Paintshark (14 page)

It didn’t matter what creature or monstrosity they had lined up for Cassandra. The audience still cheered loudly anyway. Cassandra woke with a start in not so unfamiliar surroundings. She was in her car, in the driving seat, still strapped in by the seat belt. Her mobile phone was in her hand and there was a voice on the other line. Cassandra looked around, it
was
her car and she was by the side of the road on a busy motorway. The voice on the other end of the phone crackled.

“HELLO? HELLO MISS, ARE YOU STILL THERE?” Cassandra held back a sob and fiddled with the phone. “HELLO? HELLO? PLEASE HELP, THEY KIDNAPPED ME PLEASE COME, THEY TOOK ME AWAY.”

The voice on the line stopped her. “Please calm down, Miss, this is a motor vehicle breakdown service, you rang us because your car has broken down, please remain with your vehicle and we will come to you, please sit tight.”

Cassandra’s eyes fluttered around the car, not paying attention to the engineer.

“NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, THERE’S A MAN, THE NETWORK MAN, HE TOOK ME, HE TOOK ME AND MY FRIENDS AND HE–”

The voice stopped her. “Stay with your vehicle, Miss, we will be with you shortly.” The line went dead.

“NOO!” She threw the phone on the floor and then hastily picked it up again wiping the tears of frustration from her eyes. Stepping out from her car, the frightened girl tried her phone again and the signal was lost, there was nothing and she was stuck with no idea where she was or how she got there, she looked to the sky and screamed, “WHERE AM I?”

Cars whizzed by her as she held her phone aloft to make it work, but it stayed dead. It was now dark and the headlights from the cars made their speed difficult to determine. Cassandra tried in vain to stop the oncoming traffic, but none of the cars would stop.

“STOP PLEASE.” The traffic merely swerved out the way. “COME ON, STOP.” They didn’t.

Behind the road barrier was a steep hill, and Cassandra could just see through the trees that at the bottom was a house with the lights on. She closed her eyes and concentrated to see if her monster face would return, feeling her head to find her features hadn’t changed, she stepped over the safety barrier and stumbled her way down the steep slope.

Her black knee high boots were becoming caked in mud and her dress gained a few rips from the unforgiving branches, brushing them aside from her face it took another stumble before she was on flat ground, she ambled towards the house, her eyes taking note of her surroundings.

The house was massive and run-down, there was a smaller outhouse by the side, similarly derelict.

There were old run-down cars scattered along the huge uncut front lawn, which usually would seem strange, but with the state of the house as bad as the scrapped cars outside, it looked eerily in place.

Cassandra cautiously eyed up the house as she walked up onto the porch.

The windows were boarded up and the pungent smell coming from beneath the porch floorboards made her wince slightly. Wiping her nose, Cassandra knocked on the aged wooden door.

“HELLO? ANYBODY THERE?” There was silence. “HELLO, I NEED SOME HELP PLEASE?”

She needed help badly and despite a little voice in her head telling not to, Cassandra turned the handle and slowly stepped inside. It was dark, darker than it was outside and the smell didn’t just make her nose itch, it now was beginning to make her stomach turn, she checked under her heels to see if she had trodden in some dog’s mess, the smell made her feel sick.

Feeling for a light switch Cassandra ambled forward, feeling her way along the damp walls turning only to close the door behind her.

None of the lights worked so she took out her phone and flicked it open. The dull illumination made little difference to the dull dank surroundings. Holding the phone aloft she panned left and then right, a cobweb brushed past her hand and she withdrew it quickly and shivered.

She heard faint clicking and whirling sounds from high above and moved the phone above her head, but couldn’t see anything. If she could, she would have seen an entire ceiling filled with television cameras, all centred on her.

There was a rustling on the floor and Cassandra shone the phone along the ground in a sweeping motion and squealed. Two rats were shuffling along the newspaper-strewn floor, she sidestepped her new company and carried on through the hallway to another door, and turning the handle she entered.

It led onto another long hallway, her phone’s batteries faded so now she was in total darkness. There was a chattering sound ahead in a language Cassandra couldn’t understand, followed by an unearthly grunt.

Cassandra reached out again with her left hand and reconnected with the damp wall she had felt earlier, following the faint sounds of voices in the distance, just as her eyes were getting accustomed to the dark, something made them flicker, a strong gust of wind blew from ahead forcing her to shield her eyes as the wind blew up dirt on the ground into her face, no sooner had she finished rubbing her eyes the gust had ended, squinting profusely, she made an attempt to move on, but suddenly she couldn’t take a single step further, she stood rooted to the spot as a wave of terror struck her, the poor girl’s eyes had just enough vision in the dark to see something big lumbering towards her. Cassandra’s eyes were riveted to the amorphous being headed towards her, she had time to let out a scream before she sunk with her back towards the wall and her phone drawn to her chest and waited as whatever was in front of her moved closer and began to take shape in the distance and then Cassandra held her breath.

She didn’t scream again, just sat transfixed at the monstrous beast looming in front. It made a huge effort to squeeze itself into the room, looking vaguely human it arched its back and stood straight, which was about eight feet tall, its yellow skin was covered in pusfilled sores, the neck was small and sunken into giant shoulders, the left arm was oversized and massive and carrying something which Cassandra couldn’t make out, it looked like a club.

The Thing had rags for clothes, which barely stretched around its massive body. Smiling and showing it’s strangely white teeth in the dark, Cassandra could smell its breath from the other side of the room and now, with horror, she realised what the Thing was carrying.

In its left arm was a girl with red hair and whose waist fitted snugly in the Thing’s hand. In the dark Cassandra couldn’t tell if she was alive or not, but she could just about see that this creature was male and now he spoke, the voice had a lisp and was childlike, hesitant.

“Hello pretty lady, say hello to the pretty lady…come out boys.”

Cassandra let out a startled cry as the stench increased as the huge Thing moved aside and let some others into the room.

Little humanoid creatures scuttled in front of the larger one, they were as small as dwarfs but had abnormally large heads and huge eyes, they chattered in an inaudible language, with tufts of black hair sprouting from bald heads, they all had rags for clothes like the larger creature.

Some ran on all fours, others were unsteady on two legs and Cassandra could just see another dragging itself in with its arms…its legs were broken and useless.

They had abnormally large bellies – caked in bruises and sores. The dwarfs were disgusting mutations and the lame one dragged itself to Cassandra. She backed away, turning her head to the side and breathing heavily as it bent down in front of her, she dare not look it in the eyes but recognised the feeling of a huge tongue looping from the creature’s mouth and inspecting her cheek. All she could do was grit her teeth and wait, as she knew nobody was coming to help her, she allowed herself just a lonely whimper and closed her eyes, when they opened again the creature had its giant tongue wrapped around her neck, she gasped for breath and thrashed around on the floor wildly.

“WAIT,” said the larger creature to the others as the girl struggled. Cassandra hauled herself up from the dirty ground yet the creature held her firm with its tongue.

Pushing with everything, she held the creature aloft and threw it to the ground and began stomping on it with her boots, screaming, “GET OFF OF ME, YOU BASTARD.” She kicked again with more force. “I TOLD YOU TO GET OFF OF ME.” One more kick and the tongue creature failed to move, the bigger Thing stood still, staring through the dark at the fallen dwarf.

“Girl has potty mouth, potty mouth not nice.” He pointed with his smaller arm. “Go play with your food.”

Cassandra screamed and bolted through the door behind her, it led her back to the front door, but blocking her was another dwarf, wobbling towards her.

Both ran at each other, Cassandra reached the dwarf first and kicked him, it was an awkward kick, like it was her first time kicking a foot ball, but it had the desired result, her heels lifted the little creature of its feet and sent him spinning along the floor, the others came through the other door as the frightened girl pulled at the front one, but it was locked,
How could they lock it? How could they reach it?

They began to circle her, leaving a saliva trail. Cassandra noticed the stairs to her left and they were her only chance of escape, she could have leapt over the new dwarf blocking her way, but she needed to take down as many as possible, she kicked out and it went down hard, Cassandra swayed and regained her balance to take hold of the banister and pull herself up the staircase, the first door she came to was easily opened and she flew threw it and slammed it shut, making sure it was locked behind her.

She coughed and gagged at the smell that awaited her in this new room, her phone was completely dead and gave her no light at all, the stench was overwhelming as she held her hand to her nose and walked forward in the new darkness.

It was a huge room and she felt a slight sense of relief as the further she stumbled the fainter the banging on the door sounded.

With her eyes tired from straining in the dark, she eventually made out a pull-down ladder leading to a loft. Thinking her only was to get up on the roof and climb down to safety, she reached for the cord and pulled it down lower.

The ladder extended with a thud to the floor and Cassandra climbed up and hauled the ladder up behind her. The air was foul and it made her rub her head and sit down, there wasn’t anything to see and the darkness didn’t help. She heard the sound of heavy footsteps two floors down and she laid on her front and put one ear to the floor to hear more. Tiredness swept over her and she curled herself into a ball. She was safe for the time being and the wooden floor was strangely inviting. Cassandra closed her eyes as the heavy footsteps faded away.

Nayan walked to the water’s edge, he had watched onscreen what was going to happen to the girl and as soon as it was announced she would be facing the ‘Leviathan’ he hastily made his way to the lake.

He didn’t know how he would be able to help or whether she would be alive when he got there. The studio and networks were buzzing with the news of these kids with strange powers and Nayan knew as soon as Big Man heard about them they wouldn’t stand a chance in his games, that’s why he couldn’t bring himself to hunt them down like his boss had asked him to.
They were just kids, like his own
.

Nayan stepped into the water and waded in deeper and deeper, remembering the spot where he had seen the bright light show earlier. There were some remains of the boat floating on the surface and then Nayan swallowed the hard lump in his throat when he saw what was next to the boat.

A body floating face down in the water, he kicked hard and swam over to the body, taking it in his arms he swallowed a mouthful of water before heading back to dry land, his throat was already sore and he struggled with the girl’s body, but continued until he found his footing and shifted her around in his arms until he collapsed, falling to the left so as not to fall on top of her.

He coughed and tried to catch his breath whilst looking at the girl, her blond hair was dirty and wrapped around her neck, he paused and then attempted to resuscitate her using mouth to mouth.

Not giving up he continued to use all his strength to try and save her life, pressing hard on her chest and breathing into her mouth.

He rolled off her when she started to cough and the desperation on his face went away and he sighed and wiped water from his eyes as Kimberley tried to sit up.

“Where am I?” she spluttered.

Nayan continued wiping his eyes before answering. “You’re on a game show held by the Network, I have no idea how you got them but you’ve got some superpowers…’cause you just destroyed the ‘Leviathan squid’ live on TV.”

Kimberley hesitated, not fully trusting her saviour. “Who are you then?”

“My name is Nayan, I’m a security officer for the ‘Big Man’ Network.”

Kimberley eyed him up suspiciously and slowly started to back away on all fours.

“No, sorry I should have said I
used
to work for ‘Big Man’ but I quit.”

“Why?”

“He wanted me to track down and bring in the rest of the superhuman kids.”

Nayan paused. “I couldn’t hunt down children, it’s not right.”

Kimberley was oblivious to his word as she tried to catch her breath and then her expression turned to horror.

“DENTON, THEY KILLED HIM, THEY KILLED HIM”

“Who’s he?”

“HE’S MY BOYFRIEND.”

Kimberley sobbed and couldn’t breathe properly, she blurted more. “HE WAS IN THE BOAT AND THAT THING KILLED HIM.”

Nayan nodded solemnly and looked around. “I’m sorry about that, truly I am but there are cameras everywhere, the Network know that you are alive and now can see that I helped you, we must make a move.”

He held out his hand but Kimberley pulled hers away. “WHERE DO WE GO? AND WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU?”

Nayan threw her a no-nonsense stare. “Well the fact that I just swam out in the lake to rescue you and then resuscitated you must put me in good stead.”

Kimberley coughed again and noted his attempt at levity.

“You’re right, I’m sorry, but if there are cameras all around we don’t stand a chance, do we?”

“We can try, come on.”

This time Kimberley took his outstretched hand and he pulled her up and then a flash of realisation Nayan reached into his pocket and quickly pulled out his phone.