by Stephen Laws
Tully flung open the door. The wind seemed to freeze the sweat-sodden clothes on his body. He shoved the chair ahead of him. It tipped and the suitcase fell to the gravel outside.
There was a walking stick next to the door, the kind a good old farmer might use when he was out there doing what fucking farmers did. Tully seized it, and limped to lean on the doorframe. He saw the other car that the old lady and kid must have arrived in, headlights still blazing; strained to see through the swirling in his eyeballs if anyone was in there. With luck, it would be the farmer and the females—trying to get away and realizing they didn’t have the keys.
“Shit!”
The car was empty.
Tully staggered out into the storm, leg dangling in the wind—the foot turning at impossible angles. He looked right to left—and saw movement on the dirt track leading away from the farmhouse. He staggered, kneeling heavily on the suitcase with his good leg; now dragging the torch out of his belt and shining it up there.
“Yes, yes, yes!”
There they were, staggering against the wind; sticking together like a happy family and not scattering the way they should if they didn’t want to get caught. Tully braced himself on the walking stick, lunged up and grabbed the suitcase—filled with a new energy born of utter desperation but logic skewed by the agony raging in his body. He fell before he reached the car, but would not allow the molten pain in his knee or the swirling chaos in his head to prevent him from what he had to do. He yanked the driver’s door open, levered himself up with the walking stick and fell in sideways onto the seat. He jammed the walking stick in next to him and began to haul the suitcase in over his body, clumsily fumbling and shoving until it had wedged in the foot well of the passenger seat.
Breath sobbing, Tully pulled the door closed against the storm and fell forward against the steering wheel.
The horn blatted, loud and long—bringing him to his senses.
Tully sat back and let loose a string of curses when he saw that the car did not have automatic transmission.
Behind him, the happy family was getting away.
Tully found a set of blood-soaked keys, tried them in the ignition and threw them on the floor when they wouldn’t work. The first key in the second set turned the engine over straight away. Head swimming, Tully seized the walking stick and jammed it onto the clutch pedal. The engine roared as he wrenched at the gear stick.
The gun felt heavy inside his jacket.
FORTY NINE
The car horn blatted from below.
“Tully!” Drew snapped, staggering to his knees.
Cath grabbed him and hauled him up. The furrow in Drew’s scalp had begun to bleed copiously, as if he had just this moment been wounded. She threw her arm around his shoulder and hauled.
“Look!”
Cath followed Rynne’s pointing finger back down to the farmhouse.
Faye’s car was turning clumsily in a circle, jerking and jouncing on its suspension as if the person driving it was drunk. Headlights swung in the storm, flashing over the outhouses and ruined fences.
“Leave us alone!” Cath yelled back at the car, with the same savage anger she had projected in the cellar. That anger had not been enough to kill him as she’d wished back there. Maybe it would be enough to just send him away now.
It was not.
The car came to a halt, facing up the dirt track—and fixing them in its headlights.
“Leave us alone!”
The car came on, trundling up after them, headlights drunkenly swooping from the ground to the sky as it shuddered in and out of the ruts in the dirt track.
“The barn,” Drew gasped.
Cath looked wildly from side to side at the lack of any shelter or cover they could use, then up the track to the barn and its wrecked half-door. How could that help them? The only choice was for them to split up.
“Drew! Take Rynne—run off over there. I’ll make Tully follow me. When he comes after me, you take Rynne and find somewhere to hide.”
“Mum, no!” shouted Rynne, clinging to her arm.
Drew shook his head furiously, blood beading and flying from his chin in the wind. “No . . . no . . . the barn. The barn!”
There was a flat slap of sound, and something whistled in the air.
Cath looked back at the approaching car.
Tully was leaning drunkenly out of the window, trying to level the gun as the car jounced and rattled up the slope.
“The barn!” Drew yelled again.
They ran to the ramshackle building, its fractured planking shaking and banging in the furious wind.
FIFTY
They’ve got to die, said the suitcase.
“I know that, I know that.”
Me and you. That’s all that matters now.
“Yes, Mother.”
Pasco and Crip were standing on either side of the track waving, as Tully kept the walking stick jammed on the clutch pedal and the car trundled on in first gear. The headlight beams were Tully’s eyes and the happy family was scrambling on up ahead like rabbits. Leaning through the window, Tully snapped another shot off at them.
Take your time, the suitcase said. Aim better. You know you can shoot better than that.
“Yeah,” said Tully. “Vic taught me good.”
Thanks, Vic said from the backseat.
“Don’t mention it,” said Tully.
FIFTY ONE
They staggered into the barn, wind shrieking through the gaps in the planking, straw flying around them. It was as if the building and everything in it had come alive—except the huge dead bulk of the combine harvester. The car headlights made shadows leap and rear as Cath looked frantically around for the reason Drew had insisted they run here.
Drew broke away, staggered to a pile of junk lying at the side of the combine harvester and grabbed something from it.
A hand scythe.
Stumbling back to the entrance, he raised it high as the headlights fell on him—and another gunshot tore a chunk out of the planking next to his head. Cath ran to him as he flung the scythe at the car, now less than thirty feet away and heading straight for the barn. Cath saw Tully’s wild and white face as the scythe spun through the air. Drew had been aiming for the windshield, but the scythe missed—slicing the wing mirror off and into the night.
The car came straight at them.
Cath ducked back, seized the first thing she laid her hands on and hurled it with both hands. The rotted chunk of wood rattled across the hood and over the roof, but the car did not stop and came on, headlights blinding.
“Cath . . .” Drew flung up his hands, as if he could somehow physically stop the car, his silhouette gigantic in the headlights.
Cath scooped Rynne up in her arms and ran back into the barn as—
The car ploughed straight into the barn entrance, shattering the remaining half door and bringing debris down on its roof from above. Cath heard the car engine roaring, wood shattering and cracking; felt the barn itself seem to shift and sway as they fell against the back wall. Cath twisted to look back, expecting to see the car bearing down on top of them as the engine roared and roared.
The car was jammed solidly in the barn entrance.
The passenger side was flat against the barn wall; planks that had fallen on its roof were also wedged tight down that side. On the driver’s side, the shattered half door had also tangled and wedged the vehicle tight. Dust and straw flurried, and as Cath stared hard she could see Tully’s outline, still in the driver’s seat and now unsuccessfully trying to shove that door open against the shattered tangle.
There was no sign of Drew.
Oh Christ, was he under the car?
Cath struggled to keep a swell of nausea down, born from fear and shock. Frantically, she looked for another way out and could see none. Tully was shrieking in the car at his inability to open the driver’s door, banging it over and over against the wood. He twisted out through the window and fired another shot wildly into the bar
n, punching a ragged hole in the roof. When he jerked back inside and faced front again, Cath pulled Rynne down low so that he could not see them. His face did not look human. Had he gone insane? The car engine began to rev furiously as Tully tried to drive on ahead into the barn; now throwing the gears into reverse and trying to back out. The car moved back only slightly, enough for more planking to fall down at each side, tangling the vehicle’s bodywork even further. The rear wheels screeched as they spun, kicking up clouds of soil and straw.
A shadow darted past the front of the car as Tully had his head turned back. Something clanked and clattered as it passed.
Cath’s heart leaped.
“Drew!”
Tully twisted back again. Had he heard her voice? Cath kept low and tried to see where the shadow had gone. Somewhere to the side of the harvester? The car engine kept revving, and Tully was screaming in insane rage again as Cath pulled Rynne along the back wall of the barn—toward the deeper shadow of the harvester and to where she thought she had seen Drew.
“Drew!” This time she shouted loud, hoping that Tully’s mad raging would mask her voice and not given away their meagre hiding place.
“Here!” hissed a voice from the darkness.
Cath and Rynne scrambled on hands and knees through the darkness, around the rear end of the harvester, toward the sound of the voice.
“I know you’re there!” Tully yelled. Another wild shot screamed from the car. “Me and Vic are going to kill you fucking dead!”
By the wheel of the harvester, a familiar dark shape was struggling with what seemed to be a petrol can. The furious revving and roaring of the car was making the bulk of the harvester shake. Cath and Rynne scrambled to him.
“What are you doing?” Cath could see that Drew had wrenched the top off the can, was busying himself in the shadows in the far side of the harvester. The pungent smell of petrol filled the air.
“Keep him busy, Cath!”
“Maybe we can kick a hole in this wall? Get out this way.”
“Too solid, too thick. Look, keep him busy somehow. I don’t know if this’ll work. The bastard thing has been sitting here rotting and idle and the tank’s probably full of crap but if I can get this cleared I might be able to—oh shit!”
“Drew what are you doing?”
Drew grabbed for the can, petrol slopping as he lunged back into the darkness.
“Keep him busy, Cath!”
“Stay with Drew!” She told her daughter.
Cath pushed Rynne down and scrambled back around the rear of the harvester just as the car engine died. Looking around the back of a massive rear wheel, she could see Tully writhing in his seat as he twisted the ignition, trying to restart the car. He began pounding the steering wheel, screaming again. Cath realised as she watched that something really had snapped in Tully’s mind. The car engine caught again, and he slammed it into reverse. This time, the vehicle was shuddering backwards, planks cracking and splintering at each side as the rear wheels found some purchase. If he managed to get that car out of the barn, then he could get that driver’s door open—and despite his shattered leg, Cath knew that he’d be coming in after them. The barn walls were shaking, in danger of collapse.
“Tully! You couldn’t hit a barn door, you bastard.”
When he snapped his head round to face front, Cath stepped out from behind the wheel. She flung the handful of earth and pebbles she had scooped from the floor—the only thing she could find. They exploded in harmless powder across the windshield, but Tully was enraged enough to lunge sideways through the window as Cath jumped back behind the harvester. She heard a click—and a curse. Could it be that Tully’s gun was empty? She looked back again, saw Tully furiously fumbling at his jacket pockets—and somehow carrying on an angry conversation with an invisible passenger in the rear seat.
There was movement on the hidden side of the harvester, next to the barn wall. Cath glanced back and saw Drew climbing the side of the machine. A door was opening high up there—the door to the cab at the top of the vehicle. Drew’s silhouette swung on the door and vanished into the cab. Cath looked away again, back to Tully—
He was waiting for her.
She yelled and snapped her head back as Tully fired his reloaded weapon. The bullet tore a thick shred from the rear tire.
The car began to shudder more furiously as Tully threw the gears into reverse yet again. Cath ducked low, looking from below and beneath to see that Tully was reversing again; now with more success as the vehicle bucked and screeched backwards through splintering wood. This time the car was going to make it out of the barn, and its roaring and buckling progress seemed to be shaking the harvester from side to side on its giant wheels. But now she realised that something more was happening here. Something else was happening to the harvester. It was making its own screeching and grinding sounds, joining in with the car as it squeezed out and away, side panels buckling. Now, it was coughing and roaring as it shook, and Cath backed off in alarm. Something barked and coughed beside Cath’s face and she reeled back gagging as thick clouds of foul, choking dust blasted into her face and filled the barn.
“Mum!”
She staggered back to see Rynne beckoning to her between the far side of the harvester and the barn wall. Choking, Cath realised that the combine harvester had suddenly come alive; that the thick and roiling dust had spewed from its exhaust. She blundered through the smoke to her daughter, who pulled her to where Drew had climbed. The cabin door was still open and flapping as the harvester roared and smoke gushed in the barn. Cath pushed her on ahead, climbed with her as the gigantic bulk of the machine swayed and rattled. When Rynne reached the cab, Cath shoved her ahead and climbed up behind.
Drew was in the driving seat, furiously struggling with the controls. When he saw them clambering in, it looked as if he might yell that they should stay back—but when he saw the look in Cath’s eye, he held his words—and then yanked the steering wheel hard over.
The harvester juddered and lurched.
Below and to the right, the car screeched and buckled.
Cath held tight to the seat with one hand, keeping Rynne steadied with the other. She knew what Drew intended—to squash the murderous bastard in his car. Drew tugged again, this time looking directly into her eyes. The harvester jerked again. Below, something splintered and cracked. Drew looked out of the side window from on high.
The car screeched slowly backwards out of the barn, planking and debris tumbling and splitting on all sides. The fender snagged on the grille at the front of the harvester and was torn off. Drew saw Tully furiously struggling with the wheel, tyres screeching and burning rubber drifting up around its chassis. He spun the wheel hard the other way—and in the next moment Tully had got the damned thing out, the car slewing aside as it pulled away from the barn.
Grimly, Drew put his foot down.
The harvester shuddered and lurched forward, tearing out supports on the nearside wall. Cath and Rynne yelled together when timbers and joists hit the cabin roof, denting it down toward them before sliding off to the side with a ragged crash.
The car slewed to one side again, straightened—and began to reverse down the dirt track away from the barn. The chassis and suspension were wrecked, the car moving only as fast as gravity on this incline would allow.
The harvester roared out into the storm.
Behind it, the barn began a slow collapse in clouds of splintered wood, metal and straw—as Drew cranked the thresher, and the Beast turned to follow the battered car downhill.
FIFTY TWO
Tully looked back to see that the barn had suddenly turned into a house made of metal, roaring and belching smoke and coming down the hill after him. There was a waterfall coming out of its front; a waterfall that tumbled, span and clattered hungrily.
You didn’t kill them, said the suitcase.
“I’ll kill them!” snapped Tully. “You’ll see.”
How you going to spend me unless you kill them?<
br />
“That’s money talking,” said Pasco, who had joined Vic in the back seat. “Get it, Crip?” Crip was sitting on the other side of Vic, and laughed in that familiar way.
“Good one,” said Crip. “Money talking.”
“Not money,” said Vic. “Drugs.”
“Will I grow a new leg, Vic?” Tully asked.
“Oh yes,” replied Vic. “But only if you kill them.”
Tully looked back.
Vic’s eye sockets were empty, eaten by the fishes. “What have you done to my brother?” Tully screamed.
But Pasco and Crip were gone.
Tully jerked around to look forward again.
The waterfall was almost upon him.
There were knives in there.
Screaming, he leaned out of the side window and fired directly into the threshing, clattering blades—the sound of the shot drowned by the slashing and squealing of metal as the blades stabbed and punctured the hood of the car. Now he realised at last that this wasn’t a waterfall at all. This was the storm come alive with the jaws and the teeth of the devil cats from the nightmare in the farmhouse. But now there were hundreds of those teeth, chewing into and over the hood, rending the metal and devouring the engine. Those whirling, devouring fangs continued their relentless advance toward the windshield.
Tully shoved at the car door handle, but the door would not budge.
The frame was buckling even as he watched, wedging the door in its frame.
Tully began to haul himself through the window, firing into that clattering nightmare.
When the windshield imploded and the main frame of the car snapped, the impact jerked Tully back into his seat to face front.
Holding the gun out through the windshield aperture in front of him with both hands, face now blank, he kept pulling the trigger as the roaring, thrashing teeth and fangs chewed through the dashboard and steering wheel. When those flailing teeth took away his shattered leg below the knee he knew then that, just as the devil things in the farmhouse had been unreal, what was happening now was unreal. He felt no pain when that leg was taken, and that was nice.
