| Copyright 2008 by Nils Durban |
| Fiction |
| July 2008 |
| A Shadow Emerges |
| By: Nils Durban |
About Nils Durban:
Location: Worcestershire, UK
Bio/Info: currently writing for it's own rewards and have posted a number of
pieces on the Internet forums.
Location: Worcestershire, UK
Bio/Info: currently writing for it's own rewards and have posted a number of
pieces on the Internet forums.
The below is a prequel to Shadows of London, which featured in the June
Edition of Orion’s Child and is the second in a ‘developing work’, which is
to say, I don’t quite know where it is ultimately heading as yet. I do have
one or two plans for Sleet, though, and the odd surprise for him along the
way. So, if you’ve come this far, please stick with it a while longer.
N.D.
Edition of Orion’s Child and is the second in a ‘developing work’, which is
to say, I don’t quite know where it is ultimately heading as yet. I do have
one or two plans for Sleet, though, and the odd surprise for him along the
way. So, if you’ve come this far, please stick with it a while longer.
N.D.
He was a mess and he knew it. Furthermore, he no longer cared.
A strange sight was he. Unshaven, obviously, and haggard in appearance,
but his physique was somewhat muscular. This in itself was unusual
amongst the homeless of the streets of London. What really drew the
stares of the passers by, however, was his attire – black suit and tie and
black leather shoes that had seemingly been polished in the not too
distant past.
When he had awoken, groggily, propped against the jamb of a side-street
fire escape doorway, he had allowed himself to savour the instant during
which he was a nobody, a stranger even to himself, without purpose,
without a name, without family. Family!
It all came rushing back, flooding into his brain as it did every morning.
He scanned the glistening wet pavement about him. Sometimes,
occasionally…yes, there, a polystyrene cup with a plastic lid, deposited
there by one of the soup kitchen volunteers during the night. He reached
out shakily and wrapped his numb fingers about it, drew it towards him,
and flipped off the lid. Tomato. Stone cold, of course, but this was
breakfast and it was more than he had been used to of late. He raised the
cup to his lips and proceeded to pour the contents down his throat in a
single gulp, fighting the reflex that would cause him to gag and vomit the
red liquid into the street. It sat like a cold dead weight in his previously
empty and aching stomach. He waited for the nausea to pass, his head in
his hands, and then took several deep breaths of the cold autumn air
before half pulling and half pushing himself to his feet. He checked the
street briefly before turning to urinate in the doorway, and then he was
once again on his way. . . on his way to nowhere.
…………………..
“Mr. James,” the doctor said, frowning over his horn-rimmed glasses,
“there is no way we’re going to make any progress if you fail to take the
medication that I have prescribed for you. It really is in your best
interest you know.”
“But it isn’t helping me.” Sleet repeated for the third time since he had sat
down opposite the large oak veneered desk.
“These things take time, as I’ve told you before,” the doctor said. “There
are no quick fixes for your particular problem, I’m afraid.”
Sleet sighed. This was just going around in circles! “I haven’t got a
problem!”
The doctor looked sternly at him. “You’re really going to have to face up
to it Mr. James. The type of paranoid delusions that you have been
experiencing aren’t all that unusual. And with the loss that you have
suffered, especially under such…..inexplicable circumstances, well, it’s
hardly surprising really. But I cannot help you if you won’t help
yourself.”
“I am not delusional!” Sleet raised his voice.
“I thought we had moved forward Mr. James, I really did, but perhaps you
need some dedicated therapy. There are plenty of local institutions, you
know. I could recommend somewhere to you. All very discreet of course.”
“Look….” Sleet began. But perhaps they were right. Perhaps he did need a
padded cell. He should never have told them anything in the first place,
should have just kept his mouth shut, because, of course, the whole thing
was entirely preposterous.
Without another word he stood and left.
The doctor reached across the desk for his telephone.
…………………….
The funeral had been hard on everyone. Especially hard upon their
Mother. And Moira….he could barely bring himself to speak to her. A
month it had taken, enquiry and autopsy, all inconclusive. And now this
hole in the ground, everyone dressed in black.
Closure, that’s what the doctor had said to him. It would provide him
with closure.
Afterwards they all went back to their mother’s house, the old family
home. There was some food, but it went untouched. Sleet couldn’t face any
of them. Instead he went through the kitchen and then the back door, into
the clay paved yard where his father had spent so much time tending to
his precious pigeons. The old coop still stood there, unused for years now.
“Sleet?” It was Moira. He didn’t turn around, but continued to stare down
the small overgrown garden.
He felt her hand touch his and involuntarily flinched, took a step
further away from her. “I can’t.”
“Can’t talk about it?” she sounded hurt, “even to me?”
“Especially to you.” He whispered. “I destroyed everything, everything
the two of you could have had.”
“But it was nothing to do with you, remember, you were just there is all.”
“That’s right. Just there, helpless, bloody useless.” He felt himself begin
to shake and momentarily wished that he hadn’t flushed his medication.
“It wasn’t working between us,” Moira persevered, “you know that better
than anybody.”
“We were arguing you know, when it happened,” Sleet continued to speak
in a hushed strained tone, “. . . over you.”
She reached out to touch his arm this time. “Look, come inside. Things will
get better you know.”
He whirled around to face her, his face wet with tears. “Get better?” he
shouted in exasperation. “Are you completely mad?” Or am I? he wondered
as he swept though the side gate into the alley, launching himself into a
desperate run. He would never return here, he vowed.
…………………….
He turned the corner into the road in which he lived in time to see the
police patrol car pull up in front of his house. He ducked back behind the
privet hedgerow and breathed deeply before carefully peering around
once more. A PC had left the car and mounted the steps to his front door
where another constable was already stationed. They exchanged words
briefly and then the officer who had been on guard returned to the car
and executed a three point turn before driving it away in the direction
from which it had come.
They were watching for him! They had his house under police guard!
Either he had been reported as an unstable (dangerous?) character or
else further suspicions had arisen in connection with his brother’s death.
No opportunity to change into more inconspicuous clothes then - what he
was wearing would have to suffice. He turned and fled back down the
street, to lose himself in the sprawling environs of the capital.
…………………….
Some three weeks he had now spent as a vagrant, in a vain attempt to
escape from his own memories that refused to cease the haunting of his
mind.
Yes. He had convinced himself of his insanity. The doctor had been
correct. But he did not require their cure, he was sure of that. He would
find his own solution to this madness, somehow. Just had to keep on
moving, find somewhere new to spend the next night and, if he was lucky,
beg enough coppers along the way to purchase something to eat, a burger
or a sandwich maybe.
He shambled along, keeping mainly to the back streets of the city, making
his way towards the Thames where he intended to cross into the North
side of London, for no other reason than to be somewhere different.
During the afternoon he spent a number of hours sat at a busy street
corner, shamelessly asking the passing denizens of the city for what
little coin they could spare him. His fortunes in this regard were
decidedly mixed, surely due to the suit that he was clothed in, even
though it was now in somewhat dishevelled condition. He did, however,
manage to successfully garner a couple of pounds with which he
purchased a cheeseburger and fries from a nearby McDonald’s. Not what
he would have ever normally considered consuming, but he was now past
caring about his healthy diet. Food was food – something to see him
through to the following day.
As the evening drew in he found himself upon the banks of the river near
to Blackfriars Bridge, the shadows of The Globe and the Tate Modern
looming over him. He ambled along the riverside walk until he found a
likely looking vacant bench upon which to spend the night beneath the
handful of newspapers that he had gathered up from the pavements and
bins throughout the day.
The river called to him in a way which he was sure it had called to
countless others before him. It would be so easy, he thought, to make my
way up onto the bridge and then to just let go, let it all go away.
He cursed and turned his attentions to arranging his makeshift bedding
upon the wooden seat. He would see what the morning brought. With a
little luck a different variety of soup, he thought grimly. He stretched
himself out on the bench pulling the papers up over his nose and mouth.
Before too long he drifted into an uneasy slumber.
………………….
His dreams were troubling. There was some indescribable noise inside his
skull, a harsh screech, almost a cackle. Something that, rather
worryingly, rang a very loud alarm bell within him. It was something he
remembered. Remembered with a horrifying chill.
He shot bolt upright on the seat, searching left and right along the
embankment. There! A little way further down the path, in the vicinity of
another bench, a figure, hunched over.
It had begun to drizzle during the night and a thin mist was rising up
from the river, making visibility difficult. Sleet rubbed his eyes and
stared into the darkness. Again, that animal scream, followed by a
disturbing slavering sound. He raised himself and slowly began to make
his way towards the noise, keeping to the shadows amongst the shrubbery
and out of the pools of light cast by the riverside lamps.
The figure became clearer as he approached, but his mind became more and
more confused. It couldn’t be! Oh, God help him, he had completely lost the
plot! It was one of them. It was one of those hellish ghouls that had
appeared before his brother and him almost two months ago. One of those
shadow demons! They had killed his brother, Sky, literally sucked the life
right out of him, leaving nothing more than a dried grey husk where
moments before his very much alive sibling had been standing.
And now the same thing was happening again. Either that or his mind had
finally tipped over the edge into a spiralling insanity. The creature,
which appeared to closely resemble a medieval church gargoyle, only
some seven feet tall, was leaning forward over another figure that Sleet
had not previously perceived. A tramp, obviously having made the same
sleeping arrangements as he had himself, lay prone and apparently
spellbound as the horror leered over him.
He could not resist creeping even closer. He had to find out what this
was. Madness, or reality?
The shadow creature’s eyes were a glowing red, seemingly as hot as coals.
For a second time in his life Sleet was frozen, powerless to intervene. The
pitiful victim was obviously transfixed and he could feel the effect
himself. His feet refused to move in either direction.
Sleet stared, horrified, as he watched the tramp’s body curl up. He
thought (maybe just imagined) that he heard a crackling sound as all the
life was drawn from it and it was left as nothing but a hollow shell. He
managed a gulp.
It was then that the beast raised its hideous visage to the night sky and
let out its blood curdling cackle, in seeming celebration.
Sleet was released to move at this point and fell forwards, collapsing
against a steel litter bin with a resounding thud. He gained his feet
quickly and looked to where the monster stood, only to find its piercing
crimson gaze pointed in his precise direction. He turned and ran for all
that he was worth, but his ears picked up the whoosh of the beast’s wings
as it glided down the embankment at his back.
He dodged right onto a side path and headed uphill away from the river
and soon found himself amongst buildings again. He risked a glance over
his shoulder and to his dismay saw that the creature, although back on
the ground, was now stalking rapidly in his direction.
Sleet backed up against the nearest brick built building. A door, he
needed a door. But surely every one would be locked. He worked his way
along the wall, keeping his eyes on this shadow creature that appeared to
be taking some sort of perverse pleasure in hunting him down, each of its
breaths accompanied by a dry throaty rattle.
He suddenly fell backwards into a doorway and felt the door itself give
a little against his back. Wooden, and perhaps not too secure. Sleet
turned quickly and flung his shoulder against what he hoped was its
leading edge. The door splintered in all directions sending him crashing
through into the room beyond. A five inch long wooden needle was left
protruding from the back of his hand but he did not even feel it.
He sprawled on a sticky carpeted floor before rolling himself over to
face the jagged outline of the doorway, his legs pushing him further back
into the room.
Silence!
And then a hulking shadow blocked out the moonlight. A shadow with
fiery eyes, that reached through the broken remnant of the door and
pulled itself through the opening. It appeared to have perfect night
vision, seeming to focus on his position straight away, and began to make
its way across the room to where he lay.
“Shit!” Sleet’s head impacted with a wall behind him. He put his back into
it and pushed himself to his feet. “I’m not going to cower down for you,
you evil bastard,” he shouted at it. His hands roved along the wall to
either side of him and one of them found what was, perhaps, a light
switch. God! Did he really want to see the thing that clearly? Gaze on
this monster that was going to suck the life out of him?
“Come on then you ugly bastard!” he hollered, “lets have a look at you!”
He flicked the switch.
Ultraviolet lights snapped on from all sides, illuminating what was a
fairly grotty nightclub bar-room. The lights in the shadow creature’s
eyes went out at exactly the same moment and it let out an awful
shrieking cacophony as it began to thrash one way and then the other,
apparently blinded and in complete agony.
Surprised, Sleet circled it warily, collecting a bar stool as he made his
way back to the broken doorway. He was about to drop the stool and bolt
for it when he realised that this was his opportunity to hit back, to
obtain what little revenge for his brother’s death he could, and to prove
to himself that he was, perhaps, not a total fruitcake.
He strode into the centre of the room, the stool held high above his head,
before bringing it down swiftly onto the demons back with a satisfying
crack which had, maybe, broken at least one of its wings.
It fell to its knees, then gathered its feet again and made a lunge for the
door and freedom, but Sleet was ready for it. This time the metal feet of
the stool were propelled into the beast’s face, causing it to shriek out at
what surely was the very top of its horrible voice.
It fell once more to the floor and lay there panting and clawing at its
eyes. Sleet brought the stool down upon its back again, driving the
creature flat against the floor. The thing did not move and Sleet,
breathing heavily stood back to examine it in the purple ultraviolet glow.
Its leathery hide was bubbling, disintegrating before his eyes! Whether
this was as a result of the light or the damage that he had inflicted upon
it he did not know.
He watched and waited as the thing continued to burn itself into an ugly
stain on the carpet, totally unrecognisable as the horror that had stood
in the room only moments before. He let the stool fall to the floor and
leant back against the bar, trying to come to terms with what had
transpired.
“It was real!” he told himself repeatedly, “it was bloody real!”
When he felt that his legs had stopped shaking enough for him to walk
and after he had helped himself to a very large scotch, he made his way
back to the exit, sparing one last glance for the mess on the floor that
had come so close to ending his existence.
He knew there were others out there. He would need to be careful. And
just maybe, he thought to himself, they would have to be a little careful
now to.
…………?………...
A strange sight was he. Unshaven, obviously, and haggard in appearance,
but his physique was somewhat muscular. This in itself was unusual
amongst the homeless of the streets of London. What really drew the
stares of the passers by, however, was his attire – black suit and tie and
black leather shoes that had seemingly been polished in the not too
distant past.
When he had awoken, groggily, propped against the jamb of a side-street
fire escape doorway, he had allowed himself to savour the instant during
which he was a nobody, a stranger even to himself, without purpose,
without a name, without family. Family!
It all came rushing back, flooding into his brain as it did every morning.
He scanned the glistening wet pavement about him. Sometimes,
occasionally…yes, there, a polystyrene cup with a plastic lid, deposited
there by one of the soup kitchen volunteers during the night. He reached
out shakily and wrapped his numb fingers about it, drew it towards him,
and flipped off the lid. Tomato. Stone cold, of course, but this was
breakfast and it was more than he had been used to of late. He raised the
cup to his lips and proceeded to pour the contents down his throat in a
single gulp, fighting the reflex that would cause him to gag and vomit the
red liquid into the street. It sat like a cold dead weight in his previously
empty and aching stomach. He waited for the nausea to pass, his head in
his hands, and then took several deep breaths of the cold autumn air
before half pulling and half pushing himself to his feet. He checked the
street briefly before turning to urinate in the doorway, and then he was
once again on his way. . . on his way to nowhere.
…………………..
“Mr. James,” the doctor said, frowning over his horn-rimmed glasses,
“there is no way we’re going to make any progress if you fail to take the
medication that I have prescribed for you. It really is in your best
interest you know.”
“But it isn’t helping me.” Sleet repeated for the third time since he had sat
down opposite the large oak veneered desk.
“These things take time, as I’ve told you before,” the doctor said. “There
are no quick fixes for your particular problem, I’m afraid.”
Sleet sighed. This was just going around in circles! “I haven’t got a
problem!”
The doctor looked sternly at him. “You’re really going to have to face up
to it Mr. James. The type of paranoid delusions that you have been
experiencing aren’t all that unusual. And with the loss that you have
suffered, especially under such…..inexplicable circumstances, well, it’s
hardly surprising really. But I cannot help you if you won’t help
yourself.”
“I am not delusional!” Sleet raised his voice.
“I thought we had moved forward Mr. James, I really did, but perhaps you
need some dedicated therapy. There are plenty of local institutions, you
know. I could recommend somewhere to you. All very discreet of course.”
“Look….” Sleet began. But perhaps they were right. Perhaps he did need a
padded cell. He should never have told them anything in the first place,
should have just kept his mouth shut, because, of course, the whole thing
was entirely preposterous.
Without another word he stood and left.
The doctor reached across the desk for his telephone.
…………………….
The funeral had been hard on everyone. Especially hard upon their
Mother. And Moira….he could barely bring himself to speak to her. A
month it had taken, enquiry and autopsy, all inconclusive. And now this
hole in the ground, everyone dressed in black.
Closure, that’s what the doctor had said to him. It would provide him
with closure.
Afterwards they all went back to their mother’s house, the old family
home. There was some food, but it went untouched. Sleet couldn’t face any
of them. Instead he went through the kitchen and then the back door, into
the clay paved yard where his father had spent so much time tending to
his precious pigeons. The old coop still stood there, unused for years now.
“Sleet?” It was Moira. He didn’t turn around, but continued to stare down
the small overgrown garden.
He felt her hand touch his and involuntarily flinched, took a step
further away from her. “I can’t.”
“Can’t talk about it?” she sounded hurt, “even to me?”
“Especially to you.” He whispered. “I destroyed everything, everything
the two of you could have had.”
“But it was nothing to do with you, remember, you were just there is all.”
“That’s right. Just there, helpless, bloody useless.” He felt himself begin
to shake and momentarily wished that he hadn’t flushed his medication.
“It wasn’t working between us,” Moira persevered, “you know that better
than anybody.”
“We were arguing you know, when it happened,” Sleet continued to speak
in a hushed strained tone, “. . . over you.”
She reached out to touch his arm this time. “Look, come inside. Things will
get better you know.”
He whirled around to face her, his face wet with tears. “Get better?” he
shouted in exasperation. “Are you completely mad?” Or am I? he wondered
as he swept though the side gate into the alley, launching himself into a
desperate run. He would never return here, he vowed.
…………………….
He turned the corner into the road in which he lived in time to see the
police patrol car pull up in front of his house. He ducked back behind the
privet hedgerow and breathed deeply before carefully peering around
once more. A PC had left the car and mounted the steps to his front door
where another constable was already stationed. They exchanged words
briefly and then the officer who had been on guard returned to the car
and executed a three point turn before driving it away in the direction
from which it had come.
They were watching for him! They had his house under police guard!
Either he had been reported as an unstable (dangerous?) character or
else further suspicions had arisen in connection with his brother’s death.
No opportunity to change into more inconspicuous clothes then - what he
was wearing would have to suffice. He turned and fled back down the
street, to lose himself in the sprawling environs of the capital.
…………………….
Some three weeks he had now spent as a vagrant, in a vain attempt to
escape from his own memories that refused to cease the haunting of his
mind.
Yes. He had convinced himself of his insanity. The doctor had been
correct. But he did not require their cure, he was sure of that. He would
find his own solution to this madness, somehow. Just had to keep on
moving, find somewhere new to spend the next night and, if he was lucky,
beg enough coppers along the way to purchase something to eat, a burger
or a sandwich maybe.
He shambled along, keeping mainly to the back streets of the city, making
his way towards the Thames where he intended to cross into the North
side of London, for no other reason than to be somewhere different.
During the afternoon he spent a number of hours sat at a busy street
corner, shamelessly asking the passing denizens of the city for what
little coin they could spare him. His fortunes in this regard were
decidedly mixed, surely due to the suit that he was clothed in, even
though it was now in somewhat dishevelled condition. He did, however,
manage to successfully garner a couple of pounds with which he
purchased a cheeseburger and fries from a nearby McDonald’s. Not what
he would have ever normally considered consuming, but he was now past
caring about his healthy diet. Food was food – something to see him
through to the following day.
As the evening drew in he found himself upon the banks of the river near
to Blackfriars Bridge, the shadows of The Globe and the Tate Modern
looming over him. He ambled along the riverside walk until he found a
likely looking vacant bench upon which to spend the night beneath the
handful of newspapers that he had gathered up from the pavements and
bins throughout the day.
The river called to him in a way which he was sure it had called to
countless others before him. It would be so easy, he thought, to make my
way up onto the bridge and then to just let go, let it all go away.
He cursed and turned his attentions to arranging his makeshift bedding
upon the wooden seat. He would see what the morning brought. With a
little luck a different variety of soup, he thought grimly. He stretched
himself out on the bench pulling the papers up over his nose and mouth.
Before too long he drifted into an uneasy slumber.
………………….
His dreams were troubling. There was some indescribable noise inside his
skull, a harsh screech, almost a cackle. Something that, rather
worryingly, rang a very loud alarm bell within him. It was something he
remembered. Remembered with a horrifying chill.
He shot bolt upright on the seat, searching left and right along the
embankment. There! A little way further down the path, in the vicinity of
another bench, a figure, hunched over.
It had begun to drizzle during the night and a thin mist was rising up
from the river, making visibility difficult. Sleet rubbed his eyes and
stared into the darkness. Again, that animal scream, followed by a
disturbing slavering sound. He raised himself and slowly began to make
his way towards the noise, keeping to the shadows amongst the shrubbery
and out of the pools of light cast by the riverside lamps.
The figure became clearer as he approached, but his mind became more and
more confused. It couldn’t be! Oh, God help him, he had completely lost the
plot! It was one of them. It was one of those hellish ghouls that had
appeared before his brother and him almost two months ago. One of those
shadow demons! They had killed his brother, Sky, literally sucked the life
right out of him, leaving nothing more than a dried grey husk where
moments before his very much alive sibling had been standing.
And now the same thing was happening again. Either that or his mind had
finally tipped over the edge into a spiralling insanity. The creature,
which appeared to closely resemble a medieval church gargoyle, only
some seven feet tall, was leaning forward over another figure that Sleet
had not previously perceived. A tramp, obviously having made the same
sleeping arrangements as he had himself, lay prone and apparently
spellbound as the horror leered over him.
He could not resist creeping even closer. He had to find out what this
was. Madness, or reality?
The shadow creature’s eyes were a glowing red, seemingly as hot as coals.
For a second time in his life Sleet was frozen, powerless to intervene. The
pitiful victim was obviously transfixed and he could feel the effect
himself. His feet refused to move in either direction.
Sleet stared, horrified, as he watched the tramp’s body curl up. He
thought (maybe just imagined) that he heard a crackling sound as all the
life was drawn from it and it was left as nothing but a hollow shell. He
managed a gulp.
It was then that the beast raised its hideous visage to the night sky and
let out its blood curdling cackle, in seeming celebration.
Sleet was released to move at this point and fell forwards, collapsing
against a steel litter bin with a resounding thud. He gained his feet
quickly and looked to where the monster stood, only to find its piercing
crimson gaze pointed in his precise direction. He turned and ran for all
that he was worth, but his ears picked up the whoosh of the beast’s wings
as it glided down the embankment at his back.
He dodged right onto a side path and headed uphill away from the river
and soon found himself amongst buildings again. He risked a glance over
his shoulder and to his dismay saw that the creature, although back on
the ground, was now stalking rapidly in his direction.
Sleet backed up against the nearest brick built building. A door, he
needed a door. But surely every one would be locked. He worked his way
along the wall, keeping his eyes on this shadow creature that appeared to
be taking some sort of perverse pleasure in hunting him down, each of its
breaths accompanied by a dry throaty rattle.
He suddenly fell backwards into a doorway and felt the door itself give
a little against his back. Wooden, and perhaps not too secure. Sleet
turned quickly and flung his shoulder against what he hoped was its
leading edge. The door splintered in all directions sending him crashing
through into the room beyond. A five inch long wooden needle was left
protruding from the back of his hand but he did not even feel it.
He sprawled on a sticky carpeted floor before rolling himself over to
face the jagged outline of the doorway, his legs pushing him further back
into the room.
Silence!
And then a hulking shadow blocked out the moonlight. A shadow with
fiery eyes, that reached through the broken remnant of the door and
pulled itself through the opening. It appeared to have perfect night
vision, seeming to focus on his position straight away, and began to make
its way across the room to where he lay.
“Shit!” Sleet’s head impacted with a wall behind him. He put his back into
it and pushed himself to his feet. “I’m not going to cower down for you,
you evil bastard,” he shouted at it. His hands roved along the wall to
either side of him and one of them found what was, perhaps, a light
switch. God! Did he really want to see the thing that clearly? Gaze on
this monster that was going to suck the life out of him?
“Come on then you ugly bastard!” he hollered, “lets have a look at you!”
He flicked the switch.
Ultraviolet lights snapped on from all sides, illuminating what was a
fairly grotty nightclub bar-room. The lights in the shadow creature’s
eyes went out at exactly the same moment and it let out an awful
shrieking cacophony as it began to thrash one way and then the other,
apparently blinded and in complete agony.
Surprised, Sleet circled it warily, collecting a bar stool as he made his
way back to the broken doorway. He was about to drop the stool and bolt
for it when he realised that this was his opportunity to hit back, to
obtain what little revenge for his brother’s death he could, and to prove
to himself that he was, perhaps, not a total fruitcake.
He strode into the centre of the room, the stool held high above his head,
before bringing it down swiftly onto the demons back with a satisfying
crack which had, maybe, broken at least one of its wings.
It fell to its knees, then gathered its feet again and made a lunge for the
door and freedom, but Sleet was ready for it. This time the metal feet of
the stool were propelled into the beast’s face, causing it to shriek out at
what surely was the very top of its horrible voice.
It fell once more to the floor and lay there panting and clawing at its
eyes. Sleet brought the stool down upon its back again, driving the
creature flat against the floor. The thing did not move and Sleet,
breathing heavily stood back to examine it in the purple ultraviolet glow.
Its leathery hide was bubbling, disintegrating before his eyes! Whether
this was as a result of the light or the damage that he had inflicted upon
it he did not know.
He watched and waited as the thing continued to burn itself into an ugly
stain on the carpet, totally unrecognisable as the horror that had stood
in the room only moments before. He let the stool fall to the floor and
leant back against the bar, trying to come to terms with what had
transpired.
“It was real!” he told himself repeatedly, “it was bloody real!”
When he felt that his legs had stopped shaking enough for him to walk
and after he had helped himself to a very large scotch, he made his way
back to the exit, sparing one last glance for the mess on the floor that
had come so close to ending his existence.
He knew there were others out there. He would need to be careful. And
just maybe, he thought to himself, they would have to be a little careful
now to.
…………?………...