Blood Water (7 page)

In the staff room above, Phoenix coughed up blood
for the third time. He'd been expecting as much, even
though he knew little about what was really going on
within him. His insides felt like jelly, his muscles were
limp and barely responsive, and his eyes hurt. He was
very thirsty too, so he tried to first sit, then stand up so
he could go and get a glass of water. His stomach was
instantly attacked by cramps and he doubled up in pain.
He clutched his sides, then bent over and vomited dark
blood onto the carpet, his eyes bulging in shock as he
watched the cascade from his insides flow out of his
mouth. The blood was specked with black dots and he
wondered what was happening to his system – and what
the creature had left inside him. He shook his head and
started to panic. The pain in his stomach grew; he now
had a splitting headache too. He staggered backwards
and steadied himself against the wall before vomiting
again, even more than before.

Afterwards Phoenix was overcome with dizziness, so
he fell back into the chair and waited, praying for the
nausea to pass. But it didn't, it simply changed form,
the waves of pain and sickness washing over him in
unrelenting assaults. Blood was now seeping from his
nose, and small cuts that had recently healed were now
red and raw once more. He didn't know if he was more
embarrassed or terrified by the fact that his trousers
were now soaked through with something horrible.

Phoenix sobbed as the rest of his insides tried to force
their way out.

Mr Waites was indeed in his classroom, as Phoenix had
guessed. When Sean and James burst in, he jumped and
had to steady himself on his chair.

'Bloody hell, don't you two know how to knock?' He
put his pen down and scowled at them.

'Sorry, sir,' Sean said, 'but we need your help.'

Waites stood up. He was just over six foot, in his early
forties – though he looked younger – fit and strong
enough to put Mr Cole, the PE teacher, to shame. His
hair was long and dark, and he wore small, round, wire-rimmed
glasses.

'What sort of help? Is it to do with the rain?'
Although he'd been too absorbed in his work to pay
much attention, Waites now realized that the weather
must be causing havoc.

'Sort of,' Sean said. 'It's a parasite.'

'What is?' Waites looked from Sean to James, whom
he vaguely recognized as Sean's brother.

'It's something we found at the research centre where
I work,' James told him. 'It can get into people and make
them do things. It's got a mind of its own.'

There was a moment of silence before Waites took
off his glasses, rubbed them on his shirt then put them
back on.

'What the hell are you two talking about?'

'Dr Morrow, isn't it? Good lord, you must be drenched.'
Mrs Rees was startled by the sight of the scientist
standing, dripping, just inside the entrance doors, and
approached him slowly, feeling that something was
wrong. 'Are you all right? Where are the boys?'

She watched Morrow's eyes move from her to the
staff room above, so she followed his gaze. When she
turned back she was a little unsettled to see that Morrow
was now closer, though she hadn't heard him move.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as
Mrs Rees started to back away towards the staff-room
steps. He followed her at the same speed, smiling now
in a way she really didn't like. She was half expecting
him to suddenly jump on her and pin her to the steps
when he started coughing, then, after looking around
frantically, dashed into the boys' toilets.

She turned and took the steps two at a time, glancing
back only once to make sure she wasn't being followed.
When she reached the top she turned to see all that was
left of Nigel Phoenix.

Morrow stumbled into the toilets, coughing and
spluttering. His thoughts were churning again. He
could sense the creature screaming in frustration and
impatience. He had been telling it over and over again
that he knew nothing, and he sensed it had finally
decided to believe him. He didn't know what it was after,
and suspected that it didn't either, but he was pretty
sure he was holding no profound secrets. The creature
had scoured his mind, seeing many things – Morrow
retrieving it from the pool, taking it to the study centre,
conducting tests on it – but none of this was useful: it
was information it already possessed.

Morrow staggered towards one of the hand basins
and felt his stomach heave. Then he felt a movement in
his head, and something dislodged itself, then wriggled
through impossibly small spaces to squeeze itself into
his mouth, then out into the basin below him. He spat,
stared at the black monster wriggling in the basin, then
heaved and vomited all over it. It sprang up and managed
to ooze up the spout of the tap, before contracting and
squeezing its body so that it could work its way up into
the spout and then into the plumbing system itself. As
it disappeared, Morrow sighed with relief, but then his
stomach turned again, and spasms of pain racked his
body, and he knew his ordeal was far from over.

'I know this sounds like some sort of
Doctor Who
shit,'
James said, 'but it's true, and we need to stop it before it
infects everyone.'

'Infects everyone?'

'Yeah, Dr Morrow used it on a couple of animals at
the research centre. It poisoned them while it was inside
and they died once it had left them. It seems to have
had a bad effect on Mr Phoenix too – that's why we
need to get him to a hospital as soon as we can.'

'Nigel? Where is he?'

'In the staff room. But we have to find the parasite
first, before it gets into anyone else.'

'Well, where is it now?'

'It's inside Dr Morrow – he's one of my colleagues
at the centre. It jumped from Phoenix to him,
then . . . jumped through the window.'

'It did what?'

'It doesn't seem to care about the body it inhabits. It
just uses it as a vehicle and a way of gaining information
and knowledge.'

'But we don't know what it wants,' Sean added,
'though it seems it's after something specific – I think
it'll keep attacking people until it finds it.'

Waites looked from Sean to James, waiting for one
of them to give him the slightest sign that it was all a
big joke. No such luck. 'So this thing is outside somewhere?'

'Yeah, unless it's already got back in.'

'I don't much like the idea of going out there,' Waites
said, turning to the window. 'But—' He stopped as he
heard a bloodcurdling scream from above. 'What the
hell was that?'

'I think it was Mrs Rees,' Sean said.

Confusion more than horror had gripped Mrs Rees initially,
but now she had made some sort of sense of what
her eyes were seeing. She was barely aware of Morrow
standing very close behind her, almost breathing down
her neck, as her eyes continued to dart all over the dreadful
scene. It looked as though all the blood in Phoenix's
body had evacuated itself, along with blobs of slushy
matter – his liquefied organs. His face was a pallid death
mask, pocked with sores and streaked with the blood
that, in his final moments, had poured from his eyes
– which were now staring, yellow and misshapen, while
his mouth, agape, still oozed blood and matter.

Part of Emily Rees wanted to walk forward just to
check that Phoenix was definitely dead; the other part
of her wondered how she could be so stupid as to even
entertain such a notion. Of course he was dead. And
whatever had killed him could be highly infectious,
possibly airborne. She could already have caught it,
but touching him would surely be the most idiotic
move imaginable. She was reminded of pictures she'd
seen in biology textbooks of the effects of the Ebola
virus. This was similar, though it couldn't be Ebola.
Not here.

'Oh God,' came a voice over her shoulder. 'What a
mess.'

She slowly turned to face Morrow, wondering as
she did so what this strange man had to do with the
appalling death of her colleague. As she looked into
his eyes, she realized that this was not the same man
she'd met earlier: something about him had changed
drastically.

'You . . . you've got something to do with this. What's
going on? What happened to Nigel?'

'Please,' Morrow implored, wiping blood and drool
from his chin. 'Don't panic. I'm going to fix this somehow,
but we have to make sure that no one leaves the school.'
He moved towards her, his arms outstretched in an
effort to placate.

'Keep away from me.' It was no longer his behaviour
that frightened Emily Rees; it was the fact that he
looked very ill, and could well be suffering from whatever
had killed Nigel Phoenix. She didn't want him near
her, much less touching her. She wanted to get as far
away as possible.

'Just listen,' Morrow said, still moving forward.
'Please, just listen—'

But Emily Rees had heard enough: she turned and
bolted out of the room and straight into the men's toilets.
She went over to the smashed window, rain still blowing
in, and looked out, down to the ground. It was too far
to jump – she could break her legs. She heard Morrow
approaching from the staff room, still offering words of
comfort, so she entered one of the toilet cubicles and
locked the door. Morrow shuffled in and stopped. She
could hear his breathing.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm so sorry about all of this, but
you have to listen. We are all in danger. We have to think
of the children.'

'Please! Just get away from me.'

'I will, I will, I just . . .' There was a pause, then she
heard him rush to the window and vomit out into the
rain. It sounded rough, painful, like more than just the
contents of his stomach were being brought up. He
coughed, vomited again, then started to cry. She began
to feel sympathy for him, but there was no way she was
leaving this cubicle. No way on earth.

Waites led the way, wondering what had happened
to his quiet afternoon of marking papers. As if being
caught in the mother of all storms wasn't bad enough,
his world now seemed to have descended into
Invasion
of the Bodysnatchers
. He still wasn't entirely sure what
was going on, but the scream had sounded awful, so he
led the way towards the staff room, once again hoping
that this was all just one big wind-up.

Waites immediately saw the blood on the floor – lots
of it – and then Phoenix's body; he was gagging at the
appalling sight when Morrow staggered into the room,
gasping for breath.

'It's in the system,' the doctor said, leaning against the
wall as if he might collapse at any moment. Control of
his body had been returned to him, but his limbs were
now racked with pins and needles as sensation slowly
returned.

'Mrs Rees is in there,' he said, pointing behind
him. 'She's fine – she just locked herself in the
cubicle when I . . . I don't blame her. I must look
awful.'

'I guess you must be Dr Morrow,' Waites said. 'What
the hell happened?' He put his hand over his mouth at
the smell that came from Phoenix's body.

'His body broke down,' Morrow replied, staring
at the mess on the floor between them. 'I think the
specimen carries an infection that remains even after it
leaves its host. Now I've got it too.'

'What sort of infection?'

Until now Sean and his brother had been standing
quietly in the doorway, still trying to take everything in.
Morrow turned to look at them.

'James, did you tell Mr, er . . .'

'Mr Waites. Dan,' Waites said.

'Did you tell Dan what it is we're up against?'

'Yes, I did. I think he might believe us now,' James
replied.

'The specimen got into the water system. It could be
anywhere.'

'Specimen?' Waites asked, perplexed. 'Just what
exactly is it?'

'It's an unknown species with aggressive tendencies
and is . . . poisonous and apparently fatal if it infects
you.'

'How do we kill it?'

'While it's in the pipe-work there's no way we can.
But if we do manage to get hold of it . . . I don't know.'
Morrow shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

'What did it do to Nigel?'

'I think it secretes something that attacks the body
of the host, making the organs turn to mush and bleed
out.'

'Jesus, shouldn't we be phoning someone? Isn't there
some government agency for dealing with this sort of
thing?' Waites asked.

'Yes, but they wouldn't get here fast enough, especially
in this weather.' Morrow's breathing was now growing
laboured, and the colour had drained from his flesh. 'Do
you understand what I've told you?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'Right, well, we need to think about possible
strategies.'

'Strategies?'

'While it was in me I heard its thoughts, just as it could
hear mine. If I concentrate I might be able to remember
something that could help us stop it.' Morrow coughed
painfully. 'It's more dangerous than you think . . . It used
my body in ways I couldn't.'

'What do you mean?' Sean asked.

'The strength . . . it wasn't my own. It seems capable
of doing things the body isn't used to, or isn't normally
prepared to do. Sometimes we don't attempt things
because we feel we haven't the strength, but usually
it's our body telling us we might come to harm. When
that thing was in me it was able to override those safety
measures and do as it wished.'

'Like overclocking,' James said. The other three turned
to him, confused. 'It's when you push your computer, or
specifically the CPU, to operate at a higher speed than
the manufacturer recommends in order to get more performance
out of it. Risky, but most of the time effective if
you know what you're doing – a bit like this creature.'

'Ha.' Morrow laughed, despite the situation.
'Yes . . . Ignoring manufacturers' recommendations.
Perhaps that accelerates the process of destruction set
in motion when the creature enters a host.'

'Yeah,' James said, 'and when you push a computer
too hard it either shuts itself down . . . or burns out.'

Emily could hear voices from the direction of the staff
room. No one was screaming, so perhaps things were
under control. She stood up and moved closer to the
door in an attempt to hear more. Suddenly there was a
strange sound behind her, apparently coming from the
wall. She waited and heard the sound again, lower down
this time; it was like twisting metal. What was it? She
forgot about the voices from the staff room temporarily
and nearly jumped as the sound came from behind
the toilet itself. Something was moving about in there,
but what? She didn't want to open the door – but she
didn't want to stay in the cubicle now either. Something
was now splashing about in the toilet bowl, and she
panicked, opening the door and inching away from the
cubicle towards one of the hand basins. She stood there,
still listening, still wondering what was going on.

The creature had already mapped the pipe-work of
this part of the building in its memory. It could sense
the woman's movement; could hear her breathing and
could guess where she was now. Even as Emily Rees
leaned against the basin in confused panic, the creature
was working its way up around the system towards the
tap; this time it moved soundlessly, its body squeezing
smoothly along the pipes.

Emily stared at the cubicle door, waiting to see if
anything emerged – unaware that something black and
slimy was oozing out of the hot water tap behind her.

There was a splash, then another, and as Emily turned
round to see what was going on, she was overcome by a
feeling of dread. And then she saw it: a horrible, wriggling
slug-like thing. She stared in disgust at it, then
flinched as it coiled itself up and sprang towards her
face. She stumbled backwards, slipped and fell to the
floor, jarring her spine and banging her head against the
cubicle partition. She blacked out.

Waites looked down at the floor, trying to process
everything at once.

'This is too much. It just doesn't make any—'

'Please,' Morrow said. 'Is there a toilet I could use?'

'Yes, of course. Might be best to stay away from Mrs
Rees if she's scared of you. You can use the boys' toilets
downstairs.'

Waites ushered Morrow and the two brothers down
the stairs. 'I'll go and check on Mrs Rees,' he told them.
'You boys wait here for me a second.' He turned and
went back up the stairs.

'If I remember anything crucial I'll come and find
you and Mr Waites,' Morrow said. 'I really need to be
on my own right now though.'

'We understand,' Sean said. They watched him go
into the toilet, wondering how long the poor man had
left to live.

Waites almost bumped into Mrs Rees as she came out
of the staff-room toilets.

'God, Emily, are you—?'

'Ah, er, Dan . . .'

'Come on, let's get you to the hall with the others.'

'Yes.'

'We have a crisis – it's best if you're not on your own
right now.'

'Oh yes, of course. That doctor . . .'

'Yes, I'll explain it all, come on.' He ushered her
through the staff room and down the steps. 'We all
have to be very careful, Emily. There's a creature here
in the school, something from the study centre. It's
extremely dangerous. Nigel and Dr Morrow have already
succumbed to its infection and we need to make sure it
doesn't infect anyone else.'

As they all headed towards the main hall, Sean wondered
what awful thing would happen next. The whole
town could be submerged, judging by the sheer volume
of water that had fallen on it, and if this bizarre parasite
kept jumping from person to person, then dozens of
people might be dead by morning. That's if they hadn't
all drowned first.

It was as they passed the entrance doors that the full
extent of the deluge became clear. Water from higher
up the hill had been streaming down the road for some
time, but now it had spread out and was coming into
the school. Dark tendrils of water streaked across the
floor like tentacles seeking something to grab hold of.
They all stopped to watch in shock as the wide, slow-moving
wave saturated the carpet and spread round the
corner out of sight.

'Come on,' Waites said. 'Let's go.'