Chill
by
Terri Pine, Peter Lee and Andrew Muller

Excerpt taken from Road Rage by Andrew Müller

Caroline found herself completely lost. She had thought she was going the right way, but now had wandered into a peaceful little valley surrounded by fields of brilliantly yellow rape with no other features than the road and the hedges down either side of it. The sky was hot and blue, the atmosphere probably less muggy than her befuddled brain thought it was. Not for the first time she swore she would never drink again. Well, probably never.
      Somewhat oddly there was a little concrete bench sitting by the side of the road. Caroline sat down on it and put her head in her hands, wishing the percussion section in her skull would rest up for a while.
      "Go on then, sit there feeling sorry for yourself. God, you make me sick." said a voice.
      Surprised Caroline lifted her head. Blinked her eyes. Shook her head. Pinched herself. No, it was still there. In front of her, growing from the tarmac road surface was a man shaped ... um ... man. He appeared to be made completely from tarmac, with little gravely bits for his eyes. He - and he definitely was a he - was perfectly formed from the shiny black material, until you reached his knees from where his legs kind of merged into a pyramid shape which moulded into the road surface. Caroline was surprised to notice he had a broken white line running down his side which continued either side of him.
      "Yeah, right." Caroline said and decided to ignore this obvious apparition.
      The tarmac man cleared his throat. "Look, you can try to ignore me if you like. But I ain't goin' nowhere. You're just gonna have to talk to me."
      "Oh wonderful, not only do I imagine a man made of concrete, but I have to imagine him talking like a cheap car salesman from Basildon. Look just fuck off will you, you're just a figment of my alcohol-sodden brain." Caroline didn't even look up.
      "Oh, well, thank you very much. It's a bit bloody insulting to be dismissed as drunken imaginings you know. And my accent, which I'm sure I'm sorry you don't bleedin' like, is 'cos I used to be part of the M11, okay." Strange Caroline could smell fresh laid roads when the man talked.
      No she couldn't. She couldn't - right. She couldn't because this was a figment of her imagination, God help her.
      "And," the road-man continued, "I'm not made of concrete. I am made of hardened tarmacadam with bitumen H3A additive, for extra roadgrip in the wet."
      Caroline sighed and stood up. "Look, I really don't have time for this. I am completely lost, stoned out of my brain on Lambrusco and Aspirin, and have no desire to talk to a man made out of road surface, no matter how much he grips in the rain." She began to walk off up the hill. The tarmac man followed her, moving up the road like a wave with a glooping noise, keeping perfect pace with Caroline, despite her slowly speeding up.
      "Don't you want to know what I want?" asked the tarmac man, as he slooshed along side her.
      Caroline stopped and put her hands on her hips. "No, I don't," she said waving her fist at her black pitch tormentor, "just fuck off and leave me alone. I don't want to know why my sick mind has created you." She stepped on to the road and was immediately swallowed up by a thick black semi-liquid which sucked her downwards as surely as a quagmire. As she sank underneath the smelly black stuff she felt it pouring into her nostrils, her ears and when she opened her mouth to breath it flowed in there too, thick and glutinous like bad porridge. She could feel its gritty moistness sticking in her hair, coating her clothes and her skin. But incredibly she didn't die.
      Although her lungs felt heavy, filled as they were with extracted petroleum products, she didn't feel the need to breath. She kept her eyes screwed up tight and floated downwards for a long time. She could feel her clothing slowly getting more and more damaged until it all but dissolved, the black tarmac gently covering her body like a lover's tongue. After an unknown period of time she felt herself settle on a solid something and come to rest.

Excerpt from Chill by Terri Pine

Feeling the axe slipping in her bloodied hand and with more blood pooling in her boot and seeping down her arm, Helen stifled a desperate sob and took off across the garden again, heading for the back door.

Why did the house seem so far away? The axe dragged the ground, slowing her down as she ran, but she couldn't let it go, it was her only hope. She heard the low, chittering noises of the creatures as they gained on her, and the fury rose in her like a beast itself. Her chest grew tight with it, her vision blurred, she wanted to scream and scream at them, swing the axe and slice their disgusting heads clean away from their equally hideous bodies. She wanted to stand there in the snowy garden, screaming until she couldn't stand any longer … but there was Louis. And now, Helen saw with a heavy feeling, one of the four had broken away from the others and was making for the front of the house. She had no time to spare, she had to get in and lock all the doors from the inside. Then she and Louis could wait them out until the snow melted and the power came back on, restoring their telephone link to safety.
      Grunting with the effort of moving through the deepening snow, tightening her grip on the axe, Helen forced herself to go on.

She was almost there when it happened. A wrong step, an over-eager lunge for the door, whichever it was, her foot caught in some object beneath the snow and she went down again. This time the pain was instant, a deep and bursting agony that shot through the top of her right thigh and then the immediate gushing of warm blood. Her head light, the scream tearing loose before she had time to swallow it, she realised what had happened ...

Excerpt from Heavy Weather by Peter Lee

Sunday
7:50 P.M.

Duncan climbed onto his stairlift and pressed the up button. With a quiet whirr, the seat started to rise, following the angle of the stairs until it reached the top, where a second wheelchair was waiting. He pulled the chair closer, applied the brake, and climbed into it. Brakes off, he pushed himself into his bedroom, and up to the window. As he had been watching an adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", he had heard doors closing outside, followed by voices. Something struck him as being strange, and so he had decided to investigate.
      From the window, he looked down at Galena Street. It was a beautiful evening, but something was wrong. On such an evening, the road was usually crowded with children at play, adults working in the garden or simply chatting. Nobody moved. A gentle breeze rustled leaves, but this was surrounded by decibels of silence. Duncan looked towards the open end of the road. Abingdon Crescent was in the same silent state.
      Screams shattered the silence.

Lisa Harvey lay in her bed, feeling terrible. She thought that she was dying, but in reality, she had influenza. Even though she had a fever, she felt cold. Her stomach muscles were sore after seemingly endless vomiting and, although she had not eaten for over twenty-four hours, she could not face the thought of food. All she wanted was her doll, and to feel better. She wished, however, that her illness would last longer. As much as she hated influenza, she could not bear the thought of going back to school. Time and time again, her parents had told her that schooldays are the best days of your life, but at six years old, she did not believe them.
      The door opened, and in came Daddy. His shirt was a mess. Lisa saw dark patches on his white T-shirt, some of which were glistening in the light. He stepped out of a shadow, and she saw that the stains were red. Blood red. The skin on his face was torn in several places. Four gashes on each cheek, spaced equally, all the same width. Fingernail width. Just like Mummy's fingernails.
      "Hello, love," whispered Daddy. He smiled, revealing a broken front tooth. From behind his back, he produced a claw hammer. The silver head looked dirty. It was red. The V-shaped claw was dark, but there was something on the end. Something that looked soft, and very red. Attached to the soft something were several hairs, several blonde hairs. Just like Mummy's hairs.
      Daddy stood at the bedside. "It's alright, love." Lisa cried. Daddy raised the hammer.