by Unknown
The words took Randy’s breath. His head pounded, and he started up, unsteady on his feet. “How do you know…?” His voice trembled.
Aidan’s face grew serious. “Thoughts unguarded.” He shrugged as if that explained everything. “Like the woman…”
Randy took a step but stopped abruptly. Not too close. “What about her?”
“The odor engulfed her,” the phooka said softly.
“What odor?”
Aidan pressed his face between the cage mesh. “She’s pregnant,” he hissed.
The declaration took Randy completely unprepared, and a slow smile came to his face. “Claire?” The smile melted. “What? You want it?”
The phooka chuckled and shook his head, his gaze never straying from Randy’s. “It interests me not. I find the situation amusing.” The phooka lifted his nostrils, sniffed. “The smell precedes her.”
Randy half-twisted to the doorway. “She’s coming?”
The phooka raised his brow slightly.
Randy stepped unsteadily out of the utility room and pulled the door closed, his last glance at the phooka’s eyes noting the sadness and fear of one who’s been alone too long. He released the knob as Claire rounded the corner.
“You didn’t answer the doorbell,” she said. “I figured you’d be back here. Did you kill it?” Claire glared at him, waiting.
Randy didn’t reply.
“Randy, why in heaven’s name not?”
“He’s intelligent, not some rabid animal. You just can’t go killing things.”
“It’s not human, Randall. It’s evil.”
“You don’t have a clue.” He drew a breath, realizing that the only way to prove the phooka’s value was to demonstrate it. Randy reached for Claire’s hand, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. “Give it a chance, Claire. I mean … this may sound strange, but,” he said, “are you pregnant?”
Claire went rigid, eyes wide with angry fear. She yanked free and backed away. Randy held her gaze, waiting. He’d learned a lot about waiting, about being quiet. His hands trembled slightly, and he concentrated on being still.
A peal of laughter issued from within the utility room, and the color drained from Claire’s face. She began to turn away, but Randy caught her at the elbow.
“Kill it, Randy,” she growled.
“Look into his eyes. He’s not evil. He’s something … special. He said you’re pregnant. He knows by smell, Claire – by smell.”
Claire struggled against his grip. “Let me go.” Randy released her, and she fled.
Randy didn’t bother calling Claire that night. It would be useless, and, frankly, he was weary of her and her assumption of superiority. Perhaps this little predicament she now found herself in would bring her down to earth, would instill a bit of empathy and humility. Perhaps. For now, though, her absence would allow him to give his attention completely to the phooka, beginning with a dinner of squash, potatoes, and an entire baked chicken.
The phooka didn’t speak while eating, nor did he acknowledge Randy, who sat quietly in the doorway, watching. Aidan’s ravenous hunger had sated somewhat, and he now ate more thoroughly, carefully. His pointed tongue snaked around the bones and stripped them clean before he cracked each to consume the marrow. He left nothing edible uneaten. Finally, Aidan began licking his fingers clean, and pushed away the pan. He lay down quietly on his back.
“Does the cage floor bother you?” Randy asked.
“I’m accustomed.”
Randy rose and returned a few moments later with several towels, which he tossed onto the cage top. The phooka pulled them in one by one to make a mat on the cage floor. He lay down once again, this time with a satisfied sigh.
“Anything else?” Randy asked.
The phooka grinned. “If you would be so kind as to open the cage door…” Randy smiled. “Sleep well.” “Will you walk in your cage tonight?” the phooka asked. Randy hesitated and then closed the door.
Randy woke with a grunt, dragging himself into consciousness, slowly becoming aware of the banging. He rose and groggily pulled on jeans and a t-shirt before stumbling out toward the noise. He opened the front door to find Claire and a soft, puffy man standing behind her.
“Good lord, Randy,” she said, her eyes raking up and down him. She pushed in, and Randy stumbled back, allowing both Claire and the man entry. “You locked the door to it,” she said flatly. She started for the kitchen “Where’s the key?” she demanded, but she located it on the counter next to the refrigerator before he could answer. She led the man out the back door onto the patio. Randy salvaged his senses finally when he spotted the bible in the older man’s hand and followed them out the back door. He wedged himself between Claire and the utility room door just as she turned the lock. “Who’s this guy?” he demanded.
“Rusty Baggett,” the man said. “Claire’s pastor.” He smiled reassuringly under intense, hungry eyes, and leaned forward, offering his hand in greeting, but Randy ignored him.
“You brought a preacher?”
“That thing, Randy. It’s…”
“It’s none of his concern.” Then, to the man: “You can go.”
“No!” Claire tried to reach past Randy, but he refused to move. She straightened, indignant and determined. “Randy, I will not allow that thing…”
“You don’t have the option of allowing or denying anything.”
A coldness settled in her eyes, and she tucked her shoulder and pushed him off-balance.
The preacher caught Randy’s arm to steady him, begging, “Please, please.” Randy yanked free with such ferocity that the preacher grunted as he lost his grasp. Randy grabbed for Claire’s hand, but the door swung open to reveal Aidan, crouching inside the cage, glaring up, tense and ready. Claire gasped at the thing’s appearance, its head now fully transformed into that of a goat, curved horns short and sharp, gaunt body quivering with energy. It wagged its tongue and hissed.
“Dear God,” the preacher whispered as he faltered closer. Randy reached for him, but the action brought the preacher back to the moment, the mission. The air went out of Randy as the preacher pushed him back against the utility room’s exterior wall. Pastor Baggett raged through the open doorway, toward the cage, brandishing his bible like a weapon. “Demon of hell,” the preacher growled, “prepare to be cast into the fiery pit forever and ever!”
Aidan didn’t move, his eyes cold and black on the pudgy man.
Randy forced his way past Claire and grabbed the preacher’s shoulders from behind. The man dropped low and spun, bringing the thick bible against Randy’s head, sending him crashing into tools hanging on the wall. A spade clattered to the floor, and other tools rattled on their pegs. The preacher tossed the bible down, grabbed the spade, and reeled toward cage. The phooka’s hands lashed out, fingers latching around the preacher’s thick leg, digging into the material.
The preacher shrieked as blood darkened his pant leg. He swung the spade down at the phooka’s arms, but Aidan proved too fast, and the spade struck the cage door. The phooka toyed with the man, taunting him, slipping his hands out of the cage, only to pull back precisely as the preacher swung, the spade striking the door and lock repeatedly.
The preacher drew back to swing again, the spade poised over his shoulder, his eyes widening as the creature slipped gangly fingers around the lock and opened the door with a screak. Aidan hissed, body shifting, growing, horns lengthening, straightening, sharpening, eyes fixed on the preacher.
The preacher dropped the spade and scrambled back through the doorway, forgetting his bible, colliding with Claire who went down hard on her back. The preacher fled around the house for his car as the phooka bolted past Randy to straddle Claire’s chest. He crouched low on the woman, his long, dark tongue snaking out to lick her trembling throat.
“Get it off!” she shrieked. Claire struck at the beast with both hands, but Aidan grabbed her forearms in his bony fingers and crossed her arms over her chest. He bent low again, lips brushing
hers as she twisted her head from side to side. He sniffed, long and hard.
“Randy…” Claire cried.
“Get off of her,” Randy demanded, but he hesitated from action, suspecting that the phooka would have already harmed his sister had that been his intention.
Claire struggled, but it dug its lanky fingers into her arms. She whimpered but continued to struggle weakly.
Aidan twisted his head around to face Randy with a sardonic grin. “She no longer bears.”
Claire’s struggling ceased as the words’ meaning grew clear and her eyes met Randy’s.
“Let her go,” Randy said softly.
Aidan hissed.
“Let her go.”
Randy saw sadness soften those demonic eyes, and Aidan’s grip relaxed. The creature stepped off the woman.
Claire scrambled to her feet. “If you won’t kill it, I will,” she seethed. She started for the spade the pastor had dropped, but Randy seized her by the shoulders and forced her to face him.
“What’d you do, Claire? What?”
Her eyes shifted from Randy to the phooka, then back, before she finally turned and ran. A car door slammed, an engine roared to life, and rubber squealed. Randy stood in silence, staring after her.
Mucus rattled in the phooka’s throat. He coughed and spat. The creature remained silent until, with a sigh, it turned back toward the utility room. Randy heard the cage rattle as the door closed. He came into the room’s doorway to find Aidan sitting in the middle of the cage, his back toward the door. Randy crossed and opened the cage door.
Randy squints into the sunlight, his eyes adapting slowly, but adapting nevertheless. The soldiers who support him chatter on about the stench, the size, the heat. They marvel he’s still alive.
Randy glances around at the opening to his tomb. Its roof is indistinguishable from the rest of the desert floor. He swoons with the thought it could have been his grave, and his feet refuse to move, his legs rebelling against their weight. The two soldiers at his sides brace and carry him forward.
“It’s all right, buddy,” the one on his left says. “You’re going home.”
Each word is a trapdoor, falling shut.
“Get out,” Randy said softly.
Aidan looked around, hesitated.
Randy smiled. “Out.”
The phooka left the cage slowly, tentatively. He crossed the room once again to step onto the patio. As Randy came out, the phooka’s body lengthened. His skin changed, coating itself in feathers. His face and horns morphed into a small, sleek head and beak. Aidan’s arms and hands grew and contorted until the phooka, as the huge eagle it had become, stretched his wings into a good six-foot span.
The bird shook his body, ruffling feathers, and extended a wing to provide a step up for Randy.
Randy’s heart pounded. What about Claire? he thought.
“There will always be a Claire,” Aidan whispered. “And a preacher. Always better, always judging.” The phooka’s eyes narrowed. “You escaped the desert. Let the demon go.”
Randy bowed his head for several long moments in consideration before finally drawing a deep breath. He looked around slowly one last time and then mounted, straddling the great bird’s back. The eagle’s beak pointed skyward. Randy’s gaze followed it, face warming in the sun. Aidan stretched his wings, a little shaky at first, but steadying as the pair began to rise.
Illustration by Pierre Smit
‘Lanchester Square’
LANCHESTER SQUARE
BY TAYLOR HANTON
The voice of Death spoke many languages.
For some it spoke in the dialects of rural English.
For others it spoke in the swirling tongues of Flemish or French.
For yet others in the hard, boxy tones of German.
For Private William Jenkins and the men of the second battalion, Durham Light Infantry, hunkered behind the high mud berms near Cambrai in northern France, Death spoke in clanking, ticking, screeching sentences. Each word whined and whirred as it worked its way across the litter of wasted corpses that dotted no-man’s land like islands of meat in a sea of blood and wire. Every full stop was a crash of metal, every word of its vocabulary a rhythmic banging that matched Jenkins’ pulse beat for beat.
Death speaks every tongue known since the dawn of man. It has only one message in them all: I am your end.
Jenkins shivered as he lay on the wet mud. He pulled his mother’s knitted scarf tighter around his throat, unwilling to let what little heat his body exuded escape. He thought of his mother’s Sunday roast, her casseroles, the frequent cups of tea carried as they all sat listening to the wireless by the fireside. He missed her warm embrace most of all. And he missed his dog, big old Rover. He longed for the animal’s shaggy coat, a screen for his lap from the chill draughts that so often blew through their small family farmhouse, a stone’s throw from the northern English village of Lanchester.
“Bloody cold tonight, right Jenks?” whispered Archer next to him, one eye peering through the dirty lens of a trench periscope and out across the November night, into the nothingness.
His breath ghosted beneath the lip of the four-metre berm, a spectral prisoner scurrying away into the dark.
“I’ll say. Do you have any tea left?”
“Sorry, it went about an hour ago, mate,” said Archer, shaking the battered flask. They heard the last cold drops rattle inside.
“Righto,” he whispered back glumly.
Jenkins shifted his weight, moving the uncomfortable webbing belt with its assortment of pouches to relieve the constant pressure on his hips. He shifted his rifle from beneath him, feeling the cold metal through the thick, heavy greatcoat. It was impossible to be comfortable out on watch in the freezing slosh of Cambrai but that didn’t stop a man from trying.
Archer peered over Jenkins, looking down the line of the trench below them and out at the silent western horizon, now just a faint orange smudge. Jenkins knew what he was looking for but resisted the urge to look himself. If he didn’t look then it wouldn’t come. They would hear it first anyway, he thought. They always heard it first.
“What do you reckon? They’ll have the war all done and dusted by Christmas?” asked Jenkins, hopefully.
Archer met his eyes briefly in the deep blue haze of winter twilight. He quickly twigged what Jenkins needed to hear. Archer was good like that. He knew when a man needed some cheer.
“I hope so, mate. At least, I hope to have a bath again before then, anyway.”
They both laughed. Their quiet tittering did not carry far in the still, chill air.
Archer resumed peering through the periscope. The top of the device extended just above the brown mud, just enough to give them warning of any German activity. Tonight they could relax a little. The cold made Fritz just as wary of military action as Tommy.
Jenkins imagined two young lads, much like he and Archer, peering back at them from the German trenches, keeping each other’s spirits up. Just trying to make it through the night. What the devil are we all fighting for? he thought to himself. It’s all so bloody pointless.
A sharp whisper snapped him out of his reverie.
“Jenks! Did you hear that?”
Did you hear that?The words he dreaded. That they all dreaded.
He craned his neck west. It always started in the west. His breath trapped in his chest, he listened, feeling his blood pounding through his body. He heard nothing. Archer must have been wrong, he thought. Thank bloody God.
Then, from the west, he heard it.
A dirty figure entered the gloom of the bunker carrying a candle in one gloved hand and a rifle in the other. Dry mud cracked and sloughed away from the soldier as he worked his way towards the sleeping figure of Sergeant Jones, tucked up on a battered cot in the corner amidst a mass of weary bodies. From one end of the cot, a black rifle barrel poked out, gleaming orange in the soft candle light.
“Sergeant Jones. Sergeant Jones, wake up,” the figure said, g
ently shaking what it believed to be the shoulder of the mammoth man.
A gruff snorting came from the other end of the cot before a bushy, grey moustache poked up from the bushy, grey blanket. At this time of year the cold generally killed off the lice infestations that plagued the men’s blankets. Things would change when spring hit them in a few months. If they survived the winter, of course. Men and lice both.
“What the bloody hell are you doing, man?” boomed Sergeant Jones, eyes groggy with sleep and wary with apprehension, his great voice stirring a few of the sleeping corpses around him. “What time is it?”.
“Sorry, Sarnt. It’s Jenkins and Archer, Sarnt. They say they can hear it again.”
Jones quickly sat as upright as his fifty-year-old back allowed, wiping his eyes free of night muck.
“They say it’s back, Sarnt,” whispered the fearful soldier. “From the west. It’s getting louder.”
Other men stirred at the news.
“It’s the black tank again, Sarnt.”
Sergeant Jones stood below Jenkins and Archer’s position on the muddy trench wall. All along the trench, lining the wooden boards of the floor, bright eyes shone, twin spotlights beaming from dozens of mud-stained faces, caked in filth and fear. No one spoke. All ears were searching. Hoping they were being deceived.
They weren’t.
Jenkins glanced down the line of men, past their huddled forms to the smashed, collapsed mud wall at the far west of their trench lane. Their hearts hammered. His own drummed in step with theirs.
A distant, keening whine carried on the still air: high-pitched, bobbing in and out of audible range. It sent more shivers down his spine than the cold ever could. Jenkins found his lips moving in silent prayer. Please God, let it be after the Germans tonight.
A far-off clanking followed the whine.
Then silence.
More clanks. Then a deeper rumble.
The men murmured amongst themselves.
“Quiet, men!” hissed the Sergeant.