Craven Manor(65)

Daniel ran through the open door and stumbled down the stairs to the yard. Compared to the inferno, the outside air was achingly cold. Daniel’s skin smarted from the shift.

Crows shuffled in the tree. Their caws blared through the still night air as they vocalised their distaste for the glow and smoke coming through the window.

Daniel squinted as he hunted for the shadow beast amongst the moonlight-speckled, overgrown plants. He couldn’t see any movement, but the plants to his right were darker and lumpier than he remembered, and Daniel pulled the cat closer to his chest as he crept towards them.

Patches of the trees’ bark had bubbled and discoloured into fist-sized clumps then frozen solid again. The effect was like melted plastic. Daniel picked up a stick and used it to prod one of the protrusions. Black liquid oozed out, and Daniel’s mouth twisted. The plague.

He could visualise the monster lurching into the garden. It would have brushed against trunks and branches, and everywhere it touched had become deformed. The poison was spreading, too. Even in the few seconds he’d been watching, he could see the discolouration creeping across the bark. Everywhere it touched puckered in and shrivelled.

Damn it. How far will this spread? He could see the trail leading farther into the woods. The trees’ distortion was horrific and repulsive, but it gave him a clear path to follow.

Daniel bent to place the cat onto the ground outside the house, but stopped. The crows continued to shuffle and cry behind him. They were scavengers, and to them, an unresponsive cat would look like a carcass ready to pick dry. Daniel shuddered and held the feline closer. He did his best to ignore the nausea and dizziness as he jogged into the trail the shadow beast had created.

The woods felt more oppressive than normal that night. Branches scraped across his cheeks and snagged his clothes. Sticky liquid—sap burst from the trees that had been damaged—dripped onto him. The crows continued to cry, but as they faded into the distance, a suffocating silence took their place. No animals or insects moved inside the gardens. Daniel was alone with his ragged breathing and pounding heart.

He didn’t get far before a shape blocked his path. It looked as though it had once been a hedge. Twisted branches and dense leaves grew out of control, higher than Daniel’s head. The trail of plague climbed over the structure, but there was no way Daniel could follow.

He glanced to his right. A dozen meters away, the crypt’s rooftop seemed to shimmer in the cool light. Daniel turned towards it and struggled through the vines and spiderwebs blocking his path.

“Bran?” He nudged the cat’s head as he broke into the small clearing he’d created around the tomb. “Bran, can you hear me? We’re at Annalise’s tomb. You’ll be safe here. Okay?”

Daniel ducked into the small enclave at the crypt’s door. The stone seats would be cold, but it was better than leaving Bran out in the open where birds or animals might find him. Daniel lowered Bran onto a clear patch of the stone bench then shrugged out of his jacket. The chill sent shudders through him as he wrapped the clothing around the cat’s limp form.

His arm stung. He had aches and bruises forming across his body, but none of them hurt quite like his left shoulder. He held his arm up to the moonlight.

Dark marks ringed his upper arm where Eliza had bitten him and burst his blood vessels. The marks seemed to have grown since he’d checked them in the upstairs bedroom, and a red flush spread down towards his elbow.

That’s not good. Daniel pressed his lips together. Prickles rose across the back of his neck, and he squinted towards where moonlight poured through the enclave’s doorway. It highlighted a faint, wisp-like figure. Annalise’s eyes were huge and terrified, a perfect replica of the expression she wore in her portrait.

“It’s going to be okay.” As soon as he spoke, Daniel felt guilty. The words were dangerously close to a lie.

Annalise’s eyes flicked from Bran to Daniel. She twisted her fingers together.

Daniel remembered what Bran had said earlier: Eliza was trapped in the realm between the living and the dead and able to harm them both. He pressed his palm into his aching forehead as he tried to think through his next move. “Annalise, I want you to stay here with your brother, all right? I’m going to try to track Eliza and kill her if I can. If she comes back to the crypt, I want you to do whatever you need to in order to stay safe. Do you understand?”

There was comprehension in the panic-filled eyes, but Annalise didn’t nod or smile. The fingers continued to twist together, squeezing and wringing with anxious energy.

“If Bran wakes up, tell him where I’ve gone. But stay quiet and don’t venture out where Eliza can see you.” Daniel hitched the bag of salt a little higher on his shoulder. There wasn’t much left in it, but it had been effective at driving the shadow monster back.

He gave the siblings a final parting look. Bran’s whiskers were barely visible under the jacket. Annalise stood beside him, head bowed and fingers still working. She looked lost. Daniel wished there were something else he could do for her, but neither of them would be safe until Eliza was gone. He faced the gardens and stepped into the smothering vegetation.

Bran said she would be looking for prey. Will she go straight to a town, or will she stay close the ground she knows as she hunts for Annalise, Bran, or me?

As he wove towards the damaged hedge, Daniel hoped for the latter option. He tried to imagine what his city would look like a year after feeling Eliza’s wrath. Would the concrete and bricks crumble under the rot like the wooden homes in Flinton had? He pictured corpses, bubbling and lumpy with the fungus, huddled inside their apartments and cars. Other cities would set up a quarantine zone, as the towns surrounding Flinton had. They would do what had to be done to keep the disease contained, even if it meant turning away refugees.