Tabitha

by Hall, Andrew

  Through the world-filling whisper of the rain, Tabitha heard a noise. Thunder split and broke overhead like a god growling, but that wasn’t what she’d heard. What she’d heard sounded like a car crash, around the next street corner and off down the road.

  She didn’t make out its shape at first. It was only when it drooled glowing molten metal as it fed that she noticed it, sprawled out and gripping close to the side of a city tram, like it was making love to it. Its molten slather beaded and slopped from its mouth and hit the wet road in a hissing cloud of steam. Its white eyes stared at the sky, unblinking, while it shredded sheet metal and devoured it with grinding black jaws. Everything about it was black and heaving. The monster swallowed its mouthful of molten metal so loudly that Tabitha heard it up the road. Some kind of exhaust jutted out of its back then; a glowing growth that hissed and sighed a huge jet of steam. The monster's rubbery black metal body gleamed in the rain and the grey daylight, dripping and hulking as it dropped down to the road and rested. Suddenly its head snapped around in her direction, white eyes staring. Terrified, Tabitha had hidden behind a half-eaten taxi. Its bodywork was covered in messy welding where the creature had bitten and slobbered. She peered around from the wheel arch, looking through the doorless back door, through the taxi’s torn-open front, to where the alien stood in the distance. It hadn’t moved; it hadn’t turned its head. It was just staring in the rain, eyes glowing cold, watching down the road for any sign of the intruder. Tabitha didn’t dare breathe.

  Her legs had cramped up. She didn’t know how long it had been; it felt like an hour at least. The thing hadn’t moved an inch. It was frozen like a watching statue, staring down the road, dripping in the never-ending rain. Tabitha was freezing. She couldn't take this cramping cold any more. But she couldn’t face the monster either. Her hard hands may have been enough to dent the spiders, but not this thing. Its own hands were huge; black and clawed and cruel. It was bigger than a bear. It could crush her, skin her, vomit molten steel over her… whatever it was going to do if it found her, she wouldn’t be able to fight it. Now she understood why the city was empty – everything had to run from it. Or try to. And still it stared down the road. Unmoving, unblinking. Just breathing heavy in the pouring rain.

  Tabitha couldn’t feel her feet any more, and she’d never thought that she could shiver so much. Still the thing hadn’t moved; hadn’t come to look for her. She had to do something. She shrugged off her rucksack, ready to run. She reached into the back door of the taxi and pulled out a shard of glass off the back seat. Getting a good grip on it she sent it spinning up overhead, high over the creature, and it shattered on the road behind it. Tabitha watched it wide-eyed from behind the taxi. As soon as the monster turned away to search down the road, Tabitha was up and running. Instantly she regretted it; her cramping legs wobbled and stumbled beneath her. You idiot! You stupid woman! she told herself, dragging her body up from the pavement to run on numb feet. She looked over her shoulder down the road. The creature still had its back turned, prowling down the tarmac in the distance. Suddenly it swung its huge arms and flung a car across the street in search of her. Tabitha ran. She stuck to the kerb, where the cars and bins could hide her while she put some distance between them. The thing glanced back up the street and turned away again; she hid behind a bin in the middle of the pavement. She realised that she couldn’t just run. It’d almost seen her just then. She was a good distance from it now, but there was a clear line of sight down the road. If it saw her running it would chase her down. Instead she looked over to her right, to the door of an old pub that was hanging open. She didn’t care what might be inside; it couldn’t have been worse than being hunted out here. The thing turned again to look back up the street but Tabitha had already darted inside the open door of the pub. Pint glasses stood abandoned on metal tables outside, dripping full with old rain and dead flies.

  It was dark inside the pub. Terrified, Tabitha went straight for the old wooden bar and hid away behind it. She’d hesitated at first when she saw a figure, but it was just her reflection in the mirrored wall behind the bar. It smelled like stale smoke in here, like dust and ale. Human smells. She sat down on the floor behind the bar and pressed her back against the wood, facing the fridges; facing away from the front door. It was a solid old bar, made of good strong wood. She told herself this as if it mattered; as if it would protect her. There just had to be something big and solid and safe between her and that… thing. She was so frightened she could hardly think. The only thought in her head was an instinct – hide. The only sounds were her heavy breathing and the endless patter of the rain outside. And then, a pounding on the road. Footsteps. And a sound like sniffing, deep and hungry. Tabitha peered around the bar and saw white eyes in the half-open doorway. She heard the monster’s heavy panting, massive and furious. Tabitha pressed her back against the wood of the bar where she sat on the floor, rain-soaked and petrified. She clutched a hand to her mouth to stifle her panicked breaths. She prayed to whatever gods were up there, whatever cosmic forces that had anything to do with anything, that she wouldn’t hear the sound. The sound of a heavy foot on the floorboards inside the doorway. The sound of death coming for her. The floorboards creaked. Tabitha felt her heartcore pounding. Everything sped up and slowed down at once, and fresh adrenaline surged every time the creaking footsteps drew closer to the bar. Tabitha looked up from the floor, eyes wide with terror, as the wooden bar-top over her head creaked and groaned under the weight of a giant black hand. The smell of burning wood filled her nose as the alien drooled molten metal down on the bar, peering right over Tabitha’s head at its reflection in the mirrored wall. Tabitha watched its white eyes in the mirror, drifting as it swayed its head, figuring out the image of itself. She watched its reflection look down at her then, hiding behind the bar. She saw its white-circle eyes shrink to murderous dots. The last thing it saw was a blinding white cloud as Tabitha emptied the fire extinguisher into its face. She jumped out from the bar as the monster smashed it to splintered pieces, roaring and spitting red-hot metal. Blinded, the creature spun and pounced on the place where it heard her footsteps, demolishing the floorboards. Tabitha bolted out of the door and off up the street, back the way she’d come, back towards the square. There was a dust-cloud explosion behind her as the thing burst out of the brick wall, roaring and blind. It crashed against a car and punched it into wreckage. But Tabitha was already far up the street. She looked back at the huge black thing thrashing around on the road, colliding into cars and walls in an unseeing rage. She had to get away from here, out of the city. This was her only chance.

  She stopped running when she reached the square, and looked around her. The grey skins soaked in the rain and mud beneath her feet. Countless corpses, stretching on forever. She saw the small skins too, and the very small skins. The sight gave her a lump in her throat; a vile sick feeling in her heart. She looked from the skins to the black monster down the street, clawing at the blinding foam in its eyes, but only managing to smear it around. It had all these lives to answer for. She’d managed to trick it; trap it. Revenge burned in her mind; Chris had sparked the fire and now it rampaged through her thoughts. A new reason to live. Chris would get what was coming to him; the creatures too. Maybe it was time the aliens learned something about humanity’s talent for vengeance. Tabitha clenched her metal fists, gritted her teeth, and walked back down the road towards the monster.

  ‘Ready when you are.’

  The monster had exhausted itself by the time she drew close to it, still blind to her presence. It was snarling; shaking its head and stamping the pavement as it tried to see. Growling huge and guttural like a furnace. She couldn’t do it enough damage with her fists, Tabitha told herself, but she could still use her strength somehow. Quietly she stepped through the broken glass doors of a musty homeware shop and rooted around in the shadows. Planning her fight, she took a paint tin from the shelves and popped the lid off with a screwdriver. She searched the aisles for knives,
chisels; anything she could use. It didn’t seem to be that kind of shop; it was more cushions and candles than cables and crowbars. When she found a man’s rotten stinking skin in the back corner though, she dropped the screwdriver and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what he’d been carrying.

  Tabitha emerged from the shop and propped a three-foot axe against the outside wall. The chunky steel head clunked on the pavement; reassuringly heavy. The edge shone in the daylight. She walked out onto the street to find the monster resting from its rage, eyes still murked in extinguisher foam, sitting motionless on the road. Cold and trembling at the thought of what was coming next, Tabitha took a couple of deep terrified breaths. She held the paint tin tight; one hand on the plastic handle and the other cradling the base. Her next footstep took all the will and conviction she had left. But she only had to think about the tiny skins in the city square to make up her mind. She walked on as quietly as she could, closer and closer to the thing, her footsteps hidden away in the sound of the pouring rain. She closed in on the monster from behind, pale and nervous. She couldn’t afford to miss; if she did it was all over. The thing turned on her in a rage when she got close, but she was ready. High on adrenaline Tabitha threw the tin of thick white emulsion into its face and ducked its blind swipe. Throwing the paint tin down with a clatter she sprinted back for the shop, grabbing up the bright yellow handle of the axe as she ran. The monster pounded after her down the pavement, drawn to the noise of her running footsteps. It was gaining fast, with all the hellish momentum of a wrecking ball. As soon as Tabitha stopped running the monster beat the pavement to shattered chunks where she’d stood. She emerged from the shop doorway beside it and smashed the axe down into its head before she escaped up the road. The thing roared like nothing she’d ever heard, filling the dead street. Bright silver blood dribbled from its skull, mixing with the blinding white paint all over its face.

  ‘So you do bleed,’ she called to it down the street. With the axe still buried in its head, the thing roared and charged blind towards the sound of her voice. Tabitha leapt away from the old stone building behind her, and watched the monster smash head-first into the limestone wall and collapse. With the thing stunned for a moment Tabitha wrenched the axe out of its skull. With a yell she brought it down hard onto its neck. It was a mistake; the blade deflected with a jolt off thick armoured skin. The rumbling sound from the monster warned her to get away. It spewed a glowing slop of molten steel in a scorching arc around it, steaming on the wet road. Tabitha leapt away as drops of steel splashed her leg; screaming and writhing as it burned through skin and bone. She scraped at the burnt skin with her shaking hands, trying to claw the searing steel out from her flesh. Yelling, she crawled and limped and staggered away. The monster leapt back from the wall and brought its fists down into the road with an earthquake tremor. Tabitha darted away as the thing hurled up another burst of molten metal at her. In a slow-motion ballet she zig-zagged between cars and leapt over benches as the monster destroyed everything at her heels. It followed the sound of her footsteps and charged after her, ploughing through cars and bins like they were cardboard. Tabitha spotted an old side alley off the high street and ran down it. It was narrow; too tight for the monster to fit. Stomping into the alley after her, its shoulders smashed through the brick walls on either side. It lost its momentum as it ploughed through, swamped in fallen bricks, and suddenly it was stuck between the narrow walls. Before it could turn its huge body to squeeze further down Tabitha came running back towards it. It vomited down the alley at her, but she’d left some distance. Its next spew was nothing but a glowing dribble from its giant piranha jaws. And then… nothing. The thing was pinned. Its white eyes stared, stark and murderous.

  ‘Are you finished?’ she asked it breathlessly, waiting for the hurled liquid steel to cool in the rainwater. Exhausted, the monster struggled and heaved against the brickwork holding its arms. Leaping forwards Tabitha swung the axe into its face, over and over, until the roaring head streamed silver. It tried to turn its body and grab her. The thing roared and spat, spraying Tabitha’s coat with hot metal. Yelling, she threw off her smouldering jacket. With a racket of crumbling brick the monster wriggled an arm free from the wall. Tabitha swung her axe at its reaching hand, but the skin was too thick. Suddenly it lurched forward and gripped her arm with crushing metal fingers. The monster dragged her out screaming from the narrow alley and threw her down into the pavement with a crack. Ears ringing, head dribbling blood, Tabitha tried to crawl away in a daze. She reached out limply for the axe on the road. The monster grabbed her up again and opened its grinding jaws to push her inside. Tabitha wriggled an arm free and pressed her thumb deep into its eye. It was hard, rubbery. But at least it hurt. The monster dropped her with a snarl and clutched its face. Before its hands could grab her again Tabitha ducked, staggered around it and swung the axe deep into the back of its knee with a slicing crunch. She could tell from the scream how much she’d hurt it. Silver blood streamed when she wrenched the axe away. Dodging a swipe that blew apart the brick wall behind her, Tabitha stepped in and drove the axe deep into the joint of its forearm. The thing roared in pain and cratered the pavement with a fist as Tabitha leapt away. Silver blood spurted heavy from its wounds, gushing and slapping on the tarmac as the monster followed her. Watching it carefully, Tabitha stepped away and kept her distance. Heavy feet and heaving animal breaths filled the silent road as the monster limped and tried to reach for her. Seeing her chance, Tabitha lifted her axe and sprinted back in to wound its forearm. With a sudden staggering swing the monster struck her in the shoulder and sent her flying across the street. The road spun below her. She lost her axe and landed hard on the tarmac in an ugly tumbling scrape. The thing growled at her as she picked herself back up; both of them limping and pouring silver blood. Tabitha clutched the claw wounds in her shoulder and watched the creature staggering. It was worth getting hit though, just to hurt it again. She left the monster to bleed for a minute. It wasn’t healing like her.

  ‘Fight me! Come on!’ she screamed, picking her axe up. At least the rain had stopped. The monster was stumbling now as it came towards her. It pounced. She leapt away. It staggered and ploughed into another wall behind her, shattering windows and bending steel. It had to drag itself back up. Teeth clenched, Tabitha swung the axe into the back of its wounded knee with everything she had. The creature’s scream was deafening. She wrenched the axe out with a yell and a bloody squelch, and swung it in again before the roaring monster grabbed her hard around the waist. She squirmed and screamed as its grip crushed her. She sunk the axe into its head, and the monster bellowed and threw her down on the road. She crawled away gasping; it grabbed her leg. Dragged her back. She spun and axed the joint in its forearm again; it snarled and dropped her. Breathless, Tabitha crawled and staggered away as it punched the road into a cracked crater. There was a moment of exhaustion between them; a staring split-second reprieve. Dust-smudged and sweating, Tabitha swallowed hard with a dry throat. The thing was growling like a landslide. She stood and faced it; it charged at her. Adrenaline slowed the world down as the monster came in close. Time crawled. Tabitha watched the creature swing in slow motion and hunched her body, dipping her shoulders and arching her back. Feet pushing the pavement away, she sprang out fast and feline and dived under its swiping claws. She rolled and pushed up off the road behind it; airborne. Swinging the axe two-handed she hacked off its forearm in a bloody burst of shining silver. She surprised herself. The monster’s scream was music to her ears; violent poetry as it staggered away. She stood staring, breathless, sprayed in silver blood as the creature’s wound spurted. The monster roared; she yelled back. It slipped in its own blood when it tried to lash out. Tabitha ducked in and punched the bloody stump of its arm, and sent the monster reeling to the floor with the pain. She dodged its slipping swipe and bit the axe down deep into the back of its knee. It kicked out and grabbed for her, but she wasn’t there.

  ‘Behind you.’ Tabith
a took a hard lumberjack swing and took off its leg at the knee. The monster screamed and crashed to the tarmac, and Tabitha stood ankle-deep in a sloshing silver tide of blood. Adrenaline racing she leapt up onto its back and hacked at its head, over and over, until the thing stopped struggling and screaming. Breathless, gold eyes staring in shock, Tabitha staggered off the dead monster’s back and inspected her cuts and bruises. The steel burns on her leg were healing up; pushing beads of metal out from her skin. All around her, silver blood pooled and ran down the reeking drains. Lying stark against the silver road was the dead black brute, like some hellish fallen statue, its hot skin steaming. Too late, Tabitha looked down and saw its white eyes still staring. Its remaining arm shot out and gripped both her legs together. Tabitha yelled and tried to pull away, struggling to balance. With half-dead slowness the monster’s claws tightened and sank into her flesh. Tabitha screamed and struggled. The hand held her still, but didn’t pull her closer. The monster had stopped moving. Was it dead? Her axe swing glanced off its armoured hand in a spray of sparks. Another swing and the axe slipped from her tired bloody grasp, clattering out of reach on the road. She yelled and punched it, trying to climb out from the fingers. The claws were deep in her flesh. She may as well have been hitting a tank or a steam train for all the good it did. Then its arm began to pull, dragging her closer with impossible slowness. Tabitha staggered and fell to the road, screaming as it pulled her closer. There was little life left in the monster’s brain; blood slopped and gushed from the alien’s head. Its eyes flickered to grey and back to white, over and over, like faulty lights. Its grip around her calves was inescapable; its movement snail-slow. It dragged her towards its open bear-trap mouth slowly, inch by inch, like a zombie. Its arm scratched and scudded on the silver-painted tarmac, dragging Tabitha ever closer as she struggled. Panic filled her thoughts. She glimpsed the grey sky above, the walls of shops all around her. She punched uselessly at its arm, grasping desperately for the axe too far out of reach. She felt the rough drag of the road on the back of her head. She was panicked, tired, drained like a dead battery. Its mouth creaked open as it dragged her feet towards its rows of teeth.