Tabitha by Andrew Hall

She scratched at the
armoured skin but felt nothing. She could still feel her grey fingertips
scratching at her wrists, at least. But clapping her hands, and pinching them,
and punching them, even banging them down on the sink to hurt them… no
sensation at all. She had, however, sent a crack right through the heavy sink.
Another whack, and the sink shattered with a gurgling spurt of gunge from the
pipes. She’d barely shifted her feet back in time to avoid broken toes. Tabitha
looked at her hands; looked around at the bathroom to see if she was still
dreaming.
    ‘What?...’ she
mumbled to herself, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. When she glanced
in the mirror, she saw someone new. Her sad eyes were piercing green, lighter
than they should have been. Her ginger curls had turned a vivid shade of red.
She stared in silent shock; raised a grey hand to her face. That wasn’t her.
    Dazed, Tabitha
wandered back into her bedroom. She saw the threadbare carpet just inside the
doorway. It was all coming back to her then, like a dream forgotten. Silver
legs; lots of legs. And the stabbing alien needle. She studied the little pock
mark in her thigh where the needle had gone in. It’d healed incredibly well for
such a short time; there wasn’t even a scab. Looking around as she got dressed,
she saw a silver spidery leg on the carpet behind the door. The alien. The
socket… she’d killed it. It was out on the landing. Tabitha turned around, and
there it was. Propped up in the back corner, legs jutting up against the wall.
Just as sinister in death. She didn’t want to go close, but curiosity pushed
her towards it like a hand on the small of her back. She reached out and
touched a silver leg. Its skin rasped against her grey palm like sandpaper. The
same skin.
    Tabitha sat down
on her bed, and pulled her phone from her pocket to call her mum. The phone
didn’t switch on though. The charger didn’t work either. Not the lights, or the
radio, or her little TV. No electricity, no running water… what was going on?
Nothing made sense. She had to get to her mum. Everything would be alright; she
just had to get to her mum. She had to tell her the whole terrifying tale.
    When Tabitha
came back downstairs into the living room, Mog didn’t recognise her. She looked
much the same but moved, smiled and smelled differently. Her every step was a
snake-hipped seduction to the empty house around her.
    ‘Hi,’ she said
softly, waiting for Mog to edge closer for a stroke. Eventually he came and
nudged her grey hands and circled her feet, purring. Tabitha put some food out
for him in the kitchen, and stroked him as he tucked in. She couldn’t feel his
fur on her fingers. There was a sour rancid smell coming from the fridge; the
power must have cut out while she was passed out on the carpet. A cold puddle
covered half the kitchen floor. Just how long had she been unconscious? She
took a carving knife from the kitchen drawer to dissect the alien upstairs. She
had to be quick. She had to get to her mum. But if there were more of these
creatures out there, then she had to know how to stop them. She had to know
what made them tick. Suddenly this was survival.
    As she skinned
her kill quickly in the bathtub, Tabitha realised that her body felt leaner.
Stronger. She peeled back the alien’s skin in a rush and caught her wrist
against the edge, and it sliced her skin like a tin lid. Blood like quicksilver
streamed down her arm for a second, before the stinging cut healed up. A few
seconds, and it’d closed up completely. She stared at her blood, shining silver
like mercury, still dribbling down her arm. It tasted good. Beneath the
spider’s skin were fibrous muscles, solid bunched-up cords of white meat. It
hardly smelled of anything; just metal and faint salty flesh, with the clammy
whiff of oil mixed in. Its splayed legs looked part spider and part crab. Its
silver blood dripped thick into the bathtub, pooling and trickling down