The Autodigestion of Matthew Price
By Alex Clark
The screaming is out of this world; you’ve never heard anything like it. There’s no comparison. The word “immolation” springs to mind, but this is different–it’s the not knowing that makes it so terrifying. It happened to poor Matthew Price recently and I saw the whole thing. Mathew was a local lad and a good kid. Never put a foot wrong, to my knowledge. He was doing his paper round at the time. Jesus, at first I thought he’d been shot. He fell off his bike clutching his chest and writhing in pain. Did you ever see John Hurt in Alien? I swear Matthew looked just like he did right before that thing burst out of his chest. He’s thrashing from side to side, clawing at the pavement, tearing at his shirt, and screaming that awful scream. Sometime afterwards, his mother told me that he’d been feeling a little run down the day that it happened, but don’t we all from time to time? It hardly made sense of what came next. Steam roared from his mouth; he was yelling, but now tones of fear began to replace the initial wave of agony. Mr. Jackson ran out of his shop to try and help, but damn near required some help himself when he saw the flesh on the boy’s face bubble up and peel away.
The shock should have made him faint, but no joy. He tried holding his face together with his softening hands, but it was hopeless. It was like somebody trying to piece a ruined cake back together.
Soon, Matthew’s head was a featureless and fast-liquefying hunk of meat, and the white of his ribs was beginning to show through. He started making the most revolting noise–a weird and senseless gurgle that put Mr. Jackson on his backside. He didn’t have the chance to go green; he was watching his breakfast run into the gutter before he knew it.
The sounds are what I remember the most, and I’ve heard that said before. Shrieking agony is replaced by a warbling cry of fear. Finally there’s a kind of soggy moaning, and fortunately for Matthew, that didn’t take long to come. By then, a pool of… of… of I guess an innocent kid just earning a bit of pocket money was trickling into the road. In it was something vaguely human-shaped and held in place by the rags that were once his clothes. In the past, I’ve heard of bone fragments being pulled out of the mulch. It’s never a lot, but it gives family and friends something in the ground to visit. On this occasion there was nothing tangible. What was left, or rather what Matthew left behind, was simply hosed into the drain by the responding fire crew.
This has been happening a lot recently. Experts are referring to it as “autodigestion.” Vague, I know, but what would you call it?
The locals were suspicious of the new water treatment facility in the valley. They smashed it out of commission and burned the director’s house to the ground, but these awful things keep happening. I don’t know what to think. What I do know is that I started with a tickly cough last night, and I’m heading to hospital right away. Christ, I hope it’s not too late.