XVIII - The Beast

  The first snowfall has arrived. Winter has come to Fenwick.

  A thin dusting of white coats the ground. The snow is far from the worst that the village will see this winter, but it portents the beginning of a long, cold, and cruel time of year. Most folk shut themselves in well before sundown during these months, where they spend their evenings huddled around their hearths, protected from the harsh cold that comes with the long, unforgiving night. Hardly anybody finds reason to venture out after dark during this cruel time of year. Even the village guards, who are supposed to be patrolling the frigid streets at all hours of the day, tend to disappear into little warm hideaways during those chilly nights, where they can enjoy a hot meal or some quiet company and wait until morning, praying to the Mother that nothing grizzly occurs somewhere in the village while they are shirking their professional responsibilities.

  All of Fenwick agrees that there are very few things in town that are worth braving the winter cold for without the guiding warmth of the sun.

  One of them happens to be a pint of ale at The Dusty Pumpkin Tavern.

  The street the tavern lives on is completely dark save for the soft orange glow that escapes from the building’s curtainless windows. It is a quiet, old street, and is in fact one of the oldest in the entire village—a fact accentuated by the aged, sagging buildings of antiquated stone and crumbling slate roofs that line its either side in a pair of tight, compact lines. And among its peers, all of which are surviving feats of bygone architecture, The Dusty Pumpkin Tavern is one of the oldest. Many wonder how it manages to stay standing after so many countless decades of abuse, both within and outside of its near-derelict walls. There are plenty of folks each year who are convinced that the coming winter will finally sound the venerated place’s deathknell, but every year these folks are proven wrong. Somehow the Pumpkin persists—and it better continue to persist, if not for its own good then for the sake of all who rely on it to get them through the torment of long, tortuous, droning winters year after year; decade after decade.

  The sound of music and merriment, usually muffled by the tavern’s thin walls, bursts out into the nighttime quiet for a few brief moments as a man and woman stumble from the building. This noise is quickly lost on the wind and is swept up into the sky, where it mingles with the gently falling snow. The couple, guided by the light of the full moon, begin their walk toward home. They are bombarded by the slicing coldness of the wind, and the snow stings where it touches their exposed skin, but the warmth they feel inside of them makes it so they hardly notice the harsh, unforgiving weather. Wet, white flakes collect against their winter fur coats and on top of their wool hats, again going largely unnoticed. In fact, the merriment coursing through their veins prevents them from perceiving much of anything at all, save for the wintry streets ahead of them, which promise to lead them to the warm, comfortable embrace of their home.

  One of the things that remains unperceived is the beast that follows after them.

  The beast, having immediately picked up their scent on the wind as soon as they stepped out of the tavern, stalks them from the nearby shadows, trailing behind them with a lumbering and yet somehow furtive gait. The thing is hungry, ravenous, but it is also sly, and surprisingly patient.

  The couple will not notice its presence until it is far too late.

  They continue to walk on, ignorant of the danger that persistently follows after them, waiting for its chance to strike. As they stumble deeper into the winter night, their heat begins to escape from them; even the warmth of their pleasant evening starts to abandon their bodies as memories of their indulgence become more distant and foggy with every step they take. They forget why they ventured out into that world of cold and snow in the first place, and they tell themselves they will think twice next time they decide they want to make the trek to The Dusty Pumpkin for a few pints of ale.

  But what they do not yet realize is that there will not be a next time. They will never get a next time again.

  Their walk home seems to take longer than it should. The swirling snow combined with their swirling minds obscures the path ahead, and before they know it, they are going straight when they should turn left; turning left when they should keep straight. Buildings become unfamiliar to them as their bodies and brains grow tired, and soon they realize that they have no idea where they are.

  But the beast does. The beast is exactly where it means to be.

  And it has them where it wants them.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The couple hastens their pace. They begin turning down different streets and alleys at random, desperate to find their way toward familiar territory, all while the night grows colder, and the snow continues to fall. The chill quickly saps away the merriment that has been floating around in their heads, but the renewing clarity that they feel comes too little too late; all it does now is help them to realize with more clear minds exactly the predicament that they find themselves in. They begin to argue, each accusing the other of leading them astray, but they are both only looking for somebody else to blame. If they can get angry enough, then maybe they can quell some of the fear and panic that is rapidly growing deep within them, from the place where the merriment and warmth used to reside in droves only a short while before.

  The couple takes one more wrong turn, and they soon find themselves in a lonely, isolated alleyway deep within the inner bowels of the village. A high cobblestone wall suddenly appears from out of the darkness, halting their way forward. They look for some kind of door or passageway through the barrier, but quickly come to understand that no such threshold exists. Their only choice is to turn around and go back the way they came.

  Back into the clutches of the waiting beast.

  It sees them approaching, and disappears into the shadows.

  The couple comes within feet of the beast as they make their way back up the alley. The man pauses for a moment, glances into the darkness where the beast hides; he thinks he can just barely make out something lurking in the gloom, and if the moonlight would only catch the beast’s eyes in just the right way, the man would be able to see the thing staring back at him. But the moonlight does not, and so he does not, and in fact he quickly forgets about what he may or may not have seen when the perturbed woman snaps at him, telling him to hurry along. Not wanting to face her wrath along with the cold, he quickly follows after her, turning his back to the shadows.

  Which is when the beast attacks.

  It lunges out of the darkness with frightening speed and pounces on top of the man, bringing him to the ground with a violent crash. The man tries to scream, but the sound is quickly silenced when the beast clamps its powerful jaws around his throat. The man’s blood splashes against the falling snow, painting the flakes vermillion before they can even touch the ground; he is dead long before they ever do.

  Normally the beast would take the time to enjoy the spoils of its kill, but it knows it needs to act with haste if it wants to capture the woman as well. It quickly drags the body of the man back into the shadows, leaving it there until its hunt is complete. It then takes off after the woman, its frenzy only invigorated by its recent kill. This time it will savor its hunt; this time it will bask in the fresh taking of a life.

  By now, the woman has noticed the absence of the man. She looks over her shoulder to search for him, and when she is only greeted by the flurrying snow, she turns and once again begins to retrace her steps. As she walks, blindly finding her way through the snow, she suddenly realizes that she thinks she can hear the sound of heavy, snarling breaths nearby, but the howling wind, which has recently picked up in its intensity, makes it so she cannot be certain of what her ears perceive. The truth is that the beast, charged by its bloodlust and no longer able to stay silent, cannot help but pant wildly with its growing hunger. The woman, like the man before her, freezes when she thinks she sees something looming in the shadows, crouched over like some sinister gargoyle atop a great palace of worship. But unlike when the beast stalked the man, this time the moonlight does catch its glaring, animalistic eyes, and the woman is able to see it staring back at her.

  And she is able to see its red, dripping, glistening fangs.

  At first her terror is so overwhelming that she cannot think or act. Then, at long last, she manages to scream. Nobody but the beast can hear her over the sound of the winter wind.

  The woman turns to run, and the beast gives chase. It catches up to her with alarming ease, clearing the space between them in but a handful of quick, four-limbed bounds. But it does not attack. In fact, as it fights to regain control of its mounting bloodlust, it finds the willpower to back off from the fleeing woman in order to give her the false belief that she might actually be able to escape. Stripping its victims of that small tower of hope always makes its kills that much more satisfying, and it has already decided that it is very much going to enjoy this one.

  The woman begins to slow. It becomes clear that she is quickly growing tired, and that soon her performance will no longer be enough to satisfy the beast’s desire for a proper chase. And so the beast chooses to act before it begins to grow bored. It slashes a sharp, black claw at her leg, opening up her calf and spilling scarlet muscle onto the snow-dusted ground. She manages to run for another pace or two, but she quickly collapses beneath the pain of her ruined leg. The beast is disappointed. It thought she would have at least been able to stumble on for a short while longer with such a wound, but it appears as though they are already nearing the end of their game. Evidently the beast is not yet savvy enough at its craft to ensure a longer chase. It will have to do better next time if it wants to truly enjoy its hunt. But these are thoughts for the future; for now, the beast needs only to focus on the present. And in this present, the beast is in the middle of a task that it needs to see through to its end.

  The beast pounces on the woman, much like it did with the man, but it does not kill her immediately. In this way, at least, it has somewhat learned its lesson. It takes a few moments to tear her open, to rip her body to shreds with its long, honed claws, spilling the crimson contents of her body all over the ground. The woman unleashes a gurgling scream as warm, red liquid fills her throat and mouth and lines the space between her bottom teeth, but the sound is once again lost to the wind.

  The only souls present to witness the end of her life—besides the beast that is taking it from her—are the many flakes of silently falling snow.