Husk (39 page)

Mallory froze, breathless.

The man crumpled beneath the furniture’s weight, forced into the flames. Pinned under its bulk, he lay motionless while the fire closed in around him like the fingers of a giant hand.

Nothing moved this time.

Tears slipped from Mallory’s eyes, and she sagged to her knees. The couch became a hazy orange mass through her tears as the fire engulfed it. By the time she’d wiped her vision clear, the flames had spread to the nearby armchair. The rising air from the blaze soon became strong enough to dry the sweat on her forehead and flutter her bangs.

“
Hey,” Chris called from below. “Are you all right up there?”

“
Yeah, we’re okay,” Derrick called back.

“
Troy’s not,” Mallory mumbled.

Derrick looked at her with the dazed expression of an amnesia patient. Then he gazed at the shattered section of the barn.

Chris rounded the far side of the fire. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Derrick nodded. He fished his car keys from his pocket and tossed them to Chris. “Go find my sister and bring my car up to the doors,” he said. “I’ll be down in a second.” After voicing those instructions, he softly added. “Man, that fire’s spreading pretty quick.”

Mallory leaned over the loft’s edge and saw that ranks of flames had radiated from the central bonfire, doubling its mass. Several fiery tendrils now stretched across the litter-cluttered floor, while others climbed the beam of the nearest stable divider.

“
Which one’s the damn car key?” Chris called up to Derrick, shuffling through his key chain.

Mallory was still watching the gathering flames below, only half-hearing his words, when the garbage scattered across the barn’s main floor—rotten boards, paper scraps, aluminum cans, broken glass, plastic bottles, leaves, twigs, hay—suddenly rushed together all at once. Running like water, everything flowed toward a focal point just behind Chris while Derrick described which key belonged to the Mercedes.

Mallory gasped.

Derrick fell silent.

She shook her head in denial while the pile rose from the ground in the shape of a ten-foot-tall giant, its body a craggy mass of splintered lumber and trash. A face sculpted itself out of the collected rubble atop the heap—a vile, cadaver-like face—and two candle flame eyes sizzled to life within its sockets.

“
Look out,” Mallory screamed, but her cry succeeded only in causing the teen to turn and face his demise.

The monster clamped a massive hand down over the boy’s head after he wheeled around. Mallory clenched her eyes shut before seeing it squeeze, but her ears caught the loud, unmistakable pop that declared Chris’s death.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, holding back a cry of revulsion and terror.

When she reopened her eyes, she caught a final glimpse of Chris’s body being flung aside. Derrick stared in horror, face pale. His frozen expression of fear resembled an ancient Greek soldier who’d locked eyes with Medusa.

The monster roared and lumbered toward them.

“
This way,” Mallory urged. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll be trapped!”

She seized Derrick’s arm and they dodged an enormous hand of steel and dirt that reached up and clamped down on the decking.

“
Look out!”

Splintering planks popped up in their wake, missing them by inches. A three-foot section of the ledge tore away. Mallory shivered at the realization that the loft had to be at least fifteen feet off the floor, which meant the creature had grown even larger.

“
Mallory,” the voice rumbled. “There’s no escape.”

Derrick reached the hayloft’s trap door and stepped onto the ladder’s first rung when Mallory noticed movement through the cracks between the floorboards. She glimpsed the creature beneath them, but before she could issue a cry of warning, the whole loft began to disintegrate around them.

Huge fists punched through the boards with explosive force, obliterating tire-size sections of the floor. Chunks of demolished wood flew to the barn’s ceiling then rained down again in a shower of splinters and nails.

“
Jesus Christ,” Derrick shouted.

Still clutching his arm, Mallory yanked him backward as the ladder ripped away in a dust cloud of destruction.

They made a fast retreat to the corner where the couch and chair had been. Mallory felt heat spreading across her entire right side. When she glanced in that direction, she discovered the flames from below now reached level with the loft, climbing higher each second.

“
Oh, shit,” Derrick gasped. “What now? What do we do?”

“
We’re going to have to jump.”

Derrick shook his head. “No way. We’re like twenty feet up, and that thing’s right below us.”

Mallory could hear the golem-monstrosity moving beneath them again. Derrick was right; the second they hit the ground they’d be finished.

Then it came to her. “The silo,” she shouted.

Derrick opened his mouth to reply, but something drew his attention to the center of the barn before he could speak. Mallory followed his gaze and saw a huge burning mass suddenly elevate into view.

Every muscle in her body tensed.

The creature had seized the burning couch in both hands and raised it above its head. Dark clouds of smoke spewed into the rafters while a shower of embers ignited the flammable material of the monster’s mismatched composite, setting its entire body ablaze.

“
Look out,” Mallory screamed.

The creature heaved the flaming couch, and they vacated the area seconds before it crashed down where they’d stood. Sparks and burning hunks of fabric scattered in its trail. It slid into the corner and collided with the other items, dispersing flames to the other pieces of furniture and up the walls.

Mallory looked on in horror. The blaze fed, growing in size.

“
We’re dead,” Derrick wailed. “This thing is going to waste us!”

“
No we’re not,” Mallory yelled. “We can swing across on that.”

She pointed to where the rail-mounted rope and pulley crossed the center of the room.

“
There’s another loft on the other side. If we can get across, we can climb down and escape out the silo chute.”

Derrick searched the surrounding area with wild glances, appearing hesitant at first. Then another blazing item—the armchair, perhaps—flew into the loft and smacked the ceiling before slamming to the floor.

Derrick darted away.

Black moths of ash fluttered through the air behind him as he ran to where the slide’s rope was wrapped around a wall hook. He untied it and rushed for the ledge without even looking back.

“
Derrick!” Mallory screamed.

She sprinted after him, a vicious fear suddenly tearing at her resolve. She jumped from the loft’s edge a full second after Derrick went airborne and caught the rope just below his hands.

The two of them soared across the open area above the horse stalls, passing clear of the flames reaching from below. The runner wheels screeched along the old track overhead, but they kept moving.

The second loft materialized out of the smoke.

Behind them, Mallory heard the fiery demon giving chase.

* * *

Less than five minutes had passed since the gunman entered the barn, and every second of it had been agony.

Tim hissed when another corroded steel spike cut into his skin, skin now slick with blood from numerous lacerations. Groaning, he forced himself to breathe through the pain and keep working.

He had no other choice. He had to help Mallory.

Tim shifted another loop of the wire off his feet. It came away with a shred of bloody cloth. He had to be careful how far he pulled or how fast he moved; too much pressure on one side of the entangling wire caused more barbs to bite into his flesh on the other.

“
Come on … Come one …
Come on,
” he growled through his teeth.

One by one, he slipped the rusty coils down, off his skin, over his shoes.

He had three tight loops to go when Mallory screamed.

Tim let go of the last two circles of barbed wire that still clung to his shins, letting them drop back into place. Instead, he turned his full attention to the concussive blasts of demolition now coming from the barn. It sounded like a wrecking ball tearing through the place.

He sat motionless, staring, listening. Insects settled on his sweat-glazed skin and landed in the rivulets of blood that trickled down his legs, into the fabric of his socks.

Whatever was happening in there had to be the work of something massive, something entirely unearthly this time, and the idea that
he’d
be able to do anything about it seemed comical, at best.

He also had the fire to consider now. Tim noticed it the last time he’d chanced a quick glance at the building, and the unmistakable shimmer of orange light appeared far brighter than before. The place was going up. Between that and the rage of demolition, Tim had the heart-wrenching feeling that Mallory was already—

He heard her.

During a lull in the roar of devastation she shouted, “The silo!”  Then she and another person dashed across the open loft loading doors, each silhouetted by the firelight.

She was still alive.

And he knew how she planned to escape. He’d explored the barn dozens of times before. The loft. The chute. The silo. It had to be how she was getting out.

The silo’s exit hatch had a locking bar on the outside. It was old but sturdy, and if it was down, they’d be trapped.

Tim pushed the thought aside.

The locking bar wouldn’t be down. He’d make sure of it.

Tensing, he shoved off the last coils of barbed wire without heed to the pain.

* * *

Mallory let go of the rope and landed at the barn’s second hayloft, stumbling to a halt beside Derrick.

“
We made it,” he cried.

Mallory turned on him and slapped him across the face. “You bastard!” she shouted. “What were you thinking?”

Smoke dominated this less-ventilated portion of the building and she gagged and coughed between words. But she was thankful for it. Had she missed the rope when Derrick tried to leave her, she’d be a burning heap right now.

The idea intensified her anger, and before he could say anything, she swung at him again. This time he parried the blow—

“
Get the fuck away from me!” he yelled.

—
and punched her in the face.

Mallory’s head rocked back, and for a moment everything went dark. She staggered away, clutching her mouth. Pain stung her lips, the flesh pulsing to her heartbeat. She looked to the hand she’d cover her mouth with and saw blood glistening on her fingertips.

Her gaze flicked to Derrick.

Rather than meet it, the boy glanced at the burning behemoth, prompting her to look. The monster blazed forward, completely engulfed in flames. It shook the building with each stride, punching through the stable walls and tearing away support posts that blocked its path.

Derrick pulled the hem of his shirt over his mouth and nose. “Go,” he ordered, pushing Mallory in the direction of a trap door leading downward.

Fresh tears filled Mallory’s eyes, but her fear urged her onward. 

She scurried down the ladder—jumping the last six feet—and spotted Elsa huddled in the corner of the room.

“
Elsy,” she cried. The girl had tucked herself into a ball, knees up, arms clasped around her legs, head buried in her chest. “Elsy, get up. We have to get out of here.”

 
The roar of the inferno vibrated in the air. Perspiration streamed off Mallory’s face, mixing with the hail of dust and debris that floated down from the building’s rotted timbers.

 
She heaved Elsa to her feet and dragged the girl across the floor. Derrick had already dove into the chute and clambered out of sight.

Elsa stumbled at first, then started moving on her own. Mallory lunged into the chute ahead of her.

The passage quaked in correspondence to a thunderous crash behind them. Mallory’s mind conjured an image of the creature flinging itself through the walls of the tack room, imploding the aged framework under its bulk in one last effort to seize her before she got out of reach.

Why me?
Why does it want me?

But when she looked back, the beast had taken Elsa.

Mallory gaped, and a bullet of grief put a hole in her heart.

The chute had been cut in half. A burning heap of ravaged lumber now occupied the area where Elsa should’ve been.

Because of me, because I went first.

Wracked by sobs of anguish but unable to repress the animalistic urge to get away, Mallory hurried up the shaft, toward the silo. Hot air rose at her feet. She maneuvered her way through the opening and dropped to the floor.

“
Oh, yeah,” Derrick breathed in the darkness. “No way that big-ass thing can get in here.”

“
Help me find the way out,” she demanded.