by TJ Park
“I killed it,” she said dully, uninterested in his new panic, her limbs slow to sit right on the bike.
Doug roughly draped her arms over his shoulders. She didn’t resist. The rifle fell out of her lank hand. He directed its fall so it would clatter onto the fuel tank in front of him, and it did a wobbly balancing act there.
The disengaged fence trailed further and further back as the thing shrank away into the dark. But Doug wasn’t fooled. It wasn’t dying, or trying to get away.
It wanted a run-up.
Doug hit the throttle.
The thing sprang forward.
He shot them out of its path just in time. He felt more than saw its violent arrival into the space they had just left. Banking steeply, he turned the bike around onto the dirt track. Miraculously, neither Janet nor the rifle fell off. The crack of snapping timber posts pursued them. The thing was forging ahead, taking the fence line with it.
Doug grabbed the rifle by the barrel just as the stock of heavy wood slid off the fuel tank. He swung it one-handed over his shoulder, making sure he smacked Janet with it to get her attention. “Take it!”
He let go before he was certain she had hold of it, but some of her wits had returned. Doug glanced back to see her listlessly hooking its strap over her shoulder.
Inside the jittering rear-view mirror, fence post after fence post was ripped from its moorings across the field. Then the fence vanished. A long sweep of grass flattened and sprang up again as the posts and wire whipped back into the dark, suddenly let go.
The thing had broken free.
The homestretch took a winding path. Thinking “straight line”, Doug left the track and cut across the field. Janet held on for dear life as he wove the bike from side to side through an obstacle course of hillocks, thick tussocks of weeds, a rusted feed trough and a surprised cow.
Doug and Janet screamed together. The large, dopey bovine stood directly in their path, too busy blinking at them to get out of the way. Doug pulled hard to the right, missing the cow by centimetres, almost giving it a tap on the snout with the crook of his elbow. The animal jumped in shock as they passed, stamping its forelegs, ears pinned back. But that was just the beginning.
Doug glanced into the mirror to be sure he missed the cow and caught sight of the animal as it simply … exploded. It instantly disappeared from sight, gone as if dropped into a hole. Broken clods of earth, smashed chalkstone, and the shattered stubs of long-dead branches flew every which way. And through the vapour of dust and blood punched the black, terrible thing, still pursuing them.
The lights of the homestead loomed ahead and Doug hoped only to reach their destination before they met the thing behind them.
He never slowed. Never thought to. He shot the bike across Janet’s neat yard at a full clip. Going too fast to decelerate safely, he did the only thing possible – aimed for a clear patch of ground to take down the bike. It was not hard to commit. He had no wish to end up like the poor dumb bovine, snuffed out when hit by an irresistible force.
He leaned the bike and it settled into a powerful glide across the smooth, thick lawn. Janet slipped free, slowing to a gentle stop. It was her third spill of the night and the most charitable. Doug was caught under the bike and had to kick himself loose. He slid to a stop backward and missed seeing the bike skid into the slatted wall under the veranda, where it leapt upright again, the throttle still open. Riding the veranda edge like a guide rail the pilotless bike kept right on going, running the length of the house and zooming off into the yard for a short distance before falling over.
Wincing, Doug staggered to his feet, wrapped in the stinking miasma of an overtaxed engine. Some skin was missing, but he didn’t think anything was broken.
Something moved near him. He darted away in panic, ready to run, then immediately realised it was best to stay put. He was confronted by a new threat, no less dangerous than the thing in the paddock.
Janet stood a short distance from him, pointing the rifle. He would be hard to miss at such a range. And he was under no illusions that she would not shoot.
“Can we do this later?” he asked.
She never wavered. “You’re going to let us go.”
The dark beyond the range of the veranda lights was impenetrable, too static to be true. That thing had been right behind them.
“Something big and cranky just had a go at us. Right now it’d be a good idea to put a door between us and it.”
He started edging over to the foot of the steps, but Janet shook the rifle at him. He froze in mid-step. “Janet, you won’t be saving anybody if that thing gets you.”
Unlike him, she didn’t spare any fretful glances.
“I’ll take it one monster at a time, thanks.”
“Drop it, bitch!”
It came from the house. Doug sucked in breath. He’d expected the rifle to go off.
Warlock stood above them on the veranda, pointing a sawn-off their way. He waved it crazily, like a finishing flag. Doug could see he was trying mightily to compensate for his earlier lack of backbone. He prayed it wouldn’t get him killed.
Janet wasn’t deterred. She kept the rifle trained squarely on Doug, clearly recognising him as the more dangerous of the two. Doug turned his head, very slowly, and looked at Warlock.
“Something chased us. Something big. It took down Janet’s horse and a fence. It fucking blew up a cow. Last time I looked it was right behind us. So I need you to watch out for it, okay? Could you do that while Janet and I sort this out?”
Warlock looked uncomprehending at first, then his eyes went wide.
“Huh?”
Doug didn’t reply, but just turned back to Janet. Warlock gaped at their surroundings, straining to see through the dark wall of night.
“We’re in a bad spot out here, Janet,” Doug said calmly.
“Then you’d better get your dopey mate up there to untie my kids.”
“Drop the gun, whore!” Warlock yelled. “Drop it or I’ll blow you up!”
Doug knew what Janet was going to do even before she knew it.
“Don’t –” he started to say, giving her the distraction needed. She spun round and fired at Warlock.
Janet’s pains not to hit the house with her children inside was what probably saved Warlock’s hide, or maybe he was just too scrawny to shoot. Either way her shot went wide. Warlock blundered back into the front wall returning fire, blowing a chunk out of the veranda railing.
Doug dropped into a crouch, his hands held above his head in clear surrender. Janet threw a desperate glance in his direction, noted his patent submission, then turned back to Warlock, reworking the bolt. Doug calculated he had just under a second – about the time it took to swing a rifle around. He launched up from his crouching position, hanging low so to give her less of a target. Janet saw him coming and began to swivel the rifle back. He had little choice in his method of attack. He ducked under the long barrel and head-butted her in the stomach. He felt the concussion of the rifle discharging directly above before he struck the mother of two so hard she was lifted off her feet. The rifle was sent flying. Janet thumped gracelessly onto the ground. There she curled up into a foetal position.
Doug wasn’t happy with the sight, but he wasn’t the least bit remorseful, either. He never took half-measures when a gun was pointed at him.
Warlock fired again, tearing up another section of veranda railing.
Dropping low, Doug snatched up the rifle. “I got her! Stop firing, damn you!”
When he was sure Warlock heard him, Doug tried to haul Janet up. She couldn’t quite find her feet, still folded over with her eyes squeezed shut, breath audibly drawn through her throat.
Warlock peered over the railing. “Did I get her?”
Doug hoisted Janet over his shoulder, then toted her over to the steps. Reaching there, he turned full circle, taking a good look around the yard. After all, there was still the question of what had pursued them … and why it had stopped.
/> Seeing nothing coming, Doug mounted the steps. Warlock regarded the woman slung over his shoulder and the night beyond them with equal concern.
“Did you kill her?”
“Winded.”
Doug tried to stand her up on the veranda. Her feet kept brushing the floor, but they wouldn’t stick. He looked over at the front door.
“Where is everybody? The kids still tied up?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Mick and Rob?”
“They’re in the shed, same as when you left.”
Doug came alert.
“Not with all the shooting and carrying-on. They’d be out here by now.”
They both considered the shed, with its chocked-open doors and ghostly spill of light into the yard. Neither could distinguish any movement from within.
“Maybe they didn’t hear it,” Warlock said.
Doug was about to hammer him, then reconsidered.
“They might have been testing out the engine.”
“I would’ve heard that,” Warlock blurted out, his voice catching.
Doug got mad.
“A minute ago you wouldn’t have known if you’d shit your pants.”
Janet sagged through his arms. He hauled her up again. “Go over to the shed. Tell Mick there’s a … ah, fuck it … a wild animal roaming around. A dangerous one. Tell him to be careful while he gets the ute wrapped up. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just get it done. We’re getting out of here. Now.” He looked unhappily at the shed. “If for some reason they’re not in there, don’t go looking for them. Come back quick.”
Doug had no choice but to carry Janet inside. Warlock called after him. “Hey! I don’t want to go by myself. You said there was something dangerous out here.”
“Well, you won’t fuck around then, will you?”
***
A stiff breeze had risen. The garden and surrounds were behaving slyly. They wouldn’t stay still. Warlock jogged through a yard that seemed twice as long at night than it did during the day.
The sawn-off in his hands didn’t make him feel any braver. He made pirouettes as he jogged, his back never to one place for too long. He was anxious to get out of the open space between the house and the machinery shed. The direct light from each fell short, leaving a dark divide to be crossed.
But reaching landfall on the other side wasn’t the relief he’d hoped it would be. In its blunt brazenness, the brightly-lit shed seemed more threat than invitation. The place seemed devoid of human activity, though it wasn’t truly quiet. Pummelled by conflicting gusts, Warlock could hear the chains he untied clanking and sliding over the metal walls inside. He was approaching the shed at an angle, so he saw little of the bright interior, something that could be easily fixed in a few short steps. But he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the chains fumbling over the walls inside like they were searching out someone to grab hold of … not exactly. It was thinking why Mick hadn’t put a stop to them. The old coot would have gone crazy listening to that for more than five minutes.
He shouted at the bright open maw of the shed.
“Mick! Doug wants you to finish the ute! Hurry up!”
He turned and bolted without waiting for a reply, running back to the house to beat the wind.
***
From the window, Doug saw Warlock bolt up the front steps three at a time. He went out of sight momentarily as he headed for the door. The moment drew out too long before he should have come in. Doug was about to pull the door open when Warlock did it first, entering with an exaggerated control in complete contrast to his dash across the yard. The wind pulled the door out of Warlock’s hand and slammed it shut. He jumped, reacting a moment too late for normal.
“You tell Mick what I said?” Doug asked.
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
Warlock shrugged. “Sure. No probs.”
Doug stepped in closer to Warlock and the punk stared straight back at him as if it was the correct thing to do, which meant Doug was able to detect his condition all the sooner. One of Warlock’s pupils was shrivelling to a pinpoint, while the other pulsed like a dicky heart, unable to keep to a rhythm. The owner of those warring eyes kept his mouth firmly shut, watching Doug expectantly, almost brightly.
Doug clipped him sharply across the face. Warlock blinked hugely, not sure of what had happened. Doug took the punk’s hand and raised it up between them, pressing down on all the fingers, except for the middle one. Then, pinching Warlock’s jaws open, Doug jammed the rearranged hand down his throat as far as it would go. As Doug nimbly stepped aside, Warlock doubled over, vomiting up a thin, chemical-blue stream of water and pieces of chewed-up capsule.
Doug patted him brusquely on the back. “You okay? You with me, Wayne?”
Still gagging and bent over, unsure if he was allowed to remove his hand from his mouth yet, Warlock nodded from the waist.
“That a yes?”
Warlock violently nodded his bowed head.
“Good. Now that your head’s clear, you can –”
The lights went out.
A moment later, Doug realised it wasn’t only in the room, or the house, but the lights had gone out everywhere on the property. The whole world was immersed in darkness. Only grey starlight to be discerned, shining in through the windows.
If anyone cried out in fright when it happened, they stifled it. Like Doug.
He peered toward the couch, automatically thinking Janet was responsible, expecting her to be gone and up to new mischief, but he could make out her shape on the couch, still recovering from the blow to the stomach. Her children were with her.
He had yet to tie her up again. He hadn’t anticipated she’d be trouble any time soon. When he first tramped into the house with the rifle in hand, carrying her over his shoulder like a fresh kill, he had to contend with her children’s premature grief. Truth to tell, he’d been a little worried himself. But she seemed back to her former belligerent self now, if still a little folded up in the midsection. The hatred she felt for him had never left her. He could see it in the dark.
“Mum?” Lauren asked, anxious.
“Janet?” Doug asked as well.
“There’s a back-up generator,” Janet said. Spoken with quiet dignity, though clipped by shortness of breath.
The sound of a motor kicked in somewhere outside. The overhead light winked on. A second later it drew back as if on a dimmer switch, the yellow more evident in the bulb than any brightness. The flickering bulb fought to come on in full while everyone in the room kept still and quiet, perhaps not to break its concentration.
Then the light, all of it, came back, but the sickly pall remained. It painted faces the shade of cheese.
“But I undid all the knots,” Warlock whined. “Well, almost all of them.”
Doug ignored him. “How long will it last?”
“The generator? Three hours. Then it’ll need refuelling.”
Doug tried to place the faraway drone, but couldn’t. “Where do you keep it?”
“Behind the kennels.”
“You’ll have to go through my dogs to get to it!” Scott shouted.
“Shush,” Janet whispered sternly.
She hadn’t censured her son to keep him out of trouble. Something was happening outside. The dogs started barking. It wasn’t idle daytime barking done to break the monotony. This barking rose up in a frenzied bombardment. Doug experienced an ill feeling in his gut. He had a notion the boy’s boast was about to be put to the test.
The hysterical barking fell away.
Everyone in the room could have stopped breathing, it was so quiet.
Then a huge, ragged orchestra of barks erupted. One dog was so excited, it was nearly howling. The din quietened down again, although it did not taper off naturally. It fell away too fast. There was a strict silence.
Doug saw it as plainly as if it’d been played out in front of him. The dogs had gone wild at a hint of something moving about in the shadows.
They had gotten more riotous still when suspicion became fact and they saw something skulking at the edge of their vicinity. Then the object of their attention had come out of hiding, and allowed them to see it in full.
That explained the bit where they shut up.
It became so quiet Doug could hear the house settling. Wind fluted through the eaves. They heard a sharp squeal. For a moment, Doug thought it was metal on metal, then he was just as certain it came from a small, frightened child. It was a moment more before he recognised the sound as coming from a dog. It was followed by a smattering of faint-hearted barks and snarls. One lot of barks degenerated into high-pitched yips that rightly belonged to a small dog, although none of the dogs fitted that description. A prolonged yelp rose into a spiralling shriek of pain. It was cut off by a sound like wet cardboard being torn in half.
Scott gave voice to the obvious, yelling, “They’re killing my dogs!”
There was a silence when they thought the whole thing mercifully over, but it was broken by an almost human sobbing that ended in a croak.
The generator’s drone was suddenly loud in the teetering silence.
Scott fought against his bonds. “Leave them alone, you bastards!”
Still trussed to the couch, he wasn’t going anywhere fast, not without hauling his mother and sister along with him. He made a good try anyway, dragging a corner of the seat forward. He might have made it to the door eventually if left to his own devices. Doug shoved the couch back into place with his foot, throwing Scott down in turn. The boy glared up at him with murderous hate.
Except for a short, distracted word to calm her son, Janet hardly took notice of his clash with Doug. She was listening for something. The wary look on her face had authority. Everyone else followed suit, waiting for the unlikely lull to crack.
It was the generator’s turn to cry out.
It suddenly revved up violently before dropping back to its former drone. Then came a reverberating set of bangs, like the beating of a hollow drum. Metal screeched across metal, for real this time, setting teeth on edge. The drone went choppy.
Faces twisted round to look at the light on the ceiling. It was faltering, beginning to fade. The bulb rallied briefly, then its light slowly died like the glow inside a cooling lump of coal. Outside, the generator cranked noisily to a halt.