Wickerman Cove

Part 7: The Thing in the Alleyway (Semper Fi, Mother***ker)

Its face parted in the middle, no sound or blood. The split kept travelling: his chin opened, then his neck, a clean, hard edge down his front, opening the guy's t-shirt down the middle, then the hoody. Foul air gusted as his body flapped and deflated.

What had been his head fell away like a hood as the thing shimmied its false skin off.

Maybe she should have tried her luck at the gun shop.

Its dead eyes caught the light. What she'd mistaken for its face was just a sort of white, fleshy pad that gave shape to the skinsuit – with a pair of staring, round shapes that looked like eyes if you didn't pay attention. It stared into the middle distance as the thing straightened up. It was cartoonish and unnerving once you knew what you were looking it – horrific and unreal. Like the lure on a carnivorous plant.

If the thing had a face, it was the mass of glistening, blackish flesh that the gleaming white pad sat just above. The fake face's black dot pupils rolled around like googly eyes as the thing just kept coming – the head, dark flesh and pretty much made of tumours; a body so thin she could probably put her hands around it.

And the limbs – limbs, and limbs, and limbs. Four, then six, then eight, plus legs that kicked their way out of its skin like it was a pair of pants.

The thing reared. It had to be nine feet tall. Every hand ended with claws. The twisted mass under its false 'face' waved the stiletto proboscis on a prehensile trunk.

Instinct took over as it came for her. It didn't look strong – if it was a tough predator, it wouldn't have been preying on comatose bums. It was probably opportunistic; then again, so were hyenas, and they'd fuck you up if you let them.

Jesus, even if she just had a knif—

The thing lunged for her, its proboscis flailing wildly.

The alley filled with sound like a nest of cockroaches being set alight. It got right into the pounding central mass of her oncoming migraine and made her head feel like it was about to explode.

Somehow, despite the fact that her body felt like it was made of lead, Steph put herself in a different place to where the thing thought she was going to be. It moved around, quicker than she could have imagined, and lunged again, but some crazy blast of adrenaline put her just out of its reach.

Then she was stumbling – her body out of control as a goddamn tarp or something wrapped around her feet, almost bringing her down if not for a lucky drainpipe and a lot of kicking.

The thing lunged again, with another roaches-on-fire hiss that felt like a knife through her right eyeball. She rolled, right, then left, as it hit hard, leaving gouges in the brick as she tripped and fell.

The thing's claws showered brick down on her, scoring a deep gouge in the wall where she'd been. Thankfully, she was on the ground, a cloth, or whatever it was, wrapped tight around her feet. She swore silently – the others didn't even know she was fighting. They didn't seem able to see, transfixed by the dumbass goth antiquities expert giving out notes in crime alley.

It was probably better that way. She was either about to die or going crazy.

Steph dragged herself backwards. The thing looked around, turning through a full circle, jerking its head around in every direction. This was okay. However it saw, now she was out of eye level, it was having trouble getting a fix on her.

Nice. She could work with that.

Finally, she had time to look at what was trapping her legs. The hollow skinsuit, complete with the thing's deflated and eyeless face covering looked up at her. It had wrapped tight around her legs, tripping her up.