Spriggan: Dark horror fantasy Page 12

‘In the past, it had priestesses, people who would help it, I think it wants us to be that, or it thinks I am already, and you are with me’ she said.

  All this horrified Vicky, she just wanted to slap Bree in the face and tell her to stop being stupid, but she knew which side her bread was buttered on. If this killer monster liked Bree, then she’d keep close to her. It was clearly smart, it knew about phone lines, cars and it seemed to be avoiding the cops, maybe it could be killed by a gun? She knew she was safe, she could just sit down in the dark, watch it come back, kill Kim, drag her off, and then wait until all the cops came. They’d ask her where everyone was and she’d say, hey a spriggan got them, but not me or my weird Scottish friend, we’re its priestesses.

  She thought of her words and thoughts, drag them off. It had kidnapped Jim, it had just taken those two, Rick was gone and so was Roger. Gareth was missing, it was taking them, not just killing them.

  ‘what is it doing with them, I mean it’s taking them somewhere? Vicky said.

  ‘You don’t’ want to know’ Bree said.

  ‘Of course, I do, are they alive, if they are we have to try and save them’ she said.

  ‘I think they are dead, he wants the bodies, they’ll hang from the tree, the ritual is called ‘watering the earth’, it’s with their blood, then I think he’ll try to change them, I saw how he was made, and I think he’s making more like him’ she said.

  Vicky let it sink in ‘I thought you said it was a spriggan, like a nature spirit, I thought it lived in a tree and was like natures vengeance.’

  ‘He is, but he was once a boy, they put a seed in his body, and he became the spriggan’ Bree said.

  ‘And you think that’s what he’d doing to the rest of them, making more of them? Vicky said.

  ‘Look I know it’s scary, but we should just stand back and let him work, we’ll be safe, and it’s nothing they don’t deserve’ Bree said.

  Vicky did her best not to hit her. She didn’t mind people caring about animals and protesting out the front of KFC, but her life was worth more than some scorpions and certainly more than a tree. She needed to do something, she just didn’t know what.

  ‘I’m going to find Kim, she likes running after people in the dark’ Vicky said.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  He was crouched in the brush, and he heard it coming, it wasn’t as quiet as it could be, it was running back, probably with more meat for the grinder. It was dark, he couldn’t see shit, but he assumed it could. He heard t slowly down, and he looked up. He was crouched deep in a bush and couldn’t see it. There was an outline. It seemed to have two people, he heard one groan, they were alive. The thing was searching, it could smell him or something, but not see him either.

  He gripped his gun, he wanted to just stand up and empty his clip into its head, but he had a plan, or he thought he had one, and he wanted more guns, more people and most of all, he wanted a clear shot. He’d come to realize this was a test from God, he’d been a weak Christian, he’d always believed, but he didn’t go to church, he’d been one of those who wanted a sign, we’ll he had one now. Demons were real.

  The thing dropped the two bodies and started to search around it, it was stepping around him, and it put its rooted foot right near him. He could have leaped up and grabbed it, but in moments, it had taken them up again and was running fast. He wanted to save them, but he needed to help Kim and the rest of them, he just hoped he’d see he was gone and come straight back for him, he just needed to get back and set before it discovered he was gone.

  Once the creature was gone, he stood and looked, he let a full minute pass and started to run himself. He tripped and stumbled, got scratched a million times, but soon he was nearing the house. His breath was coming in strains, and he pushed his old body hard. He started up the stairs to the house

  ‘Kim!’ he shouted at the top of his voice.

  The front door was broken at the bottom, and he ran into the darkness. His eyes were somewhat adjusted to the dark, and he could see the body on the floor, a bunched sheet nearby. He went to it. It was the big Irish guy, dead and horribly disfigured.

  ‘Kim, anyone, it's me Jim’ he yelled.

  He heard footsteps running down the stairs, and she was there, her gun was drawn, she lowered her gun and ran to him, they were just friends, but he cared for her a lot. She embraced him.

  ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get you, what did he do to you ‘she said.

  She looked at him, he was beaten up, bleeding from a million small cuts. As they spoke, Vicky and Bree came in the back door through the kitchen.

  ‘who is still alive, it just took the Italians right?’ he said.

  ‘He did’ Kim said, he just threw them out the window and ran off.

  He looked at the girl Vicky, and she looked horrified, she’d seen it.

  ‘everyone else is dead’ she said.

  ‘ok, that room at the end, it has no windows right, small, one door?’ he said.

  ‘what about Claudia and Antonio, rick, we need to save them from it’ Vicky said.

  ‘They are gone, and we can’t save them, but we can send that thing back to hell’ he said.

  She looked sad but just nodded.

  He led them upstairs, and when they got there, Kim opened the door, they swept in, searching the corners, Vicky was guided to the side, and they locked it again.

  ‘How did you escape?’ Kim asked.

  ‘it’s not important, but he’ll come for me and the rest of us soon, so we wait, and when we hear something at that door, we fill it full of shots. Let’s see how he likes twenty rounds’ Jim said.

  He settled to the bed and drew his gun. Kim looked shocked but Vicky, just crouched next to him, she was holding a big knife, she at least would fight.

  ‘What we can’t just shoot him, he’s got rights? Kim said.

  He sat up again and looked at her, ‘I know this won’t make sense, but it’s not Roger, it’s not a man at all. I’ve seen it Kim, and I think Vicky and Bree might have as well, it’s a thing, it’s a demon, here to kill us all, we’ve got to stop it’ he said.

  He could see she didn’t believe him, but she looked at Vicky. ‘it’s true, Bree thinks it’s a spriggan.’

  ‘what’s a spriggan?’ Jim asked.

  ‘it’s not evil, it’s a nature spirit’ she said.

  ‘Not evil? I saw it rip Rick apart, it tore open his throat and drained his blood like a strung chicken, and then it laid him down on the ground and planted a seed n his chest. I saw it before I started to run, it was growing, it’s trying to make more, if we don’t stop it well have a plague of demons on our hands’ he said.

  ‘it’s not a demon ‘Bree yelled at him, ‘we don’t all believe in God and the devil, it’s not all black and white’ she said.

  Kim ignored all of that and looked at Vicky, Jim, and Bree ‘I don’t care what it is, but it’s not Roger? it’s a something, not a someone’ she said.

  ‘It’s a monster, a creature, it looks like a statue of vines and leaves come to life, and it can control animals and insects, which is why they have been going so crazy and trying to kill us’ Vicky said.

  She looked at him ‘it’s impossible to believe but so is everything else we’ve seen, I know you’re not a liar, and even if it was Roger and you said he was out of chances, and it was time to put him down, I’d stand with you now and through the fall out’ she said

  He was so glad to have her with him. Vicky would help, but the Bree one was strange, she knew what it was and was seemingly on its side. Fucking hippie.

  ‘Plan’ Vicky asked.

  ‘We wait for it to come in, when we see its head, we hope to god that twenty rounds are enough to do the job.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  His enemy under-estimated him, the police officer, Jim, was hiding in the forest like a child playing hide and seek, he thought he could remain unseen and unknown by him. He could hear his heavy scared breathing, heard his hand tighten around his gun. R
age filled him that he’d let him slip away, but he had more important things to do.

  Turning these two into brothers and sisters was much more important right now. He’d come to realize it was the most valuable thing he could do, then he’d go back to the house and face him and the one Kim, but first things first. He paced through the forest and got to his home tree, it was still very dark, and he had hours and hours before the sun would rise.

  They were both dead, he flopped her lifeless body to the ground. Her head hung at a very wrong angle. His foot had crushed her vertebrae in her neck and some of her cheek bone, she wouldn’t be as she was, but most of her face would be gone in the transition. Her mind and eyes were still there,

  The boyfriend was unharmed, but for a bulge in his neck. Placing his hands on the tree, he called it to grow, and the vine reached down like eager hands, and wrapped around his ankle and lifted him off the ground. It had to be quick, he had to get back and fight. The boy was raised up before him, he lashed out with a quick hand and slashed his throat. The hot blood poured from him and dripped down. It would be enough.

  He laid her out neatly on the ground, next to the man Rick. He made small cuts at her neck, wrists and up the thighs of her bare legs. They were good places, and she started to bleed into the ground. She was wearing a thin dress and placing a finger over where her heart was, he let it grow down. It ripped a hole right through her chest, giving him enough room.

  A seed grew from his hand, and he poked it into her chest and heart, placing his hands over it he willed it to grow, it sprung to life and started to spread. He would have smiled if he could have. It was working fast, his grove was running with power, he’d never had some many sacrifices at once.

  Looking over at the man Rick, he could see he was changing fast. He still looked like one of them. But he could sense the vines growing through him. It had spread through his arms and legs, his brain. Little spikes of it were starting to pop out from his arms and shoulders and the top of his head. He would grow a fine set of almost antlers, the males did anyway, the girls wouldn’t. He cut the boy down and laid him out and repeated his process.

  In just a few short hours he would have many more. Now he had three, but there were still 4 -5 more for him to take. Jim, Kim, Gareth, and Vicky if she proved unwilling to help him. He laughed thinking of them all. They were now crouched in that house, clinging to little firearms, wishing for the sun rise and dreaming that when it came, they would be saved.

  He’d seen in Jim’s mind, he knew the ‘team’ was coming, it wasn’t swat team as he knew from the movies they had seen, it was far from an army with automatic guns, they looked dangerous. It would be two cars full of police with guns, still a threat, but not against many of them. They would arrive and think they were going to save everyone and the would be facing one of them each, he didn’t think their guns would help, but he’d find out.

  If he fell now, then at least his brethren would continue his work. He left them growing in the forest, the vines working their way through their bodies, changing them, and started to go back to the farms. He wondered about the one Gareth, he’d not seen him. He wasn’t in the house when he’d sent the snakes, and he wasn’t with Jim. He wondered if like Vicky and Bree, he was hiding alone in the forest, or he was in his bunker.

  He ran through the forest, he felt so good and strong, powerful, and filled with life. He would defeat them. In a few short minutes of loping on long legs through the woods, he was at the clearing edge around the house. He thought of what he would face. He thought of Jim, what would he do, if he was in a life and death fight. He knew every memory the man had, even memories of thoughts, watching some things and thinking something.

  They would be in a top room, no windows, waiting in the dark with guns drawn, he would rush in and would see if his body could take the damage. He thought it would be fine unless the shot him in the head. He’d seen Jim use that gun at close range, he knew the power of it. He walked carefully to the back door and stopped.

  Bunker, Gareth had a bunker, it was a little concrete room in his shed. He would hide in there surely, that was where he’d go if he wanted to be safe. He looked up at the house. There was no rush to get shot at. He turned back to the shed and pushed open the thin door. He could see clearly the hatch to it. It was a metal doorway, set in concrete. He knew from Roger that Gareth was a killer, he killed a girl and planted her in a hole in the ground. Still, he had killed her for petty human reasons. He’d been obsessed with her, whatever that meant.

  He looked at the hatch way, he let his hands grow to it and try to find a way in. His fingers couldn’t break in between the metal and concrete, he could try to punch a hole right through it, but thought the metal would be too thick. He was scrapping around outside, try to get in, he had to be smart. He looked at the door and raising his fist above it, he knocked on it loudly three times.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  He was sitting in his little room, bored and checking his watch repeatedly, he’d gathered up all the evidence of his crimes, he had piles of photos, Sarah’s clothes and even taken the computer apart and gotten the hard drive out and ran it under a little sink they had. One thing he liked was Sarah had a Polaroid camera she took around the world and took a photo of herself in that place. Her smiling face in some desert, in some jungle, wearing something sexy on a hot beach in Mexico. It was a shame to let them go, but he had no choice.

  He’d burn it all as well when he was out. He might burn the whole shed down, that way the police should just leave it alone. He couldn’t imagine them searching through the burned ash, the whole house was destroyed, broken doors and a broken window. Dead bodies probably littered all around.

  Mr. French was a tee totler, no alcohol, but he’d laid in some of his own, if he was going to be given a free end of days bunker, he’d use it. He was half way through his second bottle of lynch estate when he heard a knock.

  It was a loud knock, but someone was his door, that was bad.

  The only person who knew about this place was Roger. It could be him, and he could have indeed gone crazy and started killing everyone. Or worse it could be one of them. The doorway was uncovered, and if someone had tried to hide in that shed, they would see it, plain as day. It could be one of the girls or everyone, or it could be the mystery killer.

  He walked the length of the small room and went to the doorway, it had a small metal ladder that led up. He had to unlock it and swung it open. He went to it and looked. He waited and waited, and it knocked again, twice then stopped then twice again. He yelled out

  ‘who is it?’ but his word just echoed around the room, they wouldn’t be able to hear him. He stepped away from the hatch and went to the bed, and picked up the hunting rifle. If it was Vicky or one of the girls, he could just kill them. He’d done it before, and while he hadn’t planned that, the idea did have some appeal. Maybe he didn’t have to kill them right away, she was a pretty one and had flirted with him in the car, maybe they could have a few drinks while the world fell apart, but then she’d ask about all the clothes and photos, and he’d have to shut her up. They were always talking too much, they never understood.

  It knocked again, and he went to the hatch again. He had to do it if it was one of them, he didn’t want them to bring the others. He climbed part way up the small ladder and taking his hand, unlocked the bolt, and slid it across. He stepped back, gun pointed at the ladder. As soon as it opened a scratch, it was pulled back in a flash and opened wide. He looked up expecting to see something, but his head was smashed hard into the metal stairs.

  Gareth woke up, his head ringing with pain and confusion. He was tied to the bed. He looked at his hand and saw it was roughly pinned with vines. Not tied, but just wrapped around him, he looked up and started screaming.

  The thing loomed over the bed and looked down at him. It was like a creature of nightmares, it was like a wooden carved statue come to life, very tall and thin but with almost alters, dark leaves on its body and huge
clawed hands that were dripping blood. It crouched over him, looking down at his helpless form.

  His gun was gone, and he was helpless, he tried to kick his arms and legs, but he couldn’t move. He saw with horror the vines we’re coming out it, out of its chest and legs, pinning him down.

  What was this thing, was it the one killing everyone, was it evil spirit, Sarah’s ghost, or Mr. French? The thing seemed to be laughing at him, it was making a hissing sound and kept looking in his eyes. It had blank yellow eyes, that seemed to see everything.

  ‘Please don’t’ he said and started crying.

  It just reached out to him with those massive hands. They spread out over him and its fingers spread out, growing until they covered his chest. It reached down, and he felt the tips of those fingers touching his shirt and then push in. The pain was suddenly unbearable. It pushed its finger tips into his body. He could feel it as they slowly, so slowly, sunk further and further into him.

  It had chosen the right spots, he bled and cried, but it didn’t kill him. Its fingers were now inside of him, and the bed was soaked in blood, it started to move them widening the holes, the pain worse as his skins ripped.

  He cried ‘kill me, you bastard.’

  It must have understood him, it took it hands away and reaching out to his heart, put its fingers in deep and started to pull. He felt himself fading to black as it tore a path to his heart, his last thought was the police were going to find everything.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  He had taken his time to kill the man Gareth. He was a killer as well, he had trophies of the girl he had killed, she must have been a strong warrior or something for him to be so proud of it. It was fun to see him helpless and suffering as well. The small bed he was pinned to was soaked with blood, and he let his vines soak some of it up, his chest was already ripped open, so taking his hand, he grew a life seed in it and pressed it into his heart.