Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 157
157
James jerked awake to the sound of someone hammering on the door. For a moment he had no idea where he was, and no way to look around, either, because there was something warm and fluffy pressed right up against his face.
Valery?
She had one slender arm around the back of his neck and the other tucked just beneath her chin, lightly touching her lips. James tried to sit up, but she was using his hand as a pillow, effectively locking him in place. Not that he wasn't guilty of the same crime. His free arm was looping all the way around her tiny body, pressing her close.
I've got you...
That thunderous knocking came again, loud enough to shake the whole house. A small frown creased Valery's brow and she wriggled her way slightly deeper inside the folds of her blanket, until only the tips of her ears poked out.
"I'm sorry, girl, Daddy needs his arm back, okay?" He reached over, slowly lifted her head, eased his arm out, and then folded a corner of the blanket underneath her cheek before lowering her down again, so she'd have at least something soft to rest her head on. The poor girl should be in bed, but...
But what exactly? What happened?
James sat up and rubbed his tired, bleary eyes. The boys were here, too, snoring softly. Did no one in this family have any sense? There were two perfectly good beds upstairs, not to mention the bedrolls Jonah had laid out for them, and where do they end up sleeping? All huddled together around (and in one case, on) Jon's dining room table.
Jon!
The knock came again, rattling the door in its frame.
James stood up too quickly and a bolt of pain stabbed him right in the chest. He sat back down and clutched at the bindings over his heart, panting in quick, short bursts. He had almost forgotten about his little run-in with the fireplace poker. But then again, he supposed the empty bottle of brandy twinkling so merrily in the firelight might have had something to do with it.
The knocks were getting louder, coming in bursts of three. BOOM BOOM BOOM. Motes of dust drifted down from the ceiling.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," James muttered, hoping that the kids wouldn't wake up before -
Valery's ears twitched and she suddenly sat up. The blanket slid off her shoulders and pooled in her lap, revealing her dishevelled hair and sleep-crazy fur. She rubbed her eyes, blinked, and stared at the door, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "Uncle Jon?" she said. "Jonah?"
James patted her on the head. "You can go back to sleep, sweety. I'll -"
"Uncle Jon!" She leapt off the table and started for the door, ecstatic. "Jonah!"
James did not know why, but -
I've got you.
- he yanked her back with such force that his chair nearly tipped right over. It was an instinct he couldn't ignore.
"Daddy?" Valery craned her neck to look at him, and now her brothers were beginning to stir, too.
Timothy slowly opened his eyes and cringed back from the cold spot of drool on the table. In contrast to this, Luke awoke with a start and clutched madly at his front pocket, a detail James would later wish he had paid more attention to.
"Dad? What's going on?"
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Like the footsteps of a giant.
The four of them watched the door in complete and utter silence. There was something wrong here, and they all knew it.
James stood up, considerably more careful about his wound this time, and turned to his children. "You three stay put."
"Daddy?" Valery grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and James placed a hand on top of her head.
"It's fine, girl. You just stay with your brothers, okay?" He shot them a look that said, quite plainly: Take care of your sister.
Luke nodded and took her by the hand. "Come on, Vee." He led her around to the far side of the table, where Tim was already waiting with her blanket. He shook it open and draped it over shoulders, nice and warm.
Good boys.
James started towards the door. He was still a bit tipsy from all the brandy Jon had practically forced down his throat, and every step felt exaggerated, like he was walking along a bobbing raft instead of his brother's living room floor, rising and falling just enough to make him feel sick to his stomach.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
James stopped. There was something definitely wrong here. Why would James be knocking on his own front door? Why not just come in?
Because you shot the bolt after they left, you dummy!
James blinked. The deadbolt was right there, lying snug in its cradle. And with a blizzard raging on outside, was at any wonder Jon would be knocking like a madman?
Feeling like a total idiot, James stepped up to the door, lifted the bolt, and began to slide it -
No. He dropped it back into place. He just couldn't shake that uneasy feeling. Those knocks were much too strong, even for a grumpy old Fox freezing his tail off.
The knocks came again. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. This close, he could actually see the little rod of iron rattling around, as if trying to jump free of its constraints.
"Jon?" James called. "Is that you out there?"
No answer.
He glanced back at his children, sitting by the table. They looked just about the same as he felt. Uneasy, restless, on edge.
"Jon? Jonah?"
Still no answer. Maybe they couldn't hear him? The wind was a right howling terror tonight.
James sidled up to the window, but that didn't really tell him anything either. All he could see was a bright square of illuminated snow (with his own shadow taking a big bite out of it), the endless darkness where the light did not reach, and his own tired, worn down reflection staring back at him, fogging up the glass.
He went back to the door, feeling more uneasy than ever. "Jon! If you're out there, answer me, damn it!" He held his ear up to the door, almost (but not quite) touching.
The wind howled across the roof and the old house groaned in protest, but no answer came. James took a breath, intending to call out one last time, but instead of the fresh, albeit freezingly cold night air, he inhaled a lungful of fetid decay, strong enough to make him gag. He clapped a hand over his mouth and took a step back, wondering what on earth could be on the other side of that door capable of making such a horrid stench.
And then he looked down.
There was a pool of blood flowing underneath the door. It started out small, like a sickle moon, but quickly grew into a quarter moon, then a half moon, spreading across the planks and seeping into the cracks between them, creating spiky offshoots like the legs of a tick, crawling towards him, reaching for the tips of his shoes...
Time itself ground to a shuddering halt, like the millstone he and his brother used to watch back when they were kids and the wind suddenly died down. His own reflection stared back at him from that foul puddle of ice-cold blood, the eyes widened in fear and the mouth slowly stretching across the congealing surface in a silent scream. It was as if he was staring at his own bloody corpse, frozen forever in that deep, red hell.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!! The door rattled in its frame, the hinges squealed and a crack appeared in the wood, running right down the middle. A splinter broke free, tumbled through the air in a slow, almost lazy arc, and landed in the puddle of blood at his feet, distorting the reflection, warping and stretching and doubling the features until it didn't resemble his own face anymore. What he was staring at now were the faces of his children, torn apart and mutilated beyond recognition, their dead eyes staring at him from beyond that thin red membrane, asking him why...
Why couldn't he keep his promise?
That was what did it. That was what broke the paralysis and set time moving again like a giant millstone in his mind, grinding the seconds to dust.
"Luke! Tim! Get that table over here, now!" James slammed his shoulder against the door, knowing it wouldn't do any good. Whatever was on the opposite side of this door was pounding on it so hard that the whole thing was beginning to bulge in and out like a monstrous heart, splintering and cracking. It could probably tear down this entire wall if it wanted to.
It's Banno, it has to be Banno!
It can't be! Banno's dead!
You never believed that! None of you believed that!
Luke grabbed the edge of the table and began to push it with all his might. There was no hesitation at all, only action, and just like so many instances in the past, that was all it took for Tim to get moving, too. He stepped up beside his brother and together they pushed that table across the living room floor, gritting their teeth and putting one foot in front of the other.
"Quickly, quickly!" James urged them on. Another thunderous blow tore through the door and the shockwave alone was so strong it actually knocked him back a few inches. It was like taking a punch through his entire body.
"Move, Dad!" Luke and Tim yelled simultaneously and James slid out of the way just as they shoved the table up against the door.
That's not going to hold, James thought frantically, trying to come up with something, anything to get them out of this mess. He picked up a chair and threw it on top of the table, but it felt like he was trying to put out a fire by spitting on it. The boys did the same, but what difference did three rickety old chairs make? Chairs light enough for even a kid to toss around?
The barrage of hammer blows was endless. The cracks were growing longer, wider. He could see something moving just on the other side, a huge black shadow in the night. Valery was crying - a wailing sound that pierced his chest much deeper than the fireplace poker ever did.
"Dad, what do we do!?" Luke asked, but James didn't know what to tell him. His eyes flitted about the room, frantically looking for a bookcase or a set of shelves or -
A long sliver of wood jumped off the door and landed on the table, leaving yet another crack in the wood, the widest one yet. The shadow shifted, and suddenly there was a great black eye staring in at them, wreathed in a network of bloodshot veins.
All doubt ceased. That eye could belong to no other.
It was Banno.
"My gods..."
It punched a hole right through the remnants of the door in a shower of wooden splinters. A freezing gust of ice cold wind and snow blew in past its arm as it groped around the table like an overgrown spider, looking for the edge.
James grabbed hold of the table in an effort to keep it in place, but it was no use. Banno's fingers curled around the edge and he simply flipped the whole thing over, chairs and all, like it weighed no more than a piece of toasted bread. It crashed onto its side with a bang, nearly knocking James flat on his tail.
"Daaahhdeeee!!" Valery shrieked, tears streaming down her face. James grabbed her and held her close, stroking her hair and whispering the worst, most unbelievable lies of his life.
"Ssh, it's okay, sweety, shh, it's okay, it'll be okay..."
The door didn't simply break open, it exploded right off its hinges and crashed to the floor in a flurry of snow. James hugged Valery's screaming face to his chest, even if only to spare her this gristly sight.
Banno was standing in the doorway, hunched down low so he could fit inside, giving him the shape of a crippled hunchback. He was cloaked in swirling flakes of snow and stuttering shadows, every detail illuminated by the stark glow of the fireplace. James could see everything, and the conclusion he came to was that his brother had been right all along.
Banno really was dead.
His face was a rotting, blood-soaked ruin. His cheek was torn open all the way to his ear, which was flayed in two like a freshly caught fish. His mouth could hardly be called a mouth anymore. It was a cavernous hole, constantly dripping blood, saliva, and a third liquid, whitish yellow, filled with lumpy secretions - puss born of disease and infection. His entire body was covered in festering wounds, cuts and gashes, red and swelling around the edges. His right eyelid was completely gone, revealing the round cavity of flesh, blood and bone James had spent so many hours caring for back home, back when he was just a stranger in desperate need of help. There were at least half a dozen broken arrows sticking out of his back, shifting in undulating patterns as he rolled his muscles, readjusting the unconscious vixen slung over his shoulder.
By the gods, isn't that Rufio's daughter?
It was. Her clothes were ripped to tatters, and there were two deep cuts running beneath her eyes, frozen into dark red lines by the blizzard.
She looked dead.
Banno stepped inside, crunching bits of wood beneath his bloody foot.
"Get behind me!" James said, sweeping his children together.
"Da- Daddy!" Valery was crying so badly she could barely breathe. Sobs burst out of her scant chest in violent waves.
"I've got you! Just back up! Just back up with me!"
James began to back away with his arms outstretched, pushing them towards the stairs, right now the only dim hope of escape they had left.
"No, James..." Banno reached out with one grotesque hand, the claws saturated with drying blood, and beckoned them closer. "Let the children come to me."
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