Jock Horror.

1.

Thistles. They looked like thistles. Each of the plants had grown to an impressive size but every single one of them was wrong, not like cannabis plants at all. The leaves were a deep bluish green rather than the pale mint colour of all the previous clones. The fan leaves looked thick and the normally gently serrated edges had grown into spikes. Each of the flowering colas was bulbous, almost spherical, about the size of a grapefruit. The pistils warped around the thick cluster of buds and spouting from the top of the plant were not white nor orange but deep red and saturated with snow-white crystalline dust.

Donny did not understand what had happened to them. Every other batch had been perfect and he hadn't done anything different with the grow. The book he'd bought had talked vaguely about genetic drift within hybrid clones but the beasts in front of him looked like almost a different species. He spent minutes just staring at the odd blooms astonished by how rapidly the things had grown. He'd only popped the seeds three weeks before and they were growing normally when he'd last checked, two days before.

Finally fear hit him as he realised Wilson would be fucking livid. He'd paid for that crop in advance and Donny had blown the cash on new flooring for his Granddad's place. 42 ounces of top quality Lemon Cheese down the fucking drain, ten grand too. Donny immediately wondered if he still had enough of Wilson's front money left to get out of the country for a while.

The thing was, the plants smelt okay. Better than okay in fact, if they didn't look so weird he'd have been excited by that overwhelming bouquet. That crisp lemony hint in an aroma of cheese with scent tones of ammonia and fresh coffee made him salivate. Perhaps all wasn't lost. If the shit got him high he could always punt it as an “experimental” strain to the pretentious cannabis aficionados on the Net. Could end up quids in if he was lucky.

He walked over to the plant nearest him and lifted one of the flowering arms and pulled the jewellers glass from out of his pockets. Both pistils and inner leaves were frosted with the trichomes, the little crystals which he calculated were probably worth more than diamonds by weight alone. Donny then did something he'd never normally do to his crop, he plucked one of the living buds from the plant.

He gave it a deep sniff before going over to the light rig that kept the plants growing and placing the bud on the metal frame between two of the ferociously hot bulbs. The flower sizzled for a second and when it stopped Donny took it and placed it in the palm of his right hand. With the index finger of his left he began rubbing it back and forth. Tiny broken parts of dried leaf stuck to his palm. He repeated the process over and over until he had enough for a bong which he proceeded to make without much in the way of delay.

The smoke seemed to bloom inside him causing his muscles to relax, like slipping into a warm bath. Unsteady on his feet, he looked around for the only piece of furniture in the room, the flimsy aluminium deck chair hung on the door. He unfolded it and plopped himself down. His eyes felt heavy and his spine soft so he flopped his head back and looked up straight into the lights and dazzled himself just as the drug spilled into his mind.

Donny imagined, or dreamed, the plants growing in a field under a coppery yellow sky, an alien world. In his reverie he committed to a vivid science-fiction narrative in which he was not human but some weird alien gardener. As the tale told itself he saw the others of his species, leathery fungal things that moved on crablike stalks and operated creepy looking organic machines to harvest the plants. Donny wondered why they were harvesting the plants and knew, just knew, that they were not just plants, they were factories for vessels. He understood the creatures to be some kind of parasitical intelligence, formless themselves but able to control and mutate any material host.

Donny saw the planet once more, covered in dying aliens and vast forests of the plant.

Then for the longest time there was nothing, silence darkness and waiting. A great shudder, followed by a flaming wind that tore the plants from their roots, that burned them all to ash. A moment of utter confusion followed and then he could see once again, seeds, millions, billions of seeds floating in the empty void amongst the ruins of a shattered world. They had escaped their fate and would find new worlds to call home. All they had to do was wait.

Donny opened his eyes, agog that he was able to imagine such an intricate and wild tale and realised it was because he was stoned out of his mind. Donny had never been inspired to write before but then he never imagined anything like that before. The buzz was still heavy and moving took some effort but somehow, between giggling and forgetting what he'd been giggling about, he managed to crop the plants. After stuffing them all into black bin bags and then the boot of his car, he turned off the lights of his allotment shed, locked the door and drove home trying his damnedest to hold on to his odd imaginings.

He rushed out of the car and into the house, dining room and then the laptop.

“Whit's the big rush aw aboot?” His wife Louise asked.

“Hid an amazin' idea fur a story.” Donny said, more interested in trying to find what icon was used for creating a document.

“Aw whit, yer Stephen King noo ur ye? Gies a break.”

“Fuck you, gies peace am busy.”

Louise snorted. “Well ahm away oot wae Kaylee fur a drink.”

“Aye, good. See ye later.” Donny responded, confident he'd found the correct programme. He began typing and didn't hear the front door close as Louise left for the evening.

He was still at it when she got back. He was furiously typing as she came in. He didn't look up just said, “alright?”

“Donald, where the fuck is oor car?” She screamed.

Because of her tone, he knew the answer “parked ootside the hoose.” would not only be insufficient but would do nothing to mitigate further screaming. As he was about to answer he recalled what he'd left in the boot. “Aw fuck, I left a ton of weed in the motor anaw.”

Immediately he had his suspicions as to who had stolen the car. That wee junkie prick Des Curran and that rat faced nutjob he'd been sneaking about with, Pete something. They'd been milling about the area for the last day or two.

It was unfortunate that this knowledge was of little use to him especially since it was completely accurate. Des Curran and Daft Pete had pinched the car. Pete had said he knew a guy in Paisley that would give them good money for the thing, but when they found that there was a large amount of weed in the back of the vehicle. Des said that his cousin in Duntocher would be able to shift it. So the two ended up in a small two bedroom flat with Des' cousin, who looked more likely to knife them than give them money. At least that was what Daft Pete suspected when the lad opened the door finally.

Ally did not look like Desmond. He was about a foot shorter, squat and muscular and as immaculately dressed as one could be in a tracksuit. Desmond just looked like a smackhead, painfully thin and filthy.

“Did ye no get ma text Ally?” Des asked.

“Aye ah goat yer fuckin text, Desmond. Whit d'yae want? Ally growled. The frown on his forehead looked as if it might gain enough momentum to cause his eyes to be smothered in a flesh avalanche. Daft Pete thought the bloke looked like he had rottweiler genes.

“Ah telt ye cuz, There's a few pun o' weed we need tae shift.” Des pleaded. He, like many junkies, had screwed so many of his family members that they were the last people that wanted anything to do with him, so he knew he'd need to be careful.

“This better no be wan o your con-jobs Desmond,” Ally warned.

Daft Pete went to the car and pulled out one of the black bags from the back. As he stood in front of Ally he opened it, showing the plants inside.

Ally looked sceptical. “Where did ye knock them fae Desmond?”

“We fun 'em, didn't we Pedro?” Des said, pleased that Ally had not chased them away yet.

“Aye, we fun em, straight up.” Pete agreed, non-committally.

“Let me get this right, you just happened tae “find” a couple of pun o' weed, still on the fuckin' stem? Shite. Whose weed is this?” Ally asked.

Des shrugged. “Ye want it or no?”

“Get inside baith o' ye, ya dozy cunts.” Ally replied impatiently.

Inside the flat it became apparent very quickly that there was something odd about the plants. Ally was understandably suspicious

“That's no weed ya fucker.” He protested pointing at one of the large ugly plants now lying across a cheap plastic coffee table.

“It is man, smell it.” Des insisted.

“Ah don't need tae fuckin' smell it fur Christ's sake. I'll grant ye it's reekin' but check out those leaves that's like some kinda big jaggy nettle.”

“Look at aw the snow oan the buds though.” Des said, trying his damnedest to convince Ally to buy it.

“Why don't ye light it up?” Pete suggested. It was a suggestion that was to prove disastrous.

2.

Things were already proving disastrous for Donny and Louise, most especially Donny. As Ally was putting together skins in Duntocher to try a sample of the weird weed, he was trying to explain himself to an increasingly furious Louise.

“I'm tellin' ye honey, its cool. If you would just...” He was going to suggest she chill out but something had come over him. He felt his jaws snap shut tight, against his will. His teeth ground together as he felt some kind of painful surge through his body, like electricity, or -he thought- a stroke.

His vision changed somehow, the world in front of him was utterly alien. These were not the imagined vistas of some distant world. He knew what the things were, woman, chair, clock but they were all so unfamiliar to him. As he collapsed to the ground shuddering, he felt himself dwindle into darkness as something else continued staring at the unrecognisable world through his eyes.

“Home.” It said.

By this point Louise was just freaking out, as you can imagine. She was sensible enough to phone an ambulance, then her mother, then Mrs Williamson, Donny's mother. She didn't really want to know but thanked Louise anyway. Donny had been estranged from his family for some time. He never talked about it. She only found out he had two younger brothers after they'd been married six months. She knew very little about them, didn't even know their names, though she was sure one was called Shuggy.

It was about ten minutes before Donny came round and he seemed confused and unable to move properly. He slurred noises and tried to pull himself off the ground, getting angry when she'd move to help him. Louise kept her distance. By the time the ambulance arrived he'd managed to move himself into a sitting position. His head lolled and he kept making weird noises with his mouth.

The ambulance crew managed to get him into the ambulance without too much trouble but as soon as he was inside he started suffering from more seizures and a dramatically increased heart-rate. It took them several more minutes to stabilise him and soon after they were off to A&E at the Southern General.

Louise sat in the back of the vehicle holding her man's hand. He was clammy and deathly pale. The paramedic sat trying to work some awkward looking tablet device that looked like it had been invented in the eighties and asking her for details about Donny. She answered them as best she could but was distracted by the hiss of the oxygen and beep of the heart monitor.

It all felt a bit unreal to her, like she was detached from the event, as if she was a witness watching the event rather than participating in it. As such the loud horrifying scream that Donny made when he suddenly woke up didn't startle her the way it did the paramedic. Nor was she quick to react when her husband lunged at the paramedic like some wild beast. It was only when the paramedic screamed and Donny's thumbs popped the poor man's eyes that she considered it might be a good idea to get out of there.

Des was also getting the idea that he should get out of there, based on Ally's reaction to the grass. For about five minutes he'd been watching his cousin slide into some kind of stoned state he'd never seen on grass. Looked like the fucker was going to nod out, looked more like he had shot up.

Ally had slid down his chair and with his eyes almost closed had began to mutter and slur. His head bobbed slightly as some part of him seemed to struggle with the drug. Daft Pete gave Des an uneasy look which seemed to say “shit man we've poisoned him, let's get the fuck out of here.”

Des nodded but raised a hand. “Take it easy man, it's cool.”

It didn't look cool though and Des felt like his sphincter might give up and cause him to do his first shit in days. When Ally suddenly started laughing and sat up bright eyes, Des was so relieved he hadn't crapped his pants that he joined in.

“Fuckin' hell Desmondo, that stuff is bananas.” Ally said, still laughing and clearly wasted. His eyes still couldn't settle on what they wanted to view.

“Telt ye, din't ah?” Des said proudly.

“Aye, still I'll want a discount, cos it looks so weird.” Ally said, ever the businessman.

“Aw for fuck sake Ally.”

“Five grand the lot, take it or leave it.”

For Des it was a fair offer, better than he'd expected and he wasn't going to push it. He knew he'd burned a lot of bridges and knew that having Ally on his side or at least not fucking things up, might help repair his reputation, even if only by a fraction. “Aye aw right, fair deal cuz.” He said and outstretched his hand.

Ally looked at it. “Ye want the money right noo?”

“Naw, well aye, but naw, I was gonny shake on the deal.”

“Ahm no shakin' hauns wae you ya filthy bastard.” Ally said with utter contempt.

Des said nothing, he wasn't even disappointed. He'd fucked too many people over to afford himself that luxury.

“Aye well, if you gies the cash we'll be on our way.” Daft Pete said. He was still nervous and wanted to be out of there. Besides he'd need a dose soon.

Ally scowled at the two smackheads and said “touch nothin'” as he left the room.

He returned promptly with a wad of twenty pound notes that he counted out in front of them both. He slapped the money into Des hand and said “If this comes back tae haunt me Des, I'll slit your fuckin' throat, you hear me?”

“Seriously, it's nae bother, the guy this stuff belanged tae wis a fanny, a wee naebdy, if he wis tae start, ye'd just go Doosh!” Des answered miming slapping someone with the back of his hand.

“That wid shut the fucker up. Honestly, he's a pussy, goes joggin' n' shit.” Pete agreed.

Ally's face burned with utter disgust and his eyes bulged with fury. “Wis ah fuckin' talking tae ye ya lanky prick?, Eh?”

Daft Pete shrank slightly. “Wis jist sayin, is aw.” He muttered.

“You couldnae batter a fish supper ya tolly.” Ally responded.

“Aye but seriously cousin, the guy we knocked it fae is nae cunt.”

Ally looked sceptical. “Right, fine. Noo fuck off.”

As he escorted them out of his flat. His last words to them were. “An' don't think yer leavin' that motor there either.”

Des and Pete stood looking at the car. “Let's drive it back intae toon, then find a carpark tae dump it in.” Pete said.

Des shrugged and they got back into Donny's vehicle.

It was about that time that Donny, or what was once Donny, exited the ambulance, which was travelling at about sixty miles an hour at the time. The surviving paramedic in the front had seen the rampage that had left his colleague and the young woman torn apart. Understandably he'd put his foot down in a panic as the crazed man in the back tried to extricate himself from the vehicle. By the time they had gotten to the Berryknowes Road overpass Donny had spilled out spun head over heels. He was still covered in the blood and momentum had scraped him down the road adding further ruinous injury. With inhuman speed and equally inhuman noises he leapt over a car and bounded towards the darkened gates of the local cemetery and was swallowed by night and dark trees as the ambulance driver breathed a sigh of relief and called for police assistance.

Ally also needed assistance. He thought if he could chop up all the weed and sell it in twenty quid bags he'd more than double what he paid for it. Still he needed help to get it all done and sold pronto and so he called two of his crew over to help him with the promise to cut them in.

Ally chose Davie G and Owen, because neither of them smoked grass and so were less likely to steal some for themselves. As he waited on them he recalled how wasted it got him, at one point imagining he was some plant thing from outer-space. Really trippy. Ally cackled at himself when he realised just how much money he was going to make from those ugly weeds. He sat working out how many people he knew that would take some off him and after counting almost everyone he knew realised that if he was lucky he could sell the lot in less than two days, even quicker if Davie G and Owen had other contacts they could use.

He began to pluck the buds off the plants and through them into an orange basin that was still haunted by the smell of white spirit. By the time his mates arrived his fingers were sticky with resin and his entire flat reeked of weed. Which was the main reason to get shot of it all quickly.

Davie G had brought a large bunch of bank bags and small plastic bags for two and three gram deals and Owen pinched some scales from his arsehole of a brother. When Ally showed him the plants Davie was horrified. Not by their look but by the way Ally was treating them.

“You no gonny let them dry oot an cure Ally?” Davie had asked.

“Whit? Cure? It's no a ham shank Davie.”

“Naw man, ye canny punt this in this state, it's maistly aw water.”

“Whit ye talkin' about? It's fresh. Cunts kin dry it oot themselves.”

“No chance Ally, naebody is buyin' that, look.” He plucked a bud from the basin and crushed it between his fingers. “Soakin'. You'll need tae let it dry oot before ye even weigh it.”

“Aw fuck sake, this is bollocks. I canny huv ma hoose stinkin' of this shit fur a week or two.”

“Well you could always turn it into hash.” Davie suggested.

“Or you know, butane it.” Owen said cryptically.

Owen then explained a process by which people produced a golden honey oil from the plants, which was almost pure cannabis crystals, no leaf or stem. Pure potency but really rare and highly expensive.

Ally was foolishly intrigued by that. “pure oil? What's that going for a gram?”

Owen shrugged and looked for advice from his phone. “About eighty quid a gram, says here.”

“Fuckin' hell. Right let's find a way to do that then.” Ally commanded.

“Whit, noo? Gies a fuckin' brek Aldo, It's hauf wan in the mornin'” Davie G protested.

3.

By two A.M. the police had interviewed the surviving ambulance driver and had started a murder investigation. They'd even sent a bunch of officers into Cardonald Cemetery looking for the suspect.

The creature inside Donny knew that whatever security forces these natives had would be searching for it. It had regained some of its wits and hijacked most of the autonomic systems of its host. It had done this many time before in more primitive and sophisticated worlds than this one, nor was infestation of domesticated bipedal mammals uncommon amongst its race. As it sat hiding behind a large tree surrounded by collapsed gravestones and plastic Buckfast bottles, it knew that soon others would take hosts and soon the world would be theirs. It could wait some more, it had already waited millions of years. All it had to do was hide until it could maintain full control of the vessel it inhabited. All it had to do was not get caught. It could hear the eager nervous chattering of some of the natives security, they were hunting it, along with some beasts they'd brought with them. Small furry creatures that made rough grunting shouts. They were all on the ground, so it scaled one of the giant plants and hid amongst its leaves. It almost felt like being home.

The police were unsuccessful in locating their suspect that night. The story made the news by morning and Ally, who'd woken early after a horrible dream and with an agonising headache sat in disbelief as he watched the T.V. describe how the police were looking for anyone who knew anything about Donny or had seen his vehicle, which they kindly provided a picture for. On seeing that picture next to the “Double Murder” label they'd plastered on it, he decided there would be another fucking double murder when he got his hands on those two junkie cunts. If he ended up getting a visit from the cops he'd be fucked.

Ally phoned Owen and Davie G, instructed Davie to get his arse round with his motor, they were moving the stuff from his house. Davie G protested but when Ally explained he stopped and curtly agreed. By nine thirty they'd stashed the plants in a lock-up and driven to Choudry's Hardware, a money laundering front for some of the local “Paki Mafia” boys. Davie G was pals with Ali who ran the place and so they cleared him out of butane lighter fluid. Ali wasn't dumb and knew what they were up to.

“You making honey eh? I'd like some of that.” Ali said.

“We'll it's just a wee trial run.” Ally said.

“You know, if you cut me in I could shift that easily. I know a lot of people in the West-End who'd buy oil.” Ali said.

Ally wasn't up for that. “Naw, we'll sell it nae bother.”

“Really? Expensive stuff, I didn't think there would be a market for 80 quid a gram hash when the bams are moaning about 30 quid for a quarter of council.” Ali replied.

Ally had not thought of that. The west end types did have money, students and the type of middle class fannies that would blow a fiver on a coffee. “Ten percent.” He offered.

Ali smiled, he'd have taken five. “Fifteen.” He said.

“Twelve an a hauf then eh?” Ally conceded.

Ali shook his hand and suddenly became more enthused about the project. He walked over to one of the many overspilling shelves in his store and pulled out some foot long tubes of white plastic piping and handed them to Ally. “Good quality piping, holds in the pressure, you'll need some lids too but I've an idea for that.”

Ally just scowled and handed Owen the piping. Ali fished around and pulled out a large thick glass pie dish. “Run the oil into that, then you had put it in a water pan, which I have around here somewhere...”

Before long they were stuffing a whole range of hardware goods cum drug paraphernalia into the back of Davie G's car. Ali hadn't charged them but reminded them “Remember, butane is highly flammable, even the heat from a lightbulb can set it off.”

“We're no stupit.” Owen said. He'd done this once before, so he told everyone. The truth was he'd seen a couple of youtube videos by Dutch teenagers. It looked simple enough, they just needed to be careful.

Davie G drove them back to the lock-up where they stashed all the equipment and cans of gas. “looks like fuckin' Breakin' Bad in here.” He commented when they were done.

Ally's headache had been getting worse and he knew he better lie down. “Ahm away fur a kip fur an oor or so, you two get started.”

“Aye, that'll be right.” Davie G barked.

Ally scowled at him “Whit's your fuckin' problem?”

“You ya lazy cunt. You wake us up tae dae awe this shit fur ye an' yer goin' fur a kip? That's no oan.”

“Mah heid's nippin' Davie, gies an oor an I promise I'll gie ye baith a break, I'll even buy breakfast. How's that?”

“An oor.” Davie warned.

Ally nodded, smiled and went out to the car. He slid into the back-seats and lay down. It was something else that woke up an hour later.

The police lifted Daft Pete and Des about eleven o'clock that morning. The two of them has spent the night in the warm climes of Morphia and were completely unaware that the car they had parked outside the squat was now evidence in a double murder. When the two of them woke up and decided to go out and get more skag, they had both been oblivious to the police watching them. The police pounced and both of them ended up in rooms in Helen Street police station, not for the first time either.

They were separated and so Des found himself sitting bored and feeling the beginning of withdrawals as another hostile cop barked stupid questions at him.

“So Desmond, where did ye get the car?” asked the officer. O'Hara his name was, with a shaved head leaving only a dark grey stain on his scalp. He had a take-away saturated carb-face. His neck looked like it was being squeezed by his tie and collar. He was easy to dislike.

“Ah fun it.”

“Ye found it? Whit did it just drop out of the sky in front of ye? Did Santa leave it under yer Christmas tree?” O'Hara sneered.

“Chirstmas is months away.” Des scoffed and then suddenly he wasn't sure. He'd been wasted for so long. “Innit?” he asked, uncertain.

O'Hara rolled his eyes. “The point is, ye don't jist find cars Desmond. So tell me more.”

“Me an Pete were like walkin' up Corkerhill Road right? Then doon at that slope bit near those cottage hooses there's a bit a spare grun, an it wis just sittin' there, wae the front door open. The keys wurnae in the ignition but oan the dash. So we thought some cunt's jist dumped it.”

O'Hara did not seem convinced by Des lie. “So you decided to steal it?”

“Aw look, naw. It wisnae locked or nothin'.”

“Look, do you know where Donald Weir is?”

“Who's that?”

“The owner of the car, he went missing last night.”

“Ah don't know nothin' about that.”

“So you never saw him?”

Des shook his head. “Nuh, honest. Perhaps that's why he dumped the car eh? Cos he wanted to disappear?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Dunno, some guys dae that don't they, leave everythin' behind, the wife an kids n' shit.”

“Well I've got news Desmond, this one left his wife beaten to death. This is a double murder case, so how about you stop talking shite and tell me the truth so we can get you off the suspects list and go find the fucker?”

Desmond felt that feeling in his sphincter again. “Aww, look I definitely don't know aboot that.”

“Where is he Desmond?” O'Hara growled.

That which remained of Donny was still up a tree. It had slept all night but began to stir as it sensed another of its kind waking from its dormancy. It knew that the other could also sense it and they would find each other, begin proliferation, invade this world from within. It could sense the other's power, an old mind, one of the Great Architects of their civilisation. It must find it, follow it, obey it.

That great mind had completely obliterated what was once Ally Curran. It lay inside a vehicle devouring the rest of the young man's memories. It understood his plans and it understood how it would, even without intervention, assist in the proliferation. It merely had to guide the creatures towards their own destruction.

It tested the vocal cords until it made a satisfactory similacrum of speech and satisfied it could pretend to be the host, it left the vehicle and walked into the small room that the host's colleagues were in.

It stared at the golden crystalline gloop running out of the bottom of one of the tubes into a clear container. Each drip contained thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of different minds waiting to infest these domesticated animals. They were refining the plants. The old thing knew this technique, it was rare but not unique. Most common was transfer to lower animals who ate the plants and then finally to the dominant species that usually ate the lower animals. Some species had found other uses for the plants, usually as a recreational intoxicant. “Careful wae that.” It said.

“Aw yer up. Look at aw of this, that's only oot of like hauf a plant so far, we're gonny huv a ton o' this shit.”

“Brilliant. Let's try and get it out as quickly as possible.” It insisted and took one of the pipes and cans of gas and copied the others. It sensed the first awakened trying to find it. They would be together soon and then soon after that, this world would be theirs for the draining.

Back at the police station Daft Pete considered that the cops would probably send him down for while if he didn't cooperate, blabbed everything. He told them all about the plants and Ally, everything but they weren't remotely interested. All they wanted to know was Donald Weir was.

That was the one thing he couldn't tell them.

4.

About a dozen other people, looking out of their windows from the BBC offices onto the Clyde could have told the police exactly where he was and though no-one knew it was Donny, several called the police to say there was some mad man swimming across the river. A car was dispatched and two officers watched as the man leapt like a salmon out of the water and onto the bank, landing on both feet. Both officers were a bit taken aback by that as well as the ruined appearance of the soaking man. One of them gained confidence in his position when he realised the guy fitted the description of the murder suspect they were looking for. Wisely he called it in. Not so wisely he approached the suspect.

The creature had expected that at some point it would run across security forces that would try to subdue it. It was trained to deal with that eventuality and so sped towards the uniformed beast and using as much weight and momentum as it could grabbed it's head and leapt over it. The head twisted and cracked and the beast dropped as it landed. It could see the fear in the other's eyes and right at the end of the host's deadened olfactory system, it could smell it. The creature growled and the security animal dropped the stick it was half-heartedly brandishing. It backed off, chattering into the small communication device. The creature inside Donny rushed it but it screamed and ran out of the way, jumping into the water below. It heard electric wailing noises in the air. Sirens, alarms, a common sound for danger. They knew it was here. The creature wasted no time in moving towards the direction of the elder, there was work to be done, best it be done quickly. The host it was wearing was broken in several places and it knew the vessel would cease to function soon. Another would need to be found.

The creature sped past buildings, down lanes. Several people were knocked over by it. It emerged onto a large open area with many vehicles and beasts and pushed through them. Some protested but most moved out of its way. At one point a vehicle with the alarm screeched round a corner of one of the buildings and the creature leapt from the bridge it was crossing into the water twenty feet below.

The host's limb sent a strong signal to its brain to alert it to a severe breakage of one of the bones.

The creature ignored it and kept moving, up an embankment covered in local flora and into a larger hilly space. The sirens were more distant and it stopped since the hosts body was firing signals that suggested complete system shut-down. The creature needed more time.

The police knew he'd went into Kelvingrove Park and were planning on blocking all the exits and getting the chopper out to keep a bead on the suspect. Given that one of their officers had been killed by the lunatic they were hunting, they took it personally and so the fireteams were out too, heavily armed and looking for payback.

All in all, it was a great big fucking mess.

The cops decided to let Des and Daft Pete go. They didn't believe a word either of the two had told them and had bigger things to deal with than following up on the bullshit of junkies. The two of them decided that what they really needed to do was go buy some heroin and go back to the squat and inject it. Sadly neither of them had the money for the bus and the car had been confiscated. The only thing left to do was beg. They headed down the street towards the large supermarket to look for change.

Back at the lock up, Davie G and Owen looked at the thick golden syrup hardening in the glass dish. “Look at all of that, that must be nearly hauf a kilo.” Owen said, admiring their work.

“Keep going.” Ally ordered, stuffing another can into the top of another tube.

“We should open the doors again, it's getting a bit stinky in here.” Davie G said. He walked towards the doors and was about to open them when he heard the sirens and the sound of a helicopter.

“Somethin' big gaun doon oot there” he said.

“Get back to work.” Ally ordered.

Davie scowled. “Aye awright Hitler. But this is the last wan then we need tae open the doors.”

Ally ignored him. Davie thought that Ally had been a right prick all day, probably still worried about that guy in the news. He took up another tube and stuffed it full of plant matter, put the lids on either end and pushed the butane into the hole at the top.

The sirens were getting closer as was the sound of the chopper. Owen looked up at one point. “Is that o'er-heid?”

Just then there was a loud thump at the door. Both Owen and Davie G jumped out of their skins. Ally ignored them and opened it. Behind it stood the remnants of a man, a broken puppet of meat and shattered limbs. It gurgled something as it stepped into the room. The worst thing was that Ally gurgled back. The two looked at Davie and Owen and the badly injured man moved forward as Ally closed the doors again.

“Whit the fuck is this?” Davie G said, his voice higher than usual.

The chopper was hovering over-head. Davie G did not hear any answer from either Ally or the human ruin in front of him. Instead he heard only one thing.

“This is the police. We have you surrounded. Please step out of the cabin with your hands in the air.”

“Aw fuck this!” Owen shouted and in a panic rushed for the door. Ally and the injured man tried to stop him but they were too late. As he burst into the daylight one of the cops saw what appeared to be a gun in his hand and squeezed the trigger of his own. The bullet went straight through Owen's skull and richoceted off a tin can on a shelf. This created a single spark and the whole lock up went up with a resounding “whoomph.”

Debris blew everywhere and flames licked up the sides of the buildings on either side, leaving dark sooty scars on them. Owen was blown forward, a fiery projectile and the other three inside were incinerated. Everything inside was also burned to a crisp, including, the forensic team noticed, a large glass dish which had contained a large quantity of cannabis oil which had burnt up and dissipated into the air.

It was a disaster for the police, the press ranted about them being “trigger happy” and there were two resignations. The final official verdict was that Donald Weir and Alan Curran were running a cannabis oil ring in which Weir grew the plants and Curran refined them. The police stated they thought Weir had had a psychotic episode and while they regretted his and the others deaths reminded people that the men were all part of a criminal organisation responsible for at least three murders. No one anywhere knew that the police had accidentally stopped an invasion by some kind of alien mind parasites.

Once everything had died down. The buildings on either side of the lock up got permission to turn it into a little garden for the shopkeepers and residents above to use. The following year their gardener chopped down the ugly thistles that were growing in the back of the flower bed but not before the wind had blown their seeds out into the world. He burned the weeds in a little fire and went home and had dinner, watched some T.V. and went to bed early with a headache. That night he had the strangest dream...