The entrance took them into Rissa Raines’s kitchen.

This room was at least four times the size of Mark’s modest little kitchen. It wasn’t luxuriously laid out – no marble counter-tops, no polished chrome. This was a kitchen built for use rather than appearance, by the Raines family for Rissa. Three electric cookers of different makes and designs, sitting in a row to the left; Formica-topped cupboards set around the room; a large central table, Formica-topped; a sink with a pair of washing machines to one side and a dishwasher to the other. Pans, utensils and cups hung on hooks above the counters.

Normally, the place would have been dominated by the quick-as-a-whippet form of Rissa busying herself, and the aromas of delicious treats being baked, stewed or fried.

Today the kitchen was the scene of a massacre. The floor was littered in an array of cooking implements, shattered glass and crockery, plus flour, water and what looked like some kind of pulped fruit. A fight had half-cleared ingredients and crockery off the central table – a fight that had ended when someone’s head had been smashed into the Formica. Blood formed a wide pool on the table, seeping gradually to an edge and dripping onto the patterned lino. More blood was smeared over a counter and down the cupboard doors beneath, one of which was torn halfway-off. Water poured from a faucet in the sink, its rushing hiss drowning out the slow tapping of dripping blood.

Beyond the central table, it was much worse. A human form lay twisted and ruined on the linoleum. Congealing blood was spread from it across the floor in the manner of long flat tentacles. Mark swore softly while he looked down upon the victim. It had no face, no hair, very little flesh on its skeleton. Although the body was lying on its back, he could see right into the gory ribcage and make out most of the spine. Had wild animals attacked and eaten whoever it was?

Connie joined his side, saw what he was looking at and gave a harsh gasp of surprise.

“Oh God,” she murmured. “What the hell has happened?”

Mark’s gaze shifted down the form. There were scraps of cloth stuck to the remains, now turned crimson. He couldn’t tell... Yes, he could. A flat-heeled woman’s shoe lay beside the devoured feet.

“It’s Rissa,” he said, his voice trembling.

“Boss!” came Rudy’s call from the rear of the group. “Randolph is heading towards the doorway now. He’ll be in here with us in less than a minute.”

Inside Marks’ mind, a logical and wrong deduction was made. Randolph had returned to the house and found what was left of Rissa. It had driven him mad... But this didn’t explain Randy’s eyes, the blood around his mouth and neck, his unholy moaning, the snapping of his jaws, or the knife stuck in his chest... Could whatever had killed Rissa still be nearby?

“We’ll go straight through the kitchen into the living room,” he called back. “Don’t you guys look at the floor behind the table.”

The old farmer started moving, his shotgun pointing before him. Three doors led out of the kitchen – left, ahead and right. He took the left, into the oversized living room dominated by Randy’s prized hundred-inch TV.

This room, too, was a scene of violence and destruction. The three Lazy Boy recliners were turned over, one actually snapped in half. The couch was on its back and had been torn wide open to disgorge foam padding. Randy’s TV had been swept off the wall and lay broken amid a scatter of glass. Two of the three bookcases holding DVDs and Blu-rays were damaged, unleashing their contents – a heavy impact had snapped all the shelves of one bookcase. Bloodstains marked the living room: soaking into the disembowelled couch; dripping down the sides of one recliner and a bookcase; and forming a sinuous path across the carpet.

A trail of blood – splotches, many smeared by dragging footsteps – meandered out of the room, through a partly open doorway opposite the group.

“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Esteban said from behind Connie. “This is a nightmare.”

Rudy closed the door they had just come through. “Randy’s in the kitchen.”

Beyond the thudding of her heart, Connie could hear the approach of Raines senior. Those heavy, lumbering footsteps were uncertain yet resolute, and in her mind’s eye she could see the ghastly condition of her former neighbour. How could he still be alive? Was he... still alive? The latter question burned in her mind. To say Randolph was dead was surely insane, but wasn’t their situation well beyond insane now? And hadn’t she already seen dead things resurrect themselves today..?

When Mark suddenly shouted, his three companions all but jumped out of their skins. 

“Is there anyone else here?” he bellowed. “Yell back if you can hear me!”

“Jesus, Uncle Mark,” Connie chided, “you might have warned us first.”

From somewhere ahead came a reply to Mark’s call.

A plaintive, muffled cry for help.

​

*     *     *

Randolph Raines was at the door to the living room now.

He pushed at the barrier using outstretched arms and produced a hefty thud. Twice more an attempt was made to enter by simple brute force – then he paused, and a clumsy fumble at the handle followed. The handle went down, but not enough to unfasten the door. There were more confused thuds and another pause. Randolph’s second try at the handle was more focussed and determined... and the door opened easily...

Mark, Connie, Esteban and Rudy were already through the opposite exit of the room and entering a hall that led to bedrooms. The hall was a simple square, with a laundry storage closet on the left and a passage running straight ahead. Two bedroom doors stood on either side of the corridor. A door at the end of the passage would open into a conservatory.

Standing outside the furthest right-hand door was a blood-soaked male figure. Connie failed to recognise it to be John, the eldest of Randy and Rissa’s three sons. Often, John had been described as looking like a junior version of his father – now the similarity between the pair was in their bloody and inhuman appearance. They shared the same faltering gait to their walk; the same stiffness of pose; and a similar level of physical damage to them – enough to have killed either. Something had struck the right side of John’s head, hard enough to tear skin and muscle from his skull and leave his ear dangling on his crimsoned shoulder. John showed no sign of pain or suffering. All his attention was on the door before him. He clawed at the wood using both hands, mimicking a wild animal. His jaws made the now-familiar, very disturbing repeated clacking. No moaning came from the figure.

Mark advanced to the start of the corridor and shouted: “John! You come away from there now.”

From behind the battered barrier, a woman cried: “Oh, thank God, someone’s come to help us.”

John seemed to obey. He twisted to face the foursome. His pure white eyes peered in their direction... And he decided that victims in the open were better than those locked behind a door. The man staggered in the direction of Mark’s group. As he did, his arms reached out and his fingers clawed the air. 

“You stop right where you are, John!” Mark cried, hefting his weapon. “Listen to me and stop now.”

“I don’t think he can understand,” Connie said. “I think he and Randy are like those birds. They’re dead.”

“That’s crazy,” her uncle retorted. “We’ve known them for years. How could—”

“The shit we found in the field,” she went on. “It’s contaminated them. Killed them.”

John was halfway down the passage now, approaching the closer pair of bedroom doors.

“I think she’s right, boss,” Esteban added. “They aren’t just sick.”

Mark pointed to the ceiling above John’s head and fired. The boom of his shotgun stung their ears in the confined space. A hail of shattered plaster and splinters rained down onto John, who appeared unaware of it. The man continued forwards.

“Shit,” spat Mark. He pumped the weapon ready and levelled it at John’s left arm. “Stop! Don’t make me do this.”

Two more faltering paces.

Another blast shook the passageway. Fabric and flesh were torn away from John’s upper arm, to splash the nearby wall with a haze of blood. The arm dipped a fraction, muscle damage making the limb harder to keep outstretched. There was no expression of pain or shock on John’s face – nothing to suggest the wound had had any effect.

Three more strides brought John within six feet of Mark.

If the monstrous face could show any feeling at all, it was one of awful, insatiable hunger.

Mark pumped the shotgun again and fired a third time.

His blast punched into John’s left thigh. Shotgun pellets pierced the flesh and shattered the bone beyond. Force of impact threw the limb from under John and slammed him face-down onto the floor. Mark and the others retreated into the hall, all of them gaping at their former friend.

No sooner was John down than he struggled to rise. His left leg was useless and collapsed under him, folding halfway down the thigh, slivers of broken bone emerging from ragged, bloody jeans. Blood dripped from the savage wound – but didn’t geyser as it should have from a severed artery. John reached out using both hands and started to drag himself forwards. It seemed no threat, no wound, would stop him from closing-in and attacking his prey.

Mark lowered the barrel of his shotgun. His face was twisted with emotion.

“Please, John, don’t make me hurt you anymore...”