part0020

Darren emerged from the jungle into a spacious clearing, the remains of the dirt track creeping towards a deforested area roughly the size of a football pitch. Six large two-storey buildings lined the perimeter, three per side, and in the middle, the smouldering remains of a recently extinguished fire.

Shelter for the night. A sigh of relief escaped his lips and he allowed himself the comfort of a smile.

Bret and Lisa followed, taking in the sight. Some of the structures were almost invisible, dressed in vines and creepers, stray trees sprouting haphazardly beside them. There were a couple of vehicles, all-terrain types, but they looked just as useless as the old digger, the wheels hidden by long grass, the shattered windows crying bloody tears of rust as the wind spat icily through empty frames.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Bret. ‘What was this place?’

‘I don’t know man. Somewhere for the workers to live while they built that thing on the mountain? What do you think, Lisa? ’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, surveying the derelict scene. It looked like no one had been here in decades. And yet a fire had been lit and then put out. Recently. But by whom? And where were they now?

‘I guess we should take a look inside,’ said Bret.

‘Yeah mate, good idea,’ replied Darren. ‘Me and Lisa’ll get the fire going again. You check out some of those buildings. Gotta be something useful in one of them.’

‘It was your idea. What’s the matter? You chicken?’

Bret bristled at the suggestion. ‘Nah mate, it’s just…what if there’s another one of those spiders or something in there?’

‘Then I’d rather find it before it gets dark.’

‘Fuck,’ breathed Bret. There was no point arguing. Darren had always emerged as the natural leader of their small but tight-knit group. It had been Darren’s idea to come to Thailand. Darren’s idea to go to the Full Moon Party.

Come to think of it, maybe Darren wasn’t always right.

Bret strode purposefully towards the nearest building, a two-storey monolith. Above the doorway was a sign in Thai, now barely legible, the letters scratched and faint.

About five foot away, he stopped, facing the door. Uneasiness crept over him.

It’s just a door man. Go through it, he thought. Yeah, easy for you to say, brain.

He took tentative steps towards the doorway. His legs felt weak from hunger and exhaustion.

‘Hurry the fuck up, mate!’

He looked back at Darren, whose armfuls of twigs and branches would hardly be enough to toast marshmallows, never mind keep a roaring fire going all night.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. Over there, in one of the buildings. Somebody at the window. Watching.

There was nothing there now, but Bret could swear he felt eyes on him. He twirled around on the spot to try to catch a glimpse again, but whatever he had seen was gone, if it had ever really been there at all.

‘Mate!’ shouted Darren, failing to mask his exasperation.

‘Alright, alright, I’m going in,’ Bret called back. ‘But I wish I wasn’t,’ he mumbled. Dead leaves crunched beneath his feet as he reached for the doorknob and pushed the sun-faded door. At first he thought it was locked, but then the hinges shrieked in agony and the door gave way. It shuddered open and he faced the narrow rectangle of darkness and all the secrets therein.

The interior was pitch black and Bret waited for his vision to adjust. No sense in blundering in. There might be a big hole in the ground, or a low hanging lamp.

Or a giant fucking spider.

He began to pick out details. It was a hallway. Jackets, damp and rotted, hung from the walls like pig carcasses in a slaughterhouse, the smell dank and foul. He eased past them, not wishing to make contact with his bare skin. He stepped on someone’s toes and looked down at rows of work-boots lined up along the floor. Outside Lisa and Darren talked, their voices distant, like a TV bleeding through a hotel wall. He traversed the windowless hallway as quickly as possible, treading lightly over feathers and animal shit. Something squished between his toes and he grimaced but kept moving.

Bret rounded the corner into what had once been the living quarters. Sodden girlie magazines littered the floor, while filthy plates and mugs adorned the table, the food picked clean long ago. He wrinkled his nose at the rotten stench as the dying light streamed in through the windows, picking out tiny dust motes and buzzing insects, the ragged curtains billowing gently. He carried on, bumping his ankle on a low table, knocking an ashtray to the wooden floor. It shattered, disgorging its contents. He glanced down and saw an animal of some kind, its belly torn open and gutted, maggots festering in the open wound.

The kitchen was next. Water dripped from the ceiling, landing in shallow pools. Bret pinched his nose and inhaled through his mouth. ‘Either they left in a hurry, or they really needed a cleaner,’ he said, trying to talk away the rising fear that tightened like a knot in the pit of his stomach. The ground was carpeted in leaves, the trees outside swaying through glassless frames like haunted paintings. Dishes were piled recklessly in the sink, threatening to topple at any moment. Wanting out fast, he slid open a drawer hoping to find something of use, though he didn’t know what. As expected, it contained some cutlery and little else. He lifted out a decent-sized butcher knife and held it tightly to his chest. The second drawer housed a snake which raised its head to stare sleepily at Bret, its tongue darting out. He slammed the drawer shut and left the room, and the snake, well alone.

Darren bundled the sticks onto the ashes of the fire. The light was beginning to fade, the sun dropping below the canopy, the restless shadows of the trees lengthening across the barren clearing.

‘We need more wood,’ he called to Lisa. She was staring at a building, unmoving. ‘Lisa?’ She turned to face him. The spaced-out look in her eyes suggested that she had taken enough pills for today.

‘Lisa, we need more wood.’

She nodded, stealing a last glance at the building and turning away. She followed the well-trodden track through the village, past the derelict buildings and vehicles.

It had to have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she had seen something in the window. She wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered. It was getting cooler now. Her skin was red and burnt and itched like hell, tiny pock marks and bites dotting her near-nude body.

At the edge of the village, where the jungle began again, she saw a wooden signpost, pointing off in various directions. Eight of them, in fact.

‘That’s weird,’ she said to herself. It was the last thing she had expected to see. The setting sun blinded her and she half-covered her eyes.

‘You find any, Lisa?’ called Darren from afar.

‘Yeah, just be a minute,’ she shouted back. ‘I see a sign.’

She liked the way Darren had taken charge. Wandering through the jungle in his jocks, swinging that machete around. She liked that too. Maybe tonight would be the night to get over her fear and hop in the sack with him. Could be fun, she reasoned. Be nice to forget about this fucking jungle for a while.

As she neared the signpost, the sun slipped from her view, settling below the tree tops.

She stopped and stared, her blood turning to ice and freezing her veins. Her jaw slackened and dropped open.

‘Oh fuck,’ she mouthed.

‘Oh Jesus fucking Christ.’

Darren held the two rocks in either hand and bashed them together. He had seen this done in the movies plenty times. You hit two rocks together, they spark and voila! A fire. They always made it look so easy.

He stopped a moment, his eyes following Lisa as she walked towards the sign. Her panties were creeping up her ass and he sat and watched her until she was too far away.

‘Hate to see you leave, love to watch you go,’ he sniggered. He noticed the drop in temperature and cracked the rocks together again. Nothing. He wondered how Bret was getting on. The sun arced beneath the trees and Darren struck the rocks again, desperate to start the fire before the light completely vanished. He couldn’t even make it spark. If he only had his clothes on, he could have grabbed his lighter and got this damn thing going in seconds. He tried the rocks once more.

‘Ah, fuck this,’ he said.

He heard gravel crunching, someone approaching from behind.

He turned, a goofy smile on his lips.

‘Bret? How did you get—’

But he was cut short.

The staircase creaked with each step, the wood damp and mossy. Bret didn’t even know what he was looking for anymore, but felt compelled to keep going. He did not want to come back to Darren with nothing to show apart from an old knife. Not when his friend was building a fire to keep them warm for the night.

He ran his fingers along the dusty walls until he came to three doors, one hanging at an angle from its hinges. Beyond it was a bathroom, the powerful odour assaulting his nostrils like toxic waste. In the centre lay a sizeable pile of clothes. He swallowed hard and entered, kneeling by the soggy mound of clothing. Bikinis, Hawaiian shorts, combat fatigues. It was an odd mix of swimwear and military garb. Several backpacks and handbags lay to the side. He rummaged through one of the bags and found an old Nokia phone and a purse containing several thousand Baht. Inside the purse he found a photo of a teenage boy grinning at the camera, the edges worn and mouldy. He tried another and found a Swedish passport belonging to one Lars Anderrson. Bret checked the last page and discovered the passport expired in 1997.

There were more bags, more passports. Jewellery, torches, even an old Polaroid camera. He picked it up and wiped a film of grime from the chunky machine. He pressed the button and the camera went off with a blinding flash, the antique device spitting out the photograph. Bret was astonished that it still worked.

‘They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.’

Unnerved, he took the photo and slowly backed out of the bathroom. Choosing one of the other doors at random, he found himself in the sleeping quarters. The door slammed shut and he gave out a startled cry.

‘Stay calm, man. Just stay calm.’

Bunk beds lined the walls, most of them missing mattresses, springs bursting forth from the remaining ones. Thick cobwebs trailed from the ceiling and one bed at the far end looked to be completely cocooned .

No way he was going anywhere near that one. No fucking way. He tried one of the numerous bedside cabinets, wrenching open a drawer, knife drawn. Inside were some socks, or at least what used to be socks. He tried another. A dog-eared porno mag and a leather-bound diary. It was written in Thai and completely useless to Bret.

He tried more drawers whilst shaking the Polaroid photograph, the spectral image gradually appearing.

Some jewellery. A watch. A pair of glasses. Some photographs of a young Thai woman smiling at the camera and holding a baby. In another, the same woman stood on a beach laughing. In this one she was heavily pregnant. Bret felt an unaccountable sadness. What happened here? Where did everyone go?

He shut the drawer gently and looked at the Polaroid, holding it up to the dying light. He laughed at his own startled expression, his eyes wide, face totally bleached out by the powerful flash.

He stopped laughing, his skin growing cold. He squinted hard at the photo. There was something behind him.

A shape, lurking behind the doorway.

No, bullshit , it was a shadow, a trick of the light.

‘Fucking hell, mate, you’re getting jumpy,’ he told himself.

He looked once more at the photo, as if to try to convince himself. A shadow, that’s all. Nothing more.

But shadows don’t have gnarled, white fingers, not like the ones in the photo, the ones that wrapped around the wall, the ones that belonged to the figure in the photograph, the figure that had stood behind him, watching and waiting.

The figure that was still in here with him .

He was jolted from his thoughts by the sound of screaming.

The post had been crudely hammered together, eight wooden planks jutting out, four per side in a roughly symmetrical pattern. To each plank had been nailed a skeletal arm, the hands dangling limply. Impaled upon the central spike was a skull, the sharpened point protruding out through the shattered cranium, pure white and picked clean of any remaining flesh by the birds and insects. It was like some kind of totem or idol, fashioned into the form a skeletal humanoid spider. The skull leered at her, the jaw hanging open. She stumbled backwards, her legs giving way and landing with a thump on her ass.

She heard screaming and realised it was coming from her mouth.

She couldn't seem to stop.

Seconds before, Darren turned to what he thought was Bret just in time to see the wooden club swinging through the air. It struck him on the side of the face with such ferocity that his cheekbone shattered on impact. He hit the ground and tried to crawl away, his vision blurred, his fingers clawing uselessly through mud and dirt. He lifted a flaccid hand to his burning face, finding a shard of splintered bone jutting out through his cheek. He tried to call out for Bret, but his mouth didn’t seem to be working, his jaw only attached at one side. A sharp kick sent him onto his back, giving him a look at his assailant through bleary, tear-soaked eyes.

A tall man, gaunt, and deathly pale, chalky hair draped unflatteringly over his skeletal visage, loose pockets of flesh drooping from his wiry frame. The man’s skin was so white it was like looking into a milk bottle, and Darren could have sworn he could see the veins running through the man’s naked body like tapeworms. He wore nothing but a necklace, from which swung several small bones. He looked about a hundred years old.

Darren’s first thought was cannibals.

Another man appeared, then another, each bearing the same sinister, almost transparent complexion. One of them wore what appeared to be a ragged pair of cut-off denim jeans. Another had on a faded grey tee-shirt with the Black Sabbath logo emblazoned across it. It was so absurd Darren wanted to laugh, but before he even had a chance, the men raised their tools and started to bludgeon him, bringing the objects down again and again. His ribcage gave way first, several cracked ribs plunging into his lungs. Darren began to choke, blood spilling from his mouth, raising his hands to protect his face. He rolled onto his front, trying to escape.

A steel bar cracked his lower spine, a plank of wood snapped his ankle bone in two. As his body went into shock, a severe blow crushed his skull, caving it in. His body stiffened then lay, a mass of useless bloody tissue.

The men turned their attention to Lisa, who sat watching, shaking her head from side to side in confusion and horror, looking at everything but seeing nothing.

She never stood a chance.

From the second-floor window, Bret stood helplessly as his old schoolfriend was murdered, heart hammering in his chest, frightened and disbelieving. He saw Darren’s body twitching, the jerky death spasms wracking his corpse as dark blood pooled around the body. He stood stock-still as the men reached Lisa, their long fingers grasping at her as she shook and screamed, fought and thrashed, but in seconds they had her by the arms and legs. They carried her back to the fire, laying her down next to the pulped mess that minutes before had been his friend. He watched as the men held her down, more appearing, one carrying a thick rope. How many were there? And where were they all coming from?

Too late, Bret realised exactly where they were coming from.

He spun around, the dirty kitchen knife in his hand, the room as quiet as a crypt, scanning for any trace of movement. He sidled away from the window, hoping those outside wouldn’t notice him. His back slid across the wall and he froze, listening intently, becoming aware of a scratching sound in the darkness.

It was in here with him.

Bret ducked down, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the light, the cover of darkness his only hope.

Hope . Ha! Hope was just an acceptable lie people told themselves to get through the day. It had no real-world use, not for Bret, not right now, not ever.

In the far corner something moved. A chair, no more than a centimetre, but the scraping of wood was unmistakable. Bret blinked, trying to clear the window-shaped imprint of light from his eyes, to see through the murk. Downstairs a door banged shut. Were they looking for him? Did they even know he was here? Obviously one of them did, but he hadn’t been out in the clearing for very long, and if he could deal with that one…

Lisa’s screams echoed all around. Bret closed his eyes, trying not to think of what horrors she was enduring out there. He gripped the knife tightly.

What were they? An ancient race of cannibals who objected to the intrusion of civilisation onto their island? Aliens from another dimension on a mission to colonise the Earth one small island at a time?

Something dripped on his head, startling him. The gooey white mucus dripped from his fingers as he wiped it away.

‘Leave me alone,’ he whispered, clutching the knife, ready to strike should the need arise. Another globule of liquid plopped onto his hair and an overwhelming sense of dread shrouded over him. He raised his head and found himself staring into cold, dead white eyes. Bret howled in terror and thrust the knife up. The monstrosity above him jerked out of the way, leaping clean across the room. It landed smoothly, scurrying into the shadows, and then came for him, limbs thudding across the dirty wooden floor, scuttling like a crab. No, not a crab, like a—

It darted up the wall, climbing easily onto the ceiling, scrambling towards him and sending a light fixture crashing to the ground, the long-dead bulb shattering on impact. As it passed the window Bret caught a glimpse of the soft, gelatinous skin and the humanoid face before it launched itself forward.

In moments of abject horror, the brain switches to a cerebral low-power mode in a frantic attempt to preserve the sanity of its host. As Bret’s mind twisted perilously close to breaking point, his survival instincts kicked in and he drove the knife forward with both hands, plunging it into the onrushing body of the creature. The impaled beast writhed in pain, its talon-like fingers clawing deep scars down Bret’s face.

Bret kept his eyes shut, refusing to acknowledge the presence of the freakish organism. He hauled the blade up, disgorging the contents of the rancid stomach, the intestines landing with a plop on his bare feet. Venomous spittle sprayed across his face as the creature spasmed on the end of his weapon before sagging to the floor in a lifeless heap.

Bret opened his eyes, the room once again falling silent, save for a pitiful clawing sound coming from his left, a scratching that intensified by the second. He didn’t want to look, didn’t think he physically could.

‘No, no, no,’ he said, clutching the knife, one hand pressed over the blade, not noticing as it sliced into the skin of his fingers. There was a tearing sound, something soft being ripped apart, split open. The huge cocoon next to him rumbled ominously, something inside scrabbling to get out. He looked towards his escape route and saw two more of the creatures creeping along the ceiling, their movements calculated, methodical.

At the precise moment he lost his mind, Bret let go of the knife, letting it clatter to the floor.

‘You win,’ he said, smiling, holding his empty hands up in surrender. He took one step, then another, then broke into a run, heading for the nearest window. He didn’t stop when he reached it, throwing himself through.

He felt weightless. Free. Absolved. He was safe. Everything was going to be okay.

Everything was going to be fine .

Bret’s body flew through the empty frame, seeming to hang in midair for brief, maddening seconds before crashing headfirst down to Earth. The sickening crunch of his neck breaking reverberated across the clearing. He lay still, head tilted at an awkward ninety-degree angle. His chest continued to rise and fall as he savoured his dying breaths, the strange men looking at him in disinterest before turning back to Lisa.