She wished she knew how it had happened. Whatever it was. A gas, maybe. A beam. Some kind of radiation. She didn’t know. She wasn’t certain she would ever know. All of those thoughts could be saved for later when they were out of the forest.
The trees creaked. Clare’s heart dropped as she looked behind them. Dorran had heard it, too, and he craned his neck. The environment was still and quiet. He waited a second, then he tucked the shovel under his arm, bent, and picked Clare up.
She gasped as the earth was pulled away from her feet. The dizziness grew worse, and she had to squeeze her eyes closed until it abated. “I… I can still walk.”
“Faster this way,” he muttered.
He was right. Clare knew it must be taxing him, but he increased his speed to a jog. The motion was smoother than she’d expected. He loped through the forest, his steps even and reliable, his head ducked to avoid the lowest branches, and Clare tucked tightly against his shoulder.
She thought she could see some lightness ahead. Inside the forest, even the snow seemed to take on a dingy shade. They had to be facing the clearing surrounding Winterbourne.
The creaking noise grew louder. Clare looked up and saw a spindly shape scuttling through the boughs. Its limbs were far too long. Its arm span must have been nearly eight feet, and it was using its increased reach to lurch from branch to branch like a deformed monkey.
“Dorran—”
“I see it.” He kept his head down but tilted to the side, one eye on the trees above them. Each breath sounded painful and raw, but his speed didn’t slow.
They broke through the trees at the edge of Banksy Forest. Winterbourne Hall sat ahead, huddled in its blankets of white. Its dead, cold windows followed their movements like eyes. The distance between them and the mansion seemed immense.
Dorran staggered as the snow thickened, and he sank into it up to his knees.
“I had snowshoes,” Clare said.
“Yes.” Each word was punctuated by a gasp. “Me as well. Where?”
She scanned the forest’s edge, trying to pinpoint the place she’d entered. Tracks marked the clear blanket of snow, arcing from Winterbourne across the field until they terminated at the forest’s edge nearly forty paces away. “There!”
Dorran still watched the woman above them. She’d stopped moving and was crouched in one of the trees above their heads. Bony knees jutted out wide, and her arms dangled as she watched them. Clare couldn’t see her expression, but her eyes flashed in the low light.
She was more cautious than her companions had been. That worried Clare. The woman seemed to have retained at least part of her mind—whether it was intelligence or purely instinctual, Clare didn’t know. But it made the woman unpredictable.
Clare could feel Dorran weighing up the risk of going for the snowshoes versus trying to run across the field. The battle lasted for only a second. He turned and stepped back into the woods, where he could walk along the edge more easily than wading through the snow.
The woman followed them. A tremor ran through Clare as she realised the long-armed creature wasn’t alone. Chattering, whispering noises echoed out from between the trees. A new pair of eyes glistened from around a trunk. She tried to count the creatures, but it was hard to follow the motion in the tangle of black branches.
Dorran reemerged from the forest’s edge. He’d judged the distance well and came out almost beside the snowshoes. There was only one pair, though. He lowered Clare to the ground then swung the shovel around to hold it defensively. “Put them on.”
“What about you?”
“I need you to trust me.” He didn’t move, but his eyes continuously roved across the forest. “I can keep you safe. But you will need to run for the house.”
She swallowed. “Who will keep you safe? You can’t fight those things alone.”
“We do not have time to argue.”
“Then let me help.”
The corners of his lips twitched. “Ah, Clare. I will let you win as many arguments as you like once we are back in the house. But you must trust me, just this once. Put the shoes on. Run. Do not look back.”
Despite the smile, she could sense how tense he was. Sweat glistened on his forehead as he faced the forest. The denizens were creeping closer, growing bolder. There were at least five of them. She threw the shoes down and began strapping them on.
“You have to promise you’re going to make it back.” The words choked her as she struggled to tie the shoes with shaking hands. “I’m not living in that house without you. I’m not dealing with… this without you. So you’ve got to be safe. Okay?”
He stayed facing the forest, his feet braced, standing between her and the chattering in the trees. “I will. Now go. Run.”
Clare pulled on the last of her energy to race across the field. The snowshoes were unwieldy. They threatened to tangle her, to trip her, and she kept her eyes fixed on her feet as she ran.
Snarling noises came from behind her, but when she tried to turn her head to see what had happened, she nearly lost her balance. The thwack of a shovel hitting something solid echoed through the cold air.
He wants me to trust him. I can. I will. She put her head down and focussed on moving towards the house. In the distance, the sky had darkened as another storm developed. It would be the second in two days.
Please be safe, Dorran. Please, know what you’re doing.
She heard the crack of breaking wood followed by a scream. That was almost enough to stop her. But the scream had a guttural, animalistic undertone that told her it hadn’t come from Dorran.
Clare reached the end of the field and leapt into the snow-coated courtyard. Her head buzzed from the exertion, but she was close. The dark front door was visible ahead, half buried under the snow.
Thunder crackled in the distance. When she’d left her old home, the news reports had talked about erratic weather. She guessed that was what had come over the property the past few weeks—unpredictable switches of storms, hail, and snow, all encapsulated in abnormally low temperatures.
She clambered up the slope created by the front stairs and collapsed as she reached the door. Her lungs ached. Her throat burned. But she’d made it. Dorran had left the double doors open when he left. Clumps of snow dotted the marble floor in the foyer.
Clare finally allowed herself to look back. Dorran was slowly weaving his way across the field. But so were a cluster of dark, twisted shapes.
“Oh…” Using the stone walls for support, Clare stood. Dorran backed towards the house, moving cautiously but steadily. Any time one of the creatures drew too close, he swung his shovel at them. Twice, he hit his mark and knocked them down. More often than not, he missed.
Clare realised he wasn’t trying to hit them. There were eight of the creatures. Trying to battle all of them at once would have been suicide. Every time he swung the shovel, though, the crowd would back off, allowing Dorran to gain another few feet.
Clare pressed a hand to her throat. If Dorran could just get to the front door, he could drop inside the house, and they could slam the wooden slabs shut. The creatures would still be outside, but she and Dorran should be relatively safe in the building. At least for a few days… until their food ran out.
She tried not to think about that. Dorran’s tactic was risky. He was slow, trying to move through the thick snow and keep the creatures at bay at the same time. They weren’t as mindlessly obsessed as the first two monsters that had attacked Clare, and they weren’t rushing forwards recklessly. Occasionally, one would try to creep around the group to get at Dorran’s back, and he had to dance away to keep them all within sight. She didn’t know if he had the energy to ward them off until he reached the house.