by Pete Kahle
“You saw it?”
He stood up to gain a vital few extra centimetres, but even from that vantage position there was no sign of the creature. When he closed his eyes the two blue orbs stared out at him from the darkness. He could hear it breathing. He knew it was his imagination and yet the soft shuffle of its breath tainted the air.
“Did you see it?” Phil asked again.
The other man on the rock remained silent and in the space that grew up between them Phil realised that he hated the other man. He didn’t know him, had hardly exchanged more than a few dozen words with him, but he hated him with the passion of a lifelong enemy. He stole a sideways glance at Jack who sunned himself on the rock like a basking lizard. Phil wanted to drag him to his feet and scream into his face that he should be afraid. He needed to take it seriously. There was a sly smile on Jack’s face, as if only he understood the joke and he was waiting until everyone else caught up with him.
The rock was no place for grand gestures, but Phil stormed away, scrambling to the lower level until he reached Harry. Harry was okay. Harry was caught in a constant battle with himself to resist dissolving into a ball of terror, but Phil had more time for the honesty of that then he had for Jack’s false bravado.
“Are we going to die?” Harry asked.
“He is,” Phil said.
Harry glanced to the top of the rock. Jack was an outline against the sky. “Leave him alone.”
“What’s his problem?”
Harry laughed. “How long have you got?”
Phil settled down on the rock next to him. The sky was charcoal grey. The sun struggled through the mass of clouds. Even the gold of the wheat field seemed subdued.
“No one is coming for us,” Harry said. He delivered his judgement deadpan; no histrionics, just the slightest catch in his voice to betray the emotion. “I was sure someone would come.”
“It’s still early days,” Phil said, but he felt like a liar. Yorkshire wasn’t that big. All it would take would be a few sweeps with a police helicopter – the bloody mess of George’s body ought to be enough to attract someone’s attention. But it wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t sure if anyone was even out looking for them.
“No,” Harry said. “No, it isn’t.”
From the corner of his eye Phil noticed him shaking his head. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and felt tight muscles beneath his fingertips.
“I never understood why George invited me along. It’s not like we were good friends,” Harry said. “We spoke in the office a couple of times but we weren’t, like, mates or anything. Not like you two.”
“That was George,” Phil said. “Always trying to make friends. I remember in secondary school once...” but he fell silent. He could feel his throat tighten. He sniffed and rubbed away a tear that had not quite formed at the corner of his eye.
“It’s okay, I understand,” Harry said. Phil felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and his first instinct was to push it away. There was all that shared history and yet it felt like he hadn’t spoken to George, really spoken to him rather than just chatting about families or holidays or football, since... since forever.
# # #
Harry killed himself at dusk.
He gave no warning. Phil didn’t know it was happening until it was almost over. The little man had been quiet and in hindsight Phil thought that should have been a warning, but he didn’t know Harry. He didn’t know if he regularly lapsed into long silences. He couldn’t know how Harry dealt with stress.
Harry sat brooding on the rock. For hours the three of them held their own places without talking. Occasionally Phil would climb down onto the beach; it relieved the monotony of staring and waiting for something to happen. He’d just returned from such a trip and was settling down when Harry moved.
Initially he assumed Harry was just stretching his legs. The man climbed down to the space just in front of the field of wheat. He passed silently and Phil lifted his head to say something, but there was an aura around Harry that stopped him from speaking. The long shadows of night painted black stains across most of the field. Phil shivered; he didn’t fancy it himself. It was too dark, you couldn’t see what was coming at you through the grass.
He watched for Harry to stop short of the grass, but he kept walking.
“Hey!” Phil called. Harry didn’t respond. He shouted louder. “Hey, Harry!”
The man did not pause. Did not turn around. He walked across the apron of flattened wheat and slipped between the tall stalks.
Phil jumped down two levels and stopped. The stink of electricity returned to the air. He heard the rustle of Harry’s passage and nothing else. In the gloom a shadow rose up from the grass, tall as a house, wide as forever. It hung in the air for a second and, although it was just darkness and silhouette, Phil was sure he could pick out glistening blue eyes.
Harry did not scream.
The air flooded with the bright stench of fresh blood. It caught Phil at the back of the throat and caused him to gag. In the stillness that followed he heard the soft breathing of the creature.
He scrambled back to the safety of the rock, his heart hammering against his chest, his throat clamped against a scream. When he looked out over the field all he saw was a pool of pure darkness.
“Just us two now,” Jack said.
Phil resisted the urge to tell him to shut the fuck up. Or grab him by the scuff of his jacket and drag him into the field.
# # #
Morning came. Finally. There were times during the night when Phil was certain that it would never arrive. That he was trapped in a world of permanent darkness.
His stomach ached from lack of food. He licked his lips but there was no moisture in his mouth with which to wet them.
Dawn on the second day was a far worse experience. Twenty four hours earlier he had been in shock: George had died and the remaining four of them were clinging to the rock like barnacles at low tide. Now there were only two of them left. He stole occasional glances at Jack but the other man did not seem to notice that he even existed.
The breaking sunlight revealed Harry’s trail into the field. He had not reached far and Phil found his eyes returning to the patch of broken grass. That made it worse. That forced Phil’s imagination to bridge the gap between what he could see and what he had heard the previous night, and he was quickly discovering that his imagination was powerful. He didn’t need to close his eyes to see the dark shape rising from the grass or to recall Harry’s blank stare as he walked down to the field. The echo of the too-brief scream rang in his head and each time his mind drifted off to sleep he awoke to that sound.
He wondered what it would take to push him to the same decision. He wanted desperately to know what Harry had been thinking in those moments before he had climbed down from the rock. When had he known?
“Are you going to do it then?” Jack asked.
Phil had an answer ready but chose to stay quiet. He didn’t like Jack. No reason. No explanation. But he didn’t like the other man. Hell, tell the truth and shame the devil – he hated him. He hated the way he sat up there in perfect silence as if none of this was happening to him. He knew the secret. Phil wasn’t sure there was an explanation, but if there was then Jack knew it. Yeah, that was it. That was why he hated the bastard – because he seemed to be enjoying this.
“How long do you think you can last?” Jack asked. “A week? Two weeks?”
“You’re all talk now. What’s changed?”
“It’s just the two of us. One of us is going to walk into that field and be killed, and the other is going to get out of here...”
“What makes you think anyone is going to escape?”
Phil twisted on the rock. The other man was staring out over the field.
“I’m going to escape.”
Phil felt his lip curl into an ugly grin. “No, you’re not. Neither of us are.”
“I am.”
There was just a note of hysteria in the other man’
s voice, but for Phil it was enough. He held his silence. It was easier than he’d expected.
Time passed. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. It didn’t make any difference. There was no time, not any more. There was just the present.
Finally Jack spoke again. “We can get out of here. One of us can.”
How? But Phil refused to ask.
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
He watched Jack clamber down from his perch. Come to join me in the cheap seats? Phil thought. He said nothing. Silence was more eloquent.
Jack sat beside him. The warmth of the man stained the air. It was midday. Warm, but not hot. He wondered if Jack had a fever.
“If I’d known that Harry was going to walk I would have taken my chance then,” Jack said.
“What chance?” Phil cursed himself silently. The question was asked before he was able to stop himself.
“To escape. While it was focused on Harry.”
The words made Phil think of those twin blue eyes staring out from the wheat.
“Would you do it?” Jack asked.
“Do what?”
“Take the risk.”
Phil tried to imagine himself racing along the aisle of crushed wheat, knowing that the creature was in there. He could see himself standing on the grass, too afraid to move. Standing there until the creature had finished with Harry and came for him.
“No one is coming to save us.”
“Maybe it will just go,” Phil said.
“Ha!” The laugh sounded forced, as if Jack was making a point. But he was right, why should they expect the creature to leave now? It was stupidity based upon terror.
“I can wait you out,” Jack said. “I can stay here as long as I need, and when you break, and you will break, I’ll take that moment to escape.”
I will not break, Phil thought. But he recalled Harry sitting there just seconds before he walked into the long grass. I will not break before you, he thought. He was lying to himself. It was impossible to imagine Jack, silent, stolid Jack, stepping down from the rock and walking into the field as Harry had done.
“I’ll give you a chance. Not much of a chance, because I’m still going to beat you, but a chance,” Jack told him.
“What?”
“We run together. You and me. Side by side. It will get one of us, I promise you that, but the other might get away.”
Phil looked down at the aisle that ran across the field. What would that mean? Would the creature prey upon the fastest or the slowest?
“I won’t do it,” Phil said.
Jack smiled. “I can wait.”
# # #
Phil stood on the edge of the field. He stared out into the shifting grass, but there was no sign of the blue eyes.
Jack was breathing hard.
“Ready?” Jack asked.
Phil nodded. He tried to focus on the path ahead. If he let Jack enter the aisle first maybe the creature would go for him. But then he would be trapped.
“Do you have a plan?” Jack asked.
Phil shrugged.
“That’s right. Keep it close to your chest.”
“On three?” Jack said. “One.”
Phil swallowed. It felt like he was choking on a tennis ball. His throat locked in fear.
“Two.”
His eyesight wavered. A heat haze hung above the wheat. He thought he saw movement in the field and just for a second he was certain it was George rushing toward him. He blinked and his vision steadied, but the sense that there was something watching remained.
He licked his lips. He had never been so frightened. Not even close. His heart was beating loud and fast. It wasn’t unreasonable to worry that he could simply drop dead of fright where he stood.
Maybe that’s what Jack wants, Phil thought. He cast a glance across to the other man. He was grinning.
What..? But there was no time to figure out what was going on. The other man called out, “One.”
His legs would not move. He stared down the avenue to the far side of the field where a plain steel gate marked the end of the nightmare. How long would it take to run there – twenty seconds? Maybe less. Fifteen seconds and then…
And then he was running, his feet pounding on the ground. His breath loud in his ears. Panting already. The muscles in his legs cramping with pain. He stared at the gate. He tried not to notice the wheat rearing above him on both sides and he definitely did not hear the rustle of the crop moving, as if tossed by the wind.
He felt the ground roll beneath his feet with each step. At the edge of his vision Jack eased into view, just slightly ahead of him. He ran as if it was no effort, as if he could maintain his pace forever. Phil added it to the list of reasons to hate him.
He looked past Jack. The gate was no longer there. Instead the creature reared up, blocking the path. It towered high above him; grey skin, wet and slick. Blue eyes blazing.
Jack stopped dead in the middle of the aisle and turned around. He was grinning. In his fist he gripped a rock. Phil saw it a moment before it smashed into the side of his head. As he fell to the floor, he watched Jack race for the gate.
Richard Farren Barber was born in Nottingham in July 1970. After studying in London he returned to the East Midlands. He lives with his wife and son and works as a Registry Manager for a local university.
He has written over 200 short stories and has had short stories published in Alt-Dead, Alt-Zombie, ePocalypse – Tales from the End, Horror D’Oeuvres, Murky Depths, Midnight Echo, Midnight Street, Morpheus Tales, Night Terrors II, Siblings, The House of Horror, Spectral Press’s 13 Ghosts of Christmas, Trembles, When Red Snow Melts, and broadcast on BBC Radio Derby, Pseudopod, and The Wicked Library.
Richard’s first novella, “The Power of Nothing” was published by Damnation Books and his second, “The Sleeping Dead” was published by DarkFuse. His website can be found here:
www.richardfarrenbarber.co.uk
Tiny Necks
By Marlena Frank
I never seem to have a big enough bag to hold them all. They struggle and spread their black wings, which makes the bag seem smaller than it is. All that cawing can cause a headache too. I have to do it quickly with these clever crows. They're cleverer than most people realize. Every time I open the bag to shove another bird in, pairs of beady black eyes watch me from within, waiting to escape.
With a single motion I grab another bird out of the trap. It's best to aim for the throat. All it can do is peck and claw at my gloved hand. Crows don't try to fly away as much when there's a clamp around their throat. The black bird is all caws and feathers in my grip as I stuff it into the bag with its friends. One of them pokes a beak out, thinking it's smart, but I'm ready for it. With my other hand I cover its face like a leathery mask and shove it to the bottom of the bag, then tie up the sack.
I turn to the two birds left in the angular, wire cage and give a chuckle. "That's all for today," I wipe the sweat off my brow. "I guess it's your lucky day." The two birds stare back at me from the far wall of the cage, trembling as I sling the sack of thirteen crows over my shoulder. They don't caw, they don't fly around, they just stare at me.
Fear does strange things to birds. Most of the time they fly around in a panic, searching for an escape, but others just go silent, like the two left in the cage. They cock their heads to the side and watch as I make my way to the house. Those are the ones that always bug me, to be honest. I wish they would panic and fly around. You never know what the quiet ones are thinking. I know better than to take all of them though. Other crows will come and see them trapped inside. Instead of being frightened away, they'll come to investigate. I always think of it as the Good Samaritan trap.
The trees are less thick as I approach the house, climbing uphill and panting a bit as the sweat builds up on my skin. My eyes linger on Candace's garden. Dandelions and baby oaks cover the square plot of earth, but the railroad ties still stand on the border where I placed them. It'll take many years for them to finally rot
away beneath the moss and clover that has sprung up. Each year the saplings get a little taller. I clench my hand around the sack and listen to the muffled caws within.
Candace would spend hours in her garden, down on all fours in the dirt with her wide-brimmed straw hat and long yellow gloves. Each week when I came down to empty the crow trap, she pretended not to hear them. She never asked what I did when I took the birds down to the basement, or how her lovely vegetables were kept safe from the greedy birds. She would smile at me, her eyes drifting down to the sack in my hand, and her mouth would make a thin little line. Then she would comment on the heat or the slugs or some other trivial topic. She never said a word about the birds. The only time she even acknowledged them was when they were in her garden. They simply didn't exist unless they were in her way, and I made sure they never were. She never saw the crow trap before she died, though she had to know it was back there in the woods just out of sight.
I never kill crows near the trap. The others would get wise to it. Their invisible brethren stare down from their pulpits in the branches of the trees and watch my every move, even if I can't see them. The first time I did it, not a single bird came near the trap for months. It was like they could smell the death.
The bag is heavier than it used to be. I used to carry twenty crows to the house without breaking a sweat once, but I was younger then and Candace was alive. Somehow she made it easier. Around the corner of the house, the basement door is nestled among tall bushes. It gives the privacy I'll need for what has to be done.
# # #
I pull on a metal cord and the bare bulb above my head blares to life, illuminating walls of wooden beams and cracked concrete underfoot. It smells of cut wood and earth down here with a slight musty twinge I can never quite identify. I pin the sack's opening to the floor with a concrete block. The birds flutter and squawk inside, but they're not going anywhere. Someday I ought to organize all these boxes and put this place in order, but she's no longer here and there doesn't seem to be a reason for it now.
