Spriggan: Dark horror fantasy

by Julius Schenk

  She smashed her in the face with the butt of the gun, it was just like the movies, she caught it in the temple and flopped to the dirt. Vicky looked at the spriggan, they didn’t breathe, but it looked dead, she wasn’t taking any chances, she put the gun to its forehead, and fired again.

  The shot ripped into its head, and it slumped to the side. She stepped back, she’d done it, she couldn’t believe it. With a shaking hand, she tried to load another two shells and managed to. Then she heard a noise behind her, she swung to the side, it was Roger. He’d turned and was sitting up.

  It looked like another one. Wood, leaves, yellow eyes, horns starting to grow. He sat up like a corpse in a coffin and looked at her. She’d looked at Roger many times, and this was far from him. It put its hand to the ground to try stand, she stepped up to it and putting the gun to its head, fired.

  It was very different from the other one. The thin shell of wood cracked, and she saw the skull, brain, and vines go flying, He slumped to the ground, looking very dead, the top of his smashed skulls, showing a nest of what looked like blackberry vines inside, gross.

  If that was a death, she turned again, and it was standing up. She had blinded it, it’s hand touched its face, and it screamed in pain, a deep scary scream. She had destroyed its eyes and its “good looks, ” but it was far from dead. As she looked it started to regrow, the shells holes in its head and face were disappearing, and it lunged at her.

  She jumped back, it couldn’t see her, she had one more shot and fired it, into its knee cap, or where it would have had one. It buckled to one leg and then got up again. She turned and started to run, back to her bag.

  It couldn’t see, but it could still sense her. As she ran, she reached her bag, she grabbed a bottle of petrol and her taser, she’d burn this fucker up, but he let his long arms swing left and right, and she was hit hard. Vicky felt her body go flying. She landed in a black berry bush, that was huge, she would have hit much harder, but she landed on something soft. She opened her eyes, and she was face to face with a rotting dead man.

  The council worker, the bush had grown all around him. His face as rotting and his stomach and chest had organs hanging from them. She couldn’t help it, she screamed, it was too much, the spriggan heard her a reaching through the Bush grabbed at her, she kicked its hand, but it grabbed her leg and started to drag her out. She reached out and grabbed the body, next to it, was his chainsaw, she grabbed it as she was dragged through the prickles, cutting her face and hands. She turned the chainsaw and her body, so she was facing him.

  She looked at the chainsaw, bless the Qld Council, it was push button start. She turned it on and stood up, its hand grabbed her throat, and it lifted her up, choking her. Vicky pressed the button and hoped. The chainsaw sprang to life in moments, yes high-quality stuff. The blade was spinning fast, and she brought it around a huge arc. It dug deep into its arm and then the next, cutting them off the body. It screamed and fell back. Blood pouring from it. It dropped her, and the hands still clung to her neck, she shook them off in disgust. It was backing off, she’d blinded it and now had the weapon of choice.

  As she looked its arms were going back, the stumps were growing vines, and they were reforming, she lunged at it and slashing the chain saw, brought it across its face. It backed up and fell over Bree prone body. It fell to the ground, Vicky didn’t think, she just started cutting, she let the chain saw run through its neck and saw its head come away, she kicked it hard and it rolled away to the center of the clearing. It was like cutting wood, only a little blood, she then cut its shoulders and legs.

  She stopped the chainsaw, and before she could have a break down she took the piece of cut up spriggan and put them on the fire, the pieces landed in the blaze and went up quickly.

  ‘stitch that’ she said

  Vicky turned to look and saw Bree was sitting looking at her. Vicky’s face was covered in blood, and she’d just watched her chainsaw apart her ‘nature spirit’ Bree looked in horror.

  ‘run’ was all Vicky said.

  Chapter forty-Seven

  She sat around the fire, cross legged in the dirt, the fire blazed, the spriggan body was good fuel it seemed, she kept looking over at all the bodies of her friends and workmates and trying to psyche herself up to do something disgusting and horrible. They were dead she kept telling herself, nothing left of what they were and she couldn’t just wait till the police got here, they would just freak out.

  Rick was almost fully turned and most of the rest, looked not like people at all, they looked like they were changing fast, she counted her shells, not enough and she wanted some left, who knew where Bree was, At least Vicky had the pistols as well.

  She went over to the bodies, Rick, Roger, the Italians, Kim, Jim, Liam, Gareth was still his bunker and had missed this fate. So many it had killed, this was going to be a police and media history, she wouldn’t be able to explain it, but she had to do what she had to do.

  Vicky picked up her chainsaw and pressed the button on it. It sprung to life, the sound echoing through the trees, the sun was starting to come up, she stood over the body of Roger and trying not to think about it too much, she pressed the spinning blade hard to his neck.

  It was tough work, the vines ripped and cut, his human blood sprayed up on her, she almost cried again, it was warm on her face. ‘already dead’ she told herself.

  Rick started to raise up, she pinned his chest down and pressed the blade in, of course, h sees opened, and he screamed as she cut his head from his shoulders. Moving from one to the next she cut them all clean off their shoulders, none of the others woke up, but she was covered in blood, and for some reason, her heart was racing, she took their heads and placed them away from their bodies.

  It looked sick, like the work of a true psycho, she went to her bag and poured gas over the bodies and piling them up, she lit the pile and watched as it began to burn. They didn’t go like the spriggan, they were wet and, but the gas helped, so the smells of wood and flesh filled the early morning.

  It was done, he was dead, they were gone, Bree was off in the forest, but scared shitless. Vicky turned her pistols into her bag and took the shotgun and chainsaw either hand. She looked at the tree.

  All this had been done before it, but it looked different, she realized it was just a tree, the spriggan was dead, and it was just lifeless again. Good, she didn’t want to try cut it down.

  Vicky left the scene of her mass butchery and started to walk back to the bunker, she’d hide out until the police came, and then probably spend the rest of her life I jail or a nut house. She strolled and realized she was almost happy, she’d done it, sure she was bound to be arrested, but at least the world was safe, they didn’t know it, but she would.

  She smoked three cigarettes as she walked back and realized she was running very low on tobacco, she kept an eye out for Bree, but didn’t see her, she went towards the bunker, and now the sun was rising, she saw it over the trees and smiled, one in ten and she’d made it.

  As she looked at the sky, she saw a helicopter was coming across the sky, it was yellow, it looked like a private one, not the police, but who knew, she dropped her bag, time to explain all this. As it came, she heard a noise, the door to the shed burst open.

  Gareth had turned, he was as scary as the creature ever was, he looked at her with his yellow eyes across the field and started to run at her, hand out to the sides, growing into claws.

  Without a thought, she dropped to her knee and drew her shotgun, as he ran closer he fired calmly, the shot took his leg off at the knee, she fired again, before he fell, into the other leg, she ran to him and put her foot hard on his chest.

  ‘I’m good at this now’ she yelled, as she pulled out her chainsaw and hacked his head from his shoulders, in one solid cut.

  The helicopter landed far from the house, it was the only place with no trees, and she saw a single person, coming, she couldn’t believe it. She waited and saw they were running, she started to run too.
It was him, her boyfriend.

  He met her in the middle of the field, but could still see Gareth and would have heard the gun. She was covered in blood and must have looked somewhat terrifying.

  ‘you ok baby? He asked.

  She held him tight a let her shotgun drop, she couldn’t explain, she was in shock, but couldn’t believe he was here.

  ‘What are you doing here, and a helicopter?’

  ‘Well the phone went dead, who cuts the phone, killers that who, so I thought, fuck it, the copters just from the airfield, we have a plane waiting’ he said.

  ‘how’ she asked.

  ‘money, lots of Gareth’s money, he had a gold card’ he said.

  She laughed and looked back at his dead body ‘he won’t need it’ she said

  ‘what the fuck is that, it looks like a spriggan’ he said.

  ‘It is, and it had friends, but a chainsaw works well’ she said.

  ‘ok while I try to process that, we should go, I saw the police cars from the air’ he said.

  ‘go? I have to stay and explain, everyone is dead, everyone’ she said.

  ‘I love you, and I’ll stand by you, but ask yourself, have done anything that could get you arrested, or locked in a nut house if you explained it’ he asked.

  ‘both’ she said.

  ‘Then we leave, the only evidence you were here is a few emails on Rogers work away, those video’s and the stuff from Gareth’s law firm, the money was never transferred, anything else?’

  ‘Nope that’s it’ she said, ‘that’s a lot.’

  ‘Well it’s gone, well the emails and videos are gone, the law firm stuff, I changed to another name, they’ll be looking for a missing blonde Swedish girl called Sarah Svenson’ he said.

  ‘Who is she?’ she asked.

  ‘a missing person who looks like you’ he said.

  ‘I love you’ she said

  ‘I’m glad to help, now let’s go and get on our private plane, and you can have a beer and a breakdown’ he said.

  ‘sounds good’ she said

  She let her chains saw, and the bag full of guns dropped to the ground and walked away from the farm forever.

  Chapter forty-Eight

  When Vicky had said run, she did, she had a killer look in her eyes. She’d snapped and gone crazy. The sun was rising, and she saw her leave in a helicopter, it was weird, but she was left all alone. Bree wandered back to the tree, feeling broken.

  All her dreams were dead, the last of the Spriggans, of nature’s warriors, were dead. The clearing was like the scene of mass murder, there was a pile of bodies, heads cut off and burning, she knew the spriggan was at the bottom, all the others were gone now.

  She went to the tree and pushed her head against it, she cried it was all over now, she turned, and as she did, she felt a burst of life, it had a fraction left, a single seed dropped, from the branches above to her lap.

  She picked it up, it was just like the ones she had planted in them, it was hope. She took the seed and without a thought, put it in her mouth and swallowed it. She felt it going down into her stomach and willed it to grow.

  Bree stood with a smile, she’d started to walk toward the road, she hoped she could get back home before it started to grow, she wanted to get to Beckenham, where Vicky lived and have the body she needed to take her revenge, then she would build her own army and the world could be saved from itself.

  The end.