The Beast of Seabourne

by Rhys A. Jones

  “Soph,” Ellie said, interrupting Oz.

  “The neural interface alone is designed for dermocouple contact.”

  “Sugar. So, it’s the ring or nothing, right, Soph?” Ellie asked.

  “Correct, Ellie.”

  “Maybe Ruff could…” Oz said, half-heartedly.

  “Yeah, right, we’ll turn off the tutamenzon field and then ask it to kiss my ring finger. It probably would as well, after it had slashed it off,” Ruff yelled from below.

  “Not a good idea.” Ellie shook her head.

  “But…” Oz protested. He was finding the thought of leaving his friends at the mercy of this thing quite mad. They were here in this pickle because of him. He didn’t know what to do or what to think. If he stayed to fight the Beast, Ellie and Ruff would want to help. It might finish him off and then go for them, too. On the other hand, if he got away and it attacked Ellie, he would never forgive himself.

  “Look,” Ellie pleaded. “I’ve got a sort of a plan. But I need a bit of time. Just lead the thing out of here. Try and scramble up to the top and see if there’s a way back in from above. By that time, I’ll have figured something out.”

  “I’ll try and tempt him into mangling me a bit,” Ruff said with trepidation in his voice. “I can buy you some time.”

  Oz looked down. With an expression of terrified disbelief at what he’d just suggested, Ruff darted forward and yelled at the Beast while waving his hands madly.

  “Oi, pretty boy, look, it’s me. Din-dins. Meals-on-legs. Mmm, lovely.”

  The Beast spat at him, but the distraction was working, because it hesitated in its climb and lashed a clawed hand out towards Ruff, who immediately retreated, looked back up at his friends, and moaned. “I can’t believe I’m actually asking the Beast of Seabourne to make me its starters.”

  Oz threw Ellie a desperate glance; she was studying the ossuary with renewed interest. Leaving seemed exactly the wrong thing to do, yet if the Beast was really after just him…

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go. But if it goes for you, promise me you’ll jump.”

  “Of course I will. I’m not stupid.”

  Another grunt from the Beast alerted them to the fact that it had pulled itself up to another handhold.

  “Just go,” Ellie said, with some urgency now. “Look, the thing’s nearly up here. Go now!”

  Oz glanced one last time at the Beast. Despite Ruff’s goading, it was redoubling its efforts at clambering up. Oz turned towards the entrance and scrambled up over the steps and through the narrow gap to the outside, instantly shocked and a little dizzy to see how high and how steep the incline they’d ascended actually was.

  Behind him, he heard Ellie yell, “Last few feet, Oz. Ruff’s throwing rocks at it.”

  Oz didn’t hesitate. He looked at the rocks above. Some of them were overhanging, and he knew he had no chance of getting over them. However, if he could get to one of the gaps, there might just be a way. Gritting his teeth, telling himself not to look down, Oz scrambled and scraped his way up over boulders and scree until his hands met with the solid rocks of the escarpment’s jagged crown. He had no idea how long it had taken him, a minute, perhaps two at most. He pulled himself up and pushed his leg through a crack. He heard Ellie scream and then a shout. “Oz, it’s coming. It’s coming!”

  For a moment, he sat on the cusp of the craggy cliff edge, from where he could look down to the other side. Below him was a funnel-shaped depression full of bracken and a surprising number of trees. He was sitting astride the lip of a geological bowl, at the bottom of which was the roof to the cave he’d just scrambled from. He heard a spill of rocks behind him and turned to see a twisted, ferocious face looking up at him.

  Oz felt his breath catch.

  The Beast was in pursuit.

  Chapter 21

  The Beast Unmasked

  Another spurt of adrenaline surged through Oz, and he hauled his other leg over the rock rim and scrambled into the bowl. It was easier on this side, with fewer boulders to slow his passage. Even so, the grass was slippery with ice, and the chasm wasn’t instantly visible under all the foliage. Yet after a few moments swimming through the crackling fronds of bracken, he found it—an irregular black crack next to the gnarled trunk of a stunted tree. He glanced over his shoulder. No sign of the Beast yet. He crouched low and hissed into the hole.

  “Psst. Psst.” “Oz, is that you?” Ellie’s voice sounded an awfully long way down.

  “Yeah, it’s me. So, what now?”

  “I do have a plan…but I’m not sure you’re going to like it much,” she said.

  Oz groaned.

  “Basically, it’s a kind of trap thingy and—”

  Oz heard the rock before he saw it as it tumbled down towards him. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to displace the bracken and thump painfully against his shinbone. He looked up to where the rock had come from and felt his stomach clench. The Beast was coming through the same gap in the jagged rock rim that he had found. It was scrabbling through in a headlong thrust, dragging its legs after it, snarling with effort in its desperation to get to him. For one long second, they regarded one another, but then the eye contact seemed to galvanise the thing afresh. Its desperate haste was its undoing. It popped through the gap, overbalanced, tumbled over, and ended up on its back. It would almost have been funny if Oz hadn’t been so terrified.

  He didn’t wait to find out if it had hurt itself. Fear drove all concern about how high he was off the chasm floor out of his head. He grabbed the bole of the tree at the very edge of the crack in the earth, looked up, spied a likely looking low branch and jumped.

  His weight dragged the branch down. He heard it crack and braced himself for the fall. But instead of snapping cleanly, it simply sagged into the chasm, taking him with it. The branch ran through his gloved fingers at alarming speed. Bits of stripped twigs and ripped-off leaves were spraying up into his mouth and face, and he had to half-turn his head avoid them going into his eyes. He held on hard, deliriously grateful he had remembered to wear his gloves, until finally his grip bit, and he slowed to a halt. He was swaying now, no idea how high he was off the floor, bits of foliage still raining down on him. His head was in a crown of leaves, the sky now a milky slash above the dark stone of the walls all around him. He knew he had to let go, but he hesitated, thinking of how best to fall. He was on the point of releasing his grip when he felt hands around his calves and heard Ellie’s voice.

  “You can let go, Oz; I’ve got you.”

  Oz released his grip on the branch and let himself fall, bracing himself for contact with the hard floor. But Ellie’s arms cushioned his descent and he landed surprisingly lightly. In a second, he was safely down, brushing greenery from his coat.

  “Thanks, Ellie,” he muttered, risking a glance skywards. The branch had swung back up but hung drunkenly, a large white gash showing where it had split off from the main trunk.

  “No time,” Ellie said and pulled him over to the ossuary. “You need to get in there,” she said, pointing towards a small niche in the rocks. It was nothing more than a kneeling space guarded by a large outcrop and a boulder, between which he’d have to crawl to get in.

  “Are you insane?” he said to Ellie, staring at her wildly. “I’m a sitting duck if I go in there!”

  “Oz, you have to trust me,” Ellie pleaded.

  “Trust you?” Oz said. “But that’s suici…” The word died on his lips. He hated using that word these days, and it seemed totally out of place with Ellie’s pleading face in front of him.

  The moment was broken by a noise from above. They both looked up as the branch shuddered violently. Something large had collided with the tree trunk above.

  “Please, Oz. It’s our only chance. Here, take off your gloves and give me your hand.”

  Oz ripped off his glove and held out his hand as a large black-and-white shape blocked out the light above. He felt Ellie press something into his palm and looked down. It wa
s the ceramic ring.

  “But—”

  “No time,” Ellie said as the Beast, snuffling and growling, dangled from the broken branch behind them. “Just get in there now.”

  She pushed him forward. Oz had to crouch to squeeze through the gap, and when he did, the space was just big enough for him to turn around and huddle. He pulled his knees up, watching the Beast land with a crash, get to its feet, and sniff the air.

  Ellie had melted away, and he’d heard nothing from Ruff. Where were they? He suddenly realized, too, that it was almost completely dark in his hole. Where was Soph? The only light was the thin, watery greyness filtering down from the hole through which both he and the Beast had descended. And in the murky dimness at the centre of the chasm floor, Oz could see the Beast had his scent once again. It dropped its head low again and crept towards him. It made a low rumbling noise in its throat and suddenly, slowly, it bared its teeth.

  Panic erupted inside Oz. This was stupid. Huddling in a tiny hole waiting for a thing with claws to come for him, he felt terror grip him, and it took all his willpower to not push himself up and out of that enclosed space and run. Run anywhere, so long as it was away from the slavering thing that was slinking towards him. Then a worse thought struck him. What if Ellie and Ruff had planned all this? Left him here as bait while they made their escape? He shook his head to banish the thought. They would never do that. Never.

  Suddenly, Soph was in his head.

  “You are correct, Oz. They are here, but Ellie’s plans require that you stay silent and in darkness.”

  “But…” he thought, and then he could hear the thing’s claws scrabbling on the rocks just feet away, see its pale white face as it neared, see its glittering eyes reflecting the pale sky above. And then it moved into shadow and Oz heard it stop. Silence crashed down. A silence in which Oz could hear nothing but his own shallow breaths and his own chattering teeth. It took every ounce of his willpower to stay where he was, sitting there, waiting for it to come, waiting for its claws and its teeth.

  The attack came without warning. With a snarl, the Beast flew forwards in a blur of movement where everything seemed to happen at once. Silver-blue light blazed out of Oz’s small niche, and it revealed a terrifying sight. Forcing its way through the gap two feet from Oz’s knees was the Beast’s snarling face, one clawed arm outstretched and pawing forwards to tear and rend.

  Oz pulled his knees up tighter, but not quickly enough to prevent the razor-sharp steel from slicing through his jeans in the blink of one malevolent eye. The light was blindingly bright, forcing the Beast to turn its head away, and from behind it, Oz saw Ellie run forward. She was carrying something long and white in both hands. It took him a moment to work out what it was, but then he saw its curved and bulbous ends and knew what she was brandishing as a weapon was a human thighbone.

  Yet the strange thing was, she wasn’t carrying it like a club. Rather, she held it up in front of her, one hand on either end, almost like an offering. Then the Beast snarled again and started throwing itself with renewed vigour through the gap, the light forgotten. With all its wild and manic concentration focused on Oz, it didn’t see Ellie as she thrust the bone lengthways down behind the Beast’s head, trapping its neck and one shoulder in front of the rock, turning the narrow gap into a stock.

  The Beast mewled and writhed beneath Ellie’s hands, the bone guillotine-like in position above it. Suddenly, it was no longer intent on attacking Oz and was fighting to escape the trap. Oz saw his chance. He rolled forward, grabbed the Beast’s outstretched hand at the wrist, knelt on it, and thrust his open hand towards the pink flesh beneath the snout.

  He felt the artefact make contact, and a tingling surge vibrated up his arm. He saw the Beast turn its face, felt saliva on his fingers, and braced himself for a bite. Nothing came. The Beast was shuddering, seizure-like jerks wracking its body as it shook beneath his and Ellie’s grasps. But the convulsions lasted just a few seconds before it slumped, its head and one arm in the niche, Ellie still above it, pressing down.

  “It’s okay, Ellie,” Oz said quietly. “You can let off the pressure now.”

  Ellie, teeth bared from the effort and hair wild about her face, looked up at Oz.

  “You sure?” she hissed.

  Oz nodded. “It’s done.”

  Ellie stood and prodded the thing with the bone. It didn’t move. With Oz pushing and Ellie pulling, they dragged it back so Oz could crawl out of his hiding place. From below, he heard Ruff’s anxious voice.

  “Oz?Ellie? Are you…?”

  “Yeah,” Oz yelled back. “We’re fine. We’re both fine, thanks to Ellie.” He looked across at her. “That was a pretty cool idea, trapping him like that.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Ellie said with feeling.

  Oz said nothing.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re surprised that I didn’t want to just brain it. At least, that’s what he said down there.” She nodded towards Ruff. “Well, I don’t always do the first thing that comes into my head, you know.”

  “Okay,” Oz said slowly.

  From below, Ruff piped up, “Makes a change, that’s all I said—”

  “Shut up, Ruff,” Ellie and Oz said together.

  “So, where is it now?” Ruff asked.

  “Out cold,” Oz said and then added hurriedly, “all thanks to Ellie’s plan.”

  They heard a triumphant “Yesss!” from the darkness below.

  Suddenly, Oz felt his legs start to shake, and a wave of exhaustion overtook him. He sat heavily on a boulder, both hands trembling on his knees while Soph showed herself again.

  “It is merely the after-effect of the adrenaline, Oz,” she said to him. “It will pass quickly.”

  Oz looked up at her and nodded. “Okay,” he said croakily to Ellie, “so, how did you manage to get the ring up?”

  “Ah—” Ellie said as if she was about to launch into a long explanation.

  “Never mind ‘Ah,’” Ruff yelled up from below, “can someone get me out of here? Only, dead people and me, we never really get on.”

  “You heard Soph. The ossuary’s just a tribute to the dead, Ruff,” Oz said, correcting him. The ring felt smooth and hard in his hands. “It’s nothing to be worried about—”

  “Who said anything about an ossuary?” wailed Ruff. “I mean this dead person lying next to me down here. Hamish buzzard McClelland.”

  Oz was too flabbergasted to speak, so it was Soph who provided the explanation as she glowed once more. “I have consulted historical meteorological records and, considering the peculiar geological structure of this chasm, I can confirm that on the day Hamish McClelland disappeared, there was a storm. Approximately six centimetres of rain fell over a period of fifty minutes. I surmise that McClelland was hiding in here but probably failed to realise how quickly this chamber would flood. According to my calculations, with that rate of rainfall, it would take six minutes. The entrance would be a torrent in three.”

  “But why did he hide in here? He knew about caves; he must have known the risks.”

  “I don’t think he was worrying about the weather, Ellie,” Oz said.

  “Oh, my God,” Ellie said.

  “He hid the ring and hid himself down there from someone, or something, that was after him,” Oz said, unable to resist the urge to slip the ring onto his finger again.

  “Something like the Beast, you mean?” Ruff whispered.

  Oz shrugged.

  “And then the rains came,” Ellie said quietly, “and he was trapped.”

  All three of them struggled for anything to say. The long seconds of silence that followed said it for them.

  “But how did you get the ring up from down there?” Oz asked, bringing them back to the present.

  “Ruff found some rope on McClelland’s backpack,” Ellie explained. “He tied the ring on and I yanked it up.”

  “Brilliant.” Oz grinned.

  “When you two have finished slappin
g each other on the back, maybe we can try getting me out of here?” Ruff said, and though Oz couldn’t see him, it sounded like he was talking through gritted teeth.

  The rope had carabiners attached to it and was made of strong nylon. Oz looped one end around a great rock, and he and Ellie hoisted Ruff to the upper level, where he stood, looking apprehensively towards where the Beast lay.

  “Have you noticed that the shimmery thing has gone from around it?” Ruff said.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Oz said.

  “That is because I have deprogrammed the neuroware,” Soph explained.

  “Does anyone have even the slightest clue what that actually means?” Ruff asked with a sigh.

  Soph did the honours herself. “This person has been programmed to believe he or she is a wild animal. Just as Richard Worthy had been. In Worthy’s case, I believe it was accidental contact with that which you all call the shell, whereas in this case I believe it was deliberate.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because of the nature of the attacks. This auramal did not attack Ellie, and attacked Ruff only because they had fallen together. The target in this case was Oz, and its goal was the destruction of that target.”

  Oz frowned, and Ellie and Ruff exchanged glances. Along moment’s silence was pierced only by the echoing drip of water off the walls.

  “Then we ought to see who it is,” Oz said.

  “You mean actually touch it?” Ruff asked, throwing Oz a glance that couldn’t have been more loaded with distaste if they’d asked him to eat elephant dung.

  “How else, you gonk?” Ellie snapped.

  Ruff gave her a fretful look.

  “We really ought to,” Oz said, moving towards the Beast.

  “Unconsciousness will last for several more minutes,” Soph said.

  “See,” Ellie hissed at Ruff.

  Oz knelt and rolled the Beast over. Up close, the grotesqueness of the mask was much more evident. It had obviously been glued together from bits of real animals. They looked like a fox’s ears on a badger’s skull and a weasel’s nose. The matted fur was, in fact, a woollen jumpsuit, painted with a broad white stripe on the back to match the white watch cap on its head. It was also clear that the claws on its arms had been sharpened with great care.