by TJ Park
It had nearly joined her at the top, only a few cross-struts to go. The sigils were clearly visible now. A panther and six-six-six. A precise iron eagle beneath.
She leaned out over the high drop, holding on to the ladder one-handed.
“Hey!”
The monster’s devoted gaze never left her. But she wanted it to see her, really see her. She wanted it to see her as more than just a prize.
“Hey, you!”
The familiar paused its climb, only one more set of rungs to go.
She made as if to jump, jolting the ladder under her. The tremor travelled through the metal to where the familiar was poised.
“Get back or I’ll beat you down first! I won’t be much fun to play with then!”
The familiar was set on the spot, measuring her anew. Its hind legs bunched, preparing to boost it up the last few struts.
“I mean it!” she screamed, jolting the ladder again, this time so violently she nearly tore herself free.
The familiar held fast to the echo in the shivering metal. Then it did something that shut down every thought and feeling in her. It shrugged its shoulders. It shrugged, a never-mind gesture. Or perhaps it hadn’t done that. Perhaps it was bearing down again for one last leap to snatch her before she could escape.
She would never know.
Because below them both, in the yard, stood Lauren.
Drawn from hiding by her mother’s call, she had come looking, finding her on the windmill, no doubt searching for her and Scott.
“Mum! Down here!”
It was only then the relieved girl realised the presence of the huge gaping hole, a tear in the fabric of night, a shape distorting the structure below her mother. The shape turned its head and its flashing sigil eyes on her.
The familiar had heard her first, dismissing Janet before she understood what was going on. Without giving Janet a second look, it turned like a lizard on a wall, pointing downward. It was more deliberate, finding footholds more awkward in descent.
Before she could think, Janet was scrambling down the ladder to reach the familiar, intending to jump on its back and throw them both to their deaths – if that’s what it took. But the familiar dropped faster, plunging several cross-struts before halting again. The monster looked back over its shoulder at her, sigil-eyes flashing.
You can wait, that look told her.
Lauren was running back the way she had come, though not nearly fast enough. The familiar swiftly completed the descent, leaping clear before reaching the ground, pursuing Lauren at speed.
In a panic, Janet scrambled down the ladder, not caring for her safety. It was inevitable she would slip. A moment in space and then she hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. She laid there in a semi-conscious daze as long minutes passed – her limbs, her mind, unresponsive.
Eventually, she came around and began to rise.
She was shaken. Both ankles hurt terribly, but they could bear her weight. She wasn’t concerned with her physical condition. She was inspired by the fan above her, cranking into life as it pivoted to meet a fresh breeze. The blades reminded her of something she could use to bring down the monster, perhaps the only thing.
***
Terror giving her wings, Lauren climbed the wooden ladder two rungs at a time. Once inside the loft she went slower, but not by choice. She had fortified the hiding spot, and now had to sidle through a wide circle of barbed wire, picking her way carefully.
Having made her way inside, she grabbed a second roll of wire and began unravelling it, hooking it against the existing wire, doubling and tripling the strands. After the roll was paid out she huddled down with her brother, their small clearing surrounded by a barrier of barbed wire more forbidding than any thorn bush.
The monster should have come for them by now. It had cost time to wriggle through the wire in the first place, and more reinforcing it. She had expected an attack while working. The delay only served to unnerve her.
The waiting continued. It drew out interminably.
She held her brother’s hand, but decided she didn’t want him lying down if something bad was going to happen. She hauled him upright, so they could sit side by side, her arm around his shoulders.
The loft doors were shut. She wished she had done the same with the barn doors below. Upon the thought, they slammed together with a tremendous crash. Her brother absorbed the violent jolt she gave. Only his presence stopped her crying out.
The monster was inside with them.
There was a silence. Lauren grew so frantic, she nearly rose on feathery legs to see what was happening below, beneath the loft.
Suddenly, the loft doors burst open, the familiar leaping in from the night outside. The monster landed on the rows of interlinked wire, flattening them. One more bound would see it on Lauren and her brother. She tried to drag Scott away but was stopped by the very wire she had spread around them. They were trapped.
But the monster was also snared. It reared, futilely warding off the coils of barbed wire that sprang up around its limbs. And when it leapt again, clumsily, the wire had other ideas, impairing its thrust and bringing it down.
The familiar crashed on its side, skidding past Lauren and Scott, collecting more of the barbed wire as it went. The monster slid to the edge of the loft floor, tottered, and went over. A paw flashed out, grabbing hold of the edge, but its claws only tore through the wood, leaving behind notches as deep as axe bites.
The familiar disappeared and the wire was drawn down after. Some played out first, giving Lauren a moment’s grace, then the encampment around them began to shift. Lauren hauled Scott up before the trailing wire yanked her feet from under her and tore her brother from her grasp. The pair were borne quickly across the loft floor ahead of being swept over the edge to join the familiar below.
Her first response was to lie still and let the wire take her. But there was too much of her mother in her to surrender that easily.
She rolled, fighting for purchase, finding a handhold. The wire lacerated her in a hundred places and might still have succeeded in taking her over, except the last of it sped up as it whipped over the edge, letting her go just before the drop.
Stunned, astonished to find herself alone in the empty loft, Lauren scrabbled over to the edge to peer down.
Most of the wire had landed in a tangled heap on the familiar. Scott was in there too, but the same tangle appeared to have softened his fall. Except for some ugly scratches on his arms and legs, he seemed unharmed, lying on his back, suspended. But he was too close to the familiar for comfort. His eyes still open, he seemed indifferent to any danger, moving like a marionette when the familiar’s struggles tugged at him.
The monster gained its feet and pulled away. It butted the barn doors open, then went slowly, the trailing wire catching here and there like anchor points. At the same time a faint light appeared, falling across a distant part of the yard. The light grew, and with it came a growing, recognisable rumble.
Direct light cleared the corner of the barn and struck the familiar in full. The sigils spun. The monster’s coat went as murky as an unwashed blackboard.
The monster railed from the oncoming light with a scalding hiss and it leapt in the opposite direction. Tendrils of wire, reflecting light as shining-bright filaments, scraped the outside of the barn in pursuit, rasping and squealing. They impeded the monster’s escape, but did not prevent it. Scott went too, the tangled spill of barbed wire swinging him widely around the doorjamb and into the night.
Chapter Twenty
Janet could hardly comprehend the sight caught in the spotlights of the combine harvester. The familiar was ensnared in a knot of barbed wire, which looped around its limbs and suspended its trunk inside layers of quivering coils.
The monster fled in ungainly stops and starts, tripping over the wire every other step, its head pressed to one side to avert the intense glare of the spots. Its terrifying sigil eyes preferred the dark.
Running blind, the fam
iliar kept on a straight course away from the harvester. It gave Janet room to go after it and, more importantly, she could keep the reel spinning. She had no idea how the beast got caught in the wire, but was savagely glad of the fact. Her only fear was that it would wriggle free before she could cut it down.
A long and wide snarl of wire trailed the fleeing familiar, all sorts of debris swept along in it. She saw a plastic bucket jumping up and down, a rake dragging wayward farrows, a half-empty bag of feed. The wire blazed white in the harvester’s spotlights and she couldn’t look at it directly. She wanted her eyes clear to focus on the thing further ahead. She adjusted her pursuit so the churning reel wouldn’t choke on wire before she scooped up the monster.
Almost upon it, the harvester’s slow, but constant pace overtaking the familiar’s blundering, stop-start run, she began steering in order to collide with it. But then someone ran into the spotlights, waving arms over a vivid white mask stark with desperation.
Lauren.
Janet’s heart nearly burst. Lauren was alive. And telling her not to risk her life trying to kill the monster. But the knowledge only made Janet more determined to bring it down. She tried to steer past Lauren, taking a chance on being fouled up in the wire.
But Lauren darted in her way again, waving more frantically.
Janet knew she should pay her daughter heed, but couldn’t stop now. She would have to risk it and drive over the fluttering, bouncing wire. The blades were almost upon the trailing bag of feed at the end of it.
Lauren continued to wave madly, daring to press forward toward the revolving reel. Surely she did not want to stop her killing the familiar? Even now, the monster was freeing itself from the wire, and beginning to pull ahead.
Then Janet saw the bag of feed she was about to run over separate out into arms and legs; a distinctive shape. Scott.
She slammed on the brake. The harvester jolted to a halt, the back end fitfully shuddering into a sideways slew that nearly threw her from her seat. Then she and the harvester were left behind as Scott was whipped away into the dark after the familiar.
Dear God, she had nearly killed her son!
But self-recriminations would have to wait.
Shutting down the blades, she opened her door and leaned out.
“Lauren, get in!”
Looking lost and alone, Lauren didn’t move from where she stood, her arms folded tightly to her chest. She heard, but shook her head. Janet hadn’t time to argue.
“Get to the house, then! Wait for me there! I’ll get him!”
She was back at the controls before the door was fully shut, the harvester brought back to fuming life. It jumped forward, the rasp bars champing.
She had to find the familiar before her opportunity was lost. The monster might be impervious to bullets and fire, but she didn’t believe it could withstand being ground to pieces by the harvester’s spinning blades.
***
Doug regained consciousness lying under the couch. More precisely, his head and shoulders were wedged under it, face down. What roused him was the commotion as something harried the part of him still exposed, simultaneously trying to pull him free and turn him over to get at him properly. Failing that, gnashing teeth tried to burrow under the couch to fasten on his neck.
Doug tried to kick himself further under the couch. The assault at his back intensified. The pain took longer to connect than his consciousness, but when it did it was horrendous, alien.
He was in agony. He could feel pieces – bites – being taken out of his shoulders. He threw himself away from the couch before he was torn to shreds. The move surprised his attacker, who stumbled over him as he shoved past. Doug was left alone for a few precious seconds, barely given time to roll onto his back before he was rushed again. He thrust his feet out, and launched his attacker across the room.
The dog – it could be nothing else – lunged for him again. Where the fuck had it come from? He did not remember even a hint of one when here the first time.
Doug thrust out his feet to block it again. But he did it too soon. The dog leapt over his extended legs and landed on top of him.
***
The trundling harvester’s spotlights found the wire again, pulled into a long snarl against the grain silo, the same tall structure that had reminded Doug of a watchtower. The leading edge of the wire was gone from sight round the other side. Scott was still caught inside the greater part of it left behind, struggling feebly.
Pushing her strongest instincts aside, Janet left her son behind as well, circling the silo, following the wire until it paid out. But the familiar was nowhere to be seen. It had escaped.
She continued around the silo, fear for her son escalating until the spotlights picked him out again. He was sitting up, dazed, seemingly unaware of the roar and looming presence of the harvester. He was focused only on plucking himself slowly free from the wire. He did it mechanically, with no real will or desire in it.
Janet sailed by the silo, turning the wheel the other way to circle the yard around her son. She did not dare stop the big machine. It was their only means of defence. She prayed Lauren had gone straight to the house to hide.
The harvester’s turning circle was large. She strained to see anything beyond the cooler reach of the spotlights, hating the long moments when her son was gone from sight before he and the silo came into view again. She debated if it were best to stop and point the spotlights at him, keep him safe inside their bright cordon, but something told her it would be better for them both if she remained a moving target.
But a roving harvester is not a good place from which to hunt game. The noise and vibration inside the cab, the spinning blades, the constant motion – it fooled her into catching glimpses of something continually retreating into the gloom beyond the lights.
At other times she was sure the familiar had snuck onboard. The big machine seemed beset by more than usual deep ocean pressures, the metal casings popping in and out with constant vibration. She jumped at every sound of plucked metal.
Trying not to be diverted by fancies, she kept the harvester in its turning circle.
The skin on the nape of her neck shivered into gooseflesh. Was it sensing something? No, it was her mind playing tricks on her. Ignore it. Ignore it.
She slammed her foot on the brake. The rear of the harvester lost traction and slewed sideways for the second time, shuddering so violently it threatened to come apart. How much more punishment would it take? But all concern was quickly forgotten when something large thumped against the side of the cab.
She turned her head to see a black tide of bloody scrawls mashed against the side window, rubbing along the glass in a long, repulsive squeal. She saw a clear picture of a laughing skull sprouting flames before it fell away. At the same time, a smaller something struck the cab as well, something that had overstepped its mark and was driven into the door below the window.
She stomped the accelerator and struggled to turn the protesting harvester on top of the place where the familiar had fallen, but such a manoeuvre was impossible. The turning circle was just too wide. The monster was long gone. She bitterly cursed the harvester and how it handled.
That thing had come up behind her! It had gotten on, creeping over the harvester for god knows how long, keeping out of the spotlights. The smaller, harder clout she’d heard when it fell against the cab had been its paw reaching for the door handle.
She desperately needed to see her son, but it seemed long minutes before she could turn the harvester back around to him and the silo again. He was alone, unharried. He had managed to pluck his clothes free of the wire, but he still seemed disoriented within its tangled coils, lost. She renewed her circling. On the next rotation she saw Scott trying to crawl on his belly past the wire.
She turned another slow agitated circle, trying to think of what to do. Scott’s confused endeavours had him mired down in the wire again. He kept trying to tug free of it in his own senseless way.
Ano
ther interminably slow circle. She completed it before an idea, any idea at all, could come. She watched anxiously for Scott long before the slowly turning spotlights would touch on him.
Her heart hitched in her chest. Her son was not alone in the barbed wire. Something else was plunging through it, having at him. The lagging spotlights lit the silo in full.
Lauren was inside the wire, struggling through it to reach Scott. Janet took in as much of it as she could, craning her neck as the scene passed behind her. Lauren fell down on her younger brother, staying him on the spot. He struggled wearily for a bit longer, then relaxed, letting his sister keep him.
Janet was both absolutely furious and pleased with Lauren at the same time.
Both children were left behind in another interminable turning circle. The familiar remained in hiding. Where was it? She could only hope the barbed wire would hold the beast off until the spotlights fell on her children again.
She was debating whether she could risk stopping the harvester to bundle her children onboard when something flew up at the windscreen. It flared white in the spotlights before banging off the front of the cab only to be flicked away by the whirling blades.
An empty bucket.
A dark wave struck the left side of the windscreen straight after. Great rivulets of stained-glasslike gore cut the lit landscape in half. The wave that struck the windscreen had also doused one of the spotlights, projecting a red tide over the ground that rushed forward to engulf the harvester.
In her fright, Janet slowed the harvester. A mistake. It made for a better aim. A second bucket struck the second spotlight, hitting it in full, and the world outside went dim and maroon.
The smell permeated the closed cabin. Janet recognised it on the instant. Not blood. Old sump oil. Rob had been intending to recycle it for the windmill, the vile stinking stuff kept in two covered buckets inside the machinery shed.
The wipers did no good. They only propelled the muddy murk about. Yet if she concentrated, she could still see out the windscreen, and the familiar could still see in.