Read Online Spawn of Man by Terry Farricker - Free Book Online Page B

blue shock of electricity travel sporadically along the wires that ran from the machine to the chair. Stupefied and as motionless as a mannequin, Robert observed the current dissipate when it hit the receivers in the chair and a charge jumped to both of his hands like small rodents leaping onto his flesh, claws hooking into the skin. The veins on the back of Robert’s hand become engorged and prominent and the membrane tightened to accommodate the swollen vessels. Beneath, raised tracks began to worm their way up over his wrist and into his forearm like tiny insects burrowing and weaving below the surface.
    Robert’s head tilted backwards and his pupils dilated and rolled upwards as the veins in his arms rose further, as if he was being inflated through his fingertips. He began to shake violently and bubbling white foam appeared between his clenched teeth. His temples throbbed and the veins became like thick tubing, stretching the skin painfully. Then Robert dreamed.
    He dreamed of a cloudless blue sky above a blue lake with a surface like porcelain. He lay on the shore of the lake alone, gazing lazily at the faultless sky. There was a child playing games in the sun. He could feel warmth on his face and smell the sweet, slightly pungent fragrances of flowers in the air. He turned on his side and touched a flower and its vibrant color smudged and came off on his fingers. Had the child painted these flowers? There was a call from the lake. It was Alex and Jake. They were in a small rowing boat, frantically pointing at something behind Robert and shouting. No, not shouting, screaming.
    Robert turned. A huge, clumsy, amorphous black thing was approaching in the sky, contrasting against the blue, dark and blotting out the sun. Its odor was carried before it, rank and acrid. Robert choked on the fumes and his eyes smarted and wept from the effects of the rancid smell. Now the shape soared overhead and Robert strained his eyes against the fireball sun to follow the course of its flight. As Robert attempted to rise, vines crept towards him through the tall grass, like eels wriggling through the murky growths of a seabed. They pierced the skin of his forearms and squirmed in a serpentine path just below the surface, effectively tying him to the ground.
    ‘Alex, Jake, row to me, for God’s sake row to me!’ Robert screamed as he pulled feverishly at the stems holding him.
    The vines continued to race up Robert’s arms, quickly reaching his shoulders. He appeared as if he was growing out of the Earth itself and he screamed again as the cloud-like thing began a descent, with a trajectory that brought it directly in line with the little rowing boat.
    And now Alex was sobbing, ‘It wasn’t my fault Robert, it wasn’t my fault!’
    Robert opened his mouth to call again but no sound issued. The shoots had arrived at his neck and had begun to push towards his skull, the skin on his throat bulging now like he was exposed to the vacuum of space and straining almost to the point of exploding. His face looked like a badly inked road map and the network of stems spread beneath his cheeks and forced his eyes to protrude. Alex gathered Jake into her arms and watched in terror as the black thing sailed through the air towards them. Then a jab of pain stabbed Robert in the right temple and he opened his eyes. He still held the chair but the swelling in his veins was reducing, swiftly returning them to their normal state and Robert released his grip on the chair, staggering backwards.
    The jab of pain in his temple came again and he put his hand to it before realizing it was his CCI. The device’s neural connection had somehow interrupted whatever connection had been instituted by the chair and fed by the generator. Robert stepped back further, unsure still of where he was, then instinctively activated his CCI and spoke groggily.
    ‘Hello?’ As he did so he displayed the menu, noticing he had recorded twelve hours of footage, yet he had only