Decay Inevitable

Sean held her back and put a hand over her mouth. He drew her face close to his and slowly, deliberately, shook his head. Emma’s eyes widened and grew angry. He leaned into her and whispered, as quietly as he possibly could, “Marshall is dead. That is not Marshall.”

Marshall was standing at the centre of the green, cocking his head, as if he had somehow caught a sliver of what Sean had passed on to Emma and was trying to pinpoint where the fragments of sound had come from.

Watching Marshall, Sean could see little things, little tell-tale signs that suggested it was not the man. Marshall would not wear his hat so far back on his head, like Sinatra. His belt buckle was tied across his coat, something Marshall never did because it made him feel restricted and didn’t allow him access to his gun. This Marshall had thrust his destroyed hand into his pocket. Sean guessed that was because, dead, it would have stopped bleeding. This Marshall could not replicate the flow that was needed. This Marshall had to hide the lack of bloodshed.

Sean saw the only way they could escape. “Here,” he mouthed to Emma. She gaped at him uncomprehendingly. “Love me. Fuck me.”

Already his hands were moving under her skirt, touching her, trying to coax some heat and wetness from her. She protested, trying to wriggle back, her eyes on Marshall as he staggered across the green. But maybe something in Marshall’s gait, the way his drunken stumble had arrested itself and was becoming, by the second, more controlled, caused her to give pause.

“Trust me,” Sean said, rubbing his fingers against and into the soft, moist yield of her sex. He guided her hand to his trousers and she unzipped him, drawing him out into the cold. He risked, “I love you,” because he needed to say the words and he needed her to be reassured. She nodded and leaned over him, quickly stiffening his cock with her mouth. She drew away and shuffled over him, apeing the position they had been in earlier. When she sank on to him, she had to stifle a moan by stuffing a fistful of jumper into her mouth. They moved against each other as slowly as they dared, and instantly rainbow motes began to tremble in the air, six feet away. It was like white noise on a television screen. Emma’s thighs trembled at the end of every upstroke, Sean’s when he rose to meet her coming back down, the price they had to pay for stealth: every shred of them wanted to speed up, to sprint for that delicious moment.

Emma watched Marshall, or what had once been Marshall. He seemed to have shed every aspect of the pretence, but for his shell. He knew they were there. He could read it in the warmth that had impinged upon the cold air of the park. He could smell the animal in them as they rutted. But he couldn’t see them. Yet. She recalled the pathetic, determined figure that had pressed through the bars of the hospital gates, like an unpopular child desperately trying to keep up with the would-be friends who were attempting to lose her. This person had evolved. This was real danger. It possessed knowledge and guile and strength. Will would have been dead by now, were he in the same situation from which they had rescued him. She wondered, as she felt herself grow giddy from the soft, impossible rhythms that her body was being sucked into, if the creature’s evolution had reached its ceiling yet. She wondered if, in a short while, it would be able to see them in the dark, if its eyes might develop some kind of thermal recognition now that it realised such a thing would be useful to it.

Pondering this, she felt the moment upon her. She knew she was going to come soon and could not stop herself from upping the ante. Sean tried to respond by reining in her new energy but she would not be denied. The colours sparkled and pulsed, as if catalysed by this development.

And Marshall saw.

The colours coalesced, forming a vertical palette. Smears of fresh hues as the colours merged ran up and down the palette as it twisted, creating a column. The air around it seemed to distort, as if unsure what side of the column to be on.

Emma bucked against Sean, beginning to make soft, yelping noises. Sean gave himself to the feeling too, and within a few strokes was there with her. They lurched apart at the moment of climax. Cheke was rushing them now, the glamour that was Marshall already reabsorbed. She shot twice, but the curtain of colour between them distracted her aim and the bullets were wayward. Dogs had started barking all around them. Lights were coming on in bedrooms. The third bullet caught Emma in the throat and she went down, clutching her neck with both hands. Somehow Sean managed to drag Emma into the maelstrom before Cheke laid her hands upon them. He had the final impression of her gun rising, level with his head, but he threw his arm across his eyes and toppled forwards into the cold fire. This time there were no faces in the flames, no incitement or enticement. None was needed.