The Outsiders (2 page)

The mouth
was wide open, almost perfectly circular, a monstrous travesty of a
navel. And the teeth were unveiled in all their gruesome splendour
- sharks within sharks.

“
Earlier, you said you were famished,” she reminded Chadwick.
“Well, I’m ravenous!”

She took
a pace towards the horrified man, but as shocked as he was, he
wasn’t the sort to go down without a fight. Chadwick grabbed Clarke
by the arms, trying to wrestle the abomination back from the
doorway. He shrieked for help but the music downstairs was so loud
there was no way anybody was going to hear him. The bathroom door
swung open, again, to reveal Flood and Selman.

“
Thank God!” Chadwick bellowed. “Help me!”

The two
men removed their own shirts to expose the gaping,
serration-filled, holes beneath and Chadwick lost all hope of
rescue. Their mouths were virtually identical to Clarke’s, except
the female’s lips were fuller, redder.

My God, she’s even applied a little lipstick,
thought Chadwick. He felt the urge to laugh, laugh
uncontrollably, laugh until he died. Instead, he continued to
struggle until Flood and Selman managed to manhandle him to the
floor, restraining him against the side of the bath.

Clarke
stared at Chadwick with an expression the man could only interpret
as pity. When she spoke again, however, he knew he had been
wrong.

“
You’re not married and you have no close family, so you’ll not
be missed. You’re an ideal candidate, Simon Chadwick.”

“
Am I going to be t-turned into one of you?”

“
Oh, no, you could never be one of us. That’s
impossible!”

“
B-But the story you told–”

“
Yes, there was some truth in it. I wasn’t attacked, though;
I
wanted
to become
like this. Ours is a club that can only be joined by special
request, you see, and there’s no invitation extended to
you!”

“
We are members of a race that has coexisted with mankind - the
ignorant symbiont - for many thousands of years,” said
Selman.

“
We skim the surface of humanity, removing scum such as you,”
Flood informed him. “In return, we enjoy respectable positions
within your society. Oh, and the occasional meal,” he said, leering
at Chadwick.”

“
You’ve been identified as a human lowlife, Chadwick,” Selman
continued. You’ve been marked for your criminal sexual activities.
When your name came to the top of the list you were lured to this
party.”

“
Now you know why we invited you here. There couldn’t be a
party without you, because
you are the
party!”
Clarke finished.

With
that, the creature that was Susan Clarke signalled to her
underlings and Chadwick was dragged, gibbering, to his
feet.

Clarke
pointed at each of the three slavering mouths, in turn. “These are
the doorways to your destiny, Simon Chadwick.” And she said it so
calmly that, for the condemned man, the impact somehow seemed even
worse. “We are going to eat every single part of you,
Chadwick…”

“
Bones and all,” interjected Flood.

“…
and I intend to begin, as one should, with the hors d’ouvres,”
Clarke said. She suddenly grasped Chadwick’s penis, now flaccid,
pulling him violently towards her.

Flood and
Selman began to tear the clothes from his body.

And then
the screaming began.

Shortly
afterwards, Dr. Susan Clarke strolled into the kitchen with her two
colleagues. Some of the other guests, she noticed, were in the last
throes of a cleaning-up exercise of their own. Dr. Selman was
carrying some rolled-up clothes. He yanked a black bin bag from the
cupboard under the sink, dropping the garments into it. Dr. Flood
pulled a watch from his pocket, noting the time, before shoving it,
too, into the bag. It was 1:26 am.

“
I’ve brought some more nibbles,” Susan said, dropping a number
of fingers and toes into a stainless steel snack dish.

There
were already some in there.

“
Ah, I see I’ve missed Dr. Thompson’s departure,” she said.
“The man from the Woolston practice. I
so
wanted to say goodbye to
him!”

LURKER

Peter Mark May

Eddie Vaisey was a lucky man...and was totally oblivious to
the fact.

11.31pm and the family were long tucked up and he had just
locked the house and turned off all the lights in readiness for his
imminent slumber. There was little reason as to why he pulled back
the dining room drapes. A full moon hung in the clear skies outside
and shone down with such illumination, that Eddie initially thought
one of the neighbours had left their car headlamps on.

Barnes
Street looked quiet and peaceful. But there was something...
misplaced...not quite right. No other light seemed to shine from
any of the other windows across the way. Then something caught his
eye as he was about to close the curtains once more. Next to Dan
Brummell’s pick-up was a small cherry tree that produced the
loveliest blossom in Spring. And the taste of the fruit that
followed was a sheer delight.

The tree was tall, emaciated and usually cast an almost
nightmarish shadow, yet on this night, it seemed to have
two
shadows. The second
was shorter and seemed to be
different
from the shape one would
normally associate with a tree...any tree He watched as the thin
shadow suddenly rose up and then skipped away from the tree,
leaving no connection, an independent entity of something that
could not be seen.

The thin,
loping shadow seemed to have legs and thin spindly arms and a head
with spikes on it like thorn bush. Then there came a briefest of
double flashes from the head of the shadow, like two cats eyes
suddenly flaring green and boring deep into Eddie.

The strange shadow then leapt back into the tree as a car
drove past and merged into the gloom and Eddie became the first
person in Ohio to see a
Lurker
in close to fifty years - in fact it was the
2,168 sighting in history. On these facts, only the Lurkers
themselves pondered such things, spending most of their lives
flitting from the shadows of one tree to another under the cover of
darkness.

Eddie waited, his eyes fixed. He blinked...and the second
shadow was gone. He stayed rooted to the spot for what seemed like
ten minutes, more likely sixty seconds.

Nothing
unusual moved near the cherry tree.

He
exhaled and rubbed at his tired eyes; too much stress at work at
the mail depot and early morning rises must be causing his eyes to
play tricks on him. He closed the drapes and headed off to bed and
to his surprise fell into a fast dreamless sleep, unfettered by
imaginary wraiths or shadows.

The sun
shone as he opened the curtains the next morning and any silly
thoughts and half-remembered daydreams of tree shadows were erased
by the hot sunshine and thoughts of another long day at
work.

Eddie was
last to bed and first to rise, as was his habit, and now he found
himself standing before the dining room drapes. An illogical primal
fear crept up from his belly to his rational mind.

“
Eddie, don’t be a putz,” he admonished himself in a low voice
and pulled the drapes half apart, to lay the apparitions of his
tired imagination to rest.

The
remainder of his day passed uneventfully with all thoughts of the
creature, the shadows...the Lurker, gone.

Another
mundane shift passed into another mundane evening.

11.33pm.
Time to lock up and then hit the pillows before continuing the
monotonous circle of life.

A check
of the street before checking the drapes. Just in case.

No cars.
A single cat. Even the cherry tree was fine...but next to Dan’s
mail box, at the edge of his lawn, lurked the strange shadow from
last night. Eddie took two faltering steps back, but that and
blinking rapidly for effect, did not make the shadow creature
vanish.

The
Lurker’s eyes flashed briefly again, like jade gems from some lost
Aztec treasure haul.

Then it pointed at Eddie.

Its
shadowy arms crept toward the house. They elongated until they were
across the street and onto the pavement outside Eddie’s
drive.

Eddie gave a most unmanly shriek. He quickly pulled the drapes
shut and ran up to bed, hurriedly cast off his clothes, down to his
boxers and climbed into the safety of his bed, pulling the covers
over his head. His pyjamas lay unwanted on the chair next to his
wardrobe and he lay shivering even though it was mild and pleasant
outside.

He looked
over to his wife, who had managed to fall asleep within ten minutes
of her head hitting the pillows...as usual.

Eddie
would not find sleep so easy to come by tonight.

The
images of the creeping shadow creature stayed with him all day and
only the manual work at the depot pushed it back far enough for him
to function. He came home early and sought out his wife Kendra to
unburden his soul. She had always been the dependable rock and
hoped she could help.

“
You saw what?” she asked as she continued peeling sweet
potatoes over a bowl in the sink of their recently refurbished
kitchen.

“
It seems so stupid now, but a shadow, but not a normal shadow.
It moved, looked up and pointed at me.” A millisecond after he had
spoken them, his words seemed to be that of a deluded child having
night terrors.

“
You must have dreamt it, hun,” Kendra put down a half-peeled
vegetable and peeler, dried her hands on a nearby hand towel and
turned to give him her full attention.

“
I didn’t dream it, Kendra, it was damned real,” he raised his
voice and swore. Two things that he never did in front of his wife.
Even if ‘damned’ was tame by today’s standards.

“
Jeez, Eddie, what’s really wrong?” His wife noticed the stress
on his face and hearing the frustration in his voice. “Is it
work?”

“
No, I dunno, I think I’m losing my goddamn marbles, babe.”
Eddie ran his fingers through his brown hair and squeezed his eyes
shut to try and clear his fogged mind.

His wife
took him in her arms and crushed him in a long loving embrace. Then
things began to flit into her mind and imagination, things that
normally stayed buried.

“
What is wrong? You can tell me?” she murmured, her long
fingers going to his cheek and moving his head. Then one of those
buried thoughts came to the fore and her eyes dropped. “Are you
seeing
her
again?”

“
Damn it, Kendra, no,” he pushed her arms away and stepped
back,” I think I’m losing my mind and you suddenly come up with the
idea that I’m dicking someone else, Jesus.”

“
Well, are you?”

“
No, I may be mad, but I ain’t cheatin’ no more. That is
ancient history. One time, Kendra, it was one time.”

“
Sorry, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

“
Look, humour me okay. Stay up with me tonight. We’ll watch a
movie and then look out the window together, okay?”

“
Okay, I’d do anything for you Eddie, you know
that.”

They
embraced once more, yet Eddie held back a little, annoyed that his
brief spells of madness were a sign of infidelity to his wife. She
may have forgiven him, but she sure enough hadn’t
forgotten.

11.33pm. The pair of them stood before the closed drapes and
shared a glance at the other. Then slowly, Eddie pulled them back
to reveal the drive, the front lawn and their mail box. All were
covered by a mix of darkness and moonlight. Many shadows lay across
everything.

They both
studied the street.

“
So where am I looking?”

“
Well, first it was over by the tree in Dan’s, then by his mail
box But I can’t see it now.”

“
There now, doesn’t that say everything? I don’t see anything.
It
must
be stress.
I’ll ring Dr Michelson first thing in the morning and get you an
appointment, I’m sure he will help.”

“
Yeah, maybe you’re right, I need a break, or maybe Dr Mike can
give me some sleeping pills.”

“
That’s more like my Eddie,” Kendra put her hand lightly on her
husband’s shoulder blades and kissed his cheek. “You coming up now
then, cos I’m wide awake, babe.”

Eddie saw
the glint in his wife’s eyes and smiled.

Now
that
was a
stress buster.

He pulled
the drapes shut and hurried his wife upstairs for some matrimonial
pleasures.

Outside
on the Vaisey’s lawn, a thin shadow man, elongated and strange,
hopped out from his hiding place behind their mail box and stared
up with blazing eyes at the light that clicked off in the master
bedroom.

The next day Eddie felt on top of the world again. He whistled
to the latest sounds on the radio as he drove to work. And once at
the depot, every crisis or problem there he seemed to handle with
ease...and he had a definite spring in his step. He ate his lunch
outside in the park and the sun shone down like it was only out for
him. His wife even sent him a text message. ‘Appointment made. Love
you, Stallion. xxx.’