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Everything came back in flashes. The dog. His father lying on the couch. His arm. His black arm. The black thing that attacked and killed his father, the nurse…his arm…my arm!
Adam opened his eyes. The pale white ceiling above came as a comfort and contrast to his dark, black dreams. Swirling images of people running, screaming, and dying. He felt hungry in his dreams, felt empty. There were streets crowded with frightened and angry shouts. Police. Gunfire. And through it all he could hear the voices. The voices were speaking to me. What were they saying? It faded from his memory. Where am I?
"He's awake. Adam? Hello Adam, no don't try and sit up." The head of a woman came into his view as he lay in the hospital bed. Her plump round face showed concern, her eyes showed kindness. "Adam, I'm Diana. How do you feel?"
How do you feel? The one question spoken more than any other to him by the strangers, doctors, and psychiatrists he's had speak to him in the past. How do you feel towards your mother? Always the same questions. What was that answer again, the one to make them go away?
"I'm fine," mumbled Adam. He felt strange; his arm felt…"I can't move my arm."
Adam moved his left arm. That one worked fine, that one wasn't black. He went to lift the covers off his right side to see his other arm. His shoulders and neck felt completely numb. Moving his head was a struggle.
"No, wait a moment Adam."
"I want to see!"
"Adam, they had no choice. If they didn't remove your arm, you might have died." Or worse! Diana left that last comment unsaid.
"Can I see?" Tears were welling up in his eyes. No! I won't cry, not anymore. He'd done enough crying about his mother. It didn't bring her back or help his father.
"Ok. Go ahead." Diana sat up straight in her chair, and waited.
Adam removed the cover. No arm. He was heavily bandaged over his shoulder and around his chest. His arm had been removed from the armpit down. Barely a hint of a stump remained visible through the bandages.
"You're on strong pain killers at the moment. But in time it wont hurt any more."
"Are you a doctor?" inquired Adam meekly.
"Well, kind of. Not really. The doctors are very busy at the moment. The nurse though has gone to find him. He should be here soon."
I know what kind of doctor you are…one for kids. I feel fine.
"You've been through a lot. Yet you tell me you're fine. Adam, it's ok to not feel fine. You understand?"
"My fathers dead."
"Well…yes, I believe so. I'm Sorry. Something is…well…what do you remember?"
"I remember…I remember, it. The black thing." Adam stared blankly at the ceiling.
"What is that thing Adam, can you tell me?" Diana leaned in closer to Adam. Concern lined her round face, and wrinkled her brow.
"It's a killer." He turned his face away. He didn't want to think about this now. He felt numb, distant, and talking was something adults did to get in your head. He could still hear the voices, a faint whisper somewhere in the back of his mind. Join us…but they faded to nothing. Adam closed his eyes and slept a dreamless sleep.

Adam started to wake. The sounds of muffled voices grew louder in his ears. The voices? As he opened his eyes his blurred vision swirled about the room, vague white shapes mixing with dark black ones. Getter bigger, and closer. He panicked.
Adam tried to sit up. The room was filled with the voices of people. His vision cleared and a mans face filled his view. The doctors' hands held his shoulders and gently eased him back down on to the pillow.
"It's ok Adam, you're safe here." The doctors soothing voice matched his kind brown eyes. "I'm doctor Labdouni."
"Hi again Adam." Diana sat on the left side of the bed.
"Doctor. We'd like to question the lad now, if possible." The gruff voice came from behind the doctor.
"Very well, but I won't permit any hard questioning," the doctor replied sharply.
"Doc, I don't think I need stress just how urgent this all is. Do I?" the voice replied.
Diana leaned over the bed. "Adam, this is Mr MacCaster."
A large heavy-set man in a black suit approached the right side of the bed. The doctor moved back out of his way.
"Hello there son. You can call me Bill." He took a seat by the bed. "I'd like to ask you a few questions about what happened." Bill's eyes were cold and hard. Grey eyes topped with grey eyebrows and thinning grey hair, with hints of its former brown clinging to the crown of his head. His thin lips pressed close together when he wasn't speaking, and his mouth seemed to be locked in a permanent sneer. His tone of voice matched his dour demeanour. Already Adam didn't like this man. He'd rather talk to the doctor, or not talk at all.
Diana remained on his left, and she looked an angel in contrast to this grumpy old man. Bill was in his mid-fortes, Diana her mid-thirties. But to Adam that was old as old could get. And old people were supposed to be obeyed.
"How did you first come into contact with this black substance? Where did you first see it?" Bill's cold eyes were locked on Adams. Adam looked away.
"In our back yard, sir." He glanced at Diana, and she offered a reassuring smile. She held his right hand. He hadn't even noticed it until he looked. She squeezed slightly, and he squeezed back. "It was our neighbours dog. I think the dog had it."
Bill turned to another man that Adam hadn't noticed back by the door. The man wore a black suit similar to Bill. "Williams, we need a team out there at the boys house."
Adam told Bill where he lived, and then continued answering questions and explained all he knew that had happened up to now. He learnt that he'd been in hospital for almost a day. It was now ten-o-clock AM the next morning and Bill wasn't quite so forceful as Adam had first feared. When questioning about his father, Bill seemed both sympathetic and apologetic towards his loss. Everyone listened intently as Adam explained the feelings he had when he had sat in the ambulance, the desire to touch the dead body, and the voices that spoke to him.
"What were these voices saying?" asked Bill. He leaned in closer.
Adam was feeling more and more claustrophobic as Bill leaned in.
"I'm not sure. Something about wanting me to join them, or something."
"Join them? Join who? Did you recognise the voice at all?"
"No sir. And it wasn't one voice. It was lots of voices."
Diana's mobile phone rang. "Sorry!" She got up and went to the back of the room. Adam's gaze followed her. She left the room before answering it.
"Is there nothing else you can tell me? Adam?"
"Huh?" Adam's mind snapped back into bed.
"Is there nothing else you can tell me? Your arm for example. What did it feel like?"
"It felt…itchy."
"That's all? Itchy?"
Bill stood up and turned to doctor Labdouni. "Doc, I trust you still have the sample."
Doctor Labdouni threw a tentative glance towards Adam then replied, "We do. I take it you'd like to see it? Follow me." The doctor turned to Adam, "You'll be fine Adam. I'll have a nurse come in to see you right away. I'll also get Diana." He nodded for confirmation.
"Ok. I don't mind," replied Adam.
The room emptied.
Moments later Diana reappeared followed by a nurse. The nurse busied herself about the room and checked Adams chart while Diana sat back down to his left. She took his hand again.
"Hey there. How are you holding up?" she said, gently squeezing his hand.
"Fine I guess."
"You're incredibly brave. How did you get to be so brave?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I think we need to talk about your relatives. Do you have someone we could call? An aunt or uncle perhaps. Or grandparents?"
Adam wasn't listening. "Who was that on the phone?"
"The phone? Oh…well that was just my husband. Do you have someone I can call?"
"What did he want?" inquired Adam.
A smile broke out on Diana's face, "Adam, you're not listening to me. I need to…"
"But what did he want, is he ok?"
"Well, yes. He's fine. He wanted to see how I was because of, well…"
"Because of that thing. It's still out there."
"He saw it on the news. There's a lot of a panic right now. People are being told to keep out of its way. It's been tracked by helicopter and the army are being called in. They'll kill it." Her smile had faded. Just then she looked as though she had never smiled, ever.
"Did it get anyone else?"
"Adam please, I don't think we should talk about that…thing." She let go of his hand.
"It did get more people. It's hungry, I think, and wants more. It's on the streets and police are trying to shoot it, but it doesn't even hurt. It just chases them until they run away."
"Adam. How do you know all this?" She took his hand again.
"My dream," he replied.

2

Bill MacCaster leaned in close to the glass container. His grey eyes stared unblinking at the black gelatinous blob as it pulsated and folded over itself within its glass cage. During the operation to remove Adams arm - to remove the creature - it had come alive while Adam lay anaesthetised. It had lashed out at doctor Labdouni as he touched the scalpel to Adams shoulder. They had encased the arm in layers of plastic sheeting to prevent accidental contact with any of the surgeons or nurses. That same plastic kept the thing bound as it tried to wriggle about and morph its shape. Two nurses held it steady as doctor Labdouni performed the operation. Beneath their grasp it shifted its mass. They had to change their hold constantly to keep it still.
When the amputation was complete they quickly tossed the wriggling mass into an empty incubation chamber. And there they sealed all possible routes of escape, such as air holes, with the same plastic sheeting taped on in as many layers as it took for them to feel safe. It was the best they could do in a pinch.
"Doctor, we need to get this to a lab," said Bill as he squatted down on one knee to view the creature from eye level. It moved towards his side of the glass. Its upper mass rose in folds of black slime, and then fell forward only to be swallowed up again by the next fold after it. This motion propelled it forward. It reached the glass and pressed against it, spreading out as it pushed into the glass. Small tendrils leapt from its main body and started lashing at the glass. Bill stood up, and backed away.
"It seems to move towards both sound and movement around it. I suppose it can both see, somehow, and hear," said doctor Labdouni, eying the thing as it vainly tried to break out.
"How secure is that?" inquired Bill, his voice firm and his tone level.
"It should hold. The thing doesn't seem to have much strength in it."
Its attempts to break the glass were barely audible. The glass didn't seem to register the weak blows upon it.
"I have proper containment on the way," said Bill as he moved to the side of the chamber. He tapped it lightly with his finger. The thing moved so suddenly and so fast that it had latched itself to the glass beneath his finger before Bills' reactions had him pull back. That time the glass shook from the impact. "Well it can move when it wants to, that's for sure."
Bill turned to the doctor. "How do we know the boy is safe? That you got it all?"
"Time, I guess. When I severed his arm I saw no trace of the substance remaining over the amputation point. I took slightly more normal skin and bone away in the hope that it would come away clean. It seems to have worked." The doctor raised a hand and wiped it across his brow. He looked and felt very tired. "From what I could gather, it devoured his arm from the outside in. There was still a small trace of white bone running through the middle of his arm, but as you can see here, that's long been devoured."
"It's all just too…unbelievable!" continued the doctor. "It would seem that each part of it can function separately from another. And so I suspect we don't have just that one big creature loose on the streets and this one here, there could be loads of them."
"Yes, we already believe that's the case. The third ambulance that came from the practitioners office never arrived here doc."
"I wasn't aware…"
"We found it crashed. Through a wall and into a garden and the people who witnessed it said they saw another one of these things come out the front of the ambulance, while it ate the driver. Panic is rife. People are locking themselves in their homes, others are leaving."
"For our part we've been successful with the patients. We've frozen every other sample we got except this one. And so, you don't know where this other creature has gone?"
Bill slump backwards into a chair. "I wish I knew doc, I wish I knew."

3

Thousands of miles away, on a rocky outcrop that sat like a lone sentinel amidst the rolling planes of grass and bush, Fynn Unika stood watching to the north. His brother Wanjala and his uncle Ngozi also stared northwards, standing side by side in the shadow of the Kamau rock. To the west, the low setting sun burned the sky with an orange glow. It would be dark soon. They must hurry.
Fynn climbed down. His bare feet sure and true as they coiled around the various footholds, and avoided the sharper stone daggers that the Kamau rock was named for.
Wanjala returned Fynns' spear to him, and Fynn told them both of what he had seen. His keen eyes saw that the trail they followed continued north for another league, then snaked it's way east, heading for the Badji plain where the lions were known to rest and feed. This was no lion or cattle trail they followed.
They followed the single wide trail through the grass. It varied in size from just four feet in places to a massive ten feet in width. The grass was flattened in some places, but in most places it was gone altogether. Torn up. The flattened grass that remained looked dead, withered and drained of colour. It was an ill omen Ngozi had said. Evil magic's that feed on the soul. Fynn and Wanjala were respectful of their uncle, but not so quick to believe in omens and magic. They were warriors, not magi, and what leaves a trail in the grass cannot be a spirit.
Some of the village herd had disappeared the previous night and the only trail was the flattened and sickly grass that they now followed. As it was under Wanjala's watch that the cattle had been taken, he was responsible for their return, or for compensation to the village. As the compensation would be costly for five Brahman Fynn and Ngozi chose to help their kinsman. What puzzled the village elders and Fynn alike was that the trail appeared to begin amongst the grazing field. The trail grass all bent leading away from the field, suggesting something left but had never arrived. The notion that it, whatever it was, had returned along the same trail it had arrived by was one possible answer.
The last hint of orange sky was vanishing beyond the western horizon as they approached a copse of trees, dry and withered from the lack of rain. Fynn stopped to inspect the ground at the base of a tree. His bright multicoloured beads and braids looked like shades of grey as the night crept up around them, threatening to swallow them whole. A sliver of moon shone down across the grasslands. The yellow-green world turned to silver-grey. But it was enough for them to see by.
The trail they followed continued on through the copse, and Fynn saw evidence of a lion's resting place beneath a tree, and then tracks heading away into the grassland. It appeared to him that the thing they followed, be it beast or no, had disturbed the lion prides sleep. Scattering the great cats in all directions. Wanjala and Ngozi confirmed this with lion trails of their own.
Ngozi cried out. The brothers looked to where he stood. Ngozi was walking towards them, his outstretched arm pointing off in to the black night.
"A devil! A devil that moves! Look, it approaches," he cried frantically in his own tongue.
The brothers looked to where he was pointing. Beneath the faint glow of the moon a giant black mass shimmered like moonlight hitting a night black pool. But this was no pool. A pulsating mass of appendages whipped around it grasping at air. Its jelly like body changed shape in an instant, making an outline impossible to determine. Parts of it seemed to meld with the night around it. Was it twenty feet wide and tall, was it thirty? If this thing had made the trail, then it had grown considerably since.
Like the crack of whip, one of the flailing tentacles latched around the base of a tree. The tree cracked and split. To the stunned onlookers, it sounded like the world had snapped. It snapped them out of their folly. All three turned to flee. Another crack of the black whip snapped in Fynn's ears and in full stride he saw his brother hit the ground and vanish backwards. He heard his brother's cry of terror as he was pulled along the ground. The sound was snuffed out suddenly.
Ngozi's old legs could not stay the pace with the young Fynn. Something hit him in the back, throwing him to the ground. Fynn heard the impact and his uncle's cry. He looked back to see his uncle crawling backwards on his backside, watching the giant mass of night-black horror advancing upon him.
Despite all the chaos, Fynn still held his spear tight. To lose one's spear, is to lose one's manhood, his father had once told him. He turned on his heel and made a sprint for his uncle. He unleashed his spear with all his force in to the centre of the creature, or what he thought to be the centre. It was near impossible to determine.
The spear hit home. It sunk deep into the creatures black flesh and then vanished completely. Fynn stood there watching in disbelief as the thing fell upon his uncle and devoured his screams, his body, and his soul.
That spear throw would have laid an elephant! thought Fynn. He turned and fled. I must warn the village. Demons are among us.