The Hope by James Lovegrove Read Free Book Online Page A

feel it. The tail end of the thing vanished, squirting blood out behind it, as Fletcher sank to the floor, his flashlight beam waving uselessly. His eyes rolled up. The front of his overalls was soaked with blood. If he was screaming, I couldn’t hear it. In fact, the whole thing happened in this appalling vacuum of silence, the way nightmares do.
    More of the things squirmed out of the hole. Some plopped into the water and began swimming like they were nicely at home there, thank you, nicely at home anywhere. Others shot themselves into the air, whirs of white and teeth. Fred managed to blast one in mid-leap and it became a spray of globules splattering him in the kisser.
    A heavy weight thumped my shoulder and tumbled off, and I looked up without wanting to look up. They were falling from above too. The one that had bounced off me flipped itself over and made a beeline for my foot and I stamped on it. Stamp! Like that. You should not exist, you slimy bastard.
    They fell like snow from a night sky and landed on our heads and faces and necks. Robinson had one removing his ear and another working at his nose and his mouth was drawn wide with a scream I was glad I couldn’t hear. Stan was swinging a sledgehammer at one in the water. There was a spurt where the hammer hit and he drew the hammer’s head up with the thing stuck to it, flattened in the middle but solid at either end and a stream of fluid coming out of where its asshole must have been. It was wriggling and I swear if Stan had given it a chance it would have torn into his face, half-squelched to death as it was, but he brought the hammer up and brought it down on to another thing at his feet and the two things mashed into each other so you couldn’t tell which was which.
    Flashlights flickered their beams crazily around the chamber, showing up thing after thing falling down headlong, teeth bared. White, black, white, black. I was hypnotised by the sick beauty of it.
    Out of nowhere, one plunged into my face and I thought that was it, I was about to die in that shitty, filthy place with those unreal things. My fingers slithered on its skin. I felt it tense itself to strike and wondered how much it would hurt, and suddenly the thing was off my face and its smothering stink was gone. Benjamin, his eyes so white they seemed to glows in the blackness of his face, had plucked the thing off me and was holding it at arm’s length.
    I remember this bit clearest of all, because that thing squeezed itself out of his hand, and do you know what it reminded me of most? Toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. And it slithered up his arm, white on black, and it headed for his armpit and it vanished into him in a second flat. Benjamin lifted his arm slowly and inspected the hole in his body as if it was no more than a surprise attack of bad body odour. You know, just slightly confused. Hey, what da fok’s goin’ on? Then he jerked. The thing must have reached his heart. He virtually jumped over on to his back. Then he was making spastic movements in the water and I couldn’t watch any longer. As I turned away, I found Fred grabbing my arm and pulling me with him. The glare of his flashlight caught one of the things on the floor and he loosed off a cartridge at it without pausing to consider. I had a vague idea that someone else was running after us, maybe two or three people. Fred let go of me long enough to pump the shotgun and fire again, a soundless flash of flame followed by an explosion of white flesh and liquid, then he pulled me along once more until we made it to the entrance to the passageway.
    Of course, it was ten feet up, but Fred boosted me over the edge with ridiculous ease and threw the gun after. I picked it up and pointed the flashlight down the passage. I prayed there were none of those things along there, but God’s intercom wasn’t on. I saw at least half a dozen scuttling in my direction.
    I pumped the gun as I’d seen Fred do, took aim and fired, but