Halfhead. Stuart MacBride B.

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       6

      Drums pound in the darkness, like the heartbeat of something huge and hungry. Creeping down the pitch-black corridor, Sergeant William Hunter grits his teeth and keeps moving.

      The carpet scritches and screltches beneath his feet, sticky with blood. He can’t see it, but he can smell it: hot copper and burnished iron. Every single floor is like this, shrouded in darkness and drenched in blood. Like a nightmare he can’t wake up from.

      Cramp screams across his back again and he stops for a moment, gritting his teeth and swearing quietly. Private Alexander weighs a bloody ton and Will’s been carrying him around for long enough to resent every last ounce. He unclips the trooper’s harness and struggles the almost dead weight onto his other shoulder.

      ‘Bloody hell…’ his voice is barely a whisper, ‘…why did you have to be such a fat bastard?’

      Private Alexander isn’t the only weight he’s carrying: the whole building’s pressing down on top of him, grinding him into the blood-soaked carpet. Making every step a battle. Add to that one empty Whomper—the battery as dead as the rest of the Dragonfly’s team—and Will has all the fun he can handle.

      He fastens their harnesses together again, then pushes off the wall and staggers on in the dark: one hand held out in front of him, the other brushing the wall at his side.

      Plastic doors bump beneath his fingertips, each one hiding its own horrible little story. A murdered family. A VR shrine to the building’s new digital god. A tattered corpse, mutilated and half eaten…

      It’s been a day and a half since the Dragonfly crashed headfirst into this freak show, thirty-nine floors up, and so far the only people he’s seen have all been very, very dead…

      He stops. Something has changed, but it takes him nearly a whole minute to figure out what: the drums are silent. The bloody things have been his constant companion for a day and a half, pounding away at him, and now they’re gone.

      Thank God.

      He slumps against the nearest wall and closes his eyes, enjoying the blissful peace. Could go to sleep now. Kick in the door to one of the flats, chuck the dead bodies out into the hall, and barricade himself inside. He sighs. Never going to happen. If he doesn’t get Private Alexander to a medic soon, he’s going to die.

      Slowly Will pulls himself upright and forces his legs to move, carrying the trooper’s fat arse through the blackness.

      The corridor seems to go on forever, stretching away into the dark. On and on and on.

      Door, wall, door, wall, door, wall, door, wall, door, wall…

      And then a rush of warm, foetid air brushes Will’s face.

      He freezes. Then reaches out a hand. There’s a little metal lip, and then nothing. Lift shaft? There’s no sign of the actual lift, just that column of dank air, laced with the smell of machinery and grease.

      ‘Oh you wee beauty.’ He can feel the grin spreading.

      The stairwells are too dangerous—blocked with piles of furniture, lit by flickering torches—but the lift shaft is another matter. He double checks Fat Boy Alexander is securely strapped in place, then inches forwards until the floor comes to a sudden, terminal stop.

      Holding on to the open elevator door with one hand, he reaches out into the void, searching along the lift shaft’s rough foamcrete walls for the maintenance ladder he knows is in there.

      Climb down to the ground floor, break out through the front doors, and run like hell for freedom. Easy. No problem at all. Leave this dark, scary shitehole behind and go back to the real world, where people don’t mutilate themselves with kitchen knives.

      The sound of drums explodes all around him and he flinches, stumbles, grabs at the wall, trying not to scream…He scrabbles back into the corridor, heart hammering faster than the deafening drums. He stands there, trembling for a moment, then wipes a hand across his eyes. Frowns. Blinks.

      There’s a light, flickering weakly at the far end of the passageway.

      It’s getting brighter.

      Oh Jesus…

      They’re coming.

      Will sat bolt-upright in the middle of the bed, surrounded by clammy sheets, sweat running down his chest, heart pounding. He dragged in a couple of ragged breaths and swore.

      Hadn’t had that nightmare for nearly four and a half years.

      ‘Lights.’ The controller bleeped, filling the apartment with dazzling brightness. ‘Argh…Down, down!’ They slowly faded to something less likely to burn his irises off.

      Will slumped back on the bed and scowled at the ceiling. Not a good start to the day.

      By the time he’d showered, dressed, and caught the shuttle into work, it was half past seven and the dream was gone.

      Network Headquarters was enjoying the quiet lull before the day shift kicked in. Services were delivering their daily consignment of halfheads, herding them through the squeaky corridors. Giving them their instructions in small, easy to understand words, then handing each a wheely-bucket full of cleaning supplies and leaving them to get on with it.

      Sweep. Mop. Polish. Tidy. Dust.

      One of the bigger halfheads bent to pick up a cloth and cleanblock from the bucket at its feet, then shambled over to polish the lift doors. What was left of its surgically truncated features was covered in spiral tattoos, a brand new patch of pink skin grafted onto its forehead with the barcode right in the middle. It looked vaguely ridiculous, but then that was the point. Will stood for a moment, waiting for the halfhead to finish, then decided that he’d really rather take the stairs.

      Somehow the lift didn’t appeal today.

      An hour and a half later his desktop terminal bleeped at him. Incoming call. Will scowled at the little camera mounted into the unit. The bloody thing had resisted all attempts at sabotage. He’d even tried sticky tape over the lens, but the halfhead who did the offices cleaned it away every time it came in to empty the bins.

      Will stabbed the ‘receive’ button and barked, ‘Hunter,’ into the microphone.

      ‘Aye, very good.’ A familiar, podgy face filled the screen, one eye a milky ball of grey with little flashes of light going off inside it. The image was slightly distorted, stretched by the tiny wide-angle camera attached to the end of the caller’s fingerphone. ‘Nice haircut byraway, circus in town?’

      Will ran a hand through his unruly locks, unable to stop the smile breaking out on his face.

      ‘Morning, Brian. Had a dream about you last night.’

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