Lets Drink To The Dead

by Simon Bestwick

  The Shrike chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll try.”

  “There will be no try. You will be dead, Mr Shrike. Myfanwy, you and the children climb down.”

  “Alright.” Myfanwy switched her torch on and shone it down side of the platform. “Quickly, children. Wesley, you first.”

  The Shrike was chuckling again. “Shut up,” said Bronisław. The Shrike continued to chuckle. Bronisław felt sweat trickle down his back. Wasn’t he frightened? Perhaps a gun couldn’t kill him. But if he had nothing at all to fear from it, why was he still standing there?

  These were questions for another time, and Bronisław Stakowski pushed them aside.

  “Now you, darling,” Myfanwy told Tammy. “Go on, it’s easy. You can do it.”

  The Shrike sighed and started to lower his hands. Bronisław jabbed the gun at him and the Shrike sighed again.

  Now Myfanwy was climbing down. “Alright, children. Now come on, with me. Bron–?”

  “You go. Get the children to safety, call the police. I will remain here with Mr Shrike.” Shrike; it sounded rather like a German name.

  “Bron–”

  “Just do it. I will be fine.”

  Myfanwy bit her lip and then started moving, the children following her. They disappeared from sight among the trees.

  The Shrike had turned his head to watch them go; now he looked back at Bron. “Two children and an old woman,” he said, his thin voice mocking and cold. “Two very cold children who can’t move fast at the best of times. How easy would they be to catch, I wonder?”

  He lowered his arms and took a step forward.

  “Stay where you are,” said Bronisław.

  The Shrike only chuckled. Then leapt.

  Bronisław fired. The gun’s left hand barrel erupted in flame and smoke. It was loaded with buckshot; at this distance, the load ought to tear the Shrike’s chest apart.

  But the Shrike wasn’t there. Bronisław dropped into a crouch and stumbled backwards, but the Shrike wasn’t coming at him at all. He’d leapt, but not at Bronisław; instead he’d leapt from the platform and landed in a crouch on the tracks below. Now he broke into a run, pelting down the railway after Myfanwy and the children.

  Shouting, Bronisław fell to one knee, aimed at the fleeing back. Quickly, now, before he was out of range. He squeezed the second trigger and the shotgun bucked, its hollow boom echoing through the night. Buckshot cracked and rattled off concrete and wood. Did the running figure stumble? Bronisław couldn’t be sure. He broke open the shotgun, prising the discharged cartridges free of the chambers and pushing two new ones into place, but the Shrike had already vanished into the woods.

  Bronisław snapped the gun closed and ran down the platform, down the ramp to ground level. The dark of the woods gaped open to receive him.

  MYFANWY HEARD THE two shots boom out, one after the other, and no more. She didn’t hear any screams or cries, but that hardly meant anything; her heart was thudding away mightily and she was gasping for breath.

  With luck it meant Bron had killed the bastard – given him both barrels, one after the other. But even that mightn’t be enough. He’s not a man, the dead girl at the farmhouse had said. He looks human, but he’s not, not really. The shotgun might not have harmed him. He might have shrugged off the blasts and seized Bron in those long, pointed fingers. But surely the Shrike could be killed? They wouldn’t have sent her to fight him without at least some knowledge of how to do so.

  They could only run so fast, in this cold, in this dark. The railway tracks might be easier going than other parts of the slope, but there were still loose rocks and stray roots, and a fall here could be lethal. And the poor children were stiff from however long they’d spent tied up in the cold unable to move. But at the same time they had to keep moving. They had to get away from him–

  A hand caught her arm; Wesley. “Behind us,” he gasped. “He’s behind us... he...”

  A high, hissing scream rang out in the cold night; above, something sailed over them. It twisted in the air, landed in a crouch a bare five yards ahead.

  Tammy screamed.

  Their little group lurched to a stop as the Shrike straightened up, grinning, flexing those impossible fingers. His teeth still looked sharp, but not so little; Myfanwy was sure they’d grown. In the torch’s glow, she saw he wore a white shirt under the black coat. Blood crept across it; Bronislaw’s, or his?

  “These are my food,” said the Shrike. “Now, if you stop trying to hinder me, I’ll promise you a quick death.”

  He closed in on them.

  9

  “YOUR LITTLE POLISH friend is dead, Mrs Griffiths.” How did he know her surname? “It was a messy affair. And painful. I can do the same for you, or I can make your passing quick.”

  Bronisław. The selfish thought, quickly banished, crossed her mind that death might be a blessing, if it spared her from facing Roberta in the aftermath of her husband’s death.

  “The children,” said the Shrike. “The children and a quick death. Or you can fight me. I’ll have the children in any case, but you’ll die in the worst pain.”

  “Fucking try it,” said Wesley, squaring up, fists clenched.

  “Wesley!” Myfanwy thrust out an arm to keep him back. The Shrike chuckled through the white, awful mesh of his grin.

  “Spirit,” he said. “I relish spirit. It makes the pleasure of breaking it all the sweeter.” The long fingers pointed towards Wesley, flexed. “You’ll weep and beg for death, young master. Like all the rest. But getting you there will be most–”

  The explosion split the night in thunder. From behind Myfanwy came a flash, bright orange; the children screamed. The Shrike’s white shirt splashed red and he was flung backwards, twisting and whirling in mid-air, before slamming into a tree-trunk with a sound that shivered Myfanwy’s false teeth. He flopped to the ground, a bundle of wet, tangled rags, limbs loosely jumbled, the long fingers suddenly ridiculous.

  “Myfanwy?” said a voice, one she knew and that proved the Shrike a liar. Bron advanced, breaking open the shotgun. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

  “The rest of you? Children?” Bronisław slotted two fresh cartridges into the gun. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t warn you. He was fast before. Leapt off the platform. I missed him. Had to catch him by surprise.”

  Myfanwy looked at the crumpled heap. “I’d say you managed that.”

  “Yes.” The thin, cold voice was wet and clogged. “And that means you’ll all die screaming now.”

  Bronisław snapped the gun closed as the Shrike sat up. The Shrike was grinning; blood ran through his bared teeth, turning the smile into a white and scarlet grid. The long fingers reached up and coiled round a low branch and the Shrike hauled himself into a standing position.

  “Move,” Bronisław said, stepping backwards.

  The Shrike started forward. He hissed with pain, but the long fingers reached out and flexed.

  Bronisław fired; the first barrel hit the Shrike in the face and he spun and fell again, only to rise once more. The side of his face – his head – was gone, but he was standing up again. He straightened and came towards them.

  Tammy screamed, high and thin.

  “Jesus,” said Wesley, in prayer or exclamation.

  Bronisław fired again; the second barrel only made him stumble a couple of steps backwards, even though the white bone cage of his ribs showed clearly through the red tatters of the white shirt and the smooth, white, hairless chest beneath it.

  The Shrike’s mouth yawned open, teeth bared, and a high, hissing screech that nothing human could’ve uttered came out.

  “Run,” Bron shouted, and at last, Myfanwy did, dragging the children with her.

  STUMBLING BACK UP the path, the torch flashing and weaving ahead of her. Her heart ached and pounded; oh God, at any moment it might burst and kill her. And yes, she’d led a full life, and yes, even, it’d spare her a worse death at the Shrike’s claws (she couldn�
��t call those things hands anymore,) but what about the children? They’d be alone, defenceless. Bron – perhaps Bron, at the last, if he could do nothing else, could at least spare them that. But what of himself?

  Wesley let out a cry. “It’s in the trees–” she heard him gasp.

  “Be quiet,” Bronisław shouted, “and run.”

  Tammy stumbled and fell, crying; Myfanwy bent and gathered her up. As she did there was a clatter and rustle from further down the track, and she looked up to see something black and flapping, with great long claws, fly from the branches of one tree to the next.

  “Myfanwy, come on,” Bron shouted.

  She ran. More branches snapped and crackled behind them.

  Bronisław ran up the concrete ramp, breaking the shotgun open. The breech smoked, hot.

  “Where now?” Myfanwy looked back; Wesley was helping Stephen up the ramp after them.

  “There’s only one place we can go.” Bronisław nodded past the tumbledown station house and towards the path leading up the hillside.

  “Oh God, Bron, no.”

  “There’s no other way–”

  Branches crashed and clattered. Something black flickered across the moon. A few dead, brittle leaves drifted down towards the platform. Bronisław slid two new cartridges into the gun.

  “Mummy,” Stephen whimpered.

  “Shush,” said Wesley. Tammy clung ever more tightly to Myfanwy; her back was beginning to ache.

  Branches rustled above them. Bronisław snapped the shotgun shut and aimed upwards. Something wet fell onto the platform behind Bron; blood, glistening black in the moonlight.

  Myfanwy shouted his name and pointed upwards; Bronisław wheeled and aimed but the Shrike was already falling. His claws slashed and tore; Bronisław shouted and staggered away, his coat ribbons, blood on his face.

  The Shrike’s fingers coiled round the shotgun barrel; he was trying to tear it free. Bronisław wrenched at the triggers and both barrels discharged; the Shrike’s lower leg detached itself at the knee and he pitched, flailing, to the ground. But he kept hold of the shotgun and wrenched it from Bron’s hands, then swung it like a club.

  Bronisław spun sideways and dropped off the edge of the platform, limp as a rag doll, thudding to the ground beneath. The Shrike let out his hissing, screeching cry, flung the shotgun aside, then thrashed and scrambled to balance on his one leg, arms and elongated fingers outstretched. A cry strangled in Myfanwy’s throat: his glasses hung smashed and crooked on his torn, one-eyed face. White bone grinned through the red mess and white tatters of pallid skin, but she was sure – certain – that half of his head had been gone before. And his chest: the shirt still hung in rags, but there were only a few shallow wounds in the smooth white skin. No, that couldn’t be right. The original damage must have looked worse than it was. But even as she watched, blood spilled from the empty eye socket as something forced it out. Something white, with a grey iris and a tiny black pupil. She looked at the stump of his leg; the bone protruding from the wreckage seemed to have grown longer, and there were ropes of dangling meat and tendon she was certain hadn’t been there before.

  The Shrike hopped forward; his white face shone, taut on the bone. Pain. He felt pain. She held onto that. He could suffer terrible damage and live, but still he suffered. And if he suffered, he could die. Somehow.

  “Run,” she told the children again, and they ran.

  The asphalt pathway, pale in the moonlight, wound up through the trees. They stumbled up it, towards the open, wrought-iron main gates, the bars twisted to form the words ASH FELL VETERAN’S HOSPITAL AND SANITARIUM.

  10

  THE HISSING SCREECH sounded behind them, followed by a call of “you’re all going to die,” but Myfanwy didn’t look back. She hobbled up the path, clutching Stephen and Tammy’s shoulders while Wesley ran ahead; the Shrike might be half-crippled, but she didn’t feel much more capable. She was old; had she really been the best the dead could pick to fight this thing?

  Tammy tugged her sleeve. “Carry me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Please.”

  “I can’t, darling. You’ve got to do it yourself.”

  “He’s coming,” gasped Wesley. Myfanwy glanced back; the Shrike was hopping up the path behind them, long fingers clutching at the trees for support. He’d been weakened, even slowed; but if he came close enough to grab her she wouldn’t stand a chance. And the children? Wesley might put up a good fight, but she doubted even he’d last long.

  And his leg – she was certain now, about half the lower leg had grown back. How long before he was fully restored?

  There had to be a place they could hide, perhaps set a trap. Think, Myfanwy. Remember. Da had brought her here once when it was open, back when he’d worked here. Only once, because she’d hated the place, and many years ago, but her mind was still sharp. That was what she told the grandchildren, anyway. Did crosswords and puzzles to keep it that way. So come on, think.

  The main building was probably another half-mile on up the path. Too far. He’d reach them by then.

  Then she saw the paths just ahead leading off to the side. Left and right. Yes, she remembered now. To the right, the old chapel and graveyard. To the left, the Home Farm.

  “This way,” she said, and turned left. From behind them came another hissing screech.

  “What’s down here?” demanded Wesley.

  “A place to hide.”

  THE NIGHT WIND flicked matted hair into Bronisław Stakowski’s eyes. He grunted. Tired. Wanted only to sleep.

  But the ground he lay on was rough and uneven, and full of sharp things – pieces of coke and steel and stone, digging into him. And cold. So cold. His teeth chattered.

  The night air found the big cut on his face, where a slash of the Shrike’s claws had laid it open to the bone. White pain sheared through him and with a gasp and a cry he rolled onto his back.

  The Shrike.

  He hurt. Dear god, he hurt all over. He was covered in cuts. The worst was on his face, but there were others. Smaller ones on his hands, even on his chest and ribs where the Shrike’s claws had cut through jumper, coat and shirt.

  The Shrike.

  The children.

  Myfanwy.

  It was coming back to him now. Bronisław tried to stand, but his legs collapsed under him. Shock, he knew. And he had lost blood. And his arm, back, shoulder all throbbed from where the shotgun stock had hit him. And then there had been the fall. He took breath and there was more pain. Ribs broken, perhaps. And there was the cold, gnawing its way into him like a host of tiny scavengers. And of course he was not young. Not now. Warsaw had been over forty years ago. He had been a boy. A child. That boy was long gone. All that was left was a man growing old, growing cold, losing blood, waiting to die.

  He settled groundwards again.

  Then stopped. His hands dug into the earth, fingers hooked, clenching. He forced strength into his arms, lifting his upper body from the ground. He fought to move his legs. He crawled.

  There was Myfanwy; there were the children. But there was more than that.

  Bronisław Stakowski had given his word.

  He reached the bottom of the ramp, dragged himself up it. Strength, give me strength. He didn’t know who he asked; the god he’d long since abandoned all faith in, or himself. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Give me strength. Strength to crawl and strength to stand. Strength to fight and strength to save. Strength to face the Shrike once more and not give in till he, till it, is dead.

  Blood glistened blackly on the station platform, drying tackily. Something else lay there too, dully glinting in the moonlight. The shotgun. He crawled towards it. The blood. Whose was it? His? The Shrike’s? Let it not be Myfanwy’s. No, nor any of the children’s, either.

  His teeth chattered. He felt weak. Cold sweat bathed him. The crawl down the platform seemed to take forever. But at last he was there. And his hand closed around the gun-stock.

  Bronis
ław clutched at the stonework of the ruined station house. He found a handhold, steadied himself, and slowly he managed to stand.

  The blood on the platform – he looked at the path leading up the hill and saw blood on that too. The Shrike. Yes. The Shrike was wounded. The Shrike also knew pain. And whatever bled could also die.

  Bronisław limped towards the wrought-iron gates, fell against them, clutching the cold railings for support. A hissing screech sounded in the night. He looked up the moonlit path to see a hopping figure, bald head a-shining, veer left off the path and out of sight.

  There.

  Bronisław Stakowski dug two cartridges from his coat pocket,slotted them into the gun, then pushed himself away from the gates, swaying but upright, and followed the Shrike’s bloody trail.

  11

  THE TREE BRANCHES met overhead, turning the path to the Home Farm into a dark tunnel lit only by the beam of Myfanwy’s torch.

  “Where we going?” asked Wesley. He was carrying Tammy now, and watching Myfanwy closely. Good children, both of them. But even if they hadn’t been, they wouldn’t deserve the Shrike.

  “The Home Farm,” Myfanwy said. She fought for breath. Don’t go having a heart attack, woman, not now for God’s sake.

  “What’s there?”

  “Old farmhouse. A barn. A watermill. Things like that. Place we can hide. Maybe something we can fight with.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, love. Pitchfork, maybe. A scythe.”

  “You couldn’t stop him with a shotgun.”

  “We hurt him,” she said, voice coming out harder than she’d meant. She saw Wesley flinch from it. Mentioning the shotgun had made her think of Bron, and it was probably best she didn’t, not just now. “We hurt him. And if he can be hurt–”

  The hissing screech sounded behind them.

  “–if he can be hurt, he can be killed,” she said, willing it to be so. “Remember that.”