IX

The fire died away and I sat huddled in the darkness looking from the window to the barricaded entrance. An indeterminable amount of time passed. I grew cold, yet I was as still as I could be. Let him come to me if he so chose to. 

Yet there was nothing save the anticipation, which after some time of gnawing away at me eventually spurned me to action. Not least because if I did not move I feared I would freeze. The fire was faint orange embers when I stepped across it, moving between the gap made between two of the box beds and my hanging garments. I crept over to the window, the lack of footwear and heavy outer garments affording me more stealth than I would have otherwise had. 

I peered through the small opening into the darkness beyond. The sky had cleared once more as it had the previous night and the moonlight afforded me a view of an atonal etching of my surroundings. I could see the few trees that lay between the dwelling and the trail which I had followed, the standing water reflecting the moonshine like glass. That heavy pregnant anticipation had returned and was so overwhelming it was all I could do to stay still and not throw the barricaded door aside and rush out into the darkness, beckoning for a confrontation. The small hairs on the nape of my neck stood out on end and I shivered again, yet not with the cold this time. 

There, off to my lefts. Those branches suddenly unsettled. Leaves wavering. Something had moved there. An owl perhaps, or a night rodent. Or something bigger. 

I could take it no more, turning and taking hold of my boots. They were still sodden and I winced when slipping them over my dry socks, the cold dampness soaking through immediately. I tied the laces and moved to the barricade. I pushed it away, trying to ignore the sound of it scraping over the warped floor, trying to achieve the balance of pushing it from me hastily enough yet not making too much noise as I did so. 

Into the kitchen, dagger raised before me, eyes adjusting to the gloom with surprising speed. The darkened room held nothing I could see, and nowhere for a pursuer to hide. The rear door seemed to still be shut and the makeshift latch I had made from part of the cupboard remained untouched. 

Peering round the doorframe of the front entrance first I took in as much as I could before stepping gingerly into the shadow of the night. The moonlight cast a wide net in front of the doorway, leaving me exposed, so I moved quickly into the shadow of a nearby tree - an ailing and elderly oak, it’s trunk gnarled and twisted and affording me good shade in which to crouch. 

My heart was a crescendo in my ear. I forced my breathing to slow, calming the erratic beat that threatened to obscure the subtle noises I was straining to hear. My breath formed white ghosts in the early morning air. Everything was cold and damp, my feet already numb. 

A shadow crossed.

My breathing quickened until I realised a small cloud had drifted across the face of the moon. Everywhere fell into shadow, my ability to perceive my surroundings falling. I peered around the tree either side and listened. 

Nothing.

The cloud moved, the moon light highlighting the trees, the trail. 

My eye was drawn through the handful of trees, down towards the fork. 

I strained to see, daring myself to lean out further.

There. In the middle of the track, just to the left of the furthest tree, beyond the wall of the orchard. There was something there. Darkness where there hadn’t been darkness. 

It was growing larger, but slowly.

Over a sliver of crystalline moonlight, it’s outline suddenly in relief. 

That hunched form, humanoid but…not. I almost caught the feature of it’s large face, a suggestion of large pits where its’s eyes should be. A long sagging  jaw. Hunched shoulders, heavy frame. Pale skin, almost shimmering in the moonlight, as though it were coated in a fine slick substance.  

slow movers

The ranger had been telling the truth. 

They had caught up with me. 

Shadows behind this one. I saw one, then another. Another one further back. 

Then to my alarm, movement to the left, just at the wall to the orchard. Standing right there, I could see this one clearer, the disfigured shape of it, arms that seemed far too long, elongated head. It’s face was hidden but I could feel it’s gaze burning into me. It climbed over the wall, slowly, almost gracefully. The upper part of it’s body didn’t seem to move, just drift forward. Then it was in the orchard. Moving. Slowly. Horrifyingly slowly.

Towards me. 

I turned to move back to the door of the dwelling.

There.

Another one.

At the far corner of the building. Mayhap six horses from me. 

Five. 

I neared the door. I seemed to be moving slowly myself, as though I was dreaming. I could see this one fully, a sight that would not leave me. I didn’t understand how it could possibly function. How it could live. It was like something long dead, twisted and reconfigured into something that made a mockery of the living. It’s long melting face fixed me with abyssal eyes. It seemed to be grinning. Thin lips hauled back over long slender teeth like pale fingers. It held a makeshift weapon of sorts, something that a fisherman would have. A long pole arm, a wicked hook. I had no frame of reference save books and drawings from my childhood, but this thing was very much like something I felt should have belonged - and remained - far below the surface of the oceans of the south. 

Something that should never have been allowed to see the moon. 

My hand was on the door frame. My brain screaming at me to run inside, gather my things - particularly the most significant thing - and flee through the back door. I should have already been running now. I would leave the wet items, leave anything I didn’t need. Take it and run. Far from these things. 

Yet I could not. Even as the stench of it’s foulness washed over me in waves. I was dimly aware of the knife falling from my hand, my grip unconsciously relaxing. 

Three horses. 

I could not move. I was now completely frozen in place. All I could do was prepare myself for what was to come. It’s grin grew wider, the lower jaw falling, the maw of it’s mouth an endless pit. 

Movement from behind the dwelling, from the corner behind the slow mover. My first thought was that another one had joined, compounded my fate. I tried to speak, to protest. To plead. Yet my mouth would not obey the commands my brain gave it. It stubbornly refused. 

I closed my eyes. It was not to be after all. I had tried to go to her. I had tried to take it to her. To do as she asked. To finish what she had attempted. Yet I had failed. Like she had failed. What would become of it now? That was no longer my concern. 

I waited for what was to surely come. 

A draft of air, a slight gust moved me. There was a wet sound, a tearing sound. The protesting gargle of the mortally wounded. I thought the sound was emanating from me. It surely was. The act of dying had given me distance, perhaps I had cast my mind out, avoided the suffering. If I opened my eyes, I would see what was to become of my body. 

I opened my eyes. 

I was still in my body. My body that remained very much upright, my breathing and still hammering heart telling me that it was very much still a living, breathing body. 

The thing lay at my feet, twisted and broken. Most of it’s foul head had been removed and whatever passed for it’s lifeblood stained the earth black under the moonlight. 

He stood before me, cleaning his long knife blade on his coat, long lank hair over his face, mouth downturned in a permanent fissure of disgust. He nodded to me, then made a show of looking past me and back out to the orchard. 

“Flee,” he said gruffly. “Thar closen’ an they’ll getcha. So flee.”

As he said the last, Pagailon grabbed me forcefully by the arm and cast me inside the small kitchen, throwing the door shut as he did so, putting his body weight against it and motioning me to collect my things. 

It was still in my backpack, wrapped up in the remainder of my clothing. He couldn’t see me from the kitchen as I checked, and I took the extra few seconds to double check before wrapping it firmly again. I left the rest, just grabbing the bag and joining him in the kitchen. My arm hurt then. Suddenly. A twinge of pain from my wound. A moment of clarity told me that it was no doubt infected, that I should have tended to it first.

No chance now. 

The door shuddered behind the ranger, he dug his heels in, steeling himself against the door. 

“Thar ‘un!” He shouted, nodding his head. 

I looked at him dumbly. Numbly. I didn’t understand. 

He shouted again. Nodded again. Another barrage against the door. It opened slightly, something visible through the gap. A noise like the death rattle of my mother.

I understood. The rear door. I was to open it.

I moved towards it and a loud splintering crack came behind me. I felt a rush of air past my head. Something shattered on the wall beside me as I reached the door. I didn’t turn. I didn’t think. I just did.

The makeshift latch was good. It didn’t give easily. I had found a way to twist the wood round and through, turning it so it jammed in the door frame. I couldn’t budge it with my fingers. 

Another crack. Something else went past, wider of the mark. It cracked and fizzed overhead. I could hear the ranger’s gasps and grunts. I knew him to be losing the battle to keep the door shut. It was splintering behind him. They were there. At least the one from the orchard wall. Possibly the one from the trail had joined now. The others not far behind. 

I kicked the latch. Once. Twice. Third time it started to give, fourth time it shattered and the door swung open wide into the night. 

There was another moving towards this door. It must have approached from a different angle. It was a co-ordinated attack. It shouldn’t have worked, they were so slow, but it obviously did. It was about four horses from the doorway and lurching it’s way towards me. Another abyssal horror, slack jawed and blank eyed. As I watched it suddenly jerked it’s head back with impossible speed, something flying through the night air towards me. I ducked, but not quickly enough. My shoulder took it and the burn was instant. It hissed and fizzed through my clothes, my skin. I screamed, unable to help myself, brushing at it with my fingers, getting it all over a couple of fingers. I could only watch in horror as it seemed to melt the flesh away. The agony was impossible.  I shook my hand then rubbed it on my clothes. I could smell my skin dissolving. 

Yet there was no time, I was being pushed, adrenaline coursing through my veins, my brain pushing the pain to one side, my body keenly aware that survival now was paramount. The ranger forced me through the doorway as the one behind is exploded, admitting our would-be doom. 

He threw me right out the door and fell upon the creature that become within one horse us. I turned my head to watch as I scraped myself back and away along the wall. Pagailon was old, to seed, and well past his prime, yet there was no mistaking his residual strength and speed. An almost imperceptible movement and the creature’s jaw fell away. Yet there was no trace of the leisurely pace with which it had approached us. It too now moved with unerring speed, lifting one long arm and swinging a large blunt instrument towards the ranger, catching him in the side and lifting him off his feet towards me. He didn’t fall completely, managing to stop himself and getting to his feet. He didn’t go back to attack the creature that turned towards me. Instead he lurched past me, motioning frantically for me to follow. The creature slowly moving to I’ve chase. Now it was out of the fight with the ranger, it seemed to have resumed it’s slow pace. I thought then of a creature that Bryln had kept as a pet until our father found it. A small scaly thing that had found itself hidden in Corbyn’s travel satchel when he had returned from patrol. He had given it to Bryln as more of a joke than anything, but my brother had loved it dearly. It was a slow, sedentary thing, until Ashe caught a mouse, dangling it close to the open top of the cauldron that Bryln kept it in. It too moved almost imperceptibly slowly until had neared the struggling rodent dangling between Ashe’s fingers. With supernatural speed it had darted then towards the poor beast, and taken it’s head off in one bite. 

That’s what these were. These slow movers. 

Which meant we could flee, and flee we did.

Into the night.