Padding through the streets, covering the six kilometres home as quickly as I can. They could be anywhere, but I’ll start with the house. If I don’t find them there, I’ll look for clues to where they might be.
I think of Dad saying he’s scared. Mum trembling as she kissed me. Gret’s voice when she was on the stairs. My stomach tightens with fear. I ignore it, jog at a steady pace, and try spitting the taste of cod-liver oil out of my mouth.
→ Home. I spot a chink of light in Mum and Dad’s bedroom, where the curtains just fail to meet. It doesn’t mean they’re in — Mum always leaves a light on to deter burglars. I slip around the back and peer through the garage window. The car’s parked inside. So they’re here. This is where it all kicks off. Whatever ‘it’ is.
I creep up to the back door. Crouch, poke the dog flap open, listen for sounds. None. I was eight when our last dog died. Mum said she was never allowing another one inside the house — they always got killed on the roads and she was sick of burying them. Every few months, Dad says he must board over the dog flap or get a new door, but he never has. I think he’s still secretly hoping she’ll change her mind. Dad loves dogs.
When I was a baby, I could crawl through the flap. Mum had to keep me tied to the kitchen table to stop me sneaking out of the house when she wasn’t looking. Much too big for it now, so I fish under the pyramid-shaped stone to the left of the door and locate the spare key.
The kitchen’s cold. It shouldn’t be — the sun’s been shining all day and it’s a nice warm night — but it’s like standing in a refrigerator aisle in a supermarket.
I creep to the hall door and stop, again listening for sounds. None.
Leaving the kitchen, I check the TV room, Mum’s fancily decorated living room — off-limits to Gret and me except on special occasions — and Dad’s study. Empty. All as cold as the kitchen.
Coming out of the study, I notice something strange and do a double-take. There’s a chess board in one corner. Dad’s prize chess set. The pieces are based on characters from the King Arthur legends. Hand-carved by some famous craftsman in the nineteenth century. Cost a fortune. Dad never told Mum the exact price — never dared.
I walk to the board. Carved out of marble, ten centimetres thick. I played a game with Dad on its smooth surface just a few weeks ago. Now it’s scarred by deep, ugly gouges. Almost like fingernail scratches — except no human could drag their nails through solid marble. And all the carefully crafted pieces are missing. The board’s bare.
Up the stairs. Sweating nervously. Fingers clenched tight. My breath comes out as mist before my eyes. Part of me wants to turn tail and run. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t need to be here. Nobody would know if I backed up and…
I flash back to Gret’s face after the rat guts prank. Her tears. Her pain. Her smile when she gave me the Tottenham kit. We fight all the time, but I love her deep down. And not that deep either.
I’m not going to leave her alone with Mum and Dad to face whatever trouble they’re in. Like I told myself earlier — we’re a family. Dad’s always said families should pull together and fight as a team. I want to be part of this — even though I don’t know what ‘this’ is, even though Mum and Dad did all they could to keep me out of ‘this’, even though ‘this’ terrifies me senseless.
The landing. Not as cold as downstairs. I try my bedroom, then Gret’s. Empty. Very warm. The chess pieces on Gret’s board are also missing. Mine haven’t been taken, but they lie scattered on the floor and my board has been smashed to splinters.
I edge closer to Mum and Dad’s room. I’ve known all along that this is where they must be. Delaying the moment of truth. Gret likes to call me a coward when she wants to hurt me. Big as I am, I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid fights. I used to think (fear) she might be right. Each step I take towards my parents’ bedroom proves to my surprise that she was wrong.
The door feels red hot, as though a fire is burning behind it. I press an ear to the wood — if I hear the crackle of flames, I’ll race straight to the phone and dial 999. But there’s no crackle. No smoke. Just deep, heavy breathing… and a curious dripping sound.
My hand’s on the door knob. My fingers won’t move. I keep my ear pressed to the wood, waiting… praying. A tear trickles from my left eye. It dries on my cheek from the heat.
Inside the room, somebody giggles — low, throaty, sadistic. Not Mum, Dad or Gret. There’s a ripping sound, followed by snaps and crunches.
My hand turns.
The door opens.
Hell is revealed.
DEMONS
→ Blood everywhere. Nightmarish splashes and gory pools. Wild streaks across the floor and walls.
Except the walls aren’t walls. I’m surrounded on all four sides by webs. Millions of strands, thicker than my arm, some connecting in orderly designs, others running chaotically apart. Many of the strands are stained with blood. Behind the layer of webs, more layers — banks of them stretching back as far as I can see. Infinite.
My eyes snap from the walls. I make quick, mental thumbnails of other details. Numb. Functioning like a machine.
The dripping sound — a body hanging upside down from the webby ceiling in the centre of the room. No head. Blood drops to the floor from the gaping red O of the neck. Even without the head, I recognise him.
“DAD!” I scream, and the cry almost rips my vocal chords apart.
To my left, an obscene creature spins round and snarls. It has the body of a very large dog, the head of a crocodile. Beneath it, motionless — Mum. Or what’s left of her.
A dreadful howl to my right. Gret! Sitting on the floor, staring at me, weaving sideways, her face white, except where it’s smeared with blood. I start to call to her. She half-turns and I realise that she’s been split in two. Something’s behind her, in the cavity at the back, moving her like a hand-puppet.
The ‘something’ pushes Gret away. It’s a child, but no child of this world. It has the body of a three-year-old, with a head much larger than any normal person’s. Pale green skin. No eyes — a small ball of fire flickers in each of its empty sockets. No hair — yet its head is alive with movement. As the hell-child advances, I see that the objects are cockroaches. Living. Feeding on its rotten flesh.
The crocodile-dog moves away from Mum and also closes in on me, exchanging glances with the monstrous child, who’s narrowing the gap.
I can’t move. Fear has seized me completely. I look from Mum to Dad to Gret. All red. All dead.
Impossible! This isn’t happening! A bad dream — it must be!
But even in my very worst nightmare, I never imagined anything like this. I know that it’s real, simply because it’s too awful not to be.
The creatures are almost upon me. The croc-dog growls hungrily. The hell-child grins ghoulishly and raises its hands — there are mouths in both its palms, small, full of sharp teeth. No tongues.
“Oh dear,” someone says, and the creatures stop within spitting distance. “What have we here?”
A man slides out from behind a clump of webby strands. Thin. Pale red skin, misshapen, lumpy, as though made out of coloured dough. His hands are mangled, bones sticking out of the skin, one finger melting into another. Bald. Strange eyes — no white, just a dark red iris and an even darker pupil. There’s a gaping, jagged hole in the left side of his chest. I can look clean through it. Inside the hole — snakes. Dozens of tiny, hissing, coiled serpents, with long curved fangs.
The hell-child shrieks and reaches towards me. The teeth in its small mouths are eagerly snapping open and shut.
“Stop, Artery,” the man — the monster – says commandingly,