Hosts of the Heavens and Earth.

“The parasite,” continued Hopkins with a leer, “is evacuated through the cat's shit, whereupon it is devoured by hungry rats.”

He knew he was putting everyone off their food but that was just the cherry on the cake as far as Hopkins was concerned, he had a point to make, one he knew his old friend would dig.

“Seriously Bill, shut the fuck up.” His old friend, Jim Laing, growled. He'd just stuffed a large plate of lasagne down his gullet and was feeling so bloated he worried it might come bursting back out. The conversation wasn't helping, not one jot.

Hopkins was not about to silence himself, he was on a roll, about to reveal something horrifying yet fascinating “Not yet. See this is the best bit. The parasite attacks the rat's brain, changes their behaviour, makes them see the cat not as a predator, but as a friend perhaps, something to head towards rather than away from. The cats then eat the rats and the whole cycle begins again.”

Sally Hopkins drained her glass of wine, sighed and said with her impeccable snark, “This is why we don't get invited out often.”

“Well he did ask what I was researching.” Bill chuckled, glee apparent. He stuffed a large clump of mashed potato and gravy into his mouth with satisfaction.

Laing shook his head and chuckled. “Honestly Bill, you need to get away from the lab more often.”

Laing's new girlfriend Sarah however was not as squeamish as the other two. “You mean the parasite's change the survival instinct of the rats? That's fascinating.”

“Exactly.” Bill answered, pleased someone had got the drift. “What's more fascinating is that the parasite can also affect human behaviour, cause schizophrenic symptoms. Which is why I brought it up. Mental health is your field is it not?”

Both Laing and his girlfriend nodded. Sarah adding with some proud sounds of admiration. “Well I'm still studying, Jim's the expert.”

Laing just scowled, he was no longer annoyed but curious, despite the ugly nature of the discussion, Bill was right, it was something he should know. “Well dinner might not be the best time to discuss mental illness and the life cycle of parasites eh?”

The other three gave a polite laugh.

Sally Hopkins put two and two together though and asked, “does that mean that it might account for all those mad people who collect tonnes of cats? Like the Cat Lady down on Aikenhead Road?”

Bill shrugged. “Could do, but that's more Jim's area than mine.”

Laing laughed to himself, a small sound escaping. “You know, I take it back, you might actually be on to something. That's… good job Bill.”

“I aim to please.” Hopkins laughed.

The rest of the evening was entirely more pleasant, and Laing got drunker than he had been for a while, which resulted in him being more publicly amorous towards Sarah who was 24 years his junior. Bill and Sally looked a bit uncomfortable at this but were pleased that Laing had found some happiness after the tragic death of his wife Victoria from cancer, two years previously.

For Laing, it was the first time that he'd actually forgotten his marriage and when he woke the following morning with Sarah and his bedsheets wrapped around him, he felt a deep guilt, a bittersweet happiness and a vague longing for his lost love all of which he kept to himself. At breakfast Sarah told him how much the previous night meant to her, that she felt like she was finally let in to his life and she was pleased that he didn't just think her a temporary thing. He also had a headache which hurt like hell, which he put down to drinking so much. This didn't help Laing, he worried about it all the way to work, wondering if indeed it was the time to let Victoria go.

Laing worked with psychopaths, criminal psychopaths, men and women who had, through some form of mental derangement or other committed atrocities upon themselves but mostly upon others. His work took the form or research rather than containment of these unfortunate and highly dangerous people and quite often he would interview them, send them for brain scans, even try exotic and experimental neurochemicals on them, with their permission of course. He knew the irony of this, that most of them were not in jail because the did not have the faculty to reason well enough, they were after all, mad. However no one batted an eyelid about what experiments the medical community might commit upon these blighted souls, not as long as they got a signature.

It was an ethical grey area but Laing, like most people assumed that if they could help people, it was a line worth crossing.

He spent the morning finding out all he could about the research into the toxoplamosis parasites that Bill had raved on about the previous evening and was surprised to find that indeed, there were cases of parasitosis causing schizophrenic symptoms within humans. Hallucinations, paranoid ideation, the whole common list of symptoms was there. Still what concerned him most was not this brain altering from the infestation but rather the volume of people suspected to be infested who were asymptomatic. Millions of people worldwide oblivious to the fact that they were hosts to this rather worrying parasite. He wrote a letter to his director suggesting that perhaps it might be worth while screening some of the more unstable killers for toxoplasmosis and then went for an early lunch.

He met Sarah in Fhtagn's Deli. It was a family-run business close-by his workplace and the Fhtagn family, who looked and sounded like they were from the far eastern end of southern Europe, made the most delicious ethnic food he'd ever tasted, spicy meats, with rich red tomato sauce, chunks of pickled veg and Teppa Mushrooms. He'd never heard of such fungus before but found they were fast becoming his favourite thing, they tasted like nothing else, utterly delicious and perfect on the hot spicy sandwiches the Fhtagn's liked to make. He thought them some exotic mushrooms from whatever homeland the Fhtagn's had originated from but Ilgo Fhtagn assured the were locally sourced. Picked fresh weekly by his son.

He ate there most days. Ilgo Fhtagn, the family patriarch was a short individual who looked somewhat Mongolian and had sturdy arms covered in hair and tattoos. The old man was always pleased to see him. The same could not be said for the grumpy Mrs Fhtagn, who seemed more like a grandmother than a mother to the three Fhtagn children. The two daughters, Herli and Pwilla, did not seem to have much in common with their parents apart from similar eye features and tattoos, both were about a foot taller, blond and skinny and they worked along side their father while Mrs Fhtagn sat at the back giving the evil eye and muttering to anyone who came into the shop. They had a son, Haster, but Laing hadn't seen him in a long while.

He and Sarah were sitting eating lunch when she said, out of the blue and nervously, “I want to talk about Victoria.”

Laing looked up, blinked at her several times and said. “I don't and it's none of your business.”

“But.” Sarah said without getting another word out.

“Sarah, I will end this relationship right here and now if you do not respect my wishes. I do not want to discuss this any further, please, let it go.”

Sarah sat there with her mouth wide open, shocked. Laing wondered if anyone had ever told her “no” in her life before. She placed her sandwich down on the table, sniffed, her eyes welling up with tears, stood up and marched out. Laing said nothing, he continued his lunch. No thought of regret or guilt crossed his mind, no worry about whether he should go after her or not. He was fond of her but he was not ready to just open up about eighteen years of marriage. He knew he had not fully accepted his loss, there was no point in picking the scabs, best to let it heal. Laing finished his lunch, paid Ilgo for both of them with thanks and after some bland chit-chat about the weather went back to work.

On the walk back to work he received a text from Sarah. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.”

Laing decided not to respond, he'd speak to her later, feed her some psychological pablum that would satisfy her emotions. He had other things to do, he wanted to see if his intuition, or rather Sally's intuition bore any fruit. He received no reply from the director and so spent the rest the afternoon e-mailing Bill and other people involved in toxoplasmosis research. He left early, got home and opened a bottle of wine while he waited for Sarah to return. He really wanted to sort things out with her, feeling that he should have perhaps been less forceful in his demand that she drop the discussion. He had drained the bottle before he realised she was late, seriously late. He checked his phone to see if he had missed any messages but there was nothing after the one from lunchtime.

Had she called his bluff and left? He didn't know, nor did he know whether he should call her. He tormented himself for a while, opening another bottle of wine rather than having dinner. The more drunk he got the more morose and guilty he became, convinced she'd left him. When the dam burst and he began crying deep, gasping, sobs that were dredged up from the core of his being, as if he was vomiting up his very soul. It was not the loss of Sarah that was causing this but the loss of Victoria, his love, the woman he watched fade to a jaundiced skeleton, wracked with agony and deranged by her own cells rebelling against her.

Laing collapsed on the floor, weeping like a child, finally letting it all go, letting all the hurt he'd suffered and suppressed out through his eyes and mouth. He raged against the stark maliciousness of a universe which allowed such creatures to love, to bond so intimately and then to tear them apart like one would tear a drumstick from a cooked chicken. His anger and grief overwhelmed him, tore through his humanity until he just shook and gasped, tears running, nose running, brain seething.

“Stop it.” She said. “Just stop it.”

And he did. The voice was such a shock that he could do nothing else. Startled, Laing looked up but she wasn't there. It was her voice though, he was sure of it. It was Victoria's voice. He accepted he was drunk, shredded with loss and that this had probably had a deleterious effect on his brain but auditory hallucination was something he'd never dreamed he himself would experience. It straightened him up slightly. Even hearing that imagined voice gave him some small comfort as if he wasn't truly alone and lonely, as if perhaps somewhere, Victoria was still there. In that moment he understood the powerful comforts of religion and madness. He picked himself off the floor and staggered through to the bathroom, washing his face, trying to sort himself out, to gain some sense of his rational self.

Laing took several deep breaths and said to his reflection “Come on man, get your shit together.”

He felt better after that except for a pounding head and some dizziness, so he swallowed a gram of paracetamol with a large glass of water and went to bed. His dream was fragmentary, memories of his marriage, both joyful and painful and when he woke he still felt alone, still lonely and still dizzy and with a headache. His alarm clock showed it was 3.57 a.m.

His sheets felt restrictive and he had a sickly damp heat exuding from him, so he climbed out of bed and walked back through to his lounge, just to breathe. As he sat on his sofa it finally occurred to him he had not heard from Sarah. He sat there once more wondering if he should send her a text but decided he'd wait until a more reasonable hour. He turned on the T.V. and watched some early morning news about the Japanese economic markets.

There was steam coming from the news, from the T.V. and the newsreader shifted and warped into the image of Victoria, in the summer dress she wore that day in the park when he first met her. She was crying, telling him the doctor's diagnosis, already looking worryingly thin. He tried to reassure her. “Victoria...”

“Victoria.” He said waking himself up. The sun already streaming through his windows. His eyes were stinging as was his stomach. His head and his pulse thrummed in his ears. He needed a shower, some breakfast, needed to feel right again and so he took his own advice.

After some toast he wondered again what had happened to Sarah. Had she, like he, spent the night alone, sad and drinking? He grabbed the phone and sent her a text. “Missed you last night, hope you're ok, call me.”

Laing got dressed and went to work, still feeling terrible. His headache would not shift and felt like it had a weight behind it, as if it was pushing down on the eyelids. He swallowed another couple of paracetamol in his office but was finding it hard to think as the morning went on. It was nearly eleven when Sarah's father phoned him. They'd only spoken once before but they were on good terms. Her father had a series of questions. Had he seen her, had she stayed at his, she always let them know where she was, did he know?

Laing said he had no idea, that he was wondering himself what had happened to her. Her father was clearly worried and asked Laing if he thought they should call the police. Laing agreed and suggested they meet up and go together. Her father seemed pleased by that.

Sarah's father was two years younger than Laing but that morning both looked ten years older than either was. The worry about his daughter was so obvious on his face that it was infectious and Laing found himself suddenly deeply concerned too. They drove straight to the police station to make a report.

The police also seemed concerned. Laing wasn't surprised, there'd been a slew of missing people reported in the media over the last few months, though no-one voiced that, they all knew it. The police took the report, her phone number and her father provided a recent picture. After that Laing suggested they go and have lunch and he drove them to Fhtagn's where they had some coffee and a sandwich which Laing enjoyed. They decided to keep in close touch until she came home. Both of them skirting around the potential that she might never do so.

Laing took the afternoon off aimlessly driving through the city, looking for Sarah, visiting her favourite places. After a couple of hours he gave up, his head was throbbing and he kept wondering about Victoria, about the voice he'd heard, the dreams he'd had. She kept popping up in his mind when he knew he should be more concerned about Sarah. Eventually he gave up looking and went home. He knew all he could do was wait, wait for the inevitable, like he had with Victoria.

Days went by so quickly that before long a fortnight had passed without any word of Sarah and his headaches remained. He had some good news regarding his research though as it was found almost four percent of the violent psychotic criminals that were screened showed signs of toxoplasmate psychosis.

Regular calls to Sarah's family became more infrequent as he started to put together a research project and some of this time was spent with The Director trying to appropriate a decent amount of funding.

Five weeks and three days after they reported Sarah as being missing he finally received the awful, horrible news. They'd caught her killer and found her remains. He barely knew how to react. Neither the police nor Sarah's family had revealed this grim message but the 7 o'clock news, who listed her name amongst the eleven others that had been murdered by Haster Fhtagn.

His headaches worsened and despite weeks of suppressing his neurology with paracetamol and ibuprofen they would not shift. Nor would his dreams, the dreams in which Victoria would be there, sometimes Sarah, sometimes an amalgam of both. Just as he received the good news on funding, he took a leave of absence. No one, not even the director blamed him.

He became obsessed with the news about Haster Fhtagn. The press seemed to have a ball with the vile and lurid tales of his almost inhuman brutality. According to the vultures in the news media his victims had been torn apart and only parts of them were ever found, hidden in the ugly wasteland of the Black Haddow Woods. He'd plead guilty and was given a swift trial which collapsed when it became clear he was deeply unhinged. Laing knew he could wangle the opportunity to speak to the young man.

Even Victoria, who'd become an occasional guiding voice in his head since the news of Sarah's death, thought it a good idea. He knew it was not normal but neither was it unheard of to have such voices emerge during the time of horror and great stress and it was comforting. He decided to go ahead.

It took some work, his director thoroughly disapproved but was kind about it when Laing explained how much he needed it, to get some closure and even wrote a letter to the hospital where Fhtagn had been interred.

Permission came through and Laing finally went to Westarle Secure Facility one cold Wednesday morning. He was known by most of the staff, it was not his first visit to the place and in fact no-one seemed to suspect his intentions were personal rather than professional.

Haster Fhtagn was an ugly, menacing young man, covered in the same type of tattoos as his father and sisters, when Laing sat down he smiled through broken and blackened teeth and said “I knew you'd come.”

Laing said nothing, just pulled his seat out and sat down.

“Do you hear them, Jim?” Haster asked in a vaguely detached voice, as if speaking to himself

“Who?”

“You know.” Haster grinned. He was nodding, looking up at the ceiling.

“I'm afraid not.” Laing shrugged.

Haster slammed his hand on the table, his eyes were wild, swivelling erratically and his mouth twisted and contorted as he spoke. “Do you believe in God, Jim?” he asked

“No, no I don't.” Jim answered.

“Good, good. That's when you know it's over. When God speaks.” Haster said, raising his hands as if in awe.

“What do you mean?” Laing asked, confused by this turn of events.

Haster wiggled a finger straight up in the air. “They're not, they're not up there you know. The Gods are in here.”

Haster stabbed his finger into his chest and then onto his forehead. “They crawl through you, whispering, telling you to come to them, then they reveal themselves and it's too late. The Gods are parasites.”

“Gods?” Laing said. None of this was odd, many psychotics had religious dementias. There was little to do regarding that other than to try and steer them back into some kind of reasonable state. Fhtagn was not finished.

Haster nodded. “The universe doesn't care about anything, it was there before they were, will be there when they're gone, when we're gone.”

Laing had had enough of indulging this nonsense. “Why did you kill all those people?”

Haster stared at him as if confused by the question. “I didn't kill anyone, they saved me, the police saved me. The Gods were there, hiding inside the food we made, inside the mushrooms, hiding inside the blood and hiding inside the woods, waiting, hungry and waiting. I was a victim too, like all the others.”

“You pleaded guilty.” Laing stated.

“Aren't we all?” Haster shrugged.

“Are we?” Laing asked.

“Let those who have eyes to see.” Haster giggled.

“What does that mean?” Laing asked.

Haster giggled again and began to sing. “If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise.”

Laing sighed. The kid was too far gone, he couldn't help. Laing got up and left to the loud yelling of Teddy Bear's Picnic. It made his headache worse. He rushed out of the facility as quickly as he could without causing suspicion and sat in his car and wept.

“What answers did you think you'd find from him?” Victoria asked.

He turned to answer her, and there she was sitting beside him, a ghost, radiant and beautiful, looking like she did before the cancer destroyed her, golden, a vision of the divine. “I just wanted to know why.”

“You already know the answers darling, come to me. Seek and ye shall find.” She giggled, brushing his hair with her ethereal, luminous fingers. At her touch, his headache crushed his mind.

He started the car, smiling as he cried, the world was swimming with light, bubbles of light that burst into rainbows. Each bubble reflected the face of Victoria who was also Sarah, who was also his mother. He drove through the illuminated fire of reality, certain of his destination, he was going home, not the house of bricks and wallpaper but home, home to the womb paradise in which he was born.

Drooling and laughing he stumbled through the wet grass towards the Black Haddow Woods, her presence was vast, vivid, viviacious. Victoria Sarah Mother of light, the Holy Goddess stood there naked and wreathed in swarming bubbles of light and flame and joy. The trees barely reached her blessed ankles. He was in terror, awe, enraptured by the beauty, no longer alone, no longer lonely. His ears rang, his nose bled and he laughed and cried. Wading through tonnes of stinking bone-filled slurry which lay underneath the forest of those weird, glowing, writhing Teppa mushrooms, he fell to his hands and knees. He sang devotional songs comprised of sacred gibberish as he crawled nearer to the feet of the immense mother.

The goddess stretched a great palm down and raised him up in her hand like a tiny infant. This glorious holy wonder smiled a smile of infinite wisdom of pure peace and in the song of an angel she said “kiss me.”

And in his final moment Laing wept with sheer joy and terror as he placed his lips upon hers and saw the huge sharp teeth behind those glowing sunlight lips, saw the field of starry, alien eyes, smelled the angelic, foetid breathe of some unnameable, cosmic, destrudinal hunger. Those vast inhuman fangs bit into him and he was devoured and released from this mortal torment into Heaven in a moment of exquisite endless agony before the cycle began again.