Spriggan: Dark horror fantasy

by Julius Schenk

  Time was against him, so he’d have to leave him here, he would turn but alone in this cold concrete hole and not under the stars and amongst trees, as should be done. One’s first sight on rebirth should be the grove and the things you were born to protect, but he had the battle to fight.

  He left the seed growing strong and climbed out of the little room. He didn’t like to be in there, no air, no life, no connection. Once out he stood and looked up at the stars. It was a beautiful grove. All the plants and trees were so alive, everything was growing, even the dead vines had sprung back, and he was only half done.

  He went into the house and crept quietly up the stairs. It was easy to tell which room they were in. It was at the end of the hallway, door shut and peoples breathing behind. He went to the side of the doorway and stood. Looking down he saw the handle. He knew these doors locked because it was a private room, but would they lock it.

  The door was thin, and they would shoot through it. He calmed himself and let his mind focus. He tried to sense them in the room. He could tell where there were. The man Jim was standing, he’d heard him on the stairs, the gun was drawn, the other one Kim stood on the side, they would try to shoot him from one side and the front. Bree was behind the Jim, she was crying, was she their prisoner? He was surprised that she was with them, she must be being held by them, they knew she was a priestess.

  Vicky, hiding next to the bed, trying to get out of the way of bullets, which certainly killed their kind very easily.

  His back was against the wall, and he reached out with his hand, he let it grow until it touched the metal handle of the door, he pulled it down hard. There was a huge bang sound, and a hole appeared in the door, it was where his head would have been if he was in front of it. It smashed through the thin door and ripped a hole in the wood. It even went deep into the wood on the other side of the hallway. The house rang with the shot, it was so much louder than he thought it would be. He looked at the wood on the other side of the hall, it was thick, and the bullet had dug right into it. He didn’t know if one would stop him, but he was sure, many shots right to the head would. He knew that gun held ten bullets.

  ‘Come and get us’ he heard someone say.

  The door was locked, I didn’t open, he wasn’t stupid, he couldn’t stand in front of that door. He pulled his hand back and turned around. He was now facing the wall and the hinges. He looked at them, weak, very weak. Made of metal, but nothing like the hatch, he could break them easily.

  He knew how big the room was and stepping away from the edge of the door, a few good steps. He stretched his hand out again and dug his fingers deep into the hinge. The weak metal broke, and he heard the gun again. His time it fired twice. Right where he’d been. It came through the wall and explosion of plaster. But the door cracked down where he broke the hinge, he reached down to the other hinge and heard the gun fire again.

  The pain was incredible, he pulled his hand back and looked at it. The bullet had ripped into him and taken one of his fingers away. He hadn’t felt his own pain for so long, and he screamed in rage and fury. The thing was wrecked and dripped bright red blood onto the floor. He knew it would be red, he’d been like them once, the door hinge had still been smashed, not by him but by the bullet, and the door sagged. They knew they got him.

  ‘You like that demon, see your blood on the floor, there’s more of that for you’ he yelled.

  He wished he could speak and tell that man he’d rip his face open, he wasn’t even going to plant him in the ground because his body would be too ruined.

  He now knew that gun could kill him, it wasn’t a maybe, it was a certainty. He had to dive into the room and straight at the Jim one, if he killed him quickly, then maybe he’d get the other one fast. He reached out again, almost scared and he grabbed the door edge, where he’s broken the hinges, he swung it hard as he could. It swung on the lock and landed in the hall with a crash. The doorway was now wide open.

  ‘Wait until you get a head shot, two lines of fire’ he heard the man whisper.

  The women Kim was waiting on the left, they would take shots from either side, and she hadn’t used any of her bullets yet.

  Without another thought, he attacked. Reaching up, with both of his hand, he sank them deep above he doorway, into the plaster and leaped in. He swung his body fast, so he landed in the room, one hand in front and one to the side, ready to fight both.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  He had chosen her, out of all of them, the pretty and cool people, the confident and outgoing girls, he had come to her, and she understood him. He was brutal, but they were too, she had been happy to hide with Vicky, it felt like too much, but this was wrong. They were now waiting to kill him. Jim was some crazy idiot who wouldn’t shut up and thought this was some mission from God for him to prove he was the sword of Christ or something.

  They waited in the room, their guns drawn and then they heard him coming up the stairs.

  ‘Everyone, get ready’ Jim said.

  He stood, legs apart gun facing the door. Kim was waiting at the side, they were going to shoot him in the head, both side. She knew he was strong, but he wouldn’t survive that. This was the way of people. They couldn’t talk or try to understand, he had lived for maybe more than 500 hundred years, a different life but alive. Now they would end his life, maybe he was the last of his kind, what could they learn from them, but now nothing.

  She was also sick of hearing his world view shoved down their throats.

  ‘We should talk to him, it will let us go, if we do not break its rules’, she said.

  She was behind Jim, he’s said to draw her knife, but she wouldn’t use it, he would be disappointed in her, she knew in its mind, she was on its side, the only one. Vicky was on team kill the monster now.

  ‘Talk to it? Talk to a demon?’ Jim said.

  ‘It’s not a demon, it’s a part of nature, it’s something we don’t understand, but it’s not an it, it’s a he, He has thoughts and feelings, memories’ she said, she was crying now.

  ‘Look maybe it’s a tree demon, your druids cooked up hundreds of years ago, but it’s a demon, and you know what, I have feelings, Kim does, you do, you think it cares?’

  They heard him at the door, and the handle moved just a bit. She could see Jim smiled, he is smiled, as he fired his gun. She’d never been in a room with one, and it was deafening. T fired out and smashed hard into the door. It must have missed it, but she knew for certain, she’d be watching him die soon.

  The door was locked, he was smart and hadn’t been standing there, she then saw it broken the hinge, crushing it with his fingers. Jim fired into the plaster at the side of the door, but it wasn’t there either. The loud shots echoed around the room. Th door sagged, and Jim fired down at the other hinge.

  This time it hit. She felt a stab of guilt when she heard it. He howled in pain. She heard it loudly, and Jim laughed, he laughed. They looked down, and there was a spray of blood on the floor, it was red, he was still human.

  ‘You like that demon, I see your blood on the floor, theirs more of that for you’ Jim yelled.

  He had shot the hinge out anyway, and the door suddenly swung open hard, it swung on the lock, opened out the wrong direction and fell hard to the floor. Leaving the doorway, open and clear. She knew he would be coming in now.

  ‘Wait until you get a head shot, two lines of fire’ Jim whispered to Kim

  She stood ready on the left.

  Bree tightened her knife in her hand, but she didn’t know what to do, in moments, she’d be witnessing the end of something. The end of a chance for people to be anything better than they were now.

  She heard the sound and saw its hands grab above the door way. He must have leaped and pulled itself in. Because in moments he was in the room. One hand going left and one straight for Jim. She stepped back and saw Kim step up, she fired her gun twice, but it missed his fast-moving head by an inch. His long hand was around her throat in a second. His other hand wa
s pressed like a knife against Jim’s heart, but they had stopped.

  The muzzle of Jim’s gun rested against its forehead, they looked at each other for what seemed an age. She realized Jim wouldn’t fire while he had Kim. He must have realized as well. He lifted her high off the ground by the neck, her hands went to the one holding her by instinct, and she dropped the gun. He held her easily slowly choking her.

  ‘Let her down, or I unload these into your head’ Jim said.

  He lowered her to the ground, it was obvious’ he’d done it to get her to drop the gun. His eyes found hers. He looked behind jim, and they considered her. She expected to feel disappointment, but she felt concern, he was worried about her, he must have thought she was their prisoner.

  Kim managed to speak as she was being choked ‘do it, Jim, end this.’

  Bree was close to Jim, right behind him, she could see the back of his hand tighten, and she knew his mind. He’d do it, he would hope that Kim would be ok, but if not, he’d pretend to care, this was his big hero moment. His yellow eyes found her again, and she knew.

  She grabbed the back of Jim’s head with her hand, grabbing his hair and she stabbed her knife into his neck. It stabbed in fast and hard, and she screamed as it went in repeatedly. The spriggan, ducked down as he fired once, but then Jim was crying out and grabbed his throat, she stabbed him repeatedly, until he dropped to the floor, her hand cut from gripping the blade too high.

  The spriggan hissed which she knew was its laugh and with a quick motion, snapped Kim's neck. She fell to the ground, dead.

  Bree looked at Jim's body and bent down, she took the gun and then going to Kim she took her as well. She looked up at Vicky, she was horrified. Vicky spoke to her, clutching her knife. She pointed the gun at her.

  ‘Me next?’ she asked.

  ‘You were good to me, but you’ve chosen sides, you chose the wrong side, he’s making more of them Vicky, soon there will be a new world, and I’ll be its mother. I won’t kill you, but he might, you should run fast and hard and get away from here, one day this place will be the shrine for the new world we’ve built’ she said.

  The spriggan was dragging the body of Kim from the room, she followed him, singing as she went, guns in hand.

  Chapter Forty-One

  All Vicky wanted to do was cry, or sit with her boyfriend and drink a cup or two of poisoned wine. Her new friend, quiet, shy, and awkward Bree had just stabbed Jim in the neck and was a following a tree creature around like it was a god or something. She couldn’t’ think at all, she sat on the bed in the dark room, the only light a flashlight Jim put behind him now shined on his body as it lay in a giant and ever-growing pool of his dark red blood.

  She should at least leave the room, it was filled with bodies. She stood up to leave, and she heard a groan. Jim was still alive. She rushed to his side, kneeling in his blood. He was face down, and she turned him around. His neck was a torn mess, and he was barely clinging to life. He looked at her.

  ‘The fig tree’ he said and then he died in her arms.

  Vicky looked down at him, she was covered in blood and just let him go. She stumbled out of the room and down the stairs. Liam’s body was in the lounge, so she sat in the kitchen pulled out a chair.

  ‘The fig tree’ she said to herself, those were his dying words. Bree had said there would be more of them, she didn’t know what it was doing, but it did take the bodies with it, but not Liam or Jim, maybe because they were really damaged.

  She had no idea what to do, she knew where the fig tree was. The council was clearing around it, it was a big scary tree that people liked to look at, maybe that was its home, she could imagine it would live in a creepy tree that killed others to live. So, he was building an army of them, great, when the cops got here, they could deal with it, then if they got taken and turned, they could call the Australian army, she was hardly equipped to deal with the problem.

  As she sat in the dark room, the house filled with bodies she calmed herself down and started to let herself feel. She wasn’t half as scared as she should have been. Her over-riding emotion was anger. She was so angry at Bree, that thing and herself. She’d done nothing while everyone got killed around her, the only reason she survived was she was friends with the killer. If only her boyfriend was here and he could set the spriggan on fire with some magic.

  Plans were needed now, she could just walk to the road and keep walking. It had a lot of bodies to keep it busy, and Bree would hopefully be able to stop it killing her. She’d said the wrist band would protect her from it unless she killed something, she wondered if she could just walk up to it and set the bodies on fire and it couldn’t do shit, because it was bound by its rules. It didn’t seem bound by rules. It was getting natures blood revenge, but it seemed to be taking a liberal approach.

  She spoke aloud ’stupid nature.’

  It was easy to imagine what was happening out there, near the fig tree, they were making more of them, she had no idea how long that would take, but she guessed they would be done by sun rise. It must have been about two o’clock now. So, in a few hours, a small army of unprepared cops would come in, see all the bodies, and probably lock her up for being a metal case, saying a spriggan and her Scottish mate killed everyone.

  She had never really had a responsibility before, she’d had to go to work when she didn’t want to, pay bills she couldn’t really afford and attend family events she didn’t want to, but now she felt like she had to try and stop this, and she felt very unskilled and unprepared. Where was Liam Neeson when you needed him, or even if a big tough boy who was still alive, no it was her responsibility. It was a horrible feeling, she really did feel like it was her fault somehow, maybe it was survivors guilt, still, she’d done nothing at all as all her people were killed.

  Vicky walked from the kitchen and put her knife under her belt, she’d have that smoke, it had been hours, and she needed one. She reached into her pocket, and she had a pre-rolled one. It was bent, but she straightened it and lit it with her small blue lighter.

  As she stood out the back, she looked at the shed, the front door was open, and she could see the light coming from it. She went to the door and looked in, there was a trap door on the floor, it looked like an old school air raid bunker, her granddad had one. She went in and looked down. The room was big, and she sniffed the air. It smelt rank.

  She’d be safe in there, but someone else had probably thought that she flicked her smoke off into the dark and climbed down into the light of the large room. It had a kitchen, a gas stove, and shelves of food. Bless the paranoid Christians. She stopped and looked, there was a bed in the corner and Gareth, or what was left of him was tied to it. The bed was soaked in blood, and he’d shit himself.

  ‘Everywhere I go, there’s another body’ she yelled.

  The room revealed a lot more, she was getting the idea that the spriggan wasn’t the only freak on the farm. The table near the bed was full of girl’s clothes and photos. It was the same pretty blonde girl whose suitcase she’d found. She remembered her boyfriend saying some mother was blogging her daughter was missing. Vicky looked at a photo of her.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she said.

  Gareth probably happened, she was probably killed in here too, country. Of all the people it had killed, Gareth was the only one she didn’t mind. Looking around she saw she could stay down here, she could lock the door and not come out for a week.

  The cops would come and get killed, the army would come, and there would be a huge shit fight, she’d reappear in a world that believed in monsters, or in a world where monsters ruled, and you couldn’t eat a hamburger or burn wood for a fire, England would suck. On the floor near his body was a hunting rifle. She picked it up. It was bent half way down, she knew he’d ruined the weapon, it was smart and knew guns could stop it.

  She looked around the bunker, flares, petrol, she looked in a room at the back, cans of food and then a locker on the floor, she opened it up and inside was a shotg
un. She took it out, it was short and had a box of shells next to it.

  It was a zombie survival kit! it even had machetes. She laughed again, what a crazy coot, bless him, she took out the gun and went back to the main room. She counted the shells, there was a full box of twenty. She thought of Bree, could she shoot her? She hadn’t killed her, but she could hold it on her and try to burn that fig tree down.

  She was sure her boyfriend said killing spriggan was easy with fire and if it had a home, she’d burn it down. She loaded the gun with two shells. She’d shot rabbits on her granddad's farm, she was English, all she needed was a riding crop.

  She started to put things on the bed, the gun, shells, she filled a few water bottles with petrol from the generator and flares, she looked at her pile and got a small backpack from the back room. It was army green, nice.

  Once it was already, she stopped and looked at it, was she really going to try and stop them. Why should it be her, she could just lock the door and stay. If she went, there was a 100% chance she’d either get killed or get killed and turned into a spriggan.

  She’d never had to do anything like this before, but she got down on her knees and prayed for the first time in years.

  ‘Dear Lord, please don’t let me die in country Australia at the hands of a tree monster and a crazy Scottish witch.’

  Chapter Forty-two

  Bree knew she’d done the right thing, she’d felt so much power and strength in herself when she had stabbed Jim, it was like opening the door to her own cell. She was free, she could do anything she wanted now. The spriggan ran ahead with the body, but she knew it wanted her to come, and she knew where its ‘home tree’ was.

  She walked with confidence she’d never had before. She wasn’t little Bree the berk anymore, all the ones who picked on her and made her life at school a horror, they’d be dead soon enough, she’d go back home and bring him with her.