The Outsiders - By Neil Jackson Page 0,2

landing were covered with the same, blotchy, wine-red carpet as the lounge. He went into the bathroom first to relieve himself before the long drive home, and was just starting to pee when the door swung slowly open. Chadwick looked over his shoulder and saw Clarke. She was smiling, now. Without a word she stepped into the bathroom and stood behind him.

“Look, I’m tired, Susan, and I’m going home. There’s no way you could change my mind, now.”

“Are you sure I couldn’t, Simon?” Clarke began to unbutton her blouse. “Not even if I did this?”

Okay, so I’m totally predictable but at the end of the day I’m only a man, thought Chadwick, smugly. And I’m a slave to my physical needs, just like any other.

Chadwick turned, eager to share his erection with Susan Clarke.

But Clarke had no interested in the man’s burgeoning member, or at least, not entirely. She undid her blouse at the wrists and shrugged her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the cold tiles.

“Do you believe my story, now?” she asked.

The mouth was wide open, almost perfectly circular, a monstrous travesty of a navel. And the teeth were unveiled in all their gruesome splendour - sharks within sharks.

“Earlier, you said you were famished,” she reminded Chadwick. “Well, I’m ravenous!”

She took a pace towards the horrified man, but as shocked as he was, he wasn’t the sort to go down without a fight. Chadwick grabbed Clarke by the arms, trying to wrestle the abomination back from the doorway. He shrieked for help but the music downstairs was so loud there was no way anybody was going to hear him. The bathroom door swung open, again, to reveal Flood and Selman.

“Thank God!” Chadwick bellowed. “Help me!”

The two men removed their own shirts to expose the gaping, serration-filled, holes beneath and Chadwick lost all hope of rescue. Their mouths were virtually identical to Clarke’s, except the female’s lips were fuller, redder.

My God, she’s even applied a little lipstick, thought Chadwick. He felt the urge to laugh, laugh uncontrollably, laugh until he died. Instead, he continued to struggle until Flood and Selman managed to manhandle him to the floor, restraining him against the side of the bath.

Clarke stared at Chadwick with an expression the man could only interpret as pity. When she spoke again, however, he knew he had been wrong.

“You’re not married and you have no close family, so you’ll not be missed. You’re an ideal candidate, Simon Chadwick.”

“Am I going to be t-turned into one of you?”

“Oh, no, you could never be one of us. That’s impossible!”

“B-But the story you told–”

“Yes, there was some truth in it. I wasn’t attacked, though; I wanted to become like this. Ours is a club that can only be joined by special request, you see, and there’s no invitation extended to you!”

“We are members of a race that has coexisted with mankind - the ignorant symbiont - for many thousands of years,” said Selman.

“We skim the surface of humanity, removing scum such as you,” Flood informed him. “In return, we enjoy respectable positions within your society. Oh, and the occasional meal,” he said, leering at Chadwick.”

“You’ve been identified as a human lowlife, Chadwick,” Selman continued. You’ve been marked for your criminal sexual activities. When your name came to the top of the list you were lured to this party.”

“Now you know why we invited you here. There couldn’t be a party without you, because you are the party!” Clarke finished.

With that, the creature that was Susan Clarke signalled to her underlings and Chadwick was dragged, gibbering, to his feet.

Clarke pointed at each of the three slavering mouths, in turn. “These are the doorways to your destiny, Simon Chadwick.” And she said it so calmly that, for the condemned man, the impact somehow seemed even worse. “We are going to eat every single part of you, Chadwick…”

“Bones and all,” interjected Flood.

“…and I intend to begin, as one should, with the hors d’ouvres,” Clarke said. She suddenly grasped Chadwick’s penis, now flaccid, pulling him violently towards her.

Flood and Selman began to tear the clothes from his body.

And then the screaming began.

Shortly afterwards, Dr. Susan Clarke strolled into the kitchen with her two colleagues. Some of the other guests, she noticed, were in the last throes of a cleaning-up exercise of their own. Dr. Selman was carrying some rolled-up clothes. He yanked a black bin bag from the cupboard under the sink, dropping the garments into it. Dr. Flood pulled a watch from his pocket, noting