Scarlet Rain, part three
A horror short story
Need to catch up?
This story also available in my anthology Advanced Word Associations.
Her head throbbing, neck aching, her seatbelt chafing, Shae adjusted her glasses and found herself looking up at the falling rain and the thin, high clouds. The drops gradually shrouded the windshield, cracks and all.
"Mom? You okay?"
Her mother moaned, but she didn't seem injured. "I think so. We must have run into a ditch."
"What the hell was that thing?" Shae said. "It came out of nowhere."
"Well, we can't stay here," her mother said. "It might catch up to us."
Shae worked herself out of her seatbelt, pushed the door open, and fished her foot out to find solid, if not dry, ground. Once she did, she helped guide her mother across the driver's seat, and into the ditch. The rain had softened, but still poured.
They were standing ankle deep in blood. Shae's throat tightened and her stomach clamped in. She pressed her lips tight together. If any drops made it through, and she tasted, she might be a goner. As if they could even make it to the freeway like this, much less escape Fairground.
Something made the sound of splattering sludge at the top of the ditch.
Shae clutched her mother's shoulders.
The thing resembled a human, or maybe the mere suggestion of one, made of congealing blood. A pair of tentacles hung from its left side, and an oversized hand from its right. It looked at Shae and her mother with a cluster of eyes in the front of its head.
Shae and her mother held on tighter to one another.
The thing made a gurgling noise as it began to stoop down.
"Stay away!" Shae's mother yelled. "Don't hurt us!"
The thing reached out its right hand.
"Just stop! Make it all stop!" Shae's voice scratched her throat. "We're sorry, okay? We didn't mean to hurt anything! It was an accident! Just please, go away and leave us alone!"
The thing gurgled again. Somehow, it sounded oddly like "I."
Shae clenched a fist over a fold of her mother's sleeve.
"…mean… no… harm."
Shae and her mother both took a step back. "You heard that, right?" Shae said.
Her mother nodded.
"I… want… to… help…" The thing stretched its arm down. Its fingers touched the blood. Please let me help.
Shae had felt a tingle around her ankles. Mother and daughter loosened their grip.
The thing spoke again, and another tingle crept up Shae's calves. I never meant for this to happen. I was simply passing by your star, and thought I'd stop to observe your world. But I miscalculated, and an aircraft cut open a blood vessel.
"You don't mean…" Shae pointed up. "You're that… thing up there?"
My consciousness is spread through every cell in my body, even in the blood. Even now, you are standing in my mind.
"Why don't you just leave?" Shae's mother said. "Haven't you already done enough?"
I wish I could. But it's already too late. I'm dying. It's already taking all my strength to resist this world's gravitational pull. Soon I will lose consciousness and fall to the ground. Already I'm sinking. Look there.
The thing pointed its eyes up.
The clouds split apart as the tip of a massive tentacle sliced through. For the first time in what felt like days, even through that little sliver, Shae saw a blue sky.
So this was it. The whole city was about to be crushed, along with anybody who didn't get out in time, which would be most of them. Shae and her mother, and her father, and all her friends, her classmates, her coworkers, her ex-boyfriends. Everyone.
And then the carcass would rot. And if that abomination's blood was able to do all this, what would its decay do?
There was nothing left to look forward to but death.
Not necessarily.
"Huh?" Shae said. Of course—she could hear its thoughts, why not the other way around?
I've had a chance to do some thinking as I've pooled myself back together. My blood clearly has an unusual effect on life here. If we were to harness that… control it…
"What do you mean 'we'?" Shae said.
One of you could ingest the blood, allow it to change you, and I can guide the change so it gives you the power to stop the fall.
"What?!" Mom cried.
"You want us to drink this?" Shae said. "On purpose? I saw those freaks out there! I'm not turning into one of them!"
I believe if we work together, I can prevent it from causing you permanent damage. I can build you an anti-gravity organ, and then you can use it to send me back out into space, where I can die in peace. You can send me to one of your gas giants. I began my life on one. I'd like to make one my grave as well.
"Absolutely not!" Mom said. "Shae, don't listen to him. He's the devil."
"I wasn't planning on it."
In some of your fellow organisms, I encountered a saying… The devil can disguise himself as an angel of light. Now that I understand what an angel and a devil are, I ask you, would a devil disguise himself as me?
"We're not drinking your damn slop!" Mom said. "Why us, anyway?"
Because you happened to be here. We're running out of time.
The clouds parted, and the body of the thing in the sky bulged through.
Mom was right. It took up the entire dome above them. Shae felt like she was getting crushed just looking at it. A flick of one of its tentacles sent out a massive gust, nearly blowing Shae's glasses off. Even the mightiest storm cloud had never seemed so colossal. It wouldn't even really have to fall. Simply touch ground. Shae would be an ant underneath.
Her only hope of survival seemed to be the stream flowing beneath her.
"What happens to all this?" Shae said, holding out her hand to a fungus that had grown in someone's front yard. "If your plan works?"
This planet is hostile to my kind of life. These mutations will die very soon, even without being crushed. But I'm connected to them. I can help us."
"And the blood?"
There's nothing more I can do for what's already fallen. But together, we can stop more from coming.
By then it would certainly be too late for Fairground. Nearly every stray dog and cat, every bird, and every bug within the city limits had probably drunk the blood by now. It would take something drastic, like fire, to clear it all out.
But the people could still get away.
Even if something happened to Shae, the people she loved might be safe.
All at once, Shae's panic withered away.
She stepped away from her mother.
"Shae? What are you doing?"
Shae bent down, cupped her hands, and filled them with blood.
"Shae! Are you insane?" Her mother slapped her wrist, and the blood spilled.
Shae bent down again. "Maybe so," she said. "The thing said it'd make it safe for me."
"You trust that thing? After everything it's done?"
Shae continued to back away. "But even if I can't go back to normal… Even if I die…"
"Get a hold of yourself! You're my only child. I've sacrificed so much for you! What am I supposed to do without you? What am I supposed to tell your father?"
Shae took another, longer step, out of her mother's reach. "Tell him I love him."
She scooped up another handful of blood and poured it straight down her throat.
"Shae…"
"I love you, Mom."
As soon as the blood hit her stomach, a spasm struck her entire body and sent her doubling over. Sparks were spreading out to every extremity. Her head became nothing but stormclouds.
Through all that, the thing's voice rang through within her. Relax. It seems to be working.
The skin on Shae's arms began to turn red and puff out like an allergic reaction. Her clothes tightened and stretched out. Shae took one last look at her mother, and then, as if compelled by her own arms and legs, climbed onto the road and started running. Her mother cried out her name. The crying soon turned to wailing. The noise within Shae soon drowned it out.
The fabric began to rip. Even her glasses seemed to shrink, with the temples bending back from her face. Soon her feet burst out of her shoes. The clothes the nice lady at the TV station had loaned her tore apart and fluttered off behind her. Her glasses slipped off and bounced off the tip of her nose. Everything became a blur.
Let me adjust your eyes.
Shae's vision cleared just as she was about to run into a fallen tree. She was able to jump over it with ease. The fact made her stop. The tree hardly looked that much bigger than she was, and the roofs and chimneys of the houses around her were now at eye level.
"I'm growing," Shae breathed. Her voice had hollowed out and deepened. "I'm huge." Without understanding why, she grabbed onto the trunk she had just hurdled.
You need more mass. This will help.
The mutated bark sank into her hands, and the entire tree seemed to drain into her arms. By the time it was gone, she now towered over the neighborhood.
Yes, it's working. You can absorb the fungus, too, and the other mutations. They know what we're doing.
Shae pressed her hand to the ground, and the fungal stalks ran to her fingers as if into a vacuum. The blood in the ditch did the same thing. The three-headed buzzard rammed her arm and became part of her. Soon other mutated animals bounded up the street just to merge with her, starting out one by one, then growing into a stampede. Even the giants that used to be a human joined in. Their minds and internal organs had already been destroyed, leaving them basically zombies. All they had left as they joined her was relief, and a hope that they could help.
Her mother watched from beside the car. The creatures kept away from her as they ran. Her eyes stayed on Shae.
Soon even the trees were uprooting themselves and merging into Shae's legs, and she continued to grow. She still had her hands and feet, and now the red had faded from her skin. It was turning gray, into something more like slate or marble, or maybe even steel. Her knees began to buckle slightly. Her back bent.
I'm building up denser bones, hardier muscles.
She stood straight again. She could see clear over the ridge now, over all the other neighborhoods and shopping centers and office complexes and railyards on this side of town, amid a sea of red that was flowing and swarming toward her. The bulge still dominated the sky above her. What was it again? How did all this get started?
All at once she remembered. I've built up new brain matter to supplement your own. I'm also adding more ventilation.
As she breathed, air sucked in through pores in her ribs, in her arms, in her legs. When she closed her eyes, she could feel a spot of consciousness in every joint, along with a pulse. The thing wasn't just expanding her existing brain—it was building new brains, as well as new hearts and new lungs, all over her body, to ensure everything got what it needed.
From what she could tell, she was now taller than the largest buildings downtown, as if she had wandered onto a scale model of all of Fairground. She could see the chains of tiny brake lights crammed into the freeways that snaked away from town. Any minute now Shae would be as tall as the surrounding mountains—short though they were. She might even be able to simply reach up and touch the creature in the sky.
We don't need to get that big. But we're almost ready.
Shae could feel it—more strength, more energy than she had ever felt in her life. Than anyone had ever felt. She turned back and found her car still sticking out of the ditch, with her mother standing aghast next to it.
Shae didn't even have to take a step. Crouching down, she touched a finger to the car. It began to drift up into the air. She directed it over to the road, set it down, let its weight return, and pointed it toward the Interstate.
"Shae!" Her mother's voice was faint and distant. "Shae, what have you done?"
Shae held out a hand over her mother, shielding her from the rain. "Go."
Even from up here, Shae could see the pain in her mother's face. But Mom got in the car, got it started, and headed off toward the traffic jam.
I've finished the anti-gravity organ. You're ready.
Shae broke off running, clearing several city blocks in one stride. Her feet pounded into the ground, leaving deep prints in the road. Occasionally she'd hit a sinkhole, but she never lost her footing. She leaped over the ridge as if it were a hurdle on a racetrack. Judging by how the creature was descending, the best place to position herself would be over at the ballpark by the train tracks. Not too far away now.
Choppers in the distance watched her race through the streets. The world was almost certainly watching. She would have preferred to achieve fame through a great graphic novel, but this would have to do.
With one foot on the road and the other crushing a baseball diamond, Shae jumped straight up.
She let her weight fall away and continued rising toward the fleshy blob above. A crescent gash ran along the side of the dome.
Shae pressed her hands to the thing's flesh. It felt like a blister on snakeskin.
The thing's weight vanished, and it stopped sinking.
She pressed her hands to the thing's flesh again and gave it a firm push.
The thing began to rise as she fell back to the ground. But it wasn't rising quickly enough. She needed to push it far enough out that by the time it lost consciousness and its anti-gravity organ gave out, it would be too far for Earth's pull to reach it. Shae let herself fall, and smashed feet first to the ground, cratering the street. The thing was starting to drift away, so she ran about a mile before she jumped again.
Shae and the thing passed through where the layer of clouds had once been. A blue sky once again surrounded her, with the sun toward the west.
You have such a beautiful star. And to think you have clouds like this on such a rocky world. This is not such a bad place to die.
She gave the body another push, launching herself back downward. It still rose, but just one more nudge would give it the momentum and trajectory it really needed.
Just before she touched ground, she repelled Earth's gravity and softened her landing. Right away she ran again and jumped.
The blue sky darkened as she flew up. Cracks began to form on her arms.
The body I made is losing integrity. Don't worry. We still have time. I'm ready.
Around her it became night. The Earth was glowing with its pale blue light miles below her. Shae reached the thing, and gave it one last push, and the hulking mass continued to float up… up… and out. The direction and momentum Shae had used had felt right. If all went well, in some years it would arrive on Jupiter to be consumed by its clouds, just as it wanted.
That left her hanging here, right on the precipice of Earth orbit. The vents all over her body were no longer taking in air. Shae ran entirely on reserves.
"What's going to happen to me?" she said, with no sound coming out. "Hello? Are you still there?"
Just barely. I am grateful.
Her fingers began to snap off as the cracks spread over her hands. "But what about me? Am I stuck here? Am I going to die?"
I only came up to end my life. Not yours. Rest now. I'll find a way to keep you safe. Just rest.
As her arms and legs crumbled, Shae closed her eyes and let herself float in silence.
To be continued…