Barry Hutchison

The Beast


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didn’t reply. I tore my eyes away from Nan long enough to see the worry on Ameena’s face. Only then did the first stirrings of panic begin.

      ‘Why’s Nan here?’ I wondered aloud. ‘Why would they bring her to the house?’

      ‘Maybe she’s picking something up for your mum.’

      ‘At this time of night?’

      ‘Maybe it’s something she really needs.’

      ‘But why send Nan? She doesn’t know where things are. She can barely think straight these days.’ It was true. Dementia had been devouring Nan’s memories for years now. Sometimes she didn’t recognise any of us, herself included.

      ‘Maybe...’ Ameena began, but nothing followed it. She was all out of maybes.

      The policewoman let Nan take her arm. I watched them shuffle slowly up the path. It was the policewoman who unlocked the door. I kept watching until they both disappeared inside.

      ‘What if something’s happened to Mum?’ I asked, feeling the panic rise up into my throat. ‘What if they’ve come to sort out all her stuff ? What if she’s...’

      ‘They’ve left the lights going,’ Ameena said, cutting me short. I looked down at the car. Sure enough, the blue light was still flashing and the beams of the headlamps still cut through the gloom. ‘They can’t plan on staying long.’

      ‘Why’s it flashing?’ I asked. ‘I thought that was just for emergencies.’

      Ameena shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me.’

      We didn’t speak again for a while, just watched for Nan and the policewoman emerging. Eventually, we got tired of standing and sat on the floor, taking it in turns to raise up on to our knees and look over at the house. Lights had come on in all the rooms, but other than that, there had been nothing to report.

      ‘How long’s that been?’ I asked.

      ‘About an hour,’ Ameena said. ‘Give or take ten minutes.’

      I looked at the car, its lights still burning. ‘Her battery’s going to go flat if she doesn’t get a move on.’

      Ameena yawned. ‘Mine too.’ She lay down on her side, propping her head up on her hand. ‘Think I’m going to get some rest. You should too.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ I said, forcing my heavy eyelids open to prove my point. ‘I’m going to keep watching.’

      ‘Wake me up if anything happens,’ she answered, rolling on to her back and interlocking her fingers behind her head. ‘Hey, cool,’ she said, looking past me, up towards the cloudy night sky. ‘It’s snowing.’

      I raised my eyes in time to see a tiny white dot drift by on the other side of the glass. Another fell a moment later, then another, and another. In just a few minutes, the sky was filled with a hundred thousand falling flakes.

      ‘It’s heavy too,’ I said, but Ameena’s only reply was a soft snore. ‘No stamina,’ I muttered, then I yawned, rested my chin on the windowsill, and settled in for a long, lonely stakeout.

      I woke up with my forehead against the cold glass and soft January sunlight in my eyes. Several centimetres of snow were piled up on the window ledge, so white it was almost glowing.

      ‘Crap!’ I cursed. I tried to stand up but my legs were numb from being folded beneath me and I quickly fell back down again.

      ‘What? What’s wrong?’ Ameena asked, wide awake and on her feet before she’d finished speaking.

      ‘I fell asleep,’ I explained, furious with myself. ‘I missed them coming out!’

      ‘Um... no you didn’t.’

      I looked down at the front of my house. The police car was still there. Its headlamps were dim and the blue light had been covered by the snow that continued to fall. The car hadn’t moved all night.

      ‘That’s weird,’ I said. I looked to Ameena for reassurance. ‘That’s weird, right?’

      She nodded. ‘That is definitely weird.’

      The lights were still on in the house. I studied all the windows in turn, trying to make out any movement within them. Nothing. As far as I could see, the house was completely still.

      ‘Why would they still be there?’ I asked, not really expecting an answer. ‘It’s been hours. They should’ve come out long before now.’

      ‘Kyle.’ Ameena spoke the word quietly, but I couldn’t miss the tremble in her voice.

      ‘What?’

      She didn’t reply, just nodded towards the back garden. Towards the streaks of dark red that coloured the snow.

      I was out of the room in a heartbeat, bounding down into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. The electricity tingled across my scalp, and this time I didn’t resist. I imagined the board being torn from the front door, pictured the wood and the rusty nails being yanked sharply away.

      The board gave a crack and fell outwards as I approached and a dim, watery light seeped in. I hurried outside and found myself stumbling, knee-deep, through snow. I hesitated, just for a moment, wondering how this much of the stuff could possibly have fallen in one night, but then I was running again, heading for the fence, no longer worried about being seen.

      Ameena crunched along behind me, struggling to keep up. The snow slowed me down, but I reached the fence in no time and vaulted over it.

      I plopped down into the marshmallow whiteness of my garden, staggered forwards, then set off running again, making for the back door. The snow was falling heavily, making it hard to see more than a few metres in any direction. I was running through the red streaks almost before I saw them. Their slick wetness sparkled atop the snow, slowly taking on a pinkish hue as more flakes fell.

      I looked up, blinking against the blizzard, and saw the back door stood ajar. Not bothering to wait for Ameena, I crunched up the stone steps, through the open door, and into a blood-soaked warzone that had once been my kitchen.

missing

      missingan? Nan?’ I raced through the kitchen, past the upturned table and the broken chairs, past the blood-spattered cabinets and the shattered glass.

      ‘Good grief !’ Ameena muttered, appearing at the back door just as I charged through into the living room.

      ‘Nan, where are you?’ I called. My voice was absorbed by the silence of the house. The living room was a mess, but not in the same league as the kitchen. The coffee table was in pieces and the TV was face down on the carpet, but there was no blood. No Nan, either.

      I made for the stairs, then pulled myself together enough to collect one of the legs of the broken coffee table. It was a short piece of wood – about forty-five centimetres from top to bottom – but it was thick and it was heavy and I’d be able to do some damage with it if I had to.

      ‘Any sign of her?’ Ameena asked, joining me at the bottom of the stairs. She’d had the same idea as me, and now carried a knife she’d lifted from the wooden block in the kitchen. She held it with the blade flat against her wrist, half-concealed, but ready to strike.

      ‘Not yet,’ I said. I called up the stairs. ‘Nan? Nan, are you up there?’

      A groan. A whimper. Faint, but there. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard it again, three-quarters of the way before I realised it had come from the living room.

      I turned, bounded back down half a dozen steps, and that’s when I realised I had been wrong. There was blood in the living room. So much blood.

      It started on the wall just by the kitchen door, a metre and a half off the ground, and streaked straight