by Wood, Rick
Accelerating as quickly as she could, she did a hasty three-point turn and headed back down the street she had driven.
She rubbed water out of her eyes, her palms so wet they were making her vision worse. She lifted her drenched t-shirt and rubbed her eyes with that.
Despite not being able to see where she was going, she sped as fast as she could. She shot straight over the war memorial roundabout, ignoring a horn from a car that had to brake suddenly for her.
Going past the museum, she screeched her car to a halt on the side of the road.
She sprinted out, running past a few shops and down a narrow path. Her foot went into a divot in the path that had turned into a deep puddle and she went flying onto her front.
Groggy, she lifted her head up. She could feel the mud on her face and she could see it dripping against the soaked floor. Her arms, her vest, her trousers, were all covered in brown-and-black gunk.
Not caring anymore, she stuck her hands into the soggy surface and dragged herself to her feet.
She hobbled forward, her legs in too much pain to run.
Deciding she needed to just ignore the pain, she did her best to speed up. Limping and shuffling, she accelerated forward.
Then she froze.
That’s when she saw them.
In the distance, far across the field, next to the swing set.
Two figures.
Two figures masked by the rain and sleet.
One of them was Jenny. Lacy could tell the curve of Jenny’s body, however cased in shadow or obscured by hectic rain it may be.
It was definitely Jenny.
The thing in front of Jenny looked… It looked like Eddie. It was Eddie. It had worked. Lacy couldn’t believe it.
Then she saw its shadow, which did not match the man stood before it. The shadow was of a huge, carnivorous beast.
And its claw was lifting in the air, as if ready to swipe.
“Jenny!”
46
The front line.
Martin knew it was where he belonged.
Leading Humanity’s Hope into battle.
Still, he couldn’t help it. His hands were madly quivering, his arms seizing, his knees buckling. Thoughts entered his mind and spun around like a tornado.
What if he died?
What if he died without managing to actually do anything with his life?
What if he was the world’s only hope, and this battle had come too soon, before he was ready?
He was defeated last time, quite substantially. There was no doubt in his mind, he had stood no chance.
And what was different now?
Sure, he had forty-odd people with various gifts marching behind him.
But did they have any idea what they were really getting themselves in for?
Only he had seen this creature. Only he had fought and fled from it. Talking the talk is great, being willing to give your life to a cause sounds heroic, but when it comes down to it – how many of these people were really ready for what they were about to see?
“What’s the matter?” Derek turned to Martin, breaking him out of his helpless thoughts.
“I don’t know, Derek,” Martin replied. “This doesn’t feel like the right time. I’m worried.”
Derek lifted his fist in the air, indicating for everyone to stop. They had reached a fence, cutting them off from a large field.
Martin peered over his shoulder. Despite being under the cloak of darkness and torrential rain, the army looked strong. Everyone took their place next to the fence, peering across the empty park.
Growling reverberated in the distance. Snarling, screaming. Something was there.
Derek took out a set of binoculars and peered toward the other side of the field, where the swing set sat. Next to it was the silhouette of something formidably large.
Derek couldn’t say it out loud, but he was terrified. For the first time in this venture, he was genuinely mortified.
But he had to think clearly. Had to be objective. His life was insignificant compared to the long-term aim of this war, and he had to remember that.
His life belonged to something bigger. Something greater.
“Martin,” he spoke. “You are the one destined to lead us into this war. If you think this is too soon, you say the word, and we will withdraw.”
“Really?” Martin gaped.
“Look around you,” Derek instructed, placing a firm but reassuring hand on Martin’s shoulder.
Martin looked around him. All the faces of all the people they had gathered, these experts, people who had spent a lifetime committed to the pursuit of controlling the forces that remain invisible to us.
All of them were looking at him.
Eyes of experience and voices of wisdom, all directing their gaze to him.
Waiting for him to lead.
“You see that?” Derek continued. “It doesn’t matter where they are from, who they are. They know the goal, and they know who you are.”
“But I’m not ready.”
“Ready?” Derek scoffed. “When will you ever be ready? It is time to stop talking about ‘if’ or ‘when.’ It is now. You are not going to be the leader, Martin – you are the leader. And it’s time for you to take that responsibility.”
Martin glanced over his shoulder. Everyone’s eyes were still on him.
He looked into those eyes, taking his time to understand the faith they were putting in him. Some of the eyes were weak, some scared, some terrified even. But despite whatever these people had inside them, whatever fears they held – each and every eye that looked at him was expectant. They believed in the cause and in the leader. They knew what they were risking, and they were fully willing and able to do so.
“So what do I do?” Martin shrugged.
“If you say we aren’t ready,” Derek proclaimed, “then you give the word, and we will withdraw. We will move every person back and continue our training and preparation.”
“But what about Jenny?”
Derek looked back to the distance. The rain pounded against the shadow of the raised claw of a demon, a faint outline mixed with the torrential weather.
It was getting ready to strike.
It was now or never.
“Then…” Derek tried to produce an answer, providing blank noise until he could form the words. “Then Jenny doesn’t survive. A necessary loss. A tough loss, but a necessary one.”
“We can’t…”
“I adore Jenny, but Martin, there is a big picture here. We have to be unattached. We have to think clearly – what is the right thing to do for the world?”
Martin closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Who was he to make this decision? He wasn’t even an adult yet. He wouldn’t even be able to drink at the celebratory party if they won.
He didn’t feel ready. He knew that, knew they were marching into something they couldn’t win.
But he couldn’t let Jenny go.
If only for the memory of Edward King, he could not let that manifested evil destroy the one person who had retained an unaltered faith in him.
He knew what the answer was.
He knew what they were going to do.
“We attack,” he declared to Derek.
Derek nodded a firm, hesitant nod.
“Okay. Give the signal.”
Martin climbed over the fence and took a few steps forward.
This is it.
Turning over his shoulder at the expectant eyes, he gave a firm nod.
Then he turned back. Raised his arm.
And screamed.
As he charged forward, the screams of his legions charging behind him sprang him forward. The bombardment of their feet against the ground shook the fragile earth, carrying them toward their fate.
He was not alone.
Derek was at his side, running.
Humanity’s Hope were running at his trail.
Everyone was behind him.
Time to restore that
faith.
47
Jenny’s eyes broke at the sight of the man she loved so much.
Eddie lifted his arm, his nails extending into sharp claws. His eyes were fully dilated, filled with red. He lifted his claw to swipe at her.
He was going to kill her.
Eddie was going to kill her.
But surely, if that was true… he would have done it by now?
“Please, Eddie,” she begged. “Please, I know you are in there. Stop this.”
Jenny fell to her knees. Unsure whether it was anxiety, exhaustion, despair, whatever it was – she just couldn’t stand up anymore. Her knees were too weak.
Her temperament was too weak.
“Please Eddie, don’t do this,” she whimpered. “Don’t tease me with showing me your face, then use it to kill me.”
Her eyes flooded, her cries disappearing with the rain that continuously attacked her. Water was running furiously down her face, down her body. Her trousers were ripping from the frailty of the water, and her t-shirt had torn somewhere along the events of the night.
In a quick thought, she dug her arm into her bag, and produced a photo album.
The claw remained poised in the air, ready to swipe, ready to do permanent damage.
Jenny grabbed a photo out of the album, dropping it, then scooping it out of the puddle. The rain destroyed the material of the photograph almost straight away, but this did not deter her.
She held the photo up to Eddie’s eyes, hovering it before him. His breath was still deep and croaky, blowing her hair back in ferocious gusts of wind.
“Look, look!” she pleaded. “It’s you and me. As babies. With our parents. We met when we were babies, do you remember?”
The claw was still poised.
He hadn’t killed her.
She was still alive.
There was hope.
She dropped the photograph into the chaos of the weather and it faded away. Reaching into the album, the grabbed another one, lifting it up to him.
“This is us again, at this very swing set. Weren’t even teenagers, but already had such an understanding. You loved me. I loved you. This was how it was, how it always was.”
Eddie’s eyes focussed on the photo. Motionless, displaying a vacant, unfeeling expression.
Jenny couldn’t tell if it was working. It was difficult to make out any kind of expression in an expression that hadn’t changed one bit.
Whatever was going on inside, it was staying deep and buried.
I have to bring him out. I have to.
She clung to the next photograph, shoving it in his face.
“Here we are again. Me, you and Lacy. Remember Lacy? You said she was good for me, kept me calm. And you were so right. Me and Lacy, we have survived for so long.”
Her eyes broke, tears strewn down her face, her whole body shaking with anguish.
“I don’t think I could have survived my first relationship if it weren’t for you,” she furiously sobbed, barely able to articulate her words, her face too scrunched up with torment.
“Please, Eddie,” she tried. “Please come back. I can’t survive without you.”
Eddie’s eyes met hers, and she could tell he was there. She could feel him close by, his love and affection warming her frozen body.
It’s working.
She dropped the photograph and went searching for another one, pulling it out and thrusting it forward once more.
“And here, it’s us again. Me, you, and Cassy. Do you remember Cassy? Your sister?”
The beast didn’t move.
Eddie didn’t move.
“You loved her so much. You never recovered from her death, but still, you freed her. Freed her from a prince of hell. She’d still be being tortured right now, if it weren’t for you.”
She wiped her eyes along her arm, though it made no difference. The rain and the tears were too furious.
“Now you need to free yourself. From an heir of hell. You’ve done it for so many other people, you just need to do it for yourself. Please, Eddie, come on. I know you’re listening. I know you’re in there.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Lacy. Far down the path, limping forward, covered in mud.
She came. Lacy understood and she came.
Jenny held up a hand, warning Lacy to stay where she was.
Eddie went to turn his head, but Jenny quickly got his attention back.
“No, Eddie, look at me. Please, face me.”
Lacy paused, watching from afar. Jenny could see her eyes were about to break, that she was terrified.
But Jenny knew what Lacy didn’t. She knew that Eddie was in there, and she was succeeding, she was reaching him.
“Eddie, please. I miss you so, so much. You’ve been there my whole life, and now I’ve had to survive without you, and I just can’t. I can’t survive without you. I may as well be dead without you.”
She reached her hand out and gently placed it on the hideous, corrupted face before her.
Eddie didn’t flinch. He didn’t move. He allowed her to touch him, allowed her to feel the skin of what he had become.
“See, Eddie, it’s just us two. Just us.”
She heard a rumble in the distance, like loads of people were running. Defiant shouts accompanied the heavy steps.
Humanity’s Hope. They were here.
“Please, Eddie, we don’t have much time. That sound, it’s an army, come to kill you. You need to come back to me now. Otherwise, it’s too late. It needs to be now.”
She had now placed both hands on the side of his sticky, blood-drenched hair, staring into the eyes of a malicious creature, seeing only love and fear.
“Come on, Eddie,” she whispered closely to him. “It’s time to come home.”
The beast snarled.
“This is where you brought me. Our swings. Where we did all our talking. I know you love me.”
She peered into his torn eyes, seeing her best friend looking back at her.
She finally saw in his eyes what she had been so desperate to see.
He was there.
Eddie was there.
“Oh my God, Eddie, you’re back!” she celebrated, smiling uncontrollably. “I can’t believe you’re actually back.”
His eyes lingered on hers for one more moment.
His arm reached out, sending a long, sharp claw through Jenny’s heart.
Within a second, he had transformed back into the huge beast he really was.
The claws, the fangs, the fur. The dilated, blood-red pupils. The deep, croaking snarl of its breathing. The pure hatred in its eyes.
It reached out its jaw and sent its sharp teeth straight through Jenny’s neck, ripping her throat apart. It let out a growl that reverberated through the air and lifted its head back, throwing Jenny’s bloody flesh from his jaw, a spray of red staining the grass beneath her body.
Jenny’s eyes remained wide open, staring at the eyes of the heir of hell.
She collapsed to the floor in a pool of thick, red blood.
By the time the heir was done, the pieces of her body lay scattered, with barely anything left.
48
Lacy had never run so fast in her life.
Agonising pain shot up and down her leg, but she didn’t care. She ignored the limp and powered forward.
The beast went to attack her, too, just at the point Humanity’s Hope intervened. In an instant, the park was filled with fire, water, wind, levitation, flashing lights, miraculous sounds – everything one could think of.
But Lacy didn’t hear a single bit of it. It was merely a distant ringing her ears tuned out.
She skidded to her knees beside what remained of Jenny. She managed to grasp her head, leaning it on her lap.
“Come on, Jenny, come on,” she whimpered
She knew it was denial.
She’d had her throat ripped off and her torso torn upwards.
“Please, Jenny,” she muttered through despairing tears
.
She couldn’t tell the rain had drenched her. She couldn’t tell her pyjama trousers were ripped. She couldn’t even tell her arm was bleeding out of a gaping open wound.
What was left of Jenny didn’t move.
Jenny’s eyes were wide open, staring at the sky, unfaltering. But still, unmoved.
A large chunk of bone stuck out of the gaping hole that took up half of her neck. A large slit went up her chest, blood seeping out, body innards slowly sliding along the wet grass.
Lacy bowed her head and leant it against Jenny’s.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I was mad at you. I’m so, so sorry.”
It was no good.
Jenny couldn’t hear her.
Her damp sobbing was gone with the rain, floating away with the triumphantly violent wind.
Lacy looked up. The beast was in front of her, bombarded by the army Jenny had assembled with Derek.
Already, there were so many dead.
Multiple corpses lay strewn over the field. The inside of their bodies lay nearby in a bloody heap.
The beast was simply working its way through them.
“Who are you?!” Lacy screamed across the park at what used to be Eddie, going completely unnoticed.
Lacy turned her head in a quick motion as she threw up. Her head collapsed to the soaking grass. Her tears flew out like frantic waves in a hurricane.
She was gone.
Jenny was gone.
It had really happened.
But it couldn’t have. How could she be gone? How could she be here one moment, then not the next?
Lacy lifted her head and looked back at Jenny’s deadened eyes staring dormant back at her.
She gently brushed her hand down Jenny’s face, closing her eyes.
Lacy’s muddy trousers were covered in blood. Clumps of red stuck to her, having escaped from the open slit in Jenny’s body.
Lacy couldn’t move. She averted her eyes, fixating on a blade of grass that lay untouched.
If she looked away, it wasn’t true. She couldn’t see the proof. She could pretend it hadn’t happened.
If she never looked back, then maybe this would change.