JACK RETURNED from yet another visit to the table, clutching two cake bars. He rejoined his sister on the bed and handed one to her.
‘Are we going to be okay?’ Jilly asked.
‘I think so,’ he said, ‘they seem really nice, don’t they.’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘they are really nice.’
He smirked. ‘Yes. Yes they are…’
They unwrapped their cakes, and took a bite in unison. ‘I’d be happy to live in here, forever,’ Jill said, looking about the dingy stable.
‘Me too,’ he agreed, laughing at how sad that would probably seem to anyone from this new world. ‘Did you see where they live! The nice things they have?’ He turned saddened eyes down at his lap. ‘Why couldn’t we have lived here, instead of – of that place?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jill. ‘Hey!’ she barked, optimistically. ‘Now we do.’
Jack allowed a smile to douse his sadness.
The door of the stable began to rattle against its frame. Jack ceased chewing, and shoot an urgent look across to his sister…
The door rattled again, this time with far too much intensity to just be the wind.
Jack turned to face the door, and shuffled in front of Jill.
The door started to shake, the deadlock clattering in its staple.
Jack’s adrenalin spiked. He readied himself to throw all he had at anything coming through the door.
‘Jack? Are you there?’ asked a voice filtering through the wood. They recognised it, it was Sam’s.
The twins released their collectively held breaths. Jack lunged from the bed and slid back the lock.
The door swung out into the night. Sam and Lucy’s theatrically happy faces appeared around the edge. ‘I hope we aren’t disturbing you?’ asked Lucy. ‘We were sort of passing, so we thought we’d come and check on you both, and see that you didn’t need anything. Do you need anything?’
Jill watched Lucy’s face from the bed, fascinated by the compassionate gleam in her eyes. She nodded quietly in response to Lucy’s question.
‘What is it, Jilly?’ asked Lucy. ‘What is it you need?’
Jill wore a look of sad submission. Lucy walked around and sat next to her. ‘What is it, my love?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter?’
Jill looked hesitant. ‘W-Why are you helping us?’
Lucy baulked at the absurdity of the question. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, straining to imagine a reason why they wouldn’t.
‘Well. Why would you? You don’t really have a reason to?’
Pity tugged lightly at the corners of Lucy’s mouth. ‘Yes we do,’ she asserted, ‘it’s because we care. And besides, we have no other choice now do we. We’ve both kind of grown to love you.’
A single tear broke free from Jill’s glistened eye, and meandered down her cheek, the saline taste of her gratitude wetting the corner of her mouth.
Lucy wiped the tear clear with her thumb, and caressed her face. ‘It’s going to be okay,’ she murmured, ‘we’ll never let anything hurt you ever again. That’s a promise.’
Lucy could plainly see the pain of the lives they’d both been forced to live, just by the lost expression behind Jill’s eyes. She stood to join Sam back at the door, and noticed Jack’s eyes were also a cerulean blue. She felt surprised that she only just noticed. Being female, it was the kind of detail that rarely passed her by.
‘Well, we’ll see you both tomorrow,’ she reassured them, ‘so sleep well, and sweet dreams.’ She looked to Jill. ‘…Love you,’ she whispered.
Jill beamed her gratitude.
They left through the door, and waited until they heard the lock slip back across, then made their way up the bank towards Sam’s house.
Lucy began to sob. She’d allowed herself to absorb too much of the sadness she saw beyond Jill’s eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sam – a cursory question, as he already knew the answer. Lucy was apt to feel the emotion she saw in others. She’d always been an ultimately compassionate person, able to feel every stab of pain and suffering she could see worn desperately across the faces of others. Sam considered it must be both a gift, and a curse, and in equal measures.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and gave her a squeeze, a reminder in pressure form that he was there for her.
They reached the top of the green, and turned to step through the break in the fence that cut onto the path.
Sam stopped, turning his attention to an area of the lawn shaded from the moonlight by the limbs of a sprawling oak.
He leaned in, attempting to see through the murk… He sensed something lurking beneath the umbrella of the shadows, crouched to the ground, watching them pass.
‘Hello?’ he called, in a voice laced with disquiet… but there was no answer.
‘Is everything okay?’ asked Lucy, who was wondering where he’d gone.
‘Yes… It’s fine,’ he muttered – still peering into the darkness and sounding anything but convincing. He turned back to join her, and smiled to waylay her concern. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, ‘just my imagination running riot.’
She linked his arm, and they stepped through the dilapidated fence. Sam darted a last look back over his shoulder, shaking his head clear of the notion.
They finally arrived at Sam’s cottage, but his father’s Land Rover was nowhere to be seen. ‘Are they not back yet?’ asked Lucy.
‘Apparently not?’ he replied. ‘Maybe they’re up at your place.’
Sam swung the workshop door open and began replacing the tools they’d borrowed. Lucy stepped up to help. ‘Maybe we need to get my grandmother involved, you know, in revealing Jill and Jack?’ she suggested. ‘I think Mum and your dad are more likely to listen to her.’
Sam ceased tidying to consider the idea… ‘It’s not a bad thought,’ he said, ‘by what you’ve told me, she does seem to know quite a bit about what’s going on with that place already.’
He finished redistributing the last of the tools, and they turned and left.
‘So, I’ll see you tomorrow?’ said Lucy.
‘Yep, see you tomorrow.’
Lucy leant forwards on pointed toes, and placed a kiss lightly on his cheek, then turned her abashment away, and began to saunter up the path.
Sam watched her snake away through the woodlands until she was no longer visible, and turned to go inside…
Lucy ambled with zero conviction along the tree-lined path that climbed to the gatehouse, smiling wryly to herself at how happy the new arrivals seemed, and how readily they were both taking to their new environment.
A wave of rustling leaves ran the gauntlet through the tunnel of trees, hissing past Lucy to the tune of a whistling breeze racing along the path.
She watched the ripple fizz past and disappear up the bank, until the air fell silent.
The sharp crack of a fracturing branch split the silence from deep in the gallery of twigs behind her. She spun around and looked down into the gloom of the unlit path… She peered into the darkness, listening…
Another wave of wind-agitated leaves fizzled past Lucy’s scrutinising, filling the air with its white-noise hiss.
Lucy listened intensely for any sound alien to the fizz of the whispering vegetation. ‘Sam, is that you?’ she called – but there was no reply to be heard above the gossiping leaves.
Uneasy – she turned back up the bank and speeded up her walk…
She finally exited the trees just in time to see Peter drive down the lane from the gatehouse. She heard the slam of the front door. ‘Where on earth have they been all this time?’ she murmured into the night.
Lucy slowly climbed the steps to the entrance, and presented an ear to the door. She could hear her mother inside, calling her name. She swung the door open, trying to act nonchalant. Her mother pirouetted round from midway up the staircase, her face racking with concern. ‘And where the hell have you been?’ she asked in a decidedly assailing manner.
‘What do you mean? I’ve been out,’ she replied. ‘And anyway, I could ask where you’ve been all this time?’ she spat in retaliation.
Her mother flushed a look manifesting far more guilt than Lucy. ‘Nowhere, I-I just had some things to do.’
‘What, with Peter?’
‘Her mother stuttered at the mention of Peter. ‘Y-Yes, with Peter…’ she snapped, slipping her coat off and hanging it over the banister. She made her way into the kitchen and headed for the fridge.
Lucy’s curiosity peaked at her mother’s out-of-character behaviour. She watched her from the lobby.
Her mother took a half-empty bottle of Pino from the door of the refrigerator, and poured herself a glass. Lucy frowned, her mother rarely ever drank on her own. ‘Is everything alright?’ Lucy asked.
‘Of course,’ Helen jabbed – agitated. She took a seat at the table. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
Her mother clocked the harshness in her own voice, and set the glass down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, ‘I shouldn’t talk to you like that.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘It’s just…’ She paused. ‘Is there something, anything you would like to talk to me about? Or-Or tell me, or ask?’
Lucy frowned, wondering what prompted such a question. ‘Well – there was one thing I wanted to ask you,’ she said, plying her words with butter softness.
‘Okay… Go on?’
Lucy drew a chair out and took a seat opposite. She sat, silent, composing her question. ‘When I was born, was it just me? Or, or did I have a twin? You know, that maybe didn’t make it?’
Helen’s whole face gasped. ‘What? No… Of course not.’
Lucy’s eyes crimped with suspicion. ‘You would tell me if I did,’ she said, ‘you know, if I would have had – say – a brother?’
Helen stared back at Lucy’s expectant face. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said. ‘What on earth has bought this on?’
Lucy fought to hide her scepticism, her mother’s apparent bewilderment failing to ring true. She decided to push no further, and shook her head to mark the end of her attempts at interrogation. ‘I guess it’s nothing,’ she said, ‘don’t worry about it.’
Lucy stood and made her way up the staircase to her room.
Helen watched her leave, feeling dismayed… ‘Lucy?’ she called, but Lucy didn’t respond.
The bedroom door clacked shut.
*
Lucy lay motionless in her contemplation of the day that had been. She had much to mull over, and truths to try and discern from apparent curtains of deception.
If Jill was the other-world’s version of her, where did Jack fit in? Was her mother lying? Did she in fact have a brother that didn’t make it through the birthing process? Or did it, but everyone – for some reason – is hiding it.
She realised they might be answers she’d be better off attempting to extract from her grandmothers lips, her mother’s mouth seeming impenetrably buttoned up tight.
She was pulled from her thoughts by the chatter of squirrel claws scrabbling over the rooftop. She smiled, happy to be distracted from questions she couldn’t yet answer. ‘Knock it off,’ she shouted, ‘don’t you lot have beds to go to? Or nests? Or whatever it is you tree rats call home!’
The sounds of scratching claws were replaced by the subtly laboured creaks of her mildly wine-dosed mother climbing the staircase… She reached the top, and Lucy sensed her hovering outside her door, she lay perfectly still, not yet ready or desiring to talk about the matters that lay uneasy on her mind.
Her mother’s shadow eventually departed the slither of light beneath the door, and the landing went dark.
Lucy listened to the gentle brush of her mother’s bedroom door skimming the carpet as she quietly shut herself away for the night, hailing the end of her day…
Lucy continued lying perfectly still, the moonlight filtering through her curtains. She could hear the groan of the floorboards next door, following the creak-pattern of her mother’s set routine: her walk to the bedside table, and the click of the switch as she flicked on the light, then the slow walk back across to her dressing table, stepping hesitantly as she fumbled to unclip her earrings. She hovered there for a time, thumb nailing the clips and catches of the rest of her jewellery, and the porcelain chink as they were dropped into the china pot she kept them in.
The chair from under the table was drawn out, and she could hear her begin to undress, draping her clothes neatly over the back of the seat.
The routine now usually went one of two ways – either she’d walk three paces to the chest of draws and take out a fresh nighty, or six to the side of bed to dig out the current one from beneath the duvet. She heard three paces and the draw slide out, it must be time for a fresh one…
In time, her mother climbed into bed, and shuffled to get comfortable. There was the second click as she flicked off the lamp, and the house finally fell still and silent.
Lucy embraced the stillness, a most welcomed, and stark contrast to the turmoil of the day. Her lids grew leaden.
She woke to the scratch of the squirrels returning for a repeat performance, clawing over the roof tiles. ‘Come on guys, give it a rest,’ she complained under her breath.
She heard them again, scratching across the slates, but it was not the usual scamper that she was used to hearing, the scrit of the claws seemed much slower than she was used to.
The roof suddenly groaned beneath a loading of weight far greater than that of any tree-dwelling rodent. Lucy jolted fully awake!
The roof complained again, this time, right above her head. She peered from under her bedclothes towards the ceiling, following the sound, as whatever was on the roof crawled towards the eves.
She jumped from her bed, and shied back from the sound. It was now right above the doors that opened out onto her balcony. She sensed the weight leave the roof, and whatever it was now scraping down the outside wall.
She saw a shadow pass behind the curtains, lowering silently onto the raised terrace behind!
Lucy stood in the dark, prone, apprehensively watching the drapes hanging over the doors. There was a hesitant squeal from behind the curtains, amplified by Lucy’s inflating fears, cleaving through the silence like a saw through skin. Something was turning the handle!
Did I lock it?! she said under her breath. She thought she did. But she couldn’t be sure?
The squealing ceased, and everything went quiet again… A new sound replaced the squealing, a hollow, scratching sound. Short, sporadic bursts. Resonating through the glass of the doors. Lucy stood frozen, glued to the floor.
She broke free the bonds of her fear, and began shuffling towards the noise, trying desperately to think of just one untroubling thing that could possibly be making such a sound. The scratching continued…
She extended a trembling hand towards the curtains, and parted them slightly with her fingers. Tentatively, she offered her eye to the gap…
Her pupil flicked around through the parting, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. The scratching started again, her eye snapped to the source, and dilated! She saw a single, sinewy finger levering the putty from around the glass with its chipped nail.
She shook, shrinking back from the door, face tight with fear. She began sobbing uncontrollably. ‘Please, God, no!’ she whimpered. The scratching intensified.
Lucy looked about the floor for her trainers. She spied them, and quickly slipped them on.
She fought hard to force back the tears that begged to run free, desperately needing herself fully together and ‘with it’.
The scraping stopped… Lucy held a breath… The silence sat for what felt like an eternity.
Lucy started to shuffle back towards the moonlit drapes, watching for signs of movement.
She parted the curtains again, and offered up her eye… A drawn, emaciated, skeletal face was staring straight back at her, its bulimic lips drawn back from calcite teeth. She screamed!
The thing drew back, and threw itself violently at the glass. It shattered into the room, sending slithers of glass spinning into Lucy’s face! It began smashing itself repeatedly against the window, buckling the netting of lead strip that had held the panes of glass solid for three hundred years.
It reached its arm through one of the holes, and tried grabbing for Lucy, ripping the curtain from the rail. They fluttered to the ground, unveiling the full horror: The thing, the entity, the monster was now in her world, and it knew where she was!
It twisted its face against the lead-netting, trying to force its way in. Lucy looked around. She grabbed her phone and a bottle of scent from her chest-of-draws, and thundered from the room.
‘Lucy! What the bloody-hell is going on?!’ screamed her mother from the comfort of her bed.
Lucy didn’t answer, all she could think about, was getting the thing away from the house, and away from her mother.
She careened down the staircase, grabbed for the lock, and rattled through the main doors, clearing the steps in one leap, darting a look up towards her balcony. The thing was already clambering down the wall towards her. She screamed and instantly upped her pace.
Helen burst into Lucy’s room, slapping at the light switch, faltering back away from the sight of the shattered window that greeted her confusion.
Lucy sprinted down the bank, away from the visceral wail chasing her.
Her legs pumped as fast as they could. She could feel the hems of her pyjamas whipping at her ankles, the juddering reciprocation of her panicked breaths filling her ears.
She turned down the tree-lined path, and made for the fork. The thing followed.
Helen stumbled from the house just in time to see a dark, arachnid shape scuttle into the shadows of the trees. ‘Lucyyyyyyy!’ she screeched.
She ran back inside, and grabbed the phone from its base. She scrolled to Peter’s number, and frantically began stabbing her finger at the call button.
Lucy could sense the thing was gaining. She twisted the lid off the scent bottle and began splashing some of the contents behind her as she thundered down the bank.
She reached the fork, and hooked a left towards Hobswyke, flicking a glance behind her as she rounded the bend. The thing was now only fifty yards away and gaining fast.
She hurled the scent bottle up the path and ducked through the gap in the hedgerow. The bottle spun through the air, sprinkling its contents up the lane.
Lucy dropped to the ground, lying flat against the dew-laden grass, and held her breath…
The creature clamoured round the corner and slowed to a crawl. It dropped on all fours, and began to creep slowly along the path, sniffing the droplets of scent that peppered the tarmac.
Lucy cowered in the grass, crouched as small as she could make herself trying to melt into the earth.
She held the hand that had been holding the bottle as far away from the thing as she possibly could, for fear of it picking up the scent.
The creature raised its nose skyward and sniffed at the air. It turned in Lucy’s direction and extended its paper-thin nostrils towards her. They flexed at the breeze.
Emotionless eyes peered out into the darkness, searching out the girl who dared to invade its world… It turned away again, and with a hollow half-scream, set off up the lane.
Lucy drew a breath, and waited until she was sure the thing had gone, then rose gingerly from the grass, and edged back out onto the path.
She looked up the lane, but could see no sign of the cadaverous beast. She took a breath, and turned to make her way towards Sam’s house. She stopped herself, realising that she didn’t want to risk leading the thing to him.
She re-evaluated her options, then stepped back through the hedgerow and began making her way across the lawn towards an abandoned farm situated on the farthest side of the grounds. It’d been lying empty for decades, and she felt sure it would be a safe place to hide.
She took her phone from her pocket, and typed a message for Sam:
MALLETTE’S HERE!!! He’s chasing me!
I’m making my way to the old farmstead to hide, can you meet me there with Jill and Jack, I think he might easily find them at the stable.
Please hurry… I’m afraid.
She continued across the field, turning the occasional look back to check she wasn’t being followed.
Her phone rang out, the shrill jingle filling the frigid, night air. Her panicked fingers scrambled to swipe it silent again.
An excruciating shriek erupted from the trees behind her, and the thing exploded through the undergrowth and began barrelling across the grass towards her.
Her bones turned to gossamer, and with a whimper, she sprinted for the far side of the field, not daring to look back, sucking in petrified breaths through gritted teeth…
She finally reached the gate. It hung, twisted off its hinges, the wet, rotted wood pulled from the rusted bolts by the softness of its decaying fibres and the forces of gravity.
She stumbled over it on panicked legs, breaking it free of its final fixings. It thumped onto the ground sending Lucy careening across soil, baked solid by the relentless beating of the sun’s radiation.
She staggered to her feet again, and ran into the cobbled yard. It was encircled by an eclectic mix of derelict buildings: the farmhouse was on her right, brick-built animal pens to her left, and ahead of her, an old timber barn with a large hayloft above it.
Her eyes flickered about the space, trying desperately to make a decision where best to run…
She heard wheezing, anaerobic breaths fast approaching the gate. She shuddered, turned and darted for the house.
Lucy skidded to a stop and squatted by the door. She stretched up to try the handle – it turned. It wasn’t locked. She strained to open the door as quietly as she could, stepping inside, and with a nudge, closed it quietly behind her…
She found herself in the kitchen, and nearly started to gag on the fetid stench of mildew and damp rot clouding the air. She pulled the neck of her pyjamas up, over her nose in an attempt to filter the throat-burning atmosphere.
Lucy heard a sound outside, and crouched down beneath a window. She slowly lifted her eyes above a sill encrusted with twenty years of dust and the desiccated shells of dead insects.
Peering out from the grime-streaked glass, she saw ‘It’, crouched in the centre of the courtyard.
She studied the creature, hunched in the white-light of a full moon. It was the first chance she’d had to properly see it since they’d first encountered it. It seemed to have on some form of clothing, but it was difficult to see where it started and ended: damp, thread bare, and heavy with dirt and grime. It shuddered with rage, and strode across the cobbles. The parchment-thin skin on its legs rippling atop clustered strands of malnourished muscle fibres, racking the length of its tortured bones. They twitched and flinched with every stride it made in its search for Lucy.
She dropped down again, and anxiously scanned the room for options, then, reached up carefully slipping the latch on the door.
Keeping low – she hurried across the kitchen and ducked through into the living room, and crept to the window to check the whereabouts of the thing… She saw it, still in the yard, but now, it had turned and was making its way towards the house!
‘Shit!’ she spat, looking around for any avenue of escape. There was a back door ahead of her, and she could only prey it wasn’t locked.
Fleet feet ran across the damp carpet, the soles of her shoes slapping against the waterlogged pile. Gingerly, she twisted the handle, and the door popped free from its frame. She exhaled her relief, pulling the handle towards her… The oil-starved hinges cracked, shattering the silence.
There was a heavy thud from the far side of the kitchen. The thing was at the door, trying to break through.
Lucy gripped the handle, and heaved it towards her. It graunched open, announcing her location to anything within a half-mile radius.
The thumping behind her intensified. Lucy ducked through into a yard overun with coils of thick-bramble and horsetail. She had no other choice than to try and manoeuvre through them.
She weaved carefully through their tangle, flexing loops of thorn-encrusted bough clear of her bare arms and face with hesitant, pinching fingers, threading her way through the rings of woody teeth. The thumping continued, intensifying, but the door was still holding fast.
Lucy could see she was nearly through, and bent the last coils back away from her face.
There was a splintering crash from inside the cottage. Lucy shuddered at the savagery of the sound! She panicked.
Throwing caution to the wind, she made a run for it, snagging her forearms as she burst from the razor-sharp thicket.
She turned and snapped a look behind her. It wasn’t through the door yet.
Lucy sprinted along the back of the house, and around the side, past small brick-built outbuildings. She spied the cobbled courtyard ahead of her, and made a frantic dash for it.
She exited into the opening, desperately searching for a new place to hide, spying the animal pens across the way, and started towards them.
Lucy heard a seething, hollow, breathing on her left from the far end of the cottage. She froze, and turned to look… The thing had run back through the house and was now standing by what remained of the main door of the cottage, watching her.
Hot, liquid warmth trickled down her thighs, and she had a feeling she’d left her own body.
It extended itself slowly towards her. She felt unable to move, glued to the ground, frozen in fear in the flat, light of the moon.
The creature suddenly stopped advancing, and crouched, squinting its emotionless eyes as if examining her… It twisted its gaze, studying its prey…
Its angular face stretched wide, and it raised a limb, thrusting a needle-straight digit towards her. ‘Helllll…’ it hissed.
Lucy managed to unfreeze her legs, and turned to run, sprinting away to the animal sheds.
She flicked a terrified glance behind her, the emaciated figure was still standing there, watching her run, and Lucy was sure she saw what looked to be a look of confusion on its moonlit face.
She clambered over the railing and dropped inelegantly into a maze of rusted gates and fenced-off pens. She struggled to her feet, and meandered deep into the unlit labyrinth, trying to lose herself in the confusion of steel tubes.
She spied a darkened corner, and made for it, stumbling over the last of the gates and sinking into the gloom.
Lucy sat huddled, and scooped a few armfuls of the damp, rotted hay carpeting the floor over her, hoping the stench would mask her fear-scented skin.
She watched from her tenebrous hiding place, barely daring to draw breath…
A long, slender shadow began to lengthen into the pens. The thing – silhouetted by the cold, lunar glow – crept hesitantly into sight.
It stopped shy of the railings, crouched, and sniffed the steel… Lucy noticed a moment of recognition in its gaunt features, and sank lower into the moulding hay.
The creature leaned in, scanning the darkness for Lucy, the scent of her fear hanging fresh in its nose.
It clambered over the railing like a cellar spider, unfurling its limbs into the maze of animal pens.
Lucy stiffened, trying in vain to sink through the floor. It smelled the next set of bars, and clambered over them…
The creature methodically unravelled it gangly limbs through the maze of steel towards Lucy’s hiding place, searching her out through the pitch-black, moulding atmosphere. Methodically, it reeled in the distance between them. Lucy sat utterly helpless, and started to make peace with the realisation that this was the end of her time in this world.
Serious contemplation of rising into the creatures waiting arms grew strong in her mind, as if in accepting her fate, she could at least feel in some part that she ended her days on her own terms.
The creature climbed over the final set of railings and lowered itself into Lucy’s pen. She shut her eyes, and exhaled her desire to carry on living, releasing the last of her considerable fight, awaiting a destiny that she’d run out of avenues to escape from…
‘Oi!’ yelled a voice from the far end of the shed. The thing rose into a shard of moonlight, and turned to see what dared to interrupt its search.
Sam, Jack and Jilly were stood at the furthest end of the pens, shocked at seeing the creature in their realm, but their desire to save a friend overwhelmed any fears they may have had, and counter-intuitively, they called to it – taunting. ‘Hey, you, over here,’ they screamed.
It leered at their arrogance, baring blackened teeth, chattering its broiling anger.
Lucy saw her chance, and crawled quietly away behind its averted anger. She saw a gap in the rotted timbers and slid under the fencing and struggled to her feet, running from the shed into the freshness of the night air.
Sam, Jack and Jilly saw Lucy slink away and hovered, observing the skeletal figure looming in the shadow, but it just stood, watching them watching it.
Sam felt perplexed. The thing, the creature, Mallette, or whatever best described it, seemed far less relentless in its disposition than it had been on their first encounter.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Jill.
‘I-I-I don’t know,’ replied Sam, ‘I’m afraid my plan ended when I shouted “Oi”.’
The thing began to clamber over the railings in their direction, like the spider from hell that it was, eyes locked solid on the three of them. ‘Boyyyyy…’ it wheezed – rivers of drool running from its mouth.
Jack shied from his old moniker, the other two followed suit.
They all turned and ran, making their way hastily around the back of the shed.
They could hear the creature begin thundering over the railings to follow, the clatter of its bony limbs ringing loud through the miles of hollow tubing.
They turned the corner at the end of the building, and saw Lucy waiting for them over by the doors of the barn, frantically waving at them to follow…
They sprinted to the entrance to join her side, just happy to see her alive. They all entered a vast space filled to the rafters with antiquated machinery: early tractors, industrial bandsaws, threshing machines, reversible ploughs, balers, flails, all sharing a time-inherited coating of powdery brown rust.
‘We need to hide,’ whispered Sam. They hurriedly made their way further in, prompted by the sounds of the rapidly advancing beast.
They weaved deep in amongst the museum of obsolete equipment, snaking through the lanes running between each city-block of abandoned machinery.
They all split up and hid…
Sam stepped up onto the front of a tractor. He rolled his face from behind the radiator grill, and watched the entrance.
The thing’s twisted shadow extended through the doorway, its twisted limbs extending into the barn, peering suspiciously around the frame. It could smell them all through the lingering aroma of old grease and coagulated oil.
It sunk down onto its hands and crabbed sideways into the shadows, twisting its face close to the ground, seeking a telltale glimpse of feet beneath the acre of forgotten apparatus.
All four of them stood perched on different objects, lifting their feet clear of the ground. Sam looked across to Lucy. ‘Are you okay?’ he mouthed.
Her brows crumpled. ‘No,’ she mimed in response, looking close to tears.
Sam wrapped his fingers around one of the tractor’s cracked tyres to steady himself, and crouched between his bent knees, twisting his head down to peek through the maze of steering linkages he was balanced on… He could just about see the creature’s gangly limbs crawling through the machinery graveyard towards them. It looked to be heading straight towards Jack’s hiding place.
Sam noticed a few old bolts scattered on the ground, and leaned out to grab one.
He quietly rose again to look over the tractor. He could see a clear path to the entrance. He looked about the room, seeking an escape option, and saw one.
He extended his arm back, then hurled the rusting chunk of metal towards the doors…
It cracked off the planking at the far end of the shed. The emaciated creature screeched at the sound, turned, and scurried back towards the noise.
Sam dropped down off his towing-point perch, and beckoned the rest to follow. They followed suit, and meandered silently through the labyrinth of rusted tin ware towards a ladder Sam had spied in the unlit corner of the room. It seemed to rise into the hayloft above and, in the scheme of things, it seemed their only option.
Sam led the way, and the rest followed, gingerly feeling their way up the rot-softened rungs in total darkness.
Sam stepped off the ladder into the loft, and helped the rest through the hatch one at a time. Carefully, he lowered the wooden trapdoor across the hole, and they all took a breath…
The loft space was illuminated by a thousand shards of light shining through its pepper-pot roof. ‘I’m sorry, Sammy,’ whispered Lucy, ‘when you called me, it heard my phone and followed me here. I didn’t have a chance to let you know to stay away.’
‘Oh shit, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I-I didn’t think!’
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. She looked about the loft space. ‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked, but Sam looked as bereft of ideas as she was.
He chewed nervously at the side of his finger, trying to formulate any kind of plan to get them all away from the wiry insect-from-hell relentlessly pursuing them… The other three looked on in anticipation of an idea.
He dropped down and peered between the planks of the hatch, but could see nothing.
‘Can you see it?’ asked Lucy.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s not there.’
‘So, what do we do?’ she asked, praying he had a suggestion.
Sam stretched up and looked around. He saw a door at the far end of the hayloft, there was a handrail just visible beyond the frame. He concluded it must be a staircase.
He extended his chin towards it. ‘There,’ he said, they all looked. ‘We’ll make our way down and hope it doesn’t see us, then I think we need to go and get help.’
Lucy nodded. In her mind, the existence of the entity had been kept a secret from the adults for far too long now. ‘Okay, I agree.’
They all rose and started creeping across the cavernous loft space towards the door, the damp floorboards making surprisingly little sound – the moulding timbers too soft to creak.
Sam noticed a large knothole in one of the planks, and sank down to peer through it. He rolled his eye around the hole, looking for any signs of the thing below, but could see nothing of the creature, it seemed to have left. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. ‘I think it’s gone,’ he said.
He stood to rejoin the others, and they made for the door. ‘Go,’ he whispered to Jill and Jack, ushering them through towards the staircase.
A set of long, sinewy fingers wrapped the frame of their escape route, and the wretched, meatless aberration crawled from the unlit stairwell into the room.
Lucy let out an impotent scream! Sam froze. Jill and Jack stood petrified in front of the tall, willowy figure looming menacingly in the doorway before them, its grime-stained skin and the filth-encrusted rags barely visible in the near-lightless entranceway.
Its protracted limbs spanned the frame like a web, cutting off their means of escape. They all erupted into a sprint for the hatch. Sam arrived first and dropped down to open it, but there was no handle top-side! He pawed at the edges of the plank panel with desperate fingers, but couldn’t hook them under enough to lift it.
The entity stepped from the shadows into the loft space, the thousand needles of light illuminating its emaciation. But somehow, it looked different. Its limbs seemed softened, not so taught with rage as they were before. It crept through the isolated islands of darkness and light towards them, crouched low.
Sam continued in vain to get any kind of purchase on the trapdoor, but failed.
The thing twisted its gaze at the terrified huddle at far end of the attic.
Sam abandoned his attempts, and stood to shield Lucy, a shard of light illuminating his face.
The thing recognised him, and bared its charcoal teeth, letting out an ungodly screech and making a lunge in his direction.
Jack stepped in front of Sam. ‘No!’ he yelled. The thing stopped. Its face relaxed out of its anger, lowering its emaciated lip back across its grinding teeth.
It watched Jack, just staring at him, studying. The sight of Jack’s face seemed to subdue its fury, Sam even fancied he saw a weak spark of humility hidden deep within its black, sunken eye sockets.
The entity leaned its fiendish face forwards into a shard of light. ‘B-B-Boyyy,’ it croaked, with its withered, fibrous vocal chords. It twisted its skeletal face like a dog reacting to a new sound, then took another step closer. They all crystallised with fright. The entity saw the fear in their faces, and backed away again a half step.
‘What’s it doing?’ Lucy whispered, her diaphragm quivering, feeling close to fainting. ‘Why isn’t it coming for us?’
It strode gingerly forwards into yet another beam scything through the perforations of the roof. The four of them drew a collective breath. Its face was changing, looking subtly more human than it ever had before – far less animal, more comparable to a man.
With uncharacteristic curiosity, it rotated its face like a curious dog, examining Jack. They all saw the recognition in its face, but it seemed curious about the changes it saw in Jack now he looked older.
Another move, the light cutting across its eyes – they were framed with confusion, and displaying more sadness than the hate and resentment the four of them had become accustomed to facing. But whatever the look they now had, it was a look that was a far cry from the loathing and dead-eyed hate that once there was.
Jill peered from behind her brother’s protective gate. The creature caught a glimpse of her face, and took an urgent step towards her, extending a tentative arm. ‘Girllll,’ it wheezed, its voice still metallic, but now, softer. Its voice seemed strangely laced with a perceivable amount of regret, almost apologetic in its grainy whispered tone.
Jill ducked back behind the protection of her brother’s outstretched arms. The creature dropped its clawed hand again, appearing oddly dejected.
Lucy looked askance from the back of the huddle, confused by the peculiarity in the creature’s behaviour, finding it near impossible to read its intentions.
The creature turned its eyes back to Jack. They seemed to be pleading to him. There was a subtle sense of desperation in its countenance, they could all see it trying to fight through its long-worn lividity.
It crept apprehensively towards Jack’s palpable uncertainty, reaching out to him. Jack didn’t feel as much inclination to back away as before, fortified by the perceivably pathetic nature of the tortured creature reaching out for him.
Sam watched, as emaciated, cadaverous fingers advanced towards Jack’s face, wondering at what point to push Jack aside and make a grab for the twisted, skeletal arm.
He looked around to see where he could push him, then snapped his eyes back to the advancing hand… His eyes widened. The fingers, they seemed to be foreshortening, receding, shrinking back away from Jack’s face as the creature advanced towards him. Then they all saw it, the entity’s entire gangly physique seemed to be morphing, changing, transforming from its furious gait to something far less threatening. ‘Look!’ Sam hissed. ‘Look at it, it’s, it’s changing.’
‘B-Boyyyyy… Giiiirl…’ it wheezed, pawing desperately at the two of them with its shrinking limbs.
Jilly and Jack could see something they barely had memories of, manifesting in front of their eyes. A vague shadow from their past, earlier life, almost banished from their rejected memories. It was the only thing that could have been considered a positive in their sad little lives.
The creature’s fingers finally managed to reach out and touch Jack, but only because Jack resisted pulling away.
The hand now looked decidedly human, a tenderness and curiosity in the way it moved. The entity lifted its gaunt face to look up at the boy, its sunken eyes acting as wells for the tears of regret it seemed to be shedding.
‘Father?’ said Jack.
The thing dropped to its knees, and wrapped itself around him.
‘Father?’ muttered Sam, under his considerably confused breath.
Footsteps thundered up the staircase. A silhouetted figure shone a blinding light through the entrance into the loft space. ‘Lucy! Sam? What the hell is going on in here,’ the silhouette shouted. Lucy recognised the voice, it was her mother. ‘What is all this?’ she insisted.
She strode towards the gathering, shining the beam of the torch around all of the protagonists. The thing scuttled away from the light and cowered into the corner.
She walked towards the huddle, flashing the light in all of their faces. ‘Is someone going to tell me what is going on?’ she yelled – shocked at seeing unfamiliar faces. She’d always thought she knew all of her daughter’s friends, but she didn’t recognise these two.
She shone the torch directly into Jack’s eyes. He squinted, and raised a hand to block the stinging light.
Helen’s whole face fell open. She leaned to the side to see around his hand. Jack blinked into the light.
She lowered the torch slightly to stop him squinting. His face straightened, and Helen gasped. She clasped her hand to her mouth.
‘Mum? What’s wrong?’ asked Lucy. But her mother was too shocked to hear her. She just stared at Jack as if nothing else existed.
She stepped towards him. ‘T-Thomas?’ she asked.
Jack stepped back from the apparent stranger, shaking his head.
She stepped towards him again. ‘I-Is that you…? Is that you, Thomas…?’ she said again.
‘H-H-Helen?’ croaked a voice from the unlit corner of the loft. She spun the beam towards the voice. A gaunt, skeletal figure edged tentatively from the shadows towards her. Helen shied from the hideous figure, her face racked with revulsion. Then she halted her retreat.
A shard of moonlight cut across its pitiful eyes, she recognised the intention behind them. They were eyes she hadn’t look into for nineteen years.
‘Oh good God in heaven,’ she simpered, ‘Thomas!’
Lucy watched on – shocked to hear her mother say the name. That this cruel entity that had terrified them so utterly, could have possibly grown from the boy her grandmother had described to her.
Helen edged towards him, but he shied away, embarrassed by what he’d become.
She examined him with the warmth of the torchlight. He looked thin, desolate and meatless. ‘Oh my God, what on earth happened to you?’ she wept. She stepped to him, dropping to her knees, and engulfed him in her relief at seeing him again.
Her fingers could feel the bones through his paper-thin skin. She reran every dream and fleeting thought she’d ever had of him, finally coming to the realisation that those dreams, were in fact memories.
The rest of them watched Lucy’s mother holding the wretched man, a man who’d only existed in her dreams for the past nineteen years. Then Helen’s brow furrowed, and she turned the torchlight back to Jack, then to Thomas again. Her face displaying her confusion at how much like her memories of Thomas Jack looked. Then the light fell on Lucy and Jilly watching from the back of the huddle and, for a split second, she was unable to tell them apart?
‘What’s going on?’ she simpered, her saline eyes emptying down her face. ‘Who… Who are you?’
‘Th-They’re ours,’ Thomas croaked from the umbrella of the shadows he skulked in. ‘They’re our children.’
He looked to Jilly and Jack. ‘Boy, G-Girl Th-This, is your mother.’
Another set of footsteps thundered up the staircase, and Peter Fletcher appeared in the doorway. ‘I got your message, what’s happening…?’