Blood Water

CHAPTER 32

Waites saw Sean first; he was just forming words when James swung the lamp at his head, sending him to the floor. Sean noticed deep red marks on the teacher’s neck – the man looked half dead.

James leaped on the teacher’s prone body and started punching him, his teeth clenched, spittle flying. Sean couldn’t believe it was his brother. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Waites struggled and tried to shake James off, screaming all the while for Sean to help him, to stop his brother.

‘It’s in him, Sean! Get him off me – it’s in him!’

And all at once things were worse, far worse. Sean was stuck between action and inaction. Part of him wanted to push his brother off the struggling teacher; the other wanted to do nothing and let his brother destroy the creature and the unfortunate body it still possessed. But it didn’t make sense. The teacher couldn’t move, and the thing inside him would surely have tried to jump into James’s body by now. And James had struck him on the head: that was the weak spot, but Waites was still conscious.

‘No!’ Sean charged forward into his brother so that he rolled off Waites and onto the floor. He helped the teacher to his feet, praying he had made the right decision.

‘Sean,’ Waites said. ‘We need to restrain him and get that thing out.’

But the creature had already guessed their plan: James was on his feet in seconds. ‘It’s too late… I know where they are.’ He turned and ran towards the stairs.

‘No!’ Sean screamed, suddenly realizing that his brother was indeed infected.

‘Damn it!’ Waites groaned, rubbing his battered head.

‘No!’ Sean screamed again in disbelief. ‘He… He said something about you looking for the others. Lots of them. It must have been looking for them itself though. We’ve got to get it out of him,’ he said, following his brother. ‘We have to get it out of him now!’

‘We will, don’t worry,’ Waites replied. ‘If it finds the others, we’re finished. We’re all finished. Come on.’

Downstairs the creature made its way past the lecture theatre and the laboratories towards the front entrance. It only vaguely registered the figure that had once been the headmaster of Orchard Wells High School. Its new body was good. Young, more agile than the others. Strong too. More importantly, the young man’s memory had the information it required. He knew where the others were and could picture their location.

It had taken a while to get the information – the boy had been blocking it somehow, but eventually, as the creature had made itself at home, the barriers had come down, and it was allowed access to everything he knew. It could barely contain its excitement. On its own it would only ever be able to jump from host to host. With others of its kind, it could spread throughout the world, using up the humans until there were none left. But there were millions of human beings – it had learned this much. It would take a long time to use them all up. Such fun. And even though it would all come to an end at some point, it would be worth it for the experience, for the education. It would be better than floating around in a pool of water for thousands of years. Lost in its thoughts, it suddenly allowed its host to stumble and fall on his knees, but it didn’t mind. In fact it was laughing.

Sean had to help Waites down the stairs: he’d not only been bitten and half strangled, he’d also been bashed on the head. However, they walked as fast as they could – if they lost the creature’s trail then all hope would be gone. They were passing Morrow’s office when they heard the front door slam.

‘He must have gone out the front,’ Waites said, hobbling along. ‘Come on, before we lose him.’

Hurrying into the reception area, they opened the front door and peered out into the night.

At first they saw nothing in the dark and the rain. Then Sean noticed something moving along the track leading to the road. James was running down the bank towards the car.

‘What’s he doing?’ Waites asked. ‘He’ll never get that thing started again – it’s finished.’

‘He’s after something,’ Sean replied. ‘Maybe a torch.’

‘There’s one in the glove box. That means we’ll need one too.’

‘I saw one in Morrow’s office,’ Sean said. ‘A big metal one. I’ll go and get it.’

‘OK – be quick though. I’ll keep an eye on your brother.’

‘Right…’ Sean hesitated. ‘Are we going to… Will we have time to get it out of him? I don’t—’

‘We’ll think about that later. Right now we have to stop him from reaching the other creatures. What are we going to do about them? If they really are around here somewhere, they pose an even greater threat. We may have to destroy them now while we have a chance.’

‘But James – I mean, that thing is the only one who knows where they are.’

‘Which means we’ll have to follow it and let it find them. For now, just go and get the torch.’ Waites gave Sean a gentle push in the direction of the offices.

The teacher couldn’t see much, but he kept his eyes fixed on the spot where James had vanished from view. Sure enough, he soon spotted a flicker of light, then James came back into view, running towards the car park.