I engaged the handbrake, switched off the engine and leaned back against the head restraint. Spot on 7 p.m. I’d always been one of those guys who were somehow in tune with time, bang on the diary slot. One more pupil, then home.
Rain still pelted the windscreen and within moments the country lane vanished in a grey blur.
I yawned.
A tightness lingered in my lower back—I’d been slumping too much lately. I guessed that’s what happens when you have to cram more driving lessons into the day. Fuel prices, car issues, household bills. The usual shit, all resulting in longer hours. I also craved a cigarette having cut back to a couple a day. A habit that didn’t help with weekly expenditure, but I was trying; I’d been smoking since my teens. So, what was that, thirty years?
Usually about now, and equally as prompt, this last pupil of the day, a man in his 50s called Jim, would shimmy between the ragstone wall and his wife’s Ford. An attentive learner and a good driver, he’d never before needed a car until they’d moved to the countryside.
I released my seat belt and opened the door. It swung towards the hedge that separated Jim’s garden from the road. Cold rain speared me as I leapt out. I slammed the door behind me and rounded the bonnet. My shoe slid in mud and I laughed. That’d top my day right off should I end up on my arse covered in mud. The rain trickled down my collar and I shrank into my jacket as I got back in the car, this time in the passenger seat. I clawed fingers through my hair and wiped my face with a sleeve, and squinted through the windscreen. As always, I marvelled at his house: a six-bedroom detached surrounded by God-only-knew how much of a garden. It squatted between an impressive copse of looming oaks and a row of well-trimmed conifers.
Archaeology clearly paid well.
I’d still not seen the usual curtain twitch, but maybe I’d missed it. The rain obscured my vision after all.
As an archaeologist, he often shared fascinating stories. He was one of the good guys, and I enjoyed our lessons because I’d learn historical stuff while I taught him to drive. It was always a pleasure to see his name in the diary. Honestly, there were some names that would be impossible to look forward to.
It was now five-past the hour. Where was he? I really hoped he hadn’t forgotten.
I checked my phone to see if I’d missed a text. Nope.
Another minute trickled past while I watched the rain on the windows. Finally, I got out of the car, pulled up my collar, and headed for the front door. I’d not noticed earlier but his wife’s car wasn’t there. A faint smell of oil lingered on the air. Jim once told me the village was so remote, even British Gas hadn’t connected to it, and so most houses had an oil container in their garden. I couldn’t see theirs, and I guessed it hid beyond a ship-lapped gate which was currently wedged open by a large red bag.
The ‘Beware of the Dog’ sign was a lie; they had a rabbit called Dennis.
Still no curtain movement.
I got to the front door that stood proud beneath a tiled portico supported by white pillars. It always reminded me of something Roman. Now sheltered from the rain, I went to press the doorbell.
Thump-thump.
Something overhead.
From inside the house.
My finger hovered in front of the button. What was it I’d heard? It sounded like something fell. I pressed the button, and it buzzed into the silence. My ears strained beyond the hammering rain and the water pouring down drainpipes. No doors opening. No footsteps, nor rattling keys. I looked up the side of the house. No curtains twitched.
I again rang the bell. Still no answer.
This was unlike him. Slipping a hand in my pocket, I found only a cigarette lighter—my phone was still in the car. I stepped back into the rain and again glanced up. Just beneath the guttering, where the telephone line connected to the house, scorch marks blackened the masonry. Whatever happened there looked serious.
I turned to head for the car. If he had forgotten—after all, their car wasn’t on the driveway—I’d get home earlier.
From behind me, near the gate, I heard a shout. A man’s voice. Jim?
Out of sight, a door crashed against a wall, followed by rapid footsteps. Then the gate swung wide and rattled against the brickwork. The red bag shifted sideways.
Jim.
Absurdly, he wore his PJs. They flapped around his small frame.
My voice snatched in my throat.
His bare feet tangled with the bag, and he flew towards me, arms outstretched. White and brown envelopes scattered, and several parcels tumbled across the paving. The bag gaped, the Royal Mail emblem facing upwards. He sprawled at my feet.
Lightning thoughts flashed through my mind. Why was he wearing PJs? What the hell was he doing with the postman’s bag? Why was blood pouring from his nose even before he’d tripped over? Where was the postman?
“Jim…” I finally managed to say, and lifted him to his knees.
He moaned, a nasally whine through nostrils clogged with black blood. It streaked his face and caked what little hair he had. His palms were a mess of shredded skin and grit.
“Charlie,” he shouted, “help me!”
“What is it?” My stomach churned. What the hell was going on?
“Can’t find Ronda,” he sputtered, eyes bulging. “She’s gone.”
“Her car’s not here.”
“She…”
“What’s going on? Why are you—?”
“They took her.” He clamped bloody fingers around my forearm, pinching. He coughed.
“Who?”
“They!” he shouted up at me. Spit peppered my cheek. “Them! I don’t know. Whatever the fuck they were!”
“Jim—”
“They came through the fucking walls.”
“What are you talking about?” I hefted him up, and his legs folded. “Come on!” I shifted position and grabbed him under the armpits. He was heavier than he looked.
“She was there one moment, then gone the next.”
“We have to get you cleaned up.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” he yelled, “if I tell you what I saw.”
The state he was in, I already thought that.
“She…” he began, then lowered his voice. “She vanished.”
Having been teaching him for several months, I’d never known him like this. Even in the most heated of situations, frustrated at his coordination while trying to balance clutch and accelerator, with the impatient bastard behind honking a horn, still he remained calm. But this…this was entirely different.
He glared at his feet as though willing them for support. Again, he coughed. “We have to find her.”
“You’re not making any sense.” I hooked his arm up and wrapped it round my neck, and together we stumbled for the gate. “Tell me what happened when we’re indoors.”
He muttered something as I nudged the gate with my shoe, enough for us to stagger into the garden. The back door hung wide, and I lugged him towards it. Our feet scuffed and shuffled, and finally we lurched up two steps and over the threshold. The smell of coffee filled my lungs as we paused on the welcome mat. Two stools sat either side of a breakfast table, adjacent to the sideboard. An overturned box of Shreddies, crushed beneath one of the stools, lay with its contents spewed over the tiles.
Across the kitchen, his legs proving to be even more useless, I dropped him onto the stool. His head lolled as I released him.
In any other circumstances, I would’ve been embarrassed at my ragged breathing. I scanned the sideboard. My hands were slick with his blood. It also smeared my jacket. Kitchen roll, that’d do. I snatched it up and unravelled several sheets, tore them off and shoved them into his limp fingers.
“Tell me what’s going on!” I really needed a cigarette.
His eyes darted around the room.
At the sink, I grabbed a dishcloth. It wasn’t too dirty and I gave him that, too. I knew it wasn’t the best thing to use but it was better than nothing. I ran a tap and used washing-up liquid to clean my hands. My rapid breath swallowed the fresh scent of lemon.
Jim’s voice was soft. “I’m usually more careful.”
I found a towel and dried my hands. I glanced around the kitchen. Was there a phone in here? Maybe I needed to call the police. “Who’s taken Ronda?”
“I breathed in that stuff.” He’d not bothered to clean himself. Fresh blood trickled from his fingers.
“What stuff?” I approached him, not having any idea what to do let alone what he was talking about. I gently turned his hands over and he dropped the now-red tissues. For the first time, I wondered if the blood that covered him was actually his own.
“I’m so stupid,” he whispered.
“Tell me.”
“Ronda!” His eyes bulged. His face caked in several red shades, he truly looked like a madman.
“What happened?” I hoped to hell he hadn’t killed her. I had no idea what I’d do if I found her body. “Where is she?”
“They took her!”
“Who?” I demanded, unable to help but raise my voice. He wasn’t making any sense.
“They fucking took her!”
“We need to call the police.” I released his hands and stepped back. Would I be safe here? Would he kill me, too?
“We can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Line’s dead.”
“What?” I thought of the black marks I’d seen beneath the guttering.
“Mobiles don’t work out here, either.” His lips twitched. “Reception’s terrible… We need to find her.”
“Where did she go? Who took her?” This was insane. “Help me out here, Jim. What can I do?”
His mouth parted, about to say something when a thump sounded from upstairs. Same as earlier.
We both jerked upright and stared at the ceiling.
And again, thump-thump-thump.
“They’re coming through again.”
“Who?”
He pushed himself against the wall and muttered something.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I stepped back farther. Cereal crunched beneath my shoes.
“Ronda!” he yelled.
I went to the doorway, craning my neck to listen. I steadied my breath—which was incredibly difficult. Was his wife upstairs?
Voices. Though I couldn’t make out what was being said.
A glance at Jim and he just stared at the floor, brow furrowed.
I turned back and headed down the hallway, walking softly, not really wanting to find out what was going on. The woman may be in trouble, injured. Bloody hell she may be dying.
I ran.
“Don’t!” Jim yelled after me. “Charlie, don’t!”
Bounding up the staircase, my footfalls echoed as loud as my heartbeat. I reached the top step and paused on the landing. The curtains beside me allowed the thinnest strip of twilight to push along the hall. A gloom pressed down, revealing little of the patterned wallpaper. My fingers curled around the banister.
And I let go.
My hand came away sticky.
Blood? No. No, it wasn’t. It was dark and gritty and felt like brick dust, but…but sweaty. Clumpy and moist. A faint earthy, damp smell wafted up as I rubbed the crap down my jacket.
Four closed doors lined the hall, and past those an archway led into a darker area of the first floor.
“Ronda?”
No answer.
It took a moment for my feet to move. I had no idea what I was doing, nor had I any clue as to what I’d find. My shoes pressed into the soft carpet, one step after another. Suddenly I was not in a hurry. I nearly grabbed the banister again.
I didn’t.
Perhaps I should’ve taken a knife or something from the kitchen. Defenceless and useless, I headed for the first door. What was I even doing? I should be in my car right now, calling the police. Or at least driving far enough to get reception should I need to.
At the door, I realised I held my breath. I breathed out and tried to relax.
No sounds came from behind the wooden panels. My grip slid on the door knob—more of that filth. The metal itself was cold. That’s when I saw my breath cloud in front of me, subtle in the gloom. I’d not noticed the temperature drop, though I guessed I was sweating like hell.
I twisted the knob and gently nudged open the door.
Split cardboard boxes filled the room, surrounded by stacks of magazines and books. A threadbare sofa sat askew near the far wall, its cushions covered in electric appliances with cables snaking onto the carpet. Only a junk room. Although it surprised me given that Jim had always come across as a neat and tidy kind of guy.
Leaving the door open, I went along to the next room. The door knob was like a ball of ice, and also coated in filth. Before I managed to open it, a sharp crack sounded. I jerked away with that sticky shit coming with me.
The wood splintered downward from top to bottom, jagged like a lightning strike.
“What the—?”
***
From beyond the archway a series of thumps shook the floorboards. I staggered and gripped the banister. It was soft like clay, as though that black goo had eaten into it.
I frantically wiped my hand on my jacket.
The floor shuddered again. A layer of dirt covered the carpet, although it was tricky to see in the poor light. There were even a few footprints—bare footprints that I assumed belonged to Jim.
“Charlie?” Jim’s voice seemed close, perhaps at the bottom of the stairs.
The cracked door hung askew, threatening to fall. Splinters stuck from the panel like needles all the way down it, from top to bottom. The black stuff had sprouted from the grain like mould spores.
Was that it? Was that what Jim had inhaled?
The floor no longer shook. I looked up and down the hall; I’d somehow backed up to the archway, facing a door that had opened after the last rumble. Silence pressed in, as dark as the surrounding gloom.
I had to get out of there. Whatever the hell was going on, it wasn’t natural.
Between the narrow slit of door and frame, something flitted in the shadows, like someone darting across the room. Ronda? I squinted, stepped forward and pushed the door. It swung inward and the darkness somehow shrank back. Shadows recoiled as though my perception shifted to allow horizontal strips of fading daylight to stream through the blinds above a large desk.
“Ronda?”
Regardless of those twilight rays, I reached round the door frame and slapped the wall until I found the light switch. I winced as brightness flooded the room.
My fingers came away gritty.
This was evidently Jim’s study, somewhere to bring his work home with him. A swivel chair lay overturned amid discarded paperwork and beside a laptop with its screen cracked. Black sand coated everything, kicked about by the same footprints as in the hallway. The desk was littered with notebooks and scraps of paper. An overturned mug had spilt dregs to stain some notes brown.
No Ronda.
Adjacent to the desk, one wall was covered floor to ceiling in pinned diagrams, and also photos of what my lack of knowledge saw as hieroglyphs. There were several newspaper clippings, too. A small table was in the opposite corner of the room, upon which was a metal tray beneath two spotlights. Cradled in that was a chunk of stone, grey like slate. It looked heavy. More black sand heaped the tray, appearing as though the stone had half crumbled.
A hand gripped my shoulder.
I cried out, my stomach crashing into my heart, and I spun round.
“Bloody hell!” I shouted into Jim’s blood-smeared face.
“Charlie—” he began and his gaze flew past my head, his eyes widening.
Beside the overturned chair, the black sand hovered a few inches above the papers and laptop. It kind of shivered in the air, agitated. Began to rotate, picking up more sand. Round and round, snatching up paper. Those black grains spun, forming a miniature tornado, pulling in the mug, the notebooks, more papers.
I backed up and bumped into Jim.
The laptop next, round and round. Growing, rising, that tiny cyclone stripped the wall of photos, building girth, swaying left and right. Drawing pins fired across the room, pinging and ricocheting, and—
The laptop hurtled towards us.
I ducked and it smashed into the hallway wall.
Thump-thump. Thump.
“They’re coming!” Jim’s voice blasted into my ear.
I squinted, the cold wind strengthening.
He tugged my jacket, then turned and ran. I stumbled after him. As I reached the top of the stairs I grabbed the banister.
The wood disintegrated as though it was rotten.
I yelled, my hand clutching nothing but dust.
And gravity shot me sideways. I slipped down several steps, agony tearing up my spine. I scrambled to my feet and took the rest two at a time. Jim had already disappeared. More thumps shook the house, and the wind shrieked amid smashes and what I guessed to be cracking doors and walls. Downstairs, I raced along the hall and out into the kitchen, into the garden, splashing through puddles that soaked my trousers and froze my skin. I sucked on the cold air. It had stopped raining. The skin on my back felt like it was on fire.
The security light had come on, reaching its white glare into the garden. Jim clutched his stomach, doubled over, coughing and spitting blood. Beyond him…
***
My throat tightened.
Something I’d not noticed earlier. Something…someone I’d not seen as I’d concentrated on carrying Jim indoors. But now…now I saw…
It wasn’t Ronda. It was the postman.
His body split in two, separated by a deep trench as though the grass had been ploughed, cleaved wide from the direction of the house out towards the tree line at the rear of the garden. The man’s trousers and shirt were fused in a glistening mess of fabric and bone and mangled flesh. Cauterised it seemed by whatever had scooped up the earth. His mouth was set in a scream, blond hair covering one eye that stared up at the nearby bird feeder. Blood peppered his cheek. Blistered skin, red and black like burnt pizza, mingled with the upturned soil and clumps of grass.
I fought hard not to vomit. This was insane.
A howl raged above. I could only guess it had been one of those black tornadoes that killed the postman.
Jim was still coughing.
The mortar below a window had crumbled, and what looked like burn marks streaked the brickwork down to the ground. The rabbit hutch lay in pieces among splintered wood and twists of wire mesh. Shards of a food bowl sat among scattered food pellets, and the water bottle had rolled away to rest against a cracked plant pot. More scorch marks traced the uneven patio slabs, following the path of the deepening trench and through the postman’s mutilated body.
I could imagine seeing your first dead body was weird enough, but to see it spliced in two and cauterised was a horror I’d not wish on anyone. The half that was closest seemed to move, something black near the knee. There was no way the man was still alive, so what was it? Was it another freak tornado?
A pair of eyes caught the security light, twin orbs glowing. The rabbit, Dennis.
I laughed—my immediate response. Their pet had survived its hutch being demolished. Poor thing was hungry. It nibbled the grass near the dead postman’s leg, nose twitching.
I laughed again, that’s all I could do.
Jim’s cough became a hacking violent choke and he spat again. It wasn’t blood that was coming up, it was the black stuff. It coated his chin and dribbled down his neck. He’d said he breathed it in. It must’ve happened in his study when examining the stone fragment. I guessed it was the sand, or the dust he brushed from it. I had no idea. What I did know is that I had to get him to the hospital.
“Jim.” I stepped towards him. “Let’s go!”
The overhead roar intensified, screaming almost. More thumps, too—rapid and shaking the ground. Whatever that cyclone was doing inside the house, it wouldn’t be long until the whole place collapsed.
I gripped Jim’s shoulders and tried to straighten him up.
An upstairs window cracked and shattered. A white mist of glass rained down on us, and I shrank into my jacket. I shook my head to rid my hair of the tiny glass beads. They tinkled across the patio.
“Come on!” I yelled. He was unrecognisable, like he wore a mask. I couldn’t tell apart blood from the black stuff.
Someone screamed, piercing and louder than the escalating wind in the house. It was a woman and came from the driveway.
Black spit bubbled at Jim’s lips as he said, “Ronda.” His eyes rolled as though drunk.
His wife stood at the gate, shopping bags in either hand. Although the security light reflected off her spectacles, I knew she stared at the postman’s body. One bag slipped from her fingers and clattered on the paving. A tin of baked beans rolled away.
I looked at Jim. Ronda hadn’t been taken by whoever he thought were—what did he say?—coming through the walls. The man had clearly lost his mind, not even realising she’d gone shopping.
***
The house had quietened. A silence descending, deeper and darker than the night that now pressed in. A glance up to the broken window revealed nothing, just a busted frame without glass. Not that I knew what to expect. The silence was unnerving. No thumps, no crashing. I hoped the whirlwind had stopped.
Ronda’s lips moved but nothing came out.
I grabbed Jim and hoisted him up. His head wobbled.
“Let’s go,” I told him. I staggered, almost tripping over my own feet let alone his unresponsive ones. Glass crunched beneath every step as I headed towards his wife.
She still stared at the postman’s remains.
I shuffled closer. “Ronda?”
Still she didn’t move. Her chin quivered, forehead wrinkled above tiny eyes.
“We need to get Jim to a hospital,” I said.
The other bag slipped from her fingers and rustled to the ground. I pushed past her and she staggered. For a moment I thought she’d fall over, and I really did not want to carry her as well.
Everything in the house remained quiet, nothing at the window. Whatever the freak occurrence was, perhaps it had ended. We were safe.
“Come on.” I grunted and heaved Jim upright. “Almost there.”
That black stuff bubbled on his lips as he mumbled.
Footsteps from behind told me at least Ronda followed.
“Jim!” she shouted and pulled his other arm around her neck. It helped. Her voice was shrill. “What happened?”
“I…” What could I say? “Don’t know. Really have no idea.”
Another glance up to a window and I saw nothing. I thought of the black stuff everywhere.
“The postman.” Her cheeks were red. “Tell me.”
“Something to do with that black stone,” I told her. “The one in his study.”
“The stone?”
“He said he inhaled the dust, the sand.”
We bustled down the driveway. Even with Ronda’s assistance, my strength felt sapped.
Ronda blurted, “I touched it!”
“What?” I asked as we took slower steps. Jim’s legs dragged behind us.
“He was still in bed…when I heard voices in the study.” Tears glistened on her puffy cheeks.
I stopped to adjust my grip on his slumping body. I wondered if he was unconscious.
“I went in,” she added. “Those voices had stopped but I wanted to touch the stone. It was like a work of art. Those markings were so…so intricate.”
I thought of when I’d seen it, how it had been just a broken mess in a pile of black sand.
I said, “Let’s talk about this more in the car.”
“I didn’t mean to break it. It just…”
“What?”
“It just broke, crumbled to dust.”
Together, we managed to get past her car and to the end of the driveway.
“Open the back door,” I said as we propped Jim against the bodywork. The car remained unlocked, having assumed I wouldn’t leave it unattended for long. How wrong I had been.
Still the house remained quiet.
Jim murmured something.
Ronda shrieked, “Jim!”
“More than…” His eyelids flickered. “More than a gravestone.”
Ronda glared at me. “What’s he saying?”
“Imprisoned…” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Blood and breath.” His eyes rolled back.
Ronda held his head, stroking his face. “Jimmy…”
He muttered, “We’re fucked.”
***
We soon had him slumped on the back seat, unconscious. Blood and filth unavoidably streaked the upholstery. There was a towel in the boot—one part of my survival kit that included spare bulbs, a fuel can, emergency warning triangle and the like—but I knew it wouldn’t have helped. With Ronda beside me and fumbling with her seat belt, I started the engine and sped off. Mud and stones kicked out behind us as the wheels lost traction, the back end fishtailing. I hadn’t even checked my blind spots.
This wasn’t the time to be the perfect driver.
The headlights speared into the evening.
“It’s all my fault,” Ronda said.
A red van was parked on the edge of the lane, and as I manoeuvred past I saw the Royal Mail emblem. I thought of the postman’s mutilated body.
“My fault,” Ronda repeated.
I didn’t know what to say.
Thump-thump.
I scanned my mirrors but saw nothing.
Thump.
The steering wheel vibrated.
A darkness rushed at us, as though night had completely fallen. From the direction of the house, a vortex of shadow and debris tore through the garden, straight towards the car. Thump. It came up alongside us and I saw… I had no idea what I saw. It made no sense. It was like a ghost or phantom—a flickering image of something with too many limbs whirling around inside the black storm, raging and hitting the rounded sides, punching and kicking the inner wall. Thump, thump-thump. Round and round, huge pale fists. Shimmering, haunting, it thrashed against the confines of that whirlwind. It was like the thing wanted to get out, to be released. I guessed that was what it wanted, but somehow couldn’t.
The wind howled as deafening as those continued thumps.
I floored the accelerator and hurtled down the lane, still in sight of their house. But…
Metal shrieked as the darkness battered the car. The steering went light, the tyres—the whole car—lifted off the tarmac. The engine roared and Ronda screamed. Gravity pressed me into my seat as the bonnet pointed towards the dark blue expanse of night. Moonlight pushed through streaks of cloud.
The car bucked, tilted sideways, forwards. And the ground rushed up. The house, the trees, the garden…
Our screams blocked the sound of the roaring wind and engine.
Airbags exploded. I gulped the acrid stink of fireworks as white fabric filled my vision. The windscreen shattered and branches scraped the bodywork. Metal wrenched and groaned.
Finally, we stopped and the car rocked once amid a series of creaks. The engine sputtered and died.
And silence, save for my heartbeat.
My hands were still curled around the steering wheel and it took such effort to peel away my fingers. The car angled towards the driver’s side. The only exit was through Ronda’s door where a bright light from somewhere flooded the wreck. Glass tinkled.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She pushed her spectacles back along the bridge of her nose and nodded.
We released our seat belts, and at the same time twisted round to look on the backseat, at Jim who, I knew, hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. Not that it would’ve mattered.
The back of the car was missing.
From the central pillar behind our seats the metalwork and upholstery had been cut clean as though by an angle grinder, leaving only heaved earth and grass and a tangle of brambles. The metal still glowed in places. The smell of burnt fabric and hot metal, and the aroma of the triggered airbags lined my throat.
No Jim.
Only his bare foot. Just a severed foot cradled in thorny brambles and leaves. A piece of pyjama fabric had fused with the cauterised flesh. No blood, only blistered skin and black bone. Faint wisps of smoke curled from the blackened stump of ankle.
Ronda’s scream tore through my brain.
She leaned into the door, kicked it, and yelled. It juddered open and she scrambled out. I clambered after her. The cold air washed away the burnt smell.
We’d landed in the middle of their back garden, not far from the remains of the postman and the other half of my car. The security light spotlighted everything. Evidently that whirlwind did not want us to get far. Which was absurd. My head pounded. Ronda was running towards Jim’s body which lay like a discarded mannequin a short distance from the trench. Scanning the shadows where the light failed to reach, I couldn’t see anything move. No whirlwinds, no things trying to escape. All was silent.
I lurched after her, every movement firing knives through my body, and passed the rear of my car. The bodywork was dented, the windows broken. Everything from the boot—my survival kit—littered the grass.
I took a large stride over the chasm that divided the garden. It was like a digger had scooped up the ground. Buckled pipes poked up through the churned earth, and I could just about see the panel of what I assumed was their oil tank. Oil trickled from a crack in the corner, filling the trench.
I knew I should be running in the opposite direction and not towards the gore that was both the postman and Jim. I wanted to escape this madness, get the hell out of there. By now I should’ve been sprinting to their neighbours’ house. There I could get help, call for an ambulance, the police.
Ronda knelt beside her husband, shoulders quivering. As I slowed alongside the cleaved ground to stand behind her, I stared at the blackened stump where Jim’s foot once was. With my back to the house I felt as though I’d miss the approach of another whirlwind, but a swift glance over a shoulder revealed nothing. Still silent.
Ronda cradled Jim’s bloody arm.
I said, “We’ve gotta get out of here!”
She ignored me.
“Get up!” I yelled.
Her tears glinted on cheeks below glasses that were slightly fogged.
“Let’s go!” I gripped her shoulder.
“But—”
“We can’t do anything for him.” I yanked her up and she released his arm. It flopped to the ground and splashed mud. As I steadied her, I saw her hand. Her fingers and palm were red and silvery as though she’d been burnt.
“It’s…” she began and snatched her hand out of sight. “It’s nothing.”
I thought of Jim’s last words and said, “Blood and breath.”
“What does that mean?”
“When you touched it and Jim inhaled the dust, you started something.”
She went to crouch again and I caught her. Perhaps my fingers dug into her shoulder too tightly and she winced. “Leave me!”
Another glance back at the house. I was just waiting for the cyclone to tear through the garden, to slice us both into pieces.
Jim’s chest rose, and we both gasped.
It was though he breathed, but…but something wasn’t quite right. I pulled Ronda away. A little lower than the triangle of exposed chest, the pyjamas rippled like something was trapped underneath. A crimson blotch spread, staining the fabric. Something snapped—a loud crack, sharp on the night air—and his chest cavity burst open in a red spray. Jagged white bone and shredded skin flapped as a corkscrew of solid darkness shot out. Its movements were familiar, twisting like a cyclone.
We staggered back, Ronda’s hands clutching mine. Blood peppered her face. She screamed, I yelled, and we both scrambled away.
The tiny black hurricane danced across Jim’s twitching body and tore into it. Chunks of flesh and strips of pyjama fabric churned with muscle and bone, grass and mud, spinning, swaying left and right. Having gained considerable girth, it stretched and headed for the nearest half of the postman’s body.
I’d forgotten about the trench and went sprawling into it, Ronda colliding into me. Wet mud chilled my skin and the bitter taste of earth crunched in my mouth. I tasted oil.
Ronda slapped the mud, screaming. The wind howled as it stripped bare the postman’s clothes and skin. Blood flew and bones broke. In a chaotic twist of crimson gore, that insane storm sucked up the other half of the man’s body.
We were out of the trench, and started running alongside the conifers towards the gate. With my back to the whirlwind, I waited to be snatched up into its devastating embrace.
From the house, that too-familiar thump-thump made me stumble to a halt.
The masonry cracked, creeping down the wall from top to bottom. Dust drifted in a haze.
Again, thump-thump.
From inside to out and as tall as the house itself, a darkness passed through the wall, somehow without breaking it—a twist of shadow that formed into another ferocious cyclone, larger, faster. It left the wall intact, with only black filth dribbling from the crack. The cyclone spun towards us, devouring paving slabs and soil. Stone shards flew around us. As earlier, the thing with too many limbs raged inside those spiralling confines.
Only one way to run, Ronda and I darted away from the conifers, away from the smaller whirlwind of gore behind us.
Darkness rushed in, to obscure both moon and security light, and in a wave of freezing wind that swept my legs from under me those two cyclones collided.
It was like a thunder crack.
Agony hammered my body as I slid and tumbled across the grass. A kaleidoscope of colours blinded me. I lay on my back, every inch of me screaming bruises. My breath came in sharp, short gasps as a shrieking wind battered me. I had no idea where Ronda was; all I saw was a seething darkness.
And the jittery image of that grotesque thing.
Although still behind the now-thinning veil of shadow, it no longer thrashed around. Its flesh was pale and sickly, almost luminous against the black winds. The surrounding vortex now looked more like a whirlpool of diesel and blood, chunks of gore circling, closing in towards the thing at its centre. That featureless entity sat there, squat and obese. I couldn’t even tell where its arms and legs were. It shimmered, crackling as though I watched a dodgy VHS copy of an 80s movie. The image faded in and out of focus, patiently awaiting the wash of blood, of flesh and bone. As the hurricane winds dwindled, the closer the churning red mess got to its doughy torso.
Slowly, I pushed myself up, kneeling. My head throbbed.
Clumps of meat and strands of tendons began to slap the thing’s pale flesh, and jagged splinters of bone stabbed it. What looked like tiny threads of darkness seemed to stitch the thing’s flesh with human skin and muscle. More gristle and bone and sinew—was that the postman’s hair?—covered its mass, weaved to create a gory patchwork, bulking out the entity’s already-obese body.
The surrounding darkness shrank in a final puff of black dust, joining the natural shadows of the garden. A silence closed in. My fists were pressed into cold mud. I had to get up. Where was Ronda?
The entity shifted—a wet, sloppy movement. Perhaps it was an arm that rose. I still couldn’t make sense of its anatomy. No longer did its body shimmer. It was solid, complete. Released. Every inch of its hulk was a wet melange of yellow and red and purple with bone shards glinting between black threads. From underneath its stitched folds, a tiny whirlwind fluttered. A puddle of oil rose with it and splashed across the thing’s body. The globules reflected moonlight as they traced the contours of lumpy flesh, zigzagging down between sections of skin.
That spiral of black wind swayed left and right…and shot towards me.
I ducked as it raced past, tearing up mud and grass.
It headed for Ronda’s motionless body. I’d not realised she lay amid a pile of concrete slabs and fence posts.
I stood up on unsteady legs.
The dark wind circled Ronda’s outstretched arm, seeming to caress the skin. It lingered at the palm she’d burnt when first touching the stone in Jim’s study. With a jerk, the miniature hurricane tore into her skin. Blood sprayed. It burrowed into her arm, shredding flesh. Veins snaked as though energised, and knotted together with thin coils of darkness. Pulled by her veins, hooked with those black tendrils, her body emerged from the rubble, and was dragged towards the grotesque creature.
Maybe I saw terror flash across her face.
A dozen yawning holes had appeared in the entity’s stitched flesh. Tiny black whirlwinds belched, and as though vacuumed, her clothes and skin tore, bones snapped and cracked in a black and purple blur. A moment later, she was little more than churning meat vanishing into the creature’s stomach. The mouths closed, blending with the rest of its patchwork bulk.
The thing visibly bloated, dripping sweat and blood. Dark veins wriggled beneath every fleshy segment as its muscles flexed, then slumped as though satiated.
All I heard was my heartbeat and my ragged breath.
Underneath that monstrosity oil leaked, snaking dark rivers that reflected the security light, pooling outward. As the thing moved, oil and muck flicked up.
I needed to end this.
On legs that wanted to buckle, I sprinted to the back end of my car; the twisted half-wreck that had landed beyond the trench. The boot was open, busted wide, and had vomited my survival kit. Among the bedlam of spare bulbs and heaped grass, and the warning triangle and broken fence posts, and a towel and jagged paving slabs…somewhere was my—
There it was: the petrol can.
And a rag.
I grabbed them and twisted off the cap, and stuffed the rag in the hole, careful not to get any fuel on my fingers. The harsh stink burned my nostrils. A quick glance at the quaking monster and I saw the lethargic raising of a floppy limb.
I rummaged in my pocket. The cigarette lighter…
Where the hell was it?
Mouths opened and closed, dark clouds pluming, forming an all-too-familiar twisting wind…
Which pocket was my fucking lighter in?
Slithering in mud and filth, the stumpy appendage punched the oil tank. The panel rattled, issuing a hollow echo.
“That’s right,” I shouted, “do that again!”
My lighter.
Finally.
A few clicks. Only sparks.
“Come on!”
More clicks…
It ignited, and at arm’s length I held it to the rag. The flame curled around the fabric, so…damn…slowly.
Those black clouds spun faster.
“Hurry!” I shouted at the rag. “Burn!”
A miniature tornado broke free from the patchwork flesh that was once Jim, Ronda, the postman.
“Burn!”
Hoping to hell the flame didn’t die, I hurled the can towards the quivering hulk of filth and flesh. Arcing overhead, the can trailed fire like a meteor to land with a whump! in the centre of that faceless thing. Blinding yellow flames spread like a blanket. The holes, those mouths, burst open spitting blood and gulping fire. A rending scream drilled into my skull. Fire raced across the ground, licking the oil tank, flowing into the trench.
I backed up, hands pressed to my ears.
An explosion threw a ball of fire upwards, and bellowing smoke blocked out the moon. I reeled backwards. My foot slid in mud yet I remained upright. Clumps of meat pounded the garden around me. Amid the orange glare, wobbly limbs flailed and whipped fire in all directions. Grass and bushes and trees burned. Tall flames hurtled along the trench.
Still the scream filled my head.
The heat made my scalp and face itch. I backed off, careful not to slip again, reluctant to look away. The fire raged while the scream diminished, while that foul body sank into itself, thrashing fat limbs. The scream dwindled. The body slumped. Silence now, save for the hiss and pop of burning wood. A smouldering stink clouded the garden, drifting on a wind…a natural wind. I choked.
From somewhere in the distance, far away in a world I thought once sane, sirens approached.
At the heart of the blinding flames, eventually nothing moved. No foul limbs twitched. Nor were there any spiralling winds. The fire continued to roar, framed by thick black smoke that burned my throat. I coughed and wondered where the pet rabbit was.
I coughed again, this time into my hand. My palm came away wet. I did not want to see the colour.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #53 ‘DUST DEVILS’ by Mark Cassell – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
