by Tim Curran
He had no way to signal them. Not matches or anything else. Then he saw what he needed. The skull. There was a square of pavement down there that the cars had stopped at the edge of. He grabbed the skull and threw it, heard it smash far below.
Flashlights came on.
Good! Good!
They panned over the pavement until they found it. He sighed. There was no way in hell they would leave now.
The vertigo.
He stepped back towards the nest. His breath was coming fast, his entire body shaking. Here came the nausea and the cold sweats.
It’s coming. The beast is coming.
Too late to try the ladder now and he was certainly in no shape for it. He stumbled over to the mound, climbing up it until he was in roughly the same place as before. Then he made himself go limp.
He heard the thunder of its wings.
The tower seemed to shake.
Now the great wind.
The hot stink.
The beast settled into the nest and it was looking right at him.
21
It stood at the edge of the mound looking in his direction and Jim could see it perfectly in the light of the moon. It did not have a single set of wings, but two sets like a dragonfly. Both sets were spread wide and he could see the membranous flesh webbed between the bony digits. In a bat, he knew, this was called the patagium. It looked fine and gossamer, yet it must have had incredible tensile strength to keep the creature aloft. Beams of moonlight seemed to shine right through it and he could see the intricate network of veins and branching arteries. Its body was long and streamlined, rawboned like an exaggerated bat skeleton stretched with skin. Its ribs jutted like great arches, covered in inky pebbled flesh that glistened in places like quartz, a mat of tangled black fur growing from the underbelly. The bony digits that supported the wings grew out of the flesh into foot-long talons that were hooked like sickles. The feet were for grasping, but these were for tearing.
Its head was long and skull-like, set with hollows and protrusions and a spiky crest at the top. Rapier-like teeth intermeshed from the upper and lower jaws like those of crocodile. Two spikelike tusks hooked down from the upper jaw. Its eyes were bright red and luminous, translucent and somehow evil.
It moved forward, still watching him.
Jim laid there, trembling, his bladder feeling like it wanted to go. Any second now the piss would run down his leg and the beast would smell it and smell the fear on him. But then, if it had such a developed sense of smell, it would have easily picked up on the terror sweating out of him in rivers.
It climbed back onto the nest and settled into it, folding its wings down again.
Its stink was horrendous.
He waited.
There was nothing else he could do.
The beast began making guttural sounds about an hour later. It seemed nervous. It shifted its bulk almost constantly. One wing brushed over Jim’s face and it felt like oiled leather.
He heard a cracking sound soon after.
The egg was hatching.
22
What went on inside the nest he did not see and he was grateful for small favors. What he heard was bad enough—the cracking of the shell, the squishing, wriggling sounds, and the rubbery squeaking of the thing that crawled free. It went right up his spine. What was maybe even worse were the cooing noises the mother beast made as its progeny came into the world. They were no doubt simply the sounds of paternal devotion, but to him they were an absolute horror.
He did not move.
He barely breathed.
What followed were licking noises as the beast cleaned its child and readied it for the life it would soon lead. A life, he supposed, which was perfectly natural in its rhythms and probably even fascinating if he were to be viewing it on National Geographic, but being this close and smelling the stink of the mother and her hatchling and hearing the terrible sounds of their communion was almost too much.
Time passed slowly. About an hour later, the beast rose up and leaped off the edge of the platform. Jim gave it a few minutes to make sure it was really gone, then he slid down into the slime and felt the insects crawling on him again. He fought free, his back up against one of the horn antennas.
He heard a rustling from within the nest and as he gathered himself there, he saw the newborn beast emerge from the nest. He caught a glimpse of its glistening, scabrous head in the moonlight and the bulbous, rugose body that followed as it crept out, dragging itself with the slithering sounds of its folded wings.
It saw him immediately.
At least, it put its leering red eyes on him and opened its mouth, emitting a pulpous squealing as it pulled itself ever forward until it was atop the nest and slowly, slowly creeping down the mound itself. It was coming right for him. Like a baby turtle, it had emerged fully developed and hungry. And that’s when he knew why the beast had not killed him: he had been brought there as food for the squirming, winged larva that was even then bearing down on him.
Go now. The sound it’s making will bring back the mother.
He went over to the metal loops of the ladder and carefully eased his body out into the night, his feet searching for a rung and finding one…and slipping. His boots were greased from the grim slime of the nest and skidded. He slipped down, hanging on only by his hands…then his feet found another rung and he clung there, breathing heavily.
One foot at a time, he descended. Right foot on the rung, then the left. It was slow going but with what he’d already been through, he wasn’t about to throw it all away with a plunge to his death far below. He was tired. Not so much psychologically, though there was some of that too, but physically. His body was sore and aching and he badly needed to stretch out. Eighteen rungs down, he let himself rest. Two minutes, no more. He counted out 120 seconds and somewhere during the process, his eyelids began to close and his entire body felt heavy. It was more than he could handle. His knees began to buckle and his hands felt so weak he could barely grip the safety bars of the ladder.
Not now, you fucking moron. Don’t lose it now.
But I’m tired.
You can’t afford to be tired. You either get out now or you don’t get out at all.
I’ll try.
Do more than try.
Move!
His strength came back and he refused to let himself weaken again. He had to get to the ground. It would probably take a good hour. He wondered if the beast would give him that much time. Even when he got down there, he still had to make it across the pavement to the people waiting there and he didn’t even know if they really were there. Maybe they had left. If they were gone, it would mean God, whoever or whatever that was, really, really fucking hated him. That’s what it would mean.
Quit thinking and keep going.
They always said not to look down. There was nothing to see anyway in the darkness. So he looked up and was it his eyes or was that little monster peering down at him? Yes, he could see its head, plated and skullish, the moonlight shining off wrinkly, sagging skin. He could see its teeth shining. It almost seemed to be grinning at him.
“If I had a gun,” he said under his breath, “I’d fucking kill you right now.”
He kept descending. He was quite a distance from the top by then, but not far enough for his liking. He kept counting the rungs…sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four…and then he made himself stop because the repetitious counting made him sleepy. He couldn’t afford that. He concentrated instead on what he was doing. Every rung was that much closer to freedom. He was thankful it was night because if he looked down and saw how high he was, he might seize right up.
Oh Jesus, not now.
It was hitting him full on: the shakes, the sweats, the vertigo. His whole body was trembling now. The beast was coming back and he could feel its approach right down into his bones.
Hang on! Hang the fuck on!
He forced his muscles to obey. He clung there tightly as a strong, hot wind buffeted him and he could smell the foul stink
of the mother beast. He heard a thumping from above and knew that it had landed. He chanced a look up there, but he was too far down now. He couldn’t tell if the little one was watching him anymore or not.
His strength returned and his will to live was sharp and steely inside him. His hands gripped and his muscles flexed. He went down another rung. Then another and another. Five, then ten. And high above, he heard the beast roar with a wailing, screeching sort of sound that echoed into the night.
It knows.
It knows you’re gone.
Fuck it. Another rung. Two more. Three more. Four more. Then he felt the rush of wind again and this time it was much stronger. He could barely hang on. That fucking bitch is circling the tower. It’s looking for you. Another rung. Still another. Now the wind hit him full on, but instead of peeling him from the ladder it pressed him tighter to it. That’s when he heard a crack! that was so loud he gasped. At first he thought it was the tower coming apart, but no. It was the sound of a rifle, a booming of a heavy caliber weapon. Crack! Crack! Somebody was shooting at the beast. It had to be. The beast screeched and wheeled through the air and he saw its immense wings high above him as they dove down and crack! went the rifle and the beast was hit. He saw its flight path jag violently to the left as if it was out of control. It let out a shrill mewling sort of sound and he felt it fly past him, though far out in the night. The wind it brought was negligible.
He went down another rung.
Then another.
Those people were still down there and they were targeting the beast. That was the good news. The bad news was that he kept tensing, waiting for a stray round to punch a hole through him. He heard them crying out down there and he bet the beast was swooping them. There was a crunching of metal and a shattering of glass, a crashing sound. In his mind, he knew it had attacked.
There was silence for maybe ten seconds, then crack! crack! The beast shrieked and this time he saw it, about thirty feet above him, clearly hit now and a hot spray of blood spattered his face. It was trying to veer away from the tower, but it hit it with incredible force.
The tower shook and Jim thought the whole thing was going to come down on him. He heard the sound of girders hitting the pavement far below. The tower still stood.
The beast was up there, clinging to the tower like a bat to a curtain.
It was moving.
It was climbing down.
He almost lost it right there. It felt like his insides were flooded with ice water. His bladder let go finally and warm piss—it actually felt hot in the chill night—soaked his pants, steaming in the air. Maybe the beast was injured and maybe it was even dying, but it planned on doing one last thing and that was to kill him.
He kept going, rung after rung.
Above, the black hulk of the creature was getting closer and closer. What had taken him forty-five minutes or more, the beast accomplished in three or four. The moon foolishly chose that moment to escape the clouds above, illuminating the tower and illuminating the mass of the beast that was only fifteen feet above him now. He could feel the feverish heat coming off it in waves, smell the burning sulfurous stench of its breath. It lifted its head and the jaws yawned wide, moonlight winking off its immense teeth that were like stabbing swords, the huge leonine tusks. Slime dripped from its mouth in ribbons and he felt a strand break against his face and he screamed.
Within three or four breaths, it would have him.
Crack! went the rifle and he actually heard the slug tear through the beast. It cried out in agony, a mist of meat and blood engulfing him. The tower shook and he felt the creature pass within feet of him as it plummeted down, down. He waited excitedly for the sound of its carcass to smash on the pavement, but it never came. There was a whoosh of air and he saw it high above, flying against the face of the moon. Then the thudding of its feet as it landed up on the platform.
Move!
He kept climbing down, his heart rattling in his chest. Twenty more rungs, then thirty, then forty. Then a flashlight beam was on him.
“Hey!” a voice cried out. “It’s fucking Jim!”
He knew that voice. It was Shiner.
“C’mon, you’re almost there! Keep going, man!”
He could feel the earth reaching up to him now and he was going to make it. He was really going to make it. Then he did. He stepped onto the pavement but he couldn’t believe it was real. Then hands took hold of him. It was Pettis and Shiner. They were half-carrying him and half-dragging him across the pavement which, he saw, had once been a parking lot but was now cracked open and sprouting weeds.
“See,” a voice said. “I told you it was him.”
23
The rest of the night passed in a surreal blur. The shooter was Reese. She had a big Barrett .50 caliber rifle with a night scope and she knew how to use it.
“You grow up on a Minnesota farm, you’d be surprised what you pick up,” she said when he asked.
She had decided, much like Jim himself, that it was time to face down the beast. So she had gotten the Barrett from a survivalist friend and come out with Pettis and Shiner. Pettis said he already had it pretty much figured out that the top of the old radio tower had to be the lair of the beast.
“It was the highest point,” he said.
After Reese had hit the creature a few times, it had indeed swooped them. The mangled corpse of her Dodge Neon was the result. “Man, my insurance company is going to have kittens when I call in this one,” she said.
Jim told them everything that had happened. He was tired, exhausted really, but being with them gave him strength and the words flowed out of him.
“Sorry about your friend, man,” Pettis said. “Sounds like she was a great lady.”
Reese hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “Now, let’s quit with waterworks here. I have to be ready, Freddy.” Balancing the Barrett atop the hood of Pettis’ SUV, she studied the top of the tower through the scope.
“Anything?” Pettis asked her.
“Nada.”
“Shit,” Shiner said. “We bagged a cryptid…but how the hell do we get it down?”
There was nothing else to do. The night passed as Pettis and Shiner talked thunderbird tales and Reese smoked and stared through her scope. Jim nodded off three or four times, always coming awake in a wild panic to find the hands of friends mellowing him down.
“It’s gotta be dead,” Shiner said. “It hasn’t moved up there in hours.”
“It ain’t gotta be nothing,” Reese told him.
Pettis went into a monologue about how things that were supposed to be extinct didn’t go extinct and how things that couldn’t possibly survive managed to survive just fine.
“Don’t underestimate nature,” he said.
“You think it’s still alive then?” Shiner said.
“Could be.”
“So what’s our plan?”
“When it’s light, we go up there.”
Shiner shook his head. “I don’t do heights. I’m not climbing up there.”
“That would take too long. I have a friend with a chopper who can be out here in half an hour. We’ll go up there for a look-see with that.”
So they waited.
Just before dawn, when the eastern sky had gone an indigo blue, there was activity up on the tower platform.
“Shit, it’s still alive,” Shiner said.
“As alive and randy as my hot little ovaries,” Reese said.
They all saw what happened next.
The beast leapt off the tower and flapped its wings, soaring higher and higher. The noise was rumbling thunder. It carried something with it. As they watched, it flew to the east until it was just a blur then didn’t exist at all.
“There goes our fucking cryptid,” Shiner said. “And the baby.”
“No matter. That platform up there is loaded with physical evidence and DNA tracings. I want that eggshell and anything else I can secure before the police make a mess of it.”
; They jumped into his SUV and drove until they hit Route 50, nobody saying a thing as they passed the wreck of Nina’s Land Rover and what lay in the sand beyond it, buzzards already investigating. Out on the highway, Pettis got cell reception and got his friend with the chopper moving.
“Nobody’s going to say we imagined this,” he told them. “Not when I get my evidence, my egg, and my photos.”
They left Shiner and him there at the side of the road. They began walking back into the desert where his friend with the chopper would pick them up.
“Where to now, Jimmo?” Reese asked.
“Let’s got to my place.”
“Ooooo…the house is gonna be rockin.”
He sighed. “I gotta get cleaned up. Then we’re going to call Vicki Addis. She’s a cop.”
“She ain’t gonna like it much.”
“She’ll like it even less when she sees that nest up there and starts thinking about what made it.”
About the Author
Tim Curran hails from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, Hag Night, The Devil Next Door, Long Black Coffin, Graveworm, Skull Moon, Nightcrawlers, and Biohazard. His short stories have been collected in Bone Marrow Stew and Zombie Pulp. His novellas include Fear Me, The Underdwelling, The Corpse King, Puppet Graveyard, Sow, Leviathan, Worm, and Blackout. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, as well as anthologies such as Dead Bait, Shivers IV, World War Cthulhu, and, In the Court of the Yellow King. His fiction has been translated into German, Japanese, and Italian. Find him on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/tim.curran.77.
About the Publisher
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.