Emergence

Lunchtime could hardly come soon enough. Leo had woken up with a hang-over and so had avoided breakfast which meant he'd spent the morning behind his desk with his stomach loudly protesting. As he watched the final seconds slide by before mid-day he pondered his menu. Greggs was close but it was still a walk up the hill, which he was in no state to manage. At the bottom of the hill was a curry house and a pub which served food. He decided on roast chicken and chips, perhaps a cheeky hair of the dog.

He left as soon as it hit twelve. He was in no mood to talk to anyone, not until he had something to eat. He paced down the long slope with its large fence on one side and busy dual carriageway on the other. He noticed, half way down, that some chancer had placed his take-away van. “Burger Master” it said on the front. Leo suddenly had a notion for a greasy cheeseburger. Maybe a double.

“Whit can I get ye son?” The guy behind the counter asked. He was an odd looking fellow, ruddy faced with wild unkempt white sideburns sliding down from equally wild, Einsteinian hair. He had a hint of an accent, but Leo couldn't place from where.

“Can I get a cheeseburger, mate?” Leo asked.

“Sure thing.” The Burger Master said. He pulled a large brown disc of processed beef from a fridge and slapped it on the hot plate where is hissed, sleazily. “You want anything else?”

Leo looked around the van, it seemed very clean, at least that was what he thought until he realised that it was practically empty of accoutrements of the burger van trade. A bottle of tomato sauce and a calendar, which was, weirdly, six years out of date. “Nothing, thanks.”

Both men stood silently, there were uncomfortable false starts which might have bloomed into conversation if either of them had not thought better of speaking. The Burger Master flipped the sizzling burger and then pulled out a square orange sheet of processed cheese which he slapped on top of the steaming burger. Leaving that he plucked a morning roll from a large plastic wrap filled with them and then took a bread knife to open the roll. There was a few more uncomfortable minutes before the slice of cheesy meat was inserted into the roll. “Sauce?” the guy asked.

“Red, please.” Leo answered.

A farting, spurting glob of ketchup splattered on top of the melting cheese before the top of the roll was placed on and the whole thing placed into a small polystyrene box and handed over. “Two fifty mate.”

Leo handed over the money with thanks and took the burger. He was famished and could've eaten it on the walk back to work if he wasn't so uncomfortable with eating on the street. Instead, he nipped into the office canteen and, after sitting down, took a big bite.

And spat it back out. He'd never tasted anything so utterly vile, it was like the meat was rancid and bitter with charring, yet it had a mulchy texture like damp sawdust. Leo could still taste it. He needed a drink to wash the foul taste out of his mouth and rummaged for change in his pocket as he dashed towards the can machine.

He thumbed in some money and, while trying to breathe through his nose, picked a can of orange and fished it out after it landed with a thump below. He opened it, took a gulp, swished the contents around the inside his mouth a few times and swallowed. True disgust was not something Leo had endured often in his life but he felt unsteady on his feet the taste had been so vile, so completely rotten it had shaken him. He looked over at the offending burger, it lay there dark and slippery looking, he had to bin it. He walked over to the table and picked up his food, walked over to the bin and dropped the lot in. On the bright side, as awful as it was, it did its job. He was no longer hungry, not in the least. He finished his can of orange juice and read the newspaper until lunch finished then went back to his desk.

A dull afternoon that passed slowly as a litany of complaints from customers and an increasingly painful acidic burning in his gut. He knew something was fomenting a rebellion in there, he could feel it expanding his stomach until it was tight, like an inflated balloon. Leo began to wonder what end it was going to burst out of and took a toilet break.

In the cubicle he bent over, pressed both hands against the walls, one on either side and retched. The full can of orange he'd drank earlier leapt out and splattered into the toilet water, leaving him with a bitter tangy zest covering his mouth. For a second he felt ice-cold, shivered and then vomited again, this time it seemed to be merely bile, which triggered a third heave. He could feel cold sweat prickle through his pores and leak out onto his skin. Drops ran down his forehead. Leo concluded he was in a right state. Still it came on quickly, likely it would die down as rapidly. He held on to the walls, breathed slowly, trying to slow down another oncoming torrent of nausea. He was successful, for several seconds, before once again the toxins in his stomach were launched up through him and out his mouth.

After that bout he immediately felt slightly better, his skin warmed from clammy grey to light pink, he no longer felt terrible and could breathe properly. He could even let go of the walls and stand unaided. He began to feel claustrophobic in the small toilet room and so flushed and went out to the sinks to clean himself. He could still smell the vomit on him. He looked at his watch, it was already quarter to four. He realised if he left himself stinking and looking unkempt and ill, his boss would probably let him go early. It was worth a try.

Leo felt quite chuffed with himself as he drove towards home. The city was a lot quieter before the rush hour madness and his sickness gambit had worked. Not that there was much of a gambit to be fair, he did still feel spectacularly queasy. It was that burger, he was sure of it. He was also sure he should have taken it back and forced the old bastard to eat it. Too late for that though. He'd had fast acting stomach bugs before, this was no different. He'd plop himself in front of the T.V. with mug after mug of hot soup and slice upon slice of bread. That always made him feel better quickly.

He parked in the driveway of his semi-detached, locked the car, unlocked the front door and went inside. After the familiar beep boop boop beep of the alarm combination buttons being pressed in order, he locked the door, hung up his coat and went and sat on the living room couch. After turning on the T.V. with the remote control he stretched back to see if he could get into a more comfortable position. His stomach was still distended and tight, like a drum. At this time in the afternoon he had the choice of anodyne yet narcotic game shows, hysterical news or droning horse racing. He chose the news. As always everything was an emergency. He didn't really focus on it, his head was thumping looking at the screen, it seemed too bright, the colours too vivid. He went through to the kitchen and opened a can of tomato soup.

The smell of it made him feel sick and a few moments later he was arched over the sink and threw up again. More bile came up, then air and more air, the dry heave. Something was wrong, he could tell, there was nothing in his stomach, but it was still trying to expel something; nor had it deflated with all the sickness. The sweats were back too, and he felt a weird trembling inside. It was food poisoning he decided, that fuck at Burger Master had given him a dodgy burger and now he was paying for it. He pulled out a yellow plastic basin from the unit under the sink in case he was sick again and retired to bed.

He lay there for hours shifting from freezing shivers to burning, sweating heat that soaked the covers. Occasionally, he would feel the need to vomit but there was nothing left in his stomach. There was nothing else to do but ride it out, Leo concluded, but if it was no better in the morning he'd go to the doctors. Eventually he drifted off into a squalid jumbled nightmare of wandering tubular labyrinths comprised of swollen oozing and diseased flesh. The pain from his stomach finally dragging him back into consciousness.

Leo felt terrible, bloated and weak. His throat seemed swollen, his eyes burned in their sockets and his forehead throbbed like something inside was trying to push it's way out. He tried to sit up but found his back was too stiff to move and his arms literally could not take his weight. He looked at his hands in disgust and almost screamed. He had black bruises or spots all over his skin. He managed to pull back the covers to find the marks were not restricted to his limbs. This was bad, very bad. As was his stomach, which still looked like it was struggling to digest a basketball he'd mistakenly swallowed whole. The swelling looked almost translucent, as if the skin was being stretched so tight that you could almost see what was causing it.

Leo decided he needed to call the doctor, maybe the hospital. The main problem was he was immobile, his blotched legs would not move, his back wouldn't bend and his hands and arms were too weak. He needed help but had no way to get any. This frustrated Leo greatly and so he tried rocking from side to side to try and roll from the bed and get on the ground and crawl. It took a lot of effort and failed but in dislodging himself slightly from his original position he managed to feel the blood run back into his legs, then the painful pins and needles sensation as life returned to them. With his legs now working he managed to hoist himself over the side, using his arse as a pivot and with some painful grunting managed to get onto his feet.

Gazing into the mirror to give himself a nod of approval he found something not quite him looking back. Apart from the horrible blotches, his eyes were bloody and swollen, badly swollen, almost popping out of their sockets. His lips were inflated and purple as if there was too much blood in them. There were clumps of hair missing from his scalp, he looked back to find the bed had brown hairs scattered and stuck to the pillow. His cheeks seemed to have melted somewhat and now dropped below his chin like two pendulous earlobes. This wasn't food poisoning, he was certain of that.

He began to panic, padded into the hall and dialled 999 for an ambulance. “Emergency, which service please, fire, police or ambulance.” The operator asked.

Leo began to ask for an ambulance but found he could not speak, nor grunt or make any noise from his throat.

“Hello caller, are you able to speak?”

Again he tried but there was nothing coming out. He could not believe his terrible luck and angry tears came, stinging his eyes like someone had squirted bleach into them. He slammed down the phone and tried to think of what to do to remedy his situation. The internet was his solution. Leo stumbled into his study and attempted to turn on his computer. As he bent over to press the on button a pain, so total that it drowned out his perception, surged through him and causing him to collapse.

Leo had no idea how long he'd been unconscious on the study floor, but reckoned it had been quite a while. He concluded this by the vast swollen stomach which had grown to an agonising and unnatural size; by the thin, viscous fluid that seemed to be his liquefying skin dribbling from his bones. Underneath was a pock-marked and rotten matter than resembled nothing he'd ever seen, a brown-green hue with thick looking arteries and veins wrapped around it like vines round the bark of a tree.

Finding he had no control over this monstrous travesty of body. He was stuck there immobile and terrified, only a consciousness trapped in this ghastly version of himself. He would have wept if he could have but he could not even blink. The agony surged through him again and as he slipped away, screaming inside, he felt somewhat thankful for the relief from this insane situation.

He did not know how he had ended up in the street. Nor had he any idea how this foul dribbling bulk was moving of it's own volition. He did not recognise the location, but it appeared to be some defunct industrial and commercial estate, filled with cheaply built offices and factories that had long been in a state of disrepair. The area seemed to be neglected by the council's cleansing department, the streets and pavements were filthy, filled with litter. As he was pulled through the area he realised while the council may have abandoned it, heroin addicts, arsonists and graffiti artists had claimed it as their own. Their evidence was everywhere even if the people themselves were nowhere to be seen. He took all of this in, becoming increasingly aware that he was being physically compelled against his will towards a sound, a low vibration which seemed to be getting closer as the slick wobbling bulk paced onwards.

Eventually Leo found himself facing a large hangar-like building which had been, at one time, a timber depot. From it the vibration exuded like a palpable thing, he had no option, his body entered. Inside the huge room was dark, save for bursting sparkles of pinkish light emitting from absolutely nowhere. His swollen stinging eyes grew accustomed to the dark quickly and it was then his mind broke.

At the back of the depot were umpteen disused and dilapidated food vans, one of which he recognised from the “Burger Master” sign. This unsettled him until he spotted the man who had sold him the burger tending to what looked, in the darkness, like several dozen great eggs arranged in an irregular circle around a large gelatinous biomass. Upon closer inspection he saw each of these massive, almost human sized eggs had vestigial remains of arms and fingers and on top of each was a small round head. Leo was not the first.

The Burger Master saw him enter and with glee, beckoned him and said “Come, come, it is alright, we have a place for you.”

Again, he could not stop his bloated form from moving and found himself directed towards a spot in between several others who had suffered a similar fate. They looked vile, their bulbous bloody eyes showed signs of insanity and abject terror, all were immobile having grown too large and solid to move. Leo no longer even had the will to resist, he felt utterly defeated, accepting of this bizarre and horrifying turn of events. He took his place.

Amongst the others he stayed. Night and day passed over and over with no thought, just his eyes watching as yet others joined the circle of unnaturally bloated things. He could not have said how long he'd been there even if he could have spoke. He could not even recall his name, nor anything of his former life, all he was was a set of eyes witnessing the revelation that was unfolding.

At some point, the egg-people began to crack. What emerged was not something he could process properly, something akin to green slime or yellow smoke but also as a series of repeating geometric pattens which seemed to fold in upon themselves and then dribbled and swarmed towards the large globule of rotten matter in the centre. His own self was not immune to this alien process and he felt no pain as his body fell apart releasing it's otherworldly contents.

With a thump, his head fell from the shattered shell onto the ground. He was still, inexplicably, alive, at least for long enough to see the contents of his innards fuse with the biomass in the centre of the circle. It began to take shape, dozens of limbs and mouths and eyes bloomed from its surface. In the end, it was its infant-like cries that sent him into blissful oblivion, his part in it's life cycle completed.