They can only get you if you notice them. If you react.

And you will.

*

I was coming off a brutal night shift when I saw the first one. My arms ached, my eyes past the point of heaviness. But I’m good at what I do. I’m built for hauling shit. I used to come home to my ma on the phone to her friends. Perched on her stool by the kitchen window, a glass of sherry in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Ash raining everywhere, and a ham boiling to within an inch of its life. The windows would be so steamed up it would look like it was raining inside, and my lungs would try to stick themselves together.

‘Davie hasnae got much goin’ on in his wee noggin,’ she’d say, as I watched the smokey fingers of cigarette smoke drift towards the ceiling. ‘But he’s a strong wee laddie. Aye, a proper workhorse, he is.’ And she’d smile indulgently, as if my strength was a boon she’d bestowed on me. She’s like that, my ma - she takes all my deeds on her birdy little shoulders, and they rest there, lifting her up or weighing her down.

I was walking to my car, normal, so normal. I could hear a bus wheezing its way past the warehouse, and the air held that ghost of a nip - the one that means tomorrow my hands will sting as I load the trucks. A wee lassie, no more than 17 or 18, walked past me, chattering away on her phone. I kept my head down. I scare wee lassies. I don’t mean it. I’m just too big, too wide, too tinged with an air of unrestrained brutality.

I felt rather than heard the lassie’s feet stop. Her phone hit the ground a second later, shattering into a million expensive pieces. I looked over my shoulder, trying to look as harmless and friendly as possible. But she wasn’t looking at me.

She wasn’t looking at anything, really, because she was crying. But her tears were viscous and red, collecting in clots at her chin. One of her hands was a pale ball, fisted brutally at her side. The other hand held a piece of her broken phone screen, and she was plunging it into her eyes, over and over again. Her mouth was twisted in a terrible, satisfied grin.

‘Ah’m doin’ a great job,’ she said. ‘Ah’m so happy.’

I was stuck, as if my legs were bolted to the pavement. My brain refused to make sense of what I was seeing. A scream pierced through my thoughts, and a middle-aged woman ran from across the street to grab at the wee lassie, desperately trying to take the blood-stained shard of phone from her hands. I know I should have helped. I know. But I was rooted to the spot, my heart thudding painfully in my chest, a horrible silence stuck in my throat.

The woman dropped her bag to the ground as she wrestled with the girl.

‘Stop!’, she yelled. ‘Why won’t you just STOP!’

And then, suddenly, she did. The girl’s arms dropped to her sides, as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. She licked her lips, tongue lapping at smears of blood around her chin, and I tried not to be sick.

‘Your turn,’ she said to the woman. ‘pass it on.’

For a moment the woman just stood there, mouth agape, tears crawling down her cheeks. But then her mouth split open in an identical, terrifying grin, and she began to walk backwards. Her movements were jerky, inhuman, as if something was wearing her flesh like an ill-fitting suit. She stopped by a building site and picked up a brick, her hand twisting backwards in a way that couldnt be possible. I swear I could hear the sick snapping of bones. She hefted the brick over her head and held it there for a moment.

She began to laugh. It built and built until she was hysterical, her chest heaving. And then she let the brick fall.

I don’t want to remember the sound it made. Or the sound she made as her body hit the ground. But I do remember. And I remember that the girl’s smile grew so much wider. So wide that the skin around her cheeks seemed to crack and weep.

I don’t know how I didn’t scream.

Instead, my legs seemed to move of their own accord. I walked slowly to my car, sat down and started the engine. Somehow, I drove home. Ma was passed out on her stool, head resting heavily on the kitchen counter. I left her there and crawled into bed, shivering like I had a fever. I slept. How on earth did I sleep?

*

That was three days ago. It’s everywhere now.

It got so far before people started to realise what was happening. But everyone knows now. This morning I got on a bus, too shaky to drive to work, and the driver began hacking at his own fingers with his keys. They were blunt and ineffective, but he just slammed them into his hands, over and over again, until the blood flowed. He had that same, sick smile. He kept driving, though.

Most people who got on the bus pretended they didn’t see it. That the steering wheel wasn’t becoming slick with blood. That the driver’s eyes weren’t brimming with a violent zeal.

‘One adult to the city centre,’ they said, as they got on. And ‘cheers, driver,’ as they got off. Just the same as always.

Some people weren't so lucky. They hadn’t yet learned to school their expressions. To catch that hitch in their throats, before it ran away from them. Even the tiniest whimper was enough to catch the driver’s eye.

By the time the bus reached the warehouse, the air was thick with the scent of blood.

I worked in silence, trying to ignore the caustic violence going on around me. Mac went for his lunch normal and came back with that sickening, predatory look behind his eyes. I don’t want to tell you what he did with the forklift. I have swallowed so many screams that I feel like my chest might burst open. Implode, and all my terror will fly out like a swarm of frightened birds. Chaos and noise.

I don’t know how much longer we can last like this.

I watched tv last night as I was falling asleep. The weatherman was silently weeping as he talked about showers coming to aberdeen. His hands shook so hard they looked like they were vibrating. I don’t think I’ll see that weatherman tonight. Not the same as he was, anyway.

The newscasters aren’t mentioning it, but you can see it behind their eyes. It’s the fear of being prey. We are now the mouse, our collective hearts buzzing with fear. We are the antelope, watching the lion creep closer. We are together in this new, horrifying world order, and yet the thing that hunts us has rendered us so alone. Without the ability to talk to each other, there is no way for us to fight it. All we know is that if you don’t react, it can’t get you. It can’t crawl inside your soul and poison it from the inside.

But I don’t know if I can hold out for long. It’s got my ma.

I came home after my shift and hid in my bed until ma called me down for dinner. Ignoring it means continuing the pantomime of life, even though everything feels so pointless now.

I should’ve noticed how her voice sounded. Metallic, rusty - like she wasn’t used to talking around her teeth and tongue. But I was tired, and I thought I was safe in here. Ma doesn’t leave the house. I don’t know how it got her. There was a pot of ham boiling on the hob, same as always. It’s Thursday. We have pea and ham soup on thursdays. The smell is so ingrained in this house that when we move I think they’ll have to scrub the very foundations.

Ma had a cigarette in her mouth and a glass of sherry on the counter. But her hands were in the soup pot, the water boiling and frothing over them. Her lips were stretched into that knowing, sickly smile, and the smell of burning flesh mixed with the ham. I could see the skin sloughing off her fingers. And still she smiled.

‘Sorry ma, not hungry today,’ I said. ‘Ah’m just gonnae get an early night. Got a really early shift tomorrow.’

And I walked away. I’m in my bed now, covers so tight over my head that I can hardly breathe. I don’t know what to do. I can feel it downstairs. It’s waiting for me. I can’t hide up here forever.

Please, no matter what you see today, DON’T react. It can’t get you if you don’t react. It might be too late for me, but you can make it. Someone has to make it.