Not me, thought Jack and whirled to see where she was looking.
Across the kitchen, just coming through the door, was a lurching horror. No, thought Jack, I killed you. I know I did. His eyes swept the room for weapons, lighted on the knives in their rack. He spun from Bridie’s embrace, leapt to the rack, snatched one of the big kitchen knives out and faced the thing, left hand extended, knife in the right, held blade down, ready to punch and slash. Remember, you’ll have better control while slashing with the blade back. Blade forward is best for stabbing.
‘What are you? What do you want? What are you doing here?’
The thing gave no answer, but raised its one arm as if reaching for Jack, then lurched towards him.
‘Stay back.’
The white, dripping nightmare ignored him and came on. Fear profits a man nothing. Jack exploded forward, slapped the thing’s arm down and slashed the knife across the side of its throat, aiming for the carotid artery. Half an inch below the skin. Five seconds to unconsciousness, twelve to death. The knife bit in, but no blood flowed. Jack slammed the blade backhanded into the other side of the throat and ripped it forward. It came through the windpipe as though cutting cheese. Still the thing was standing and moving forward. It’s dead, it’s dead, the fucking thing is dead. How do you kill them when they’re already dead? Jack side-stepped and hammered his right heel down against the outside of the knee joint. The thing’s leg buckled and it went down to both knees, steadied itself with its one hand on the ground and then started up again. Jack tossed the knife in the air, caught it by the handle in a reversed grip and stabbed to the chest. Damn, missed the heart. Does it matter? The thing’s not pumping blood.
The creature went backwards with the force of the blow, taking the knife from Jack’s hand as it twisted against the ribs. Then it turned on the ground, got its hand behind itself and started to push up to its feet again. It ignored the knife as though it weren’t there, stood and lurched towards Jack again, the arm extended, the hand grasping.
Jack snapped his fist like a whip against the thing’s biceps in a move that should have paralysed the arm. It didn’t. To buy time he kicked the thing’s leg out again, putting it to the ground and vaulting over a table to put more space between them. Bridie had moved backwards until she was hard up against the sink, her face frozen in horror. Beside her, Jack saw a cleaver she used for disjointing rabbits. He ran up, grabbed it and turned. The creature was rounding the kitchen table.
‘Haaaaa.’ Jack launched himself at the thing, swinging the cleaver in a double-handed downstroke that impacted the front of the skull and split it clear to the level of the eyes. Did the thing pause for a second to look at him with its one good eye? He didn’t have time to tell.
‘Get out of my kitchen, yer feckin demon.’ Bridie’s clout with a rolling pin used the strength of an arm that had been kneading bread and wringing out wet clothes since the age of 14. It drove the cleaver so far in, the blade completely disappeared. And, with that, so did the creature.
The pair of them looked at the space where it had been. Nothing but the ringing of the cleaver and kitchen knife falling on the ground to show anything out of place.
‘Bless me,’ whispered Bridie, in a voice too close to hysteria for comfort. ‘But that’s easy to clean up after, now isn’t it?’
He went to her and pulled her close to him.
‘We’re alright, Bridie. We’re alright.’
‘Jesus, God, Jack. You might be, I know I’m not. What the feck was that? Wait a minute. Wasn’t that like the thing you said you saw?’
‘Yes. Exactly. Either it’s the same one, or…’
There was a scream from upstairs, followed by the sound of bare feet running along the upper hallway.
‘There’s more o’ the bastards.’
Jack sprinted for the hall and the stairs, leaping up them two at a time till he came level with the sword-and-shield sets that decorated the castle. On one wall was a broadsword almost as tall as Jack. No good, too heavy to lift and swing and useless in a tight corner. On the other, two sabres crossed behind a small targe. Perfect. Jack pushed one blade from below. It moved through the restraining nails, tipped and fell, pommel first, into his hand. He tested the swing. The blade balanced beautifully. This’ll do nicely. He ran the rest of the way up the stairs, nearly running into Eleonora and Fanny running the other way.
‘Jack, Jack! It’s a thing, a hideous thing. It was at your door.’
Surprise, surprise. Why don’t I feel any?
Jack looked along the corridor and saw, just as he’d expected, the same lurching shape coming down the corridor towards them. Behind it, doors were opening and the others coming, sleepy and scared, from their beds.
It’s me, isn’t it? It’s none of the others you want, it’s just me. Well, you don’t scare my friends and you don’t get me. Not that easy.
Jack strode towards the thing, grimly determined. The same. It’s exactly the same as the other two, same inuries, same face, same… The face. The face with its mad, staring eye. He knew that face. Was that entreaty in its expression? He faltered, then the door just beside the creature opened, Hillary stepped forward, saw the dead thing and screamed. The thing reached out its hand to her and Jack stepped forward, swung the sabre in a savage arc and split the creature’s head open. It disappeared as the blade stopped moving, leaving Jack to stumble.
‘What in God’s name was that?’ Lady Charlotte, wide-eyed and pale-faced, but still in control of herself, walked up to Jack, took him by the elbow and spun him to look at her.
‘I don’t know, but there was another downstairs. We need to check if there are more. Get everyone together here.’
Charlotte looked around her. ‘I think everyone is. What do we do now?’
‘Seal the perimeter. Lock all of the outside doors. I’m guessing they’re coming in from outside, so we stop them doing that first. Then we go through the house and check for more.’
‘And if we find them?’
‘Well I got one wit the rolling pin, but it does ye no good to cut them. Jack hacked the one downstairs near to pieces and it ne’er even slowed. You’ve to smash their heads for them. Then they vanish like that one did.’
‘Very well. We’ll do as you say, Jack. Bridie, you have the household keys?’
‘I’ll get them Ma’am.’
‘All of us together,’ said Jack. ‘No one gets left alone. And we all need something for protection. Get the swords and shields from the walls.’
Charlotte went to the wall and started pulling at a shield.
‘Mummy. I’m so scared.’
Jack looked at Deirdre, huddled back against the door of her room, terror on her face and tears in her eyes.
Alright, pep talk here. Calm her down and build her confidence up. Make her feel safe and try to stick her in the middle of the group.
‘The very Hell you are, girl. You’re an Ambridge and a Pearce and we don’t take things lying down. Who gives me insult, gets injury, remember? You’re damned well annoyed and you’re going to make bloody sure they know it.’
Charlotte pulled the shield from the wall and grabbed what Jack thought was a mace to go with it. She looked between the two and pushed the shield into Deirdre’s hands.
‘Coming into this house, our home, in the middle of the night without permission, scaring everyone. That counts as a bloody big insult. You see another of those things, you hurt it.’
Deirdre looked at her mother, shocked. Then at Jack.
‘You want me to fight those things?’
‘Dee, honestly.’ Hillary tugged at the mace on the wall, pulled it off and checked its weight in her hands. ‘If Cynthia Cartland woke you at night like this in the dorm, you’d chin the bitch.’ She looked around at the others. ‘These things are nowhere near as ugly as Cynthia.’
‘These things are monsters out of Hell,’ said Fanny.
‘Hmm, more like Miss Davonport then,’ said Hil. ‘I’ve always wanted to clobber her one.’
‘Shields,’ said Jack, thinking this conversation was going out of control. ‘If you’re not sure about hitting one of those things, get a shield so you can keep it off you. Now, where are those keys, Bridie?’
The group armed themselves and moved together to Bridie’s room. They then went downstairs and started to circle the castle, locking the outside doors and any inside ones they’d pass to make sure nothing could get behind them.
Tension was high, but the castle seemed empty. Jack thought they might be able to relax, until they got to the French-windowed conservatory.
Shit. Through the windows he could see more of the lurching white shapes approaching across the grass. A lot of them.
‘Don’t bother with the French windows. I think they’d just break them if they can’t get in. Let’s lock and barricade this door so they can’t get into the rest of the castle.’
‘Don’t we want to keep them out?’
‘Maybe not.’ Jack could feel he was working on instinct here. Why did he want to give them access?
‘I don’t know how bright they are. Perhaps if they have a way into the house, they’ll take it and we can keep them in one place. Better to have them in one spot and know where they are than have them all over the place.’
The rest of the ground floor proved to be free of the creatures, as did the one upstairs.
‘Enough,’ said Jack when he found they could lock the doors at the foot of the two staircases leading further up. ‘Now, which is the largest bedroom? We need to get everyone together in that. No one is by themselves tonight, so we’ll move mattresses into that room. We also need to have people awake in a relay of twos, just in case. We also need a plan for tomorrow.’
‘Aren’t we going to do anything tonight?’
‘No, Lady Charlotte. I don’t want to do anything in the dark. We wait for tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll have enough luck for them to just vanish with first light, so we need a plan and some better weapons.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘That we can do. Percival’s study has his and my shotguns.’ She looked at Jack. ‘Have you ever used a shotgun?’
‘No, but I’ve fired a rifle. Can you show me how to load one?’
‘Surely. Very well, ladies. We’ll move mattresses into my room and the rest of you can settle in there and try to sleep. Jack and I will take first guard while I show him how to use a shotgun and we plan for tomorrow.’