19

It’s the dead of night. You’re still awake. You can see the light of the twin moons flooding your room a pale blue, and hear the endless rattling of grasshoppers rubbing their wings together. It’s really hot. You think that’s what kept you awake though you’re not sure what aspect of it. It’s hot enough that it’s rather uncomfortable under your blanked, but usually the answer to that is to lie uncovered until you feel cold enough to pull it back; this you’ve done a dozen times to no avail. And while you’ve been tossing and turning, you’ve been wondering how it’s so hot, when it was so much colder earlier. You’d hesitated to leave the beasts out for the night because temperatures were so low. Now, you wonder if your senses were playing tricks on you. It’s very odd.

You kick the covers away one last time, fed up of the heat again. You hear the cloth moving against your skin, ruffling, and crumpling on the floor at the foot of the bed. You also hear, crystal clear, the sound of the bed’s legs creaking. And then you realize that’s the only sound you heard in a complete silence. You don’t know when the grasshoppers went dead, but they’ve all spontaneously stopped.

You’re suspicious when the moonlight gets noticeably darker each second. But you jump clean out of bed when you hear the low whoosh, and feel the air thickening around you. Just as you straighten up the blackness is complete, and the first raucous shriek of the monster sounds in the distance.

You bolt from your room and rush downstairs, even without a plan. You hear a door somewhere behind you burst open and Elia call out “Mortimer!”, but you pay no heed to her. It’s every one for himself now.

You arrive in the front room only for the main door to be blown to smithereens inwards, a thousand tiny shards narrowly missing you. It isn’t dark anymore, but the light is unlike any you would see day or night. At random are great glowing bulbs of deep red, some brighter than others, some more real than others. They look like holes in the air. The blood red is brightest somewhere outside the house, just beyond where the front door was, beyond the abomination standing just outside the destroyed doorway.

As Elia arrives just behind, you take in the awful sight. Towering at least seven feet tall, the creature stands hunched forward slightly, on the legs of some giant goat, and balancing the weight of its huge upper body on a long tapered tail ending in a spear point of black bone. Its skin is red like the light, perhaps a shade lighter, and rugged from a million scars, some obviously tribal and some possibly from injury. On its massive shoulders the neck holds a head of jet black mane, glowing yellow eyes and huge jaws of the sharpest and pointiest teeth you’ve ever seen on any beast. Grinning with its giant canines catching the light like a coat of fresh blood, the monster steps forward. Its great black wings flutter once and pass straight through the walls as if they weren’t even there.

You’re about to scream “Run!” to Elia behind you, but the monster surprises you both, leaping once, wings flapping, and passing right through the ceiling to the upper levels of the house. Elia doesn’t scream at you, rather grabs you by the arm and drags you running toward the back of the house. You arrive in a sort of bolted-on shed full of gardening equipment. You both make to exit into the garden, but a screeching roar and a flutter of wings and the monster bursts into the shed with you, the red bubbles of light brightening around you.

Elia has made up her mind to stand and fight, grabbing a long fork and brandishing it at the beast. Do you:

• Grab a weapon of your own? Turn to 102.

• Make a run for it and leave her to her foolishly brave certain ****? Turn to 210.