The man flew off his feet, knocked to the ground.
Derrick hollered a cheer of victory, but choked it off when the killer turned on his side and got up.
Mallory gasped. The impact of the cinderblock had ripped through the man’s clothing and gouged into his skin, having stripped away the meat to expose his spine. Bone gleamed in the wound. Yet he climbed to his feet once more. He stabilized himself and resumed his march toward the ladder.
“This ain’t real,” Derrick screamed.
“Just get more things to throw,” Mallory yelled.
Together, they hurried to the remaining furniture and grabbed hold of the couch, tugging it away from the wall.
“Malloryeee,” a hateful voice called from below.
Before she could recall where she’d heard that growling tone before, they pushed the reeking couch forward—the old frame of its hideaway bed scraping the loft’s floorboards like claws—until it plunged over the edge. It slammed down atop the stranger, hammering him to the floor, pushing him into the fire.
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.