The Auld Mither
Page 6
A shadow moved quickly across the ceiling.
“Enough already. I’m here,” Roberts shouted.
A soft singsong voice spoke at his ear.
“So am I.”
Slash.
Roberts grunted as a handful of razors were embedded in his belly.
He tried to speak, but only bubbles of blood came out.
Slash!
Roberts opened from groin to sternum.
~-o0O0o-~
Dave burst into the boardroom to find Lucy sitting at the table. He’d spent the last half-hour hoping against hope he wouldn’t be too late, and had almost frightened a poor cab driver to death with his screamed demands to go ever faster. By the time he arrived at the boardroom he was flushed and out of breath.
She looked up from a pile of papers on the table.
“Oh.....I suppose you’ve changed your mind?” she said. “Well you’re too late. I’ve told the staff I’m taking over. They took it rather well I thought I...” She stopped, stunned as Dave grabbed her and started to drag her out of the room. “Stop it. You’re hurting me.”
I’ve got no time to explain.
He responded by dragging her faster. She squealed in pain as he felt something wrench in her shoulder.
“Sorry,” he finally managed to say, but didn’t stop dragging her out into the corridor. “But we have to get out of here. We...”
At the far end of the corridor a black shape scuttled into view, little more than a shadow. The sound of clacking bones echoed along the narrow passage.
Shit! Out of time.
He turned to Lucy. She was looking at him as if he had gone insane.
Maybe I have.
“I want the factory,” he said before he had a chance to change his mind. The sound of clacking bones turned to drumming, the walls shaking as the Mither beat her rhythm against them.
“Quick. We’re out of time. Can I have it?”
Lucy looked puzzled.
“Of course you can...didn’t I say so?”
“Say it again.”
“The factory’s yours if you want it.”
Dave shouted along the corridor.
“Do you hear that? It’s mine. I want it.”
He turned and ran, leaving a bemused Lucy staring after him.
Dave looked back. The black shadow of the Hag scuttled along the corridor, coming fast. White-boned fingers scraped gouges into the walls, the scraping cutting through Dave, a high screech that rose and rose until it howled like a storm in his head. He could do nothing but flee, down long empty corridors with the Hag chasing. He looked back again, just once.
She’s catching me.
The thought gave him added impetus. He burst through an exterior door and sprinted outside. The sun was just starting to go down, and black shadows loomed all around. Behind Dave there was a clack of bone, still getting louder. He turned and ran again -- straight at the large double door of a shed.
Suddenly everything went quiet.
The door was slightly open and the sound it made when he pushed the sliding doors open echoed loudly in the night. He slipped inside, trying to keep quiet, but the noise of the door opening had woken the shed’s occupants. There was a shuffling and a sudden lowing.
Several hundred pairs of dead eyes turned and stared at him. The deer were packed in rows, so tight that flank and rear touched, rears stained and packed hard in brown, vile muck.
Clack!
Bones clattered behind him.
Dave turned. The Hag was right there behind him in the doorway.
“Are ye your father’s son?” she said. “Or are ye your own man? Are ye a butcher?” Razor sharp fingers waved in front of him once more, clacking together like diabolical scissors. “Or are ye a herdsman? Make your mind up.”
Dave looked at the bones, and then back up at those unblinking blue eyes.
“My father didn’t deserve what you did to him!”
The Hag didn’t reply. With a wave of her arms she indicated the animals in the pens. “Are ye a herdsman or a butcher?”
She waved the bony hand in front of his face again, and bones clattered.
Like father like son? Bugger that for a lark.
“I’m my own man,” he said, realising, almost for the first time, that he actually believed it. He moved through the shed, opening all the locks. Many of the animals seemed unable to move, but with a bit of coaxing he got them out of the shed and herded them into the field beyond.
Clack!
The bones clattered behind him. He turned to face the Hag.
“Now you’re a herdsman,” she said. “Your own man.”
She lowered her head and bowed to him, twice, before heading off across the field. The herd followed her, heading over the brow of the hill, their forms outlined in black against the deep red sky beyond.
The Auld Mither looks after her own.
~-o0O0o-~
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