by Stephen Laws
The gun was empty.
Now Tully was on a roller coaster with his big brother, Vic. That was why everything was shaking and rattling—
Shake, rattle and roll, Vic used to sing.
Vic had promised him a new leg, and that was okay. It had been mean of Pasco and Crip to let the fishes take his eyes, but what the hell—he had his suitcase here and theirs were back at the farmhouse, if the devils would let them have them.
But then the gnashing, flailing teeth that weren’t really real found the suitcase next to him. It blew apart as the not-real teeth tore it to shreds, and white powder exploded all around him.
“No!” screamed Tully.
The white powder filled the air like a bizarre snowstorm, swirling and whipping away out into the night as if it had never existed. But Tully didn’t want that white powder; he just wanted the money that it could bring. He grabbed for it wildly as it evaporated into the air, screaming.
“I just want the money! I just want the money!”
Then the teeth turned to jaws and knives—
They found his other leg and his groin.
And suddenly they were real.
Very, very real.
Cath willed Drew on, unable to look past the shattered windshield of the cab, just wanting to put an end to the nightmare—as the high, thin screaming voice came up from below; bringing with it all the horror and terror of what had happened so long ago on that New York street—with blood everywhere on that rain- washed sidewalk, and so much blood since.
Cath lunged forward, pounding her hands on the dash.
“You can’t have it! Do you hear me? You can’t have it—so just go!”
Cath clapped her hands over Rynne’s ears when the screaming rose in insane agony above the sounds of the thresher and the storm. The harvester lurched again, the thresher rending and devouring, engine roaring.
“Just go!”
When the engine stalled—the thresher now jammed with wrecked metal and upholstery—the screaming had stopped.
Drew slumped forward across the wheel, his head down.
When both he and Cath began to weep, Rynne put a hand on each head.
As the harvester rocked on its suspension in the storm wind, it felt like another caressing hand.
FIFTY THREE
Drew and Cath walked back to the farmhouse as the sun rose above the valley. Rynne watched them from the open doorway.
Behind them, Faye had been covered with a sheet from the back of the Land Rover—and they had stood holding each other for a long time as Cath gave vent to her grief.
The storm had gone, and the farmhouse looked as if a bomb had hit it; with its shattered windows and cracked brickwork. Splintered fences, uprooted bushes and trees, and the remains of disintegrated outbuildings and henhouses littered the farm and dirt track. The feed shed had lost its tied-down roof completely, which had disappeared somewhere into the valley. Most of the livestock had survived, but there was not a single hen in sight. The wreckage of the kitchen blind flapped loose over a glittering pile of broken glass, as if it were beckoning to them.
They did not look back to where the combine harvester stood silently with its half-digested prey, scattered metal and engine parts all around it.
Rynne turned—as if hearing something—and ran back into the house.
“I wish I’d never found them,” Drew said as they walked.
Cath knew what he meant.
“If I could, I’d take that dead one in there—take it out somewhere in the valley, and bury it. Never let anyone see it.”
Cath pulled him close. “Get rid of the evidence?”
“In more ways than one.”
“The police will have their hands full with this one.”
“Now we’re going to have people all over the place looking for them.”
“Not if we can help it.”
“I like the sound of that word—we.”
Rynne was suddenly in the doorway, just as they were about to enter.
“Mum!”
“Oh my God . . .”
Cath and Drew froze.
“Look what I’ve found.”
Rynne was holding a bundle in her hands. Something that she had wrapped in a rug taken from the kitchen floor. Something with sleek black fur and two flashes of white over its eyes.
“Oh my God,” echoed Drew. “The cub.”
“Be careful, darling.” Cath reached out, remembering the slashed boot and jeans and what this small creature was capable of doing. She pulled her hand back again when it hissed a warning.
“It was hiding next to the dead one. I wrapped it up and it didn’t even scratch me because it’s a lucky cat.”
“Give it to me, Rynne,” Drew said gently. “Very carefully . . .”
Something behind them growled.
It was a rumbling, guttural sound of contained power that was only too familiar.
The cub hissed a reply as Cath and Drew turned.
The She Cat was standing not twenty feet from them.
Sleek and black and powerful. The fur on its shoulder had been burned. It opened its jaws to growl again, a steam of breath rising in the chill and bright morning air, the sun seeming to spark in those savage but wonderful opal eyes.
Rynne stepped forward between Cath and Drew—Cath quickly putting a restraining hand on her daughter’s shoulder. The cub hissed at the movement, and the She Cat stepped forward with another rumbling growl, so deep and resonant it seemed to be coming from underground.
“Don’t move,” said Drew, and flinched when Rynne took another step forward.
Slowly, she bent down—placed the bundle on the ground and unwrapped the rug.
The cub pulled free and ran to its mother.
The She Cat held the Two-Legs in its gaze as the cub twisted and curled around its mother’s forelegs.
There was power in the early morning air.
Real and vibrant power.
The She Cat bent its head, took the cub gently in its jaws and looked back at them again.
It made a sound then, deep in its throat—like a cough.
Then the Big Cat was gone—streaking up the dirt track toward the valley side like a living shadow, jet black, beautiful and with incredible fluidity and grace.
It paused briefly before the wreck of the harvester and the car.
And then streaked away from it, heading for the long grass.
Soon it was gone.
“I’m not going to let anyone find you,” Drew said, when it had disappeared.
“Neither am I,” said Cath.
Woman, man and child walked back into the farmhouse.
Stephen Laws is a full-time novelist, born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He lives and works in his birthplace.
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