Swarm Box Set 1-4 Read online

  Swarm

  By Alex South

  Book Cover by Wayne M

  Edited by Light Hurley

  Secondary Proofreading by Sarah Parkinson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Swarm II

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Swarm III

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Swarm IV

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 1

  Stacy pushed her hand into her Dad’s mouth. His teeth clamped down. He had already bitten her neck. Her legs. Her face. She preferred the hand.

  Like this she could keep him further away, so that she could watch him.

  She had screamed already. Had fought already. Had cried and felt terror already. Then it had all disappeared. Floated away. She felt like what he was doing made sense, like she had seen this all before.

  Blood ran down her fingers, her arm. It hurt, more than anything had ever hurt. But she could ignore the pain. Make it into something and then ignore that something. She liked how evil it was. How wrong it was. How freeing it was.

  This could never have happened before. The feeling of it, sharp and moist. She wondered if he would bite off her fingers – and what she would do with them.

  Chapter 2

  Phil felt a little strange, as if his head was full of air. No big deal, he thought to himself, I’m just drunk, or tired, or something.

  Then he rose from the toilet seat and slammed his fists against the cubicle walls.

  His body convulsed. Trousers around ankles, he fell forwards and smashed his head against the door, knocking it open.

  A man at a urinal turned to look at him.

  Phil dragged himself along the floor.

  Roughly fifty yards away, Fiona entered the building with her friends. Thankful to get inside and escape the freezing air. The bass – which had been thudding the air outside – was joined by the other frequencies. The drums got mixed up with something inside her, creating a feeling that didn’t seem to fit in her chest. She felt the warmth of the crowd. Purple lasers shot through the smoke high above. Beams of red, blue and yellow blazed from lighting rigs, tracing patterns onto the sea of people. Young men and women laughed and sang lyrics to each other. Others did their best to get through the mix of shirts, jeans and short skirts.

  Fiona and her friends moved over to the bar. She loved the energy of all this. She loved being surrounded by people who searched for fun, for excitement, people dressed for good times, people who wanted to make tonight special.

  The two women with her were blonde, thin and tanned. Fiona thought Steph the more naturally beautiful, with big eyes that caught people and made them stay. Kylie, she considered plain, her face oval and features a little too small – but Kylie applied her makeup so well, and so often, that she got away with it.

  As for herself, tonight she wore one of her favourite dresses. A little red number that always made her feel special.

  Steph stood close to her side. Her perfume reminded Fiona of pineapple – it was one they had picked together.

  “What do you want?” Steph shouted.

  “Vodka and Coke!” Fiona shouted back.

  Something pushed against her. She stumbled in her high heels, almost lost balance. The crowd swelled in her direction. The three of them moved to the side – the idiots were going to squash them against the bar.

  Steph took her hand and gestured for her to follow. What was happening? A fight perhaps, or someone had fainted. Whatever. It was cramping their style and the club had plenty of other places to get a drink. Fiona took Kylie’s hand to complete their chain and they moved away into a slow but steady stream of traffic.

  “Hey,” someone shouted in her ear.

/>   She looked over her shoulder, annoyed and trying to convey this. She saw a well-built guy with a flannel shirt and an intense but dim-looking stare.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” he asked.

  Fiona shook her head and looked away before he could say anything else. It was best to give clear signals.

  They came to a staircase and Steph led them up. Finally, they had space to move unhindered. ‘Respect’ by Aretha Franklin flooded the room. It wasn’t Fiona's kind of thing. She preferred the music downstairs, but at least they could get a drink.

  The three of them moved over to the bar and waited for their chance to order. Once again, Steph took charge of getting everyone’s drinks. Fiona started dancing with Kylie in a silly way. She wanted to show everyone here how fun she was.

  After some time, Steph handed them their drinks. That was when the music stopped, the house lights came on and a loud, piercing alarm blared. Everything looked less glamorous in the harsh light. Wrinkles, spots and shaving rashes.

  Fiona lifted her glass. “I’m finishing my drink,” she shouted.

  Kylie grabbed Steph and pointed at Fiona. They both laughed.

  “I don’t care how many fires there are, nobody gets in the way of my vodka and Coke!” Fiona shouted, although it was hard to make herself heard.

  Her friends laughed and gestured for her to follow them.

  Fiona started dancing in time to the alarm.

  “I keep on moving when the fire alarm’s on!” she shouted.

  A man with slightly too much hair gel caught on to what she was doing and danced with her in a playful, exaggerated way. Fiona could see he was up for a laugh. She moved her body in time to his for a while, before ending it all with a high five. His smile was unwavering and only seemed to stretch wider.

  It was the power of the red dress.

  A bouncer approached them. “Can you move towards the exit, please?”

  “After this song… after this song has finished,” the man shouted, more to Fiona than to the bouncer.

  Fiona laughed and then decided to flirt with the bouncer, just to see how the other guy responded.

  “Can I finish my drink first?” she shouted into his ear, pouting and fluttering her eyelashes.

  “Move towards the exit,” he said at her, rather than to her, as if he hadn’t heard her at all.

  She turned to look at the crowd trying to leave. No one was making any progress.

  “It’s not even moving,” she said.

  “Move towards the exit, please.”

  She resigned herself to doing as he asked.

  Her dance partner was still smiling. She raised her eyebrows at him and downed the rest of her drink, put her glass on the bar and joined her friends as they moved to the crowd trying to leave. More people filled in behind.

  “Oi, move faster!” Steph shouted – as if no one had thought of that.

  Fiona heard screams. For the first time, she seriously considered that there might actually be a fire. She said as much to the others. They looked worried.

  The person in front smashed against her. The crowd surged back, her feet stumbling with theirs. They grew above her as she hit the floor.

  Legs stabbed down at her, clattering against her body like hail. She lifted her hands against them. A blow hit her face. Her skull swarmed, full of pain, as it bounced against the floor. Her body took over, rolling onto its front and pulling the knees to the chest. She threw her arm into the sky. A piece of clothing scrunched in her grasp. She pulled, forcing herself back up. Her shoes had come off. She was swept sideways.

  More screams close to her. A huge portion of the crowd fell, all taken by the same domino effect. Fiona saw a man with sickly yellow eyes and blood all over his shirt. He jumped – a fallen woman his landing. He sank his teeth into the woman’s face.

  Fiona screamed.

  The man’s jaw jerked sideways, pulling against the elasticity of her cheek. People clambered back up, blocking Fiona’s view.

  There were no individuals – only a sea of shoulders and heads that swelled and crushed. Some found things to stand on. They shouted to friends. They froze in terror. A man next to her shuddered, his elbow jabbing into her side. She tried to back away. A surge moved them all. The man fell, taking many with him.

  A window had shattered. The sudden escape route drew them all in its direction. Some made it through the window. Some were crushed against the frame or the wall. A pile grew.

  Fiona could see it all. She was forced to take her first step onto the squirming bodies. A movement under her left foot. She stumbled and grabbed a woman, keeping herself upright and causing the woman to fall, but then she was kneeling, climbing, her hands grasping at clothes and skin. The view of the streets outside shrinking. She locked eyes with Kylie, who was stuck in the pile. She kept going, kneeling on Kylie’s face, arriving at the top of the window frame. She pushed forward. She fell out.

  The cold air of the night exploded around her. She ran across the concrete roof and jumped down onto the cold metal of a parked van, then dropped to the concrete of the car park.

  Others were around her, some on phones, some running or shouting. Her lungs torn by ragged breaths. The rushing streetlights passed by. A corner came and passed. Then another. She knew a road near here. There were taxis there.

  Ahead, a young girl rushed from a house. Next came a man – short and bald. Maybe he could help. The man caught up with the child in the middle of the road. He picked her up and sunk his teeth into her shoulder.

  Fiona let out a whimper.

  The man threw the child aside. Her flailing body thudded against a car.

  Fiona turned – caught in the arms of the man behind her.

  Chapter 3

  Stacy couldn’t tell where her hand ended and her dad’s mouth began. He had chewed it so much that the blood was pouring down his chin and dripping on the carpet, but the blood that stayed in his mouth became him if he drank it. But it was still a part of her. But it was a part of him too. And the pain in her hand mixed with the warmth of his teeth and his tongue. And the pain and the blood were the same thing. It was all one big thing that joined her to him and made them both together.

  That scared her a little. If she didn’t end at her hand, if she became him and he became her…

  “Stop!” she shouted.

  His body went still, only his chest moved – his breathing loud, uneven and fast. She took away her hand, stood up and looked at him. Somehow, she had known that he would listen to her, even though none of this made any sense. She left him there, in a kind of press-up position, and walked down the hallway to the baby’s room. She moved to its cot and listened to it cry.

  It was always crying. She left the room, walked downstairs and entered the kitchen. She had a glass of water and looked out the window. Her head tingled a little bit. She couldn’t see anything. Only her reflection. Too much darkness outside.

  Daddy had bitten her.

  The idea hurt her. It was bad and good at the same time. She didn’t want him to. But she was glad he did. She had enjoyed it. Enjoyed the bad. Did Daddy enjoy it? Why did he do it? She put down the glass and went back upstairs, finding him in the same pose.

  “Daddy,” she said.

  No response.

  “Daddy, are you okay?”

  Daddy didn’t speak. Stacy stared at him for a while, then moved to the window. It was quiet and still. She looked at the only house in sight. The lights were off. She looked over the hills. Something was happening. Like the whole world was waking up for her. She went downstairs, opened the door and crept outside.

  Cold air drew over her skin. She didn’t like it. Her bare feet moved down the driveway and she passed over to the other house. She knocked on the door. It opened. Roger looked down at her. He always had a big tummy – the roundest thing Stacy had ever seen on a person.

  “Stacy, what happened?”

  “It’s my daddy. Come quickly.”

  Roger stepped into th
e glow of the security light. “What’s happened? Is he okay?”

  “Come with me, come with me,” she said.

  She turned and led him back to her house. Only one window showed light – her bedroom. She led him inside, upstairs and to her daddy, who hadn’t moved.

  “Phil?” said Roger, kneeling down next to him, “Are you okay?”

  Stacy felt her stomach tingle, her whole body like electricity. She wanted to do it straight away. Before she even knew what it was.

  “Phil… are you stuck?”

  Stacy knew that once she did it, everything would change. She would be in trouble forever. It made her a little scared.

  But then Roger turned and left, saying something about a phone. Stacy had missed her chance. Bitterness moved in her.

  She walked onto the landing, seeing Roger poking at the phone with his chubby finger. She watched him for a while, wondering why she hadn’t done it. And if it was okay to do it in the hallway. She decided that she would and turned back to her room.

  “Get him,” she hissed at her dad. He leapt up and ran. She sidestepped. He thundered towards Roger. Stacy enjoyed seeing Roger’s face – silly, stupid and confused. She giggled. Daddy collided with him. They both fell to the floor.

  Chapter 4

  Screams woke John. He lay for a few seconds, confused. Then pushed himself out of bed. The curtains a kind of dull, dirty rectangle. He pulled them open.

  On the black asphalt, two figures wrestled in streetlight-tinted rain. He watched, transfixed. Then moved to his bedside table, patting the darkness with his hands. His phone lit up, his tiny room and its furniture made pale. He tapped 999, moving back to the window. The screams had stopped. A man ran away. A buzz filled John’s ear. He checked the screen.

  ‘Busy’.

  "What?" he whispered.

  Again he tried and again it buzzed. He stared at the remaining figure, lying on the ground. A woman wearing a red dress. She had lost her shoes.

  Come on, John, don’t fuck this up. Think!

  The light switch clicked under his finger, revealing the narrow, woodchip wallpaper hallway. He crossed the cold laminate to the front door of the apartment. It clicked and squeaked open, leading John into the otherworldly glow of the musty corridor. The carpet itchy under his feet. He pounded on ‘12’ – two doors down on his side.

  “Laura, it’s John. Open the door. It’s important.”

  A few seconds. She appeared. John noticed, without really processing it, that she had dyed her hair red.