Ferocity

by Stephen Laws

  “Oh God . . .” moaned Cath.

  Pasco’s body ceased to shudder when the dull snap of his broken neck resonated in the cellar. The Big Cat finished with Pasco, gave one look of disdain at Drew, where he still struggled to rise, and padded back across the cellar toward Cath, licking its lips. Rynne pulled Cath back with her, shrinking back farther to the foot of the stairs.

  “Please . . . not hell . . .” Rynne heard her mother’s whispered plea as the Big Cat came. “Please . . . not hell . . .”

  Inches from them, opal eyes fixing them with a hypnotic stare, the smell of the creature’s musk suddenly overpowering when there seemed to have been no smell at all before—the Big Cat sniffed first Cath, then Rynne. It grumbled deep down in its chest cavity. It was a sound of immense inner power that seemed to be an echo of the thunder grumbling in the skies. And then the Big Cat’s head turned. Smoothly that head slid into the darkness of the cage, massive neck and shoulder muscles working beneath sleek black fur. It grunted—grunted again—and there was a low mewling sound in answer. When it re-emerged from the cage, the cub was hanging gently between its jaws.

  Cath gasped.

  It looked at Cath and Rynne again.

  And then leaped effortlessly over them onto the stone stairs above.

  It ascended.

  Cath and Rynne scrambled across the cellar floor to Drew, trying to avoid the sight of Pasco’s mangled body, and helped him to rise. When Cath looked back, the Big Cat was paused at the top of the stairs.

  “The cub . . . ?” The words were out of her mouth before she knew she was going to utter them.

  “I don’t know,” Drew said. “Come on, quick!”

  Kill him, Cath projected at the incredible sight at the top of the stairs, and felt no compassion for the man who had killed her best friend, had meant to kill her lover and who would have killed her daughter. She looked back at Pasco as Drew struggled with the bolts on the double doors. Kill him!

  FORTY SIX

  “Pasco . . .”

  Tully clawed at the carpet before him with one hand, trying to haul himself out from under the sofa and refusing to relinquish the gun in his other hand. The sounds of ripping at the bedroom door upstairs continued, and he had heard the sounds from the cellar—the crashing, the struggling and then the terrible screaming. He had shouted out with savage encouragement, hoping that those sounds were evidence of what Pasco did best. But that screaming had sounded somehow like Pasco’s voice, and now—apart from the raging of the storm and the splintering upstairs—he could not be sure that there were any more sounds coming from down below.

  “Pasco!”

  Tully dragged himself again. The fire in his leg had moved up to consume his entire body. It was as if his shattered leg had ceased to exist, and the agony there had travelled in his bloodstream to the rest of him. It was in his head, behind his eyes and God how he hoped that Pasco had given that bitch what she deserved for what she had done to him.

  The sounds of that splintering onslaught to the bedroom door upstairs were now somehow different. The howling and the roaring that made no sense but had so terrified Pasco, and now terrified Tully in turn, were gone. Now there was only the sound of the onslaught on the door, but Tully could hear a new cracking and tearing—as if whatever was trying to break through had finally torn out panels and splintering wood was falling to the floor.

  “Who’s up there?” Tully yelled. “You stay the fuck away from me. I’ve got a gun!”

  Tully squirmed and rolled, screaming again when the ridge of the upturned sofa jolted the thigh of his shattered leg. Now he was on his back and able to use his elbows. Bracing one of them down hard, he sat up and used the heel of his gun hand to raise the edge of the sofa. Yelling again, he dragged his ruined leg out from underneath. Tully flopped back, gasping for breath, soaked in sweat and with that hideous pain raging in him. Then he repeated the move, this time pulling out his good leg. When he flopped back and twisted, head on the carpet, he saw that there was something standing in the kitchen, in the doorway leading down to the cellar.

  “Pasco?”

  But there was something about the shape and size of this figure that was wrong. This wasn’t Pasco, and it wasn’t one of the others. This was the wrong shape, too black, too wrong.

  Tully twisted again, raising himself once more on his elbows—and stared at what was observing him from that doorway.

  When the splintering sound stopped—and something whacked to the carpeted floor upstairs, the impossible black thing in the doorway turned its head from him and looked to the stairs. Tully saw that the thing hanging from its mouth, which surely must be dead but was somehow alive, was staring at him with the same hellish green eyes. He moaned then, and knew that Pasco had been right all along.

  This was the devil.

  The thing made a sound then—a loud grunting, muffled by the smaller hellish version in its mouth. From somewhere upstairs, there was an answering sound like an inhuman cough. Something padded on the carpet up there, heading for the stairs. Tully heard the thing in the kitchen make another noise, and he snapped his head back.

  It was not there.

  This wasn’t possible.

  It could not have moved in the second it had taken him to look up to the stairs and back again—and there was nowhere for it to hide.

  There was another cough from above.

  Frantically, Tully snatched another glance—but saw nothing.

  When he looked back again, the devil was where it had been before. In the same position, unmoved.

  Now you see it, said a crazed sing-song voice in Tully’s head. Now you don’t.

  The thing in the doorway turned its opal gaze back to Tully, and although it was impossible—he could feel the savagely expectant and awful smile in those eyes.

  “Noooooo!”

  Tully swung the gun up and fired.

  The bullet caught the Big Cat in the left eye, exploding in a spray from behind. The cub fell from its jaws and was gone, as the male cat reared up on its hind legs—impossibly huge and slashing at the air with its forelegs. It fell back, writhing and clawing, collided with the kitchen table and scattered everything from it on the floor. The Big Cat leapt again, straight up into the air and landed on the kitchen drainer, scattering crockery. It raked wildly at the window blinds, shaking its head in agony. The blinds disintegrated in its claws, tearing away from the window so that the storm blasted in through the shattered panes. The animal spun away, twisting and contorting in the air, and landing not two feet from where Tully lay, slashing at the air.

  Tully shot it in its flank, the impact punching it away from him. It skidded and sprawled back into the kitchen, made a sound like nothing Tully had heard before and tried to rise. Leaning on one elbow again and yelling at the top of his lungs—Tully shot it in the underbelly. The Big Cat rolled on its back, legs quivering.

  Something roared with insane rage at the top of the stairs.

  Tully twisted back, screaming—as the Devil Cat seemed to rematerialise on those stairs. It launched itself through the air, directly at him.

  Tully fired again, the shot going wild, exploding a framed picture on the wall. The devil hit the overturned sofa, rebounded to the wall as if it could somehow fly—huge and black and deadly—as Tully twisted again. It landed in the kitchen, scattering chairs. Now Tully could see that there were two of these things, not one. The second was standing astride the still form of the first; now nuzzling the head of the dead one, which flopped lifelessly from side to side. Tully struggled to get a sight line on this second hellish creature, and froze—when it raised its own head high and gave vent to an inhuman sound that shuddered the broken crockery and kitchen shelves. It was a sound of rage and fury, but above all—anguish. The power of that sound terrified and immobilised Tully.

  “Go away” he heard himself whisper. “Go away!”

  The Big Cat twisted its head from its fallen mate to look back at Tully.

  “Go away!”<
br />
  In answer, it seemed, to Tully’s shout—it was gone.

  Tully frantically backed off on his elbows, breath sobbing in his throat.

  “You’re still there!” Tully’s voice was a high-pitched whine. “I can’t see you—but I know you’re still there!”

  Tully fired at the place where the second devil had been.

  And suddenly, at the sound of that shattering detonation—the devil was in mid-air, flying at him—monstrous and huge and blacker than the blackest night.

  Tully fired again.

  The Big Cat passed over him, landed on the stairs—twisted again and leapt once more to the overturned sofa. Screaming, Tully dragged himself back and fired again—the shot shattering the storm lantern on the table next to it. The lantern exploded in orange flame, liquid fire splashing against the wall, over the sofa—and onto the Big Cat’s back. Gigantic fire-shadows filled the room as the creature bellowed in pain and fury. It leapt for the kitchen again as Tully fired again and missed, the black fur of its shoulders alight and making a blazing trail of fire and smoke as the creature flew through the air, landed next to its dead mate and then—in one powerful rebound—dived straight at the broken kitchen window. The frame and the remaining glass shattered on impact, exploding out into the storm as the Big Cat vanished through the window—instantly absorbed by the night.

  FORTY SEVEN

  The bolts on the storm doors would not loosen as Drew frantically yanked at them. They had opened and closed easily before, but now it was as if something had been clawing at the wood from the other side and had actually gouged out chunks and bent the metal of the hasps on the inside.

  “God damn it!”

  From upstairs came the sounds of hell.

  Gunshots, roaring—and Tully screaming.

  Drew staggered away from the storm doors to a workbench, searching for something to prise the doors open; now flinging open drawers in his desperate search.

  Upstairs, something bellowed with such a terribly inhuman cry of anguish that Rynne cried out loud. Cath froze, Drew paused—and then remembered the hammer in one of the drawers. He wrenched the drawer open, found it and lunged back. Heedless of what the sound might attract from above, he pounded two-handed at the fastenings.

  More crashing and growling reached them from the living room.

  More gunshots.

  The flare of orange flame from the doorway above.

  “What in God’s name is happening?” gasped Cath—and Rynne cried out again when there was an explosion of glass from the kitchen.

  “Die!” yelled Cath up the stairs to Tully. “Just die!”

  Senses swimming from the multiple beatings and the wound in his head, Drew gave the fastening another two-handed blow with the hammer; putting what little strength he had behind it. The fastening shattered. In the next moment, he and Cath flung open the doors to admit the storm.

  This time, the icy blast of air felt good.

  They clambered out into the night, staggering in the wind blast.

  “Pasco!” Tully’s voice drifted to them from behind.

  Ahead of them was Faye’s car—still facing away from the farmhouse with its headlights stabbing out into the storm. Cath knew that somewhere out there lying in the darkness was Faye’s body, and a terrible sense of desolation threatened to engulf her. But was this their chance to escape?

  “The car!” she shouted to Drew, already moving.

  “No good,” replied Drew. “Tully’s got all the car keys. This one, yours—and the Land Rover.”

  Drew looked around in the wild and raging night, then grabbed them both—pulling them with him. “This way!” He shoved them ahead, up the rough track that led to the valley side where they had first encountered the Big Cat; snatching glances back to see if Tully might stagger out after them. With any luck, the shattered leg would keep him there, or slow him down if he came.

  “Where?” gasped Cath.

  “The valley side. Just as far away from here as possible. I know places we can hide and shelter.”

  The front door of the farmhouse crashed somewhere behind them.

  “Mum!” yelled Rynne. “The bad man’s coming.”

  “Run!” Cath yelled.

  All three, holding each other, staggered away up the rough track and into the night.

  FORTY EIGHT

  “Doing things to my head, doing things to my head, doing things . . .”

  Tully kept the mantra going in his head in a desperate protective device as he finally managed to drag himself to his one good leg against the side of the overturned sofa. The flames on that sofa and on the table and wall behind it had been snuffed out by the rain and wind blasting in through the kitchen window. But the swirling smoke made him gag as he stuffed the gun in his jacket, grabbed a chair and used it as a clumsy walking stick to blunder across the littered carpet to the kitchen and the cellar door.

  “Doing things to my head . . . to my head . . .”

  His veins felt filled with liquid fire, the kneecap of his shattered leg as if it had been dipped in molten lead; but there was no feeling beneath that kneecap, as if there were nothing there at all. When his lower leg flopped and twisted as he moved, it was as if it didn’t belong to him anymore. He used the chair like a walker, reaching the kitchen and the cellar door—and there was the black devil lying stiff and silent on the floor. It hadn’t disappeared, like it had done earlier. There was no sign of the smaller version it had been carrying in its mouth. But that was okay, because now he understood what had been going on. Somehow, the drugs that had screwed Pasco’s head had also gotten into his system. He didn’t know how, but somehow Pasco had slipped the same stuff to him—maybe when he was trying to get the gun away so that he could get into the bitch’s pants. Tully had been fading in and out of consciousness, so there was a chance that Pasco had been able to do something. There could be no other explanation for the thing lying on the carpet, the way it had appeared and disappeared, and then the other thing that had come at him. They were hallucinations that had turned both him and Pasco crazy. If there was any way he could get up those stairs, he’d find that the bedroom door hadn’t been torn down—that it was still intact. Tully hung on to those thoughts. He could still see that thing on the floor because the crap was still in his system. He had to fight against it.

  “Doing things to my head, that’s all. Doing things . . .”

  Something clattered down below in the cellar. It sounded like doors banging open. Wind gusted up the stairs to join the wind blasting through the kitchen window.

  “Pasco!”

  There was no answer, and he knew now that Pasco—like Crip—had fucked up badly and let the others get away. Tully grabbed the chair, looked down again at the devil thing—and knew that it just wasn’t there.

  “My head—doing things to my head—it isn’t there—and I’ll be okay soon.”

  Using the chair again, he turned from it and hopped back to the centre of the room where the three suitcases waited. Angrily crashing the chair down, staggering on his one leg, Tully leaned down and gripped one of the suitcase handles. He looked up to the front door and willed himself to make it. Hefting the suitcase back up and resting it on the chair, he took deep breaths and felt the oxygen filling his lungs and seeming to fan the surging in his veins like a bellows to a furnace. He yelled at that fire-agony, willing that pain to help him as he jerked up the chair and again threw it forward like a walker in front of him. The chair slapped down hard, the suitcase wobbled and he quickly grabbed the handle to stop it falling off the chair, teetering on his leg. Something rolled around the chair leg. The flashlight. He’d need that. Stooping, crying out—he grabbed it up and stuffed it in his belt.

  Sweat pouring from his face he repeated the manoeuver with the chair and the suitcase.

  He would make it. If he concentrated he would make it.

  “Doing things to my head . . . my head . . .”

  Whump!

  Vic, you and the boat
better still be there. Don’t you let me down, you bastard!

  Whump!

  Pasco said you were all tore up, Crip. But are you tore up? Those things aren’t there, and Pasco’s head was fucked. Either Pasco offed you or you’ve run away. God help you if you’ve run away, Crip. The old woman is as good as offed, but if you’ve done a runner and the law gets you and you let your baby blabbermouth go, I’ll . . .

  Whump!

  Pasco took Kapler Dietersen’s hand. I told you not to do anything! I told you!

  Whump!

  All that stuff the farmer and the bitch know about—and the kid—

  Whump!

  They’ve got away. Pasco let them get away, and when they get to the police they’re going to put everything together, and all of that will point to you, Tully.

  Whump!

  The blood all over that sofa! They’ll trace the DNA!

  Whump!

  They’ve got your DNA dozens of times, Tully. But you’re the luckiest bastard alive, because you’ve never been caught and they’ve never pinned your name to the label. How lucky is that?

  Whump!

  Yeah, but the farmer, the bitch and the kid know your name, Tully, for Christ’s sake! The only way you’re getting out of this one is to make sure they can’t tell anyone.

  Whump!

  They’re long gone . . . They must be long gone . . . Oh Christ . . .

  Tully had reached the door. He hopped around the chair, his clothes soaked in sweat and looked quickly back into the farmhouse to where the two other suitcases stood side by side. One would have to do. He could never manage them. There was enough in this one. The plan had been to split with the other two, and although Crip wasn’t a problem—he hadn’t had a chance to work out how he was going to screw Pasco out of his share. One way or the other, Pasco was always going to have to be offed. But from the sounds in the cellar, it looked as if Tully had been saved the trouble. With luck, the blame for whatever had happened here could be laid on Pasco. After all, the two suitcases were there, weren’t they? Anyone else involved would surely have taken them.