Xion Island Carrier: Chapter 15

I am filled with hatred. And the cold, exquisite pleasure of momentum.

The map of bloodlines stretches across my laptop like a spiderweb. They are thick when the connections are closely related, but fade to hair-thin and branching where time and name changes hide the truth. Names are words on paper, but blood is the code. And I am breaking it, one stinking Taylor at a time.

AncesTree, the database I used last year, gives me what I need. I have obituaries, birth and marriage records, remarriages, broken and blended families, and genome matches. I highlight the bastard swarm that, through no fault of mine, is related to me. They breed like flies and disgust me. It’s a family of maggots that needs purification.

When I was ready to cleanse them, I unlocked my birth name and traced the maternal line backwards. I did the same with my father’s side. It’s simple, like unravelling bad knitting. The McAlisters are just my initial row of casting on.

Because of these superficial looks, women fall at my feet. I’m a man’s man, all back-slapping and male bonding. They’d be surprised to know I enjoy the female-led craft of knitting. I’m fast, and as the garment grows, it clears my mind of the accumulating stuff. It lets me categorise and box my thoughts while my hands are busy, but my mind is free. I have no use for the disgusting things I make, so I leave them bagged on charity-shop doorsteps. But there was no charity on the Island, so I threw them in the dumpster for clinical waste.

I need to take stock and re-plan. I only have two ticks left, and the last one is spoken for. I’ll hit one of my loose threads next. It’s a third cousin in Newcastle.

I stalk my victims on social media, and this little butterfly has the furthest reach. She’s a busy girl flitting from one relative to the next. Tomorrow she’s visiting her sister in Wales, and if I time it right, I can hit two familial strains in one go. I call it genetic skittles.

Her married name is Pattison. The maiden name was buried, but I found it. Old lady Shelton, her maternal grandmother, was my biological grandma’s younger sister. On paper, it’s so remote that it’s barely a link, but that dirty blood’s still there. I have to get them, every last one, to rid the world of the Taylors, and all their stinking progeny. They won’t know they’re dying—until it’s too late to beg. I’m killing strangers and deleting the errors in my code.

This slag’s name is Louise, early thirties, lives in an inbred place called Heaton. It must be if it lets the likes of her in. No profession listed—you don’t say. Facebook says, ‘Full-time yummy mummy,’ which tells me everything I need to know about her capacity for original thought, and about keeping her legs closed. Her profile is filled with reposted memes. She likes inspirational quotes that make me want to puke, and her page is littered with photos of her kids. She adds hashtags like #foreverblessed and #motleycrew. She calls herself an influencer—my God. Influence this, you human cheese puff.

I am a scientist. I trained. I’m a biochemist, which makes this low life piece of scum unfit to walk in my tread.

She gave birth to her third child ten weeks ago. Lord, save us from this scourge. There’s another one, a girl this time. I don’t bother remembering the name. I don’t care. All I need is their moist bodily creases for my tick to feed, and a mound of sweating flesh that will carry it home to the family.

I prep: feed No.5 and keep it warm enough to stay awake. I don’t name them. I’m not sentimental, but this one is strong. It has twitching legs, an aggressive motion, and the telltale caramel-coloured dot on its back. She’s hungry—and pregnant.

The Lone Star tick. Amblyomma americanum. My beautiful monster.

Other ticks are passive feeders. I call them sit-and-wait parasites. But I have a tiny, mighty killing warrior. The Lone Star tick hunts actively, sourcing its prey. It detects carbon dioxide, heat and movement. It can sense mammals thirty feet away, and it runs to them. She skitters with purpose and chooses with care. It’s a skilled combatant and is unique in its ability to change hosts. Other ticks feed, gorge, drop, and die. But this baby evolves to be a queen among insects.

Other species attach for days, but the Lone Star tick is active and will move if it smells a better host. It craves richer blood. It isn’t loyal—but it is perfect. In trials, I watched it crawl from the flank of a sedated dog to the thigh of a Xion employee. He had a mild fever. Heat. Precision. That sucker let his guard down at the wrong time.

I’ll get close to Louise. The tick will do the rest.

Newcastle is brilliant, with grey skies, the smell of petrol, and a nice enough bridge. The city is a conglomerate of concrete and misdirected ambition. Everybody rushes to buy something, park somewhere, and eat Fast food in their car. Slow down, people. Newcastle: come for the nightlife, stay because your tyres got nicked.

I follow her. I know her car, a faded blue Qashqai with a cracked tail light and half of a Baby On Board sticker that’s peeling—not bought in honour of this kid, then. She shops on Tuesdays. Lidl. Benton Road, and I wait in the upper car park with my window cracked, engine off, and the radio silent. The tick is sealed in a container in my jacket pocket, warm against my chest, and active.

She’s heavier than her photos. Her hips strain against the denim of her jeans. Three children will do that. She waddles and her muffin top jiggles, but she smiles at strangers and speaks to the baby in the sling and the toddler by her side. She walks like a happy person and hasn’t noticed the world doesn’t love her back.

She goes inside, and I wait until she reappears sixteen minutes later, pushing a trolley full of convenience food. Not a single vegetable or piece of fruit. How do these people survive? The baby’s fussing, the toddler dragging a stuffed rabbit across the ground behind him. Her back is damp with sweat. Perfect.

I step out of the car and time it. I’m three rows over, walking towards her with eyes on my phone like any distracted stranger. But she stops and alters my plan.

She digs in her trolley. And then she goes back to the door, and the man sitting outside on the ground, with a blue nylon sleeping bag over his knees. I didn’t notice him. Bad move, I’m supposed to be observant and see everything. He’s a blight on society.

I hope he’s related.
            She offers him two paper bags from the hot food counter and smiles. And when the man reaches out to her, she drops some coins into his box on the floor, and then takes his hand. She stands talking to him and introduces her children. The man strokes the baby’s head. It won’t need my tick to contaminate it now. What kind of useless mother is she? Damn her, she’s still talking, telling him about her dog for Christ’s sake.

Finally, she leaves, waving to him over her shoulder and holding her child’s hand. The boy—three-ish—shouts goodbye in a Geordie accent.  

I look at my phone and walk. We meet behind her boot, next to the trolley bay.

My shoulder brushes hers. I let her body absorb the touch. And I reach out with my hand to affirm it, holding her for a couple of seconds to steady her. Enough. I step back.  Smiling. ‘I’m so sorry. No. My fault, entirely.’ I keep walking.

The tick has left me. It will crawl, driven by instinct, until it finds flesh under the clothing. It will burrow in the creases beside her bra strap or the folds of loose skin at her waist. She won’t feel it.

I follow her home and watch as she unloads the children. She’ll sit on the sofa and pull her shirt away from her sticky skin, but the tick will be in her by then. Latched on and feeding.

By tomorrow morning, she’ll be dizzy, then nauseous. She’ll say it’s stress or breastfeeding hormones, but deep down inside, somewhere near her uterus, she’ll be horrified that she might be pregnant again.

She won’t think she’s dying.

But she is.

I sit in my car, calm and efficient. I’ve done my part. Is her baby my fourth cousin? My third once removed, twice removed, removed from the frigging earth? Who cares. Love won’t save them. The baby is cherished, but she will die with no idea of the line she carries.

I go back and sit in the Travelodge with its cheap sheets. The smell in the room is of air freshener over mould. I eat vending machine crisps and a pre-packaged sandwich with a scalpel-clean sense of satisfaction.

My map is in front of me. I have seventeen names left, and all the deaths are reliant on visitation from the others, a vein waiting to be cut.

I make a note beside Louise’s name: Dropped. 13:42.

Then I pick up the next file.

Xion Island Carrier is book 6 in the DCI Nash series. They're all on KU. Hush Hush Honeysuckle is Book One, and this is the Amazon link.

https://books2read.com/u/4EB0zg