from a lukewarm pint-glass which had been left by a forgetful owner, passing the time before an opportunity arose.
His destroyed mind was working now on a purely instinctive basis. His craving to butcher and consume human flesh was at an almost overwhelming strength, yet some force for survival kept him from diving straight into the dancefloor and eviscerating a dozen euphoric dancers, some animal awareness of the laws of the jungle. It was a time for camouflage, not direct attack. Yet the scents of sweat and perfumes mingled with the pheromones in the air, giving lustfully murderous impulses in him a ravenous avidity.
Some drunken fool stumbled over him, babbling, “Sorry eh, mate!” Alan stood up, stealthily, and followed him to the toilets.
“Eh mate, how’s it going!” he said, noticing Alan step into the small toilet beside him. Alan saw a typical underground clubber, expensive hoody, baggy jeans, skate-style trainers, trendy goatee, obviously drunk. “Some outfit you’ve got there, like!” he added. Alan stood there, feral mouth dripping slime, brains smeared over his face and shirt, rigid with the desire to murder the gibbering fool. “I’m Bob! Nobody told me it was fancy dress the night as well, that’s mean contacts you’ve got there, your whole eye’s are fucking red!”
Bob stepped into the small lavatory cubicle. “Fancy a line, mate?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Helps straighten your head if you’ve been drinking too much.” Alan stepped forward into the cubicle with Bob, who locked it. He reached into his pocket, brought out a small plastic bag with white powder in it, and began to rack up two lines of coke. Alan stood, waiting until Bob was intent on forming the lines with his credit card. “You take much charlie like, mate?” Bob asked, happy to keep babbling in lieu of conversation. “I like it, help me keep going through the night, you can just keep on drinking and drinking - ”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Alan grabbed a hold of Bob’s head and thrust it into the toilet bowl, savagely beating his head down, banging it off the enamel bowl when Bob struggled for dear life. Bob was quickly but not deftly murdered; he had his skull shattered as well as choking to a ghastly death on the rancid piss-filthy water, Alan’s zombie state giving him the ferocious strength to hold down Bob’s head. Once the struggles from a fading Bob subsided, Alan left him slumped, head-down in the bowl. There was plenty more where that came from. He jumped up on Bob’s back and climbed over the cubicle walls, back into the toilet and then into the club itself.
As soon as he re-entered the heaving sweatbox, something seemed different, somehow … better. The infection had begun to spread. His work done, he left the club, avoiding the disgusted looks of those coming past him who could see and paid attention to the revolting sight he presented. He stepped out into Market Street and continued his route downhill, slowly trudging towards the harbour and the docks.
“Turn up the tunes!” cried out Dave, taking a big toke from the fat joint, to Stu, who was driving the car like he’d only just got it.
Stu pumped up the car stereo, blasting out the drum and bass mix he’d burned to a CD, the beats vibrating the inside of the Peugeot 106, the rasping MCing coming out the windows like some armed and dangerous black men ready to ruin your neighbourhood. The air in the car was thick with grass-smoke, a warm fugue which was getting both of them seriously high. They were speeding down King Street, having come from the suburbs in Bridge of Don, on their way to Torry to pick up some pills and acid from their dealer. There was to be a beach party that night at the mouth of the River Don, and Dave and Stu liked to have provisions. The grass was really nice shit, but it could make you sleepy or lazy if that was all you had, especially on an all-night beach party which would kick off after the clubs closed at 3am. They needed something with energy and the pills would do nicely. The acid was just to see what would happened; it would probably feel pretty fucking mental, sitting on the sand dunes and watching the sun come up on the horizon. Like, totally cosmic.
The beach party sounded like it would be the shit. There would be a generator for the energy, a small marquee for DJs to play their stuff, and probably hundreds of people. Once the word was out, all the clubbers, clued-up students and party freaks would make their way there. Jungle, techno and drum and bass would blast out, shaking the sand from the dunes and keeping the energy levels up until the sun was high in the sky of a new morning.
“Woop woop!” shouted Stu manically, as he came to a red light. “Must be my turn for the joint, eh!” Dave obligingly passed it over and Stu sucked on it like it a kid with a big ice-cream cone. He held it in his lungs until the lights turned to green, took another hefty toke and passed the joint to Dave, slamming his foot down on the accelerator. “Ah, marijuana…” he croaked as the smoke seeped from his lungs.
“Dig it, man!” Dave agreed, a stoned smirk creeping up his face. He finished the joint and threw it out the window. “I might take a pill just now,” he added, cheekily.
“Just now? Are you fucking mental?” Stu said, grinning. “You might not get into Kef tonight, with you pilled out of your tits,” he said, naming the club they were heading to, before the beach party.
“Ah, just a half,” Dave said, taking a pill out of his pocket. It was their last one – hence the trip over to Ralphy’s. Ralphy was a dodgy fucker (his manic, wired eyes telling a story of several pills too many) but he seemed to have drugs coming out of his ears: an agreeable situation for Stu and Davy.
“Mmm,” Stu said, turning it over in his mind. On the one hand, it was stupid driving when pilled, it was harder to judge distances, much harder to pay attention when the music just made him want to groove out, and damn near impossible to be completely safe. On the other hand, it was just half a pill, a cheeky little taster, enough for a sweet buzz but not enough to get totally out of it. “Alright, gimme half then,” he said. Dave bit the pill in two, took his half and handed the other over. They both grimaced slightly at the alkali, chalky taste but swallowed the half willingly.
“Whoop whoop!”
“Whoop whoop!” Dave cried. “Come on! Have it!”
They sped down the long straight of King Street, past the university, past Morrisons, past Castlegate and onto Union Street. At the first left they turned down Market Street, towards Torry, the road going downhill and then straight alongside the harbour and the numerous quays. At the junction with Guild Street the traffic light turned red just before they got through, leaving them first in the queue. The pill was starting to work on Stu, and with the pounding excitement of the music working its magic on him, too, he began to feel ready for driving a little longer. He indicated left.
“Where we going?” Dave said, an enormous smile breaking his face wide open, eyes shining as the pill took its effect upon him, too.
“A little drive around!” Stu said. “Feel the beats, feel the beats, man! Let’s laugh at all the prozzies peddling their ass on the street,” he said, grinding his teeth and revving the engine. At the green light they turned onto Regent Quay, part of the tolerance zone for prostitutes. It was still relatively early, only just after 10pm, still quite light, and there was hardly anyone patrolling the area. At the junction with Virginia Street Stu said, “Ah, fuck it, nobody there! Let’s head to Ralphy’s” and turned the car around. They sped back along Regent Quay, to rejoin Market Street and the road to Torry. Just as the music turned to a strange three-dimensional shape in his mind, Stu took his eye off the road to bob his head agreeably to the rhythm.
Suddenly the windscreen was filled with something; Stu ground his foot down onto the brake desperately, but too late. The momentum of the car took them into something, knocking it clear. The car skidded to a squealing, tire-burning halt.
“Fuck!” Dave said. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Stu said fearfully. “Let’s hope it was a fucking seagull or something.”
They got out of the car gingerly. In front of them, as they saw as soon as they got out, lay Alan, in a crumpled heap on the side of the road. “Oh fuck,” said Stu, grinding his jaws. “This is bad.” They walked over to the prostrate figure, hoping beyond all hope that he was alright. He looked a mess, blood and mess down the front of his shirt, face disfigured, hands peculiarly twisted and misshaped. No movement. “Mate!” Dave called desperately. “Oi, mate!” he said, turning him round and then pulling at the man’s shoulder, hoping for some response. Nothing came. Stu and Dave looked at each other desperately, their pupils enormous with ecstasy and fear.
“We can’t report this!” Stu said. “Not when we’re both pilled!”
“Maybe we can revive him,” Dave said hopefully. He squatted by the man, trying to detect a pulse on his chest. “I’m not sure,” he said, “can’t tell if there is one.” He began to thump on Alan’s chest, then slapped him on the face. “Wake up!” he shouted, his face directly over their victim. Suddenly an Exorcist-jet of acrid, vile-green vomit blasted out of Alan’s mouth onto Dave’s face.
“Fuck!” he cried. “Cunt’s not dead!” He stood up, disgustedly wiping away the repulsive sick.
“Even if he’s not, we’ve half-killed him,” Stu said, trying to reason. “We’ve ran into him on the influence of drugs. That’s a fucking jail sentence right there. He’ll probably die if he doesn’t get help, but if he does, we’re fucked.”
“So what are we going to do?”
The insanity of the idea Stu laid out was staggering, yet it seemed the only way out for them. After a brief, whispered, panicky discussion, they pulled Alan off the road and into one of the numerous small openings off Virginia Quay. Dave went further down the street, looking for one of the large black wheelie bins. They opened it up, lifted Alan up into it and let him drop into the rubbish within, gently closing the lid with enormous relief. Out of sight, on of mind. Luckily no-one had been driving about to see them carry out their dastardly plan.
They got back into the car and made their way to Ralph’s flat. There was still a night out to be had and a beach party to go to.
CHAPTER SIX – WILDFIRE
Meanwhile the zombies had been coursing through Aberdeen like a deadly virus through the shattered immune system of an AIDS victim, encountering no resistance worthy of the name. They spread out from the central point of Private Eyes, forming a lethal circle which swelled exponentially as they made their slow but inexorable way through the citycentre. Some now had limbs missing, some enormous gouges torn from their faces or from necks which quivered with twitching tendons and shredded flesh, others still were in clothes dripping with blood and bodily fluids, whilst the zombie virus added its own gruesome touches – eyes entirely red, fingernails transformed into deadly wolverine claws, teeth into vampirical fangs. Yet as the night had progressed, the crowds milling through the streets were inebriated almost to the point of mental retardation and only noticed what they beheld when it was too late. The zombies, too, had an animals instinct and proceeded through the streetlight-lit roads singly, minimising any attention. Kebab shops, chip shops, bars, clubs, swirling gatherings around buskers, ticketers promoting nightclubs, people heading to or coming from establishments singly, in pairs or in groups, beggars at optimistic sites adjacent to cash machines or fastfood queues, taxis, cars, buses with disembarking loads of bushy-tailed students – all presented excellent opportunities for the zombies. They did not pass them by. The demonic disease which had lain dormant on Alan for so long, mutating with his human DNA, had adapted with horrifying rapidity. It was spread now by bodily fluids and worked its way through a new host in a matter of minutes, turning them also into slavering, rapid monsters. Death in the ordinary fashion did not affect the zombies, as Laura had rightly judged. Dismemberment, disembowelment or loss of major organs could not stop anyone afflicted with the dread zombie plague. By some alchemical, mutated-contagion process, some bestial, animal instinct kept the body moving even whilst the neurotransmitters in the brain had ceased to function. Braindead, the zombies moved on by some nefarious instinct, seeking only to devour and destroy. Humans, as the nearest, the most numerous and helpfully self-incapacitated, provided ample victims.
Thus the drink touched in The Pelican spread its contagion throughout the club, its new drinker passing a cigarette to a girl. She greeted a newly-arrived friend a welcoming kiss, who sneezed when on the dancefloor. Some of the infected left for other clubs and bars, unwittingly bringing death with them, as the zombie fever spread wherever a carrier went. The contagion spread like a bushfire through tinder-dry outback scrub, the packed bars and streets providing ideal breeding grounds for the evil plague. A single carrier could enter a bar and within less than an hour would proceed to transmit to the majority of the revellers; or one drunken
Deep in the bowels of Aberdeen University, Colin King sat in a computing lab, typing up the figures from his statistical analysis of his experiments for his doctoral thesis. Although it was Saturday night he was close to completion of his thesis and even closer to the August deadline. Besides, he wasn’t one for going out too much. From an early age he had been an avid student, thirsty for knowledge, preferring his books to nightlife, his computer to women. You knew where you were with them. He had thus always been drawn to the safer but more imaginative things in life, from multiple role-playing games to Warhammer.
He charted an Excel graph, comparing the effects of traditional anaesthetics to the one which he had been formulated. He knew that not only would he have a doctorate and command a good research post, the patented formula of his anaesthetic would bring him a great deal of money. It was a form of somnabo-cannibinoids, one which rendered the mind unconscious while keeping the patient safe to a much higher degree than with chloroform, for instance. No need for measuring heart-rates or the unpleasant side-effects of nausea and aching muscles, nor any risk of overdose.
