by P. N. Elrod
“Your daughter. She’s special.”
Anger spiked through her veins, making her voice come out in a growl. “Never speak of her again, or I’ll be mopping what’s left of you off my floor for a week.”
He simply lifted an eyebrow at her threat, ignoring it. “She has bad dreams. Nightmares.”
Jordan hid her surprise that he knew about the dreams. “All kids do.”
“Not like this. Hers are getting more frequent. She sees huge, writhing creatures that want to eat her. She thinks they’re real.”
How could he know that? Only a handful of people were aware of Anne’s bizarre dreams.
“She’s right,” said Ryder, his voice quiet with regret. “Those creatures are real, and they do want to eat her.”
“Shut up,” barked Jordan. “You don’t know anything about us.”
His shoulders fell in defeat. “I wish that were true. I wish I’d never met you or your daughter. I wish I was just a normal guy and that she was just a normal kid, but neither one of us is going to get their wish.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that our time is up. The creatures from her dreams are called Terraphages. Certain people can call them from wherever it is they live and let them into our world. Those people are called Beacons, and your daughter is one. The fact that I knew where to find her means there’s a Terraphage on the way right now.”
Mama, that’s the man I dreamed about. The one that came right before the monster.
“What a load of crap.” Jordan’s voice didn’t hold nearly as much disbelief as she would have liked.
“You know I’m right. I can see it in your eyes. If I wasn’t right, then how would I know about the dreams? How would I know they’re happening more often?”
Jordan had no answers.
“The Terraphage is coming for her tonight. The only way to stop it from breaking through into our world is to kill her. That’s why I was here.”
“To kill my daughter.” Just saying the words made Jordan’s stomach clench in sickening anger. How dare he even imagine such a thing? She should kill him now. Tell the police it was self-defense. If he lived, he might try to hurt some other child.
Jordan looked toward the weapon lying on the counter and back at the man. Could she do it? Could she really pull the trigger now that he was a threat?
His gaze skittered away until he was staring down at his boots. “I didn’t know she was a kid. It’s almost always an old man.”
As if that excused murder. “And now that you know?”
He let out a defeated sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t kill her, so the Terraphage will be here soon to do the job. I’ve failed, and now this whole town will be dead before sunrise.”
“Does that include you?”
“Yeah. It does.”
It was the bleak acceptance in his tone that made her believe him. The resignation. “You really believe this is true, don’t you?”
“Look, lady, I didn’t ask for this job. I don’t want it. I hate killing people, but it’s better than the alternative—letting Earth be overrun by these things whenever they get hungry. I’m just glad my part of this mess is over now. Let someone else worry about it for a change. I’m done.”
“If what you’re saying is true, and something terrible is coming here tonight, then why not kill it instead?”
“Because there’s no way to kill it. Others have died trying. The Terraphage is unstoppable.”
“Have you ever tried?”
“My grandfather did.”
“And?”
“And there wasn’t enough left of him to bury. Just mangled pieces of his armor covered in blood. Nearly two hundred people died before the sun came up and forced the Terraphage back where it came from.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t any of us hear about it? That kind of thing makes news.”
He shook his head. “It was years ago. Local authorities chalked it up as a tornado from a storm that came out of nowhere. They kept thinking that eventually they’d find the remaining bits of folks spread out across Oklahoma, but they never did. The Terraphage ate them. It gorged itself on human flesh, wrecked the town, and is going to do so again tonight.”
Jordan could almost picture her beloved town torn to ribbons, her friends broken and bleeding. She couldn’t let that happen. Especially not to Anne.
“How do we stop it?” she asked.
“Weren’t you listening? We don’t. We just pray that we’re among the first to go.”
“So, what? You’re just giving up?”
His wide shoulders lifted in a tight shrug. “Looks like. Besides, if I live, I’ll just have to go back to killing other innocents. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime, and there’s no retirement option for this line of work.”
“I should take Anne and run. Even as dangerous as the roads are, they can’t be as bad as whatever’s coming.”
“You can run. Anne can’t. Wherever she goes is where the thing will show up. She’s the one drawing it here.”
Jordan refused to believe that. She refused to give up and let some beast eat her daughter. “There has to be something we can do.”
His dark eyebrows twitched in irritation. “I was trying to think of an idea when you bashed me over the head.”
“I’m not sorry I did it.”
“Gee. Really?” He rolled his eyes. “I suppose we could wait until the last minute. As soon as the thing shows up, you two can run and I’ll hold it off for as long as I can. The town will still be destroyed, but you two might make it.”
“How can you say that so casually? You’re talking about the possible death of hundreds of people, yourself included.”
He gave a negligent shrug. “Wrong place, wrong time. Life sucks.”
“You’re serious. You’re going to stay behind and fight this supposedly unstoppable thing.”
“Unless you’ve got some better ideas.”
Beneath them, the ground began to shudder. The mug of hot chocolate shimmied to the edge of the table and toppled over, shattering on impact.
The man’s eyes widened. “Time’s up. It’s coming. Cut me loose.”
Jordan grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. “How did you do that? How did you make the floor shake?”
“I didn’t. This isn’t a trick.”
“It has to be.”
“So, you think I found some way to rig your building to shake without you knowing it in order to convince you to let me go because I knew before I walked in here that you were going to manage to tie me up? Is that more believable than monsters?”
He had a point. He couldn’t have known he’d end up trapped unless he was psychic or had a time machine—neither of which seemed any more plausible than monsters.
“I’m not lying to you,” he said. “How could I know about your girl’s dreams unless I’ve been through this before?”
“You could have broken into her therapist’s office and stolen the records.”
He snorted in disgust. “Why? Why the hell would I do that?”
“I don’t know. None of this makes any sense.”
The floor trembled again, the motion swelling like the crest of a wave rising from the ocean. Chairs toppled. Dishes rattled on their shelves.
“We’re out of time,” said the man, his voice tight with urgency.
Jordan didn’t want to believe him. She wanted to wait until the police showed up and helped her straighten out this mess. But he was growing more desperate, struggling to stand even though she knew he’d simply fall over again. His powerful body strained to move, making a vein on the side of his head pop out.
“Please,” he said, looking right at her, hiding nothing. “Let me try to help. It probably won’t make a difference, but at least I won’t die lying down.”
Whatever was going on, he believed what he was saying. Of course, that could simply mean he was insane.
Beneath her feet the floorboards
trembled, cracking as they moved. A large bulge rose up near the stairway as if something below were trying to push its way up through the floor.
Until this moment, Jordan had hoped that all of this was some kind of sick joke. But standing here, watching the floor pulse as if alive, she knew that had been wishful thinking. Something was trying to break through.
She grabbed a pair of scissors from behind the counter and sliced through the duct tape in a matter of seconds, praying she wouldn’t regret freeing him.
He ripped the tape from his sleeves, destroying the leather. “Where’s your car?”
“In the back alley.”
“The tiny POS covered in snow?”
“Yeah.”
“Not going to cut it.” His hands were free, and he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “I’ll start my truck for you and pull it up close to the door. It’ll get you where you need to go in this snow and do so in a hurry.”
Jordan didn’t want to leave this man behind to die, but she’d do so in a heartbeat if it saved her baby. “Thanks.”
“Good luck, Jordan. You’re going to need it.”
She sprinted for the stairs, leaping over the protruding bulge, yelling for Anne to grab her coat.
The floor near the stairway had settled again, but it wouldn’t stay that way long. Ryder didn’t know how long it would take the Terraphage to break through into this world, but he knew for a fact that he wanted to be armed by the time it did.
His Glock was on the counter, but he didn’t think that 9 mm rounds were going to do anything more than piss the thing off. He needed more firepower—the kind he kept stashed in the back of his truck, just in case.
Only seconds had passed, but the woman already had her daughter in tow, heading down the stairs.
“Stay there,” he ordered them. “You can’t leave until the last second, or it’ll just come in wherever you are.”
“Mama, I don’t want to see it,” said the girl. “I see it when I sleep. I don’t want to see it when I’m awake, too.”
The fear in her voice tore at Ryder’s heart. He’d never once felt sympathy the way he did for the tiny moppet. He wasn’t sure what to do to make her feel better, but he knew he had to try something. “Close your eyes, honey. I won’t let it get you.”
The woman hugged her daughter closer. “How much longer?”
“I don’t know. Never done this before. I need to get some guns out of my truck. I don’t know how much good they’ll do, but it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
“Don’t be long.”
He wasn’t. It took him less than a minute to start the truck, move it close to the door, and gather his supplies. The metal box was too heavy to lift, so he dragged it over the ground, plowing away the snow as he went. Now the girls had a nice clear path to the truck, at least until the driving snow filled it in again. At the rate it was falling, that wouldn’t be long, but he didn’t think that was going to be a problem. The Terraphage would show up at any moment.
He pushed through the door. Snow billowed into the room, driven by the wind. Ryder shoved the door closed to keep out the chill and to keep Jordan from leaving until it was time. He really didn’t want the Terraphage to eat his truck.
“The highway heading west was a parking lot when I came into town,” he said. “Don’t go that way.”
“South?”
“As good a guess as any.”
“I’ve got family down that way. They’ll take us in.”
The floor trembled, pulsing with a throbbing energy that resonated in time with that coming from the little girl.
Ryder glanced at her, then back at her mother. He lowered his voice, hoping the girl wasn’t listening too closely. “Unless I kill it—which isn’t likely—I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if it will come for her again tomorrow night.”
“Then you’d better kill it, Ryder. We’re counting on you.”
No pressure.
A deep groaning sound rose from the ground beneath the coffeehouse. The little girl crawled up her mother’s body, clinging to her like a monkey. “It’s coming, Mama!”
“It’s going to be okay, baby. This man has come here to kill it.”
Anne looked at him, her blue eyes brimming with tears and her pointed chin wobbling. “Really?”
“Really,” lied Ryder. “Listen to your mom and this will all be over soon.” One way or another.
The floorboards beneath his boots shuddered and bulged, cracking into jagged splinters. Ryder jumped back and flung open the metal box full of weapons and ammunition.
He loaded his .45, a rifle, and a shotgun, set the rifle on the counter, holstered the .45 under his arm, shoved his pockets full of ammo, and aimed the shotgun at the bulge in the floor. “First glimpse you get of the thing, run. Got it?”
Jordan gave a shaky nod and stepped toward the door.
The bulge in the floor moved, sliding toward Jordan like a wave toward the beach.
“Stop!” yelled Ryder, but it was too late. She’d moved too far, and now the Beacon was drawing the Terraphage toward their exit, blocking the way.
The floor beneath Jordan’s feet bowed, tossing her back into the room, away from the back door. She hit the wall, taking the brunt of the blow on one shoulder as she shielded her daughter’s body.
Shards of wood filled the air and showered down on top of them. Ryder felt the sting of cuts across his face but ignored them. A giant black hole opened up in the floor, and a heartbeat later, the pulsing mass of the Terraphage appeared in the opening.
It was huge, filling one corner of the room. Oily, dark green skin hung on its jagged frame, leaving visible the oddly jointed bone structure beneath. Six eyes glowed flame orange from deep within its fleshy head, pulsing in time with the Beacon’s heart. Saliva poured from its jaws, and inside its mouth—which was wide enough to swallow a small car whole—were hundreds of tiny, serrated teeth angled back toward its throat.
Ryder had heard the stories. He’d grown up with tales of the Terraphage haunting his dreams, but he’d never actually seen one before. He stood there, staring in shock, his mind unwilling or unable to accept what he saw. Fear slithered over his skin until he was shaking. A cold sweat that stank of terror and defeat slid down his ribs.
Now he knew why the warnings he’d heard all his life had been so dire, why he’d been taught to show no mercy—to kill the Beacon before it was too late. The thing that stood before him could not be stopped. It was power incarnate, hunger made manifest. There was nothing a puny human like him could hope to do to win.
“Mama, no,” came the little girl’s frightened cry.
“Don’t look, Anne. Just don’t look,” said Jordan, her voice a whisper of terror.
As if that would help. They were all going to die now. He knew that. Part of him wanted to fling himself at the thing and get it over with, but the rest of him fought that idea, thrashing in defiance at the notion that he’d give up now. He’d allowed this thing to come here. It was his duty to at least try to stop it.
If he could save one little girl, at least his death would have some meaning. No one else would remember him or care that he was gone, but Anne might. If she made it out alive.
The Terraphage lumbered forward toward Anne. The girl screamed. Jordan clutched her daughter and tried to push herself to her feet with one arm. Ryder leveled his Mossberg and fired the first slug.
A deafening boom blasted the room, but the monster didn’t even rock back. It did, however, turn its focus onto Ryder, which was fine with him. If he got it away from the door, Jordan had a small chance of getting her daughter out of here alive.
“That’s right, you ugly fuck,” he growled as he took aim at the thing’s eyes. “Come and get me.”
Ryder fired again. And again. The Terraphage roared in anger, and a tentacle as thick as Ryder’s leg shot out toward him.
He flung himself back to avoid it, landing hard on one of the small tables. It
collapsed under his weight and he went down just as the razor-sharp tip of that tentacle sliced at him. His head slammed into the floor hard enough to put a light show on display behind his eyelids. He shook it off and instinctively rolled to the side. The muzzle of the shotgun burned his cheek as it rolled with him, but he barely felt it.
As dizzy as he was now, he didn’t dare stop fighting the thing long enough for it to refocus its attention on the Beacon.
He pushed to his feet, seeing two of the monsters lumbering toward him, hunched over to clear the high ceilings. His vision was fuzzy but clearing fast. Just not fast enough. The double vision faded and the two beasts coalesced back into one again just as it swiped one huge clawed paw toward Ryder’s head.
He ducked as he brought up the barrel of the shotgun to shield himself from the blow. The weapon was ripped from his hands. It slammed into the wall and clattered to the floor, well out of reach.
All he had left was the rifle across the room on the counter and the handgun in his shoulder holster. If the shotgun slug didn’t break that thing’s hide, the .45 might not even make a dent. He needed to get to the rifle. Fast.
Ryder lunged to take cover under a booth table. He was at the front of the building now, hoping he’d drawn the Terraphage far enough away from the back door.
“Run, baby!” he heard Jordan yell.
Relief sang through his veins. He’d saved the little girl—given her the means to escape.
Just then the Terraphage spun around as if sensing their escape. It let out a high-pitched, hissing howl as it leapt toward the Beacon.
Anne screamed, her terrified voice rising to a deafening pitch that clawed at Ryder’s ears. Jordan scooped up her daughter and huddled in the corner, trying to shield the child with her body.
It wouldn’t do any good. The Terraphage would gobble them up together, swallowing them whole.
Hell, no. He was not going to watch this happen.
Ryder shot out from under the table, grabbed one of the chairs, and hurled it at the Terraphage’s back. It roared in anger, swinging its lumbering body around as that razor-tipped tentacle shot out at his head.
He lifted another chair and batted it away. The tentacle cut through the wooden seat, leaving the wood singed and smoking at the edge.
