Andrew Lane - Red Leech

“What’s in here with us?” Matty asked, breathless.

“I’m not sure,” Sherlock replied, looking around. Up on the balcony, Rubinek and his men were leaving. Whatever was going to happen in the enclosure, it wasn’t classified as a spectator sport.

“They’re not watching us,” Virginia pointed out. “We’ve got a chance to escape.”

“The walls are too high to climb,” Matty said dubiously.

Sherlock looked around. “There are loose rocks around. Maybe we could pile them up and climb up so we can reach the top of the wall.” He thought for a moment. “No good. They could see us from the house as we climb over the wall. We need to find a way out where they can’t spot us.”

A scrabbling noise from the far side of the enclosure caught his attention. He glanced that way, heart pounding in his chest. What was in there with them?

For a moment he couldn’t see anything, but then a nightmare head appeared from a dark gap between two rocks. It was long and narrow, with small eyes set on either side. The creature’s skin was a dirty grey-green, and folds of it hung down from that long jaw. The mouth opened as Sherlock watched to let a forked red tongue flicker out, tasting the air, but inside he could see a row of vicious teeth the size of his little finger, curved backwards so that any prey caught by them would not be able to tear itself free.

Matty gasped, and Virginia let out a stifled moan.

“What is it?” Matty whispered.

The creature moved further out into the open. Its body was as long as Sherlock’s, half of it made up of a long, muscular tail. It walked on four legs that splayed out sideways from its body. Its feet terminated in hooked claws that skittered on the rocks as it moved. The grey-green skin seemed like a baggy fit, hanging loose beneath it and swaying as it moved.

Even at that range, Sherlock could see that there was no emotion in those eyes: just a cold and hungry intelligence.

“Some kind of reptile,” he said, “but it’s huge. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“It’s the same size as us,” Virginia whispered. “I thought it might be an alligator — they have them down in Florida, I’ve heard — but this is something else. Alligators are slow and stupid, and they don’t like being out of water, but that thing looks quick and intelligent, and it’s walking on the rocks with no problems.”

Sherlock gazed at the thing’s feet. “Those claws look like they could climb trees,” he pointed out. “Not that there are any trees here to climb anyway’

The creature moved out on to a flat rock and stared at them, flicking its tongue towards them. It knew there was food around.

Something moved off to one side. Sherlock glanced that way. A second creature was emerging from another gap in the rocks. This one was even bigger than the first.

“Look!" Virginia warned. For a moment Sherlock assumed she’d seen the second creature as well, but when he looked over at her he saw she was facing the other way. He followed the line of her pointing finger. A third lizard was moving towards them along the line of the wall. Its head was swinging from side to side as it watched them.

The first creature that he’d seen moved in the other direction while the second one began to head towards them, its body swinging from side to side as its claws got purchase on the ground.

The three creatures appeared to be working together, like dogs. They were pinning Sherlock, Matty and Virginia down, giving them nowhere to escape.

Sherlock’s mind was racing. Given the size of the creatures, and their massive and sharp teeth, they were obviously carnivores, and they were moving as if they were hungry and they knew there was food in the enclosure. They didn’t seem wary or cautious, the way dogs might have been. They just seemed deliberate in their movements. Sherlock had a feeling that reptiles couldn’t be scared. Their brains just weren’t made that way. They would just keep coming, no matter what Sherlock and the others did. Noises wouldn’t stop them, nor would sudden gestures. Thrown rocks probably wouldn’t work either. They were like calculating machines with teeth.

The monstrous creatures were edging closer and closer now, from all directions. Sherlock, Matty and Virginia edged backwards, towards the nearest wall. Their options were progressively being closed off by these freakishly intelligent reptiles.

“What’s that smell ?” Matty asked, his face wrinkling up. Sherlock could smell it too: something like rotted meat. If those creatures really did swallow their prey whole and then spend weeks digesting it then the smell was probably part of them.

“Sherlock,” Virginia said in a too-controlled voice, “what do we do?”

“Thinking,” Sherlock said, and he was. He was thinking as fast as he’d ever thought in his life.

The creature on their right took a few steps closer. Matty bent down and picked a stone up from the ground. He lobbed it at the creature. It didn’t move as the stone hit the wall beside it and bounced off. No fear, no caution, nothing. It just didn’t care. After a few seconds it took another two steps, legs splayed out to either side of its body.

The creature to their left hissed, head held up as it sampled the air. The other two hissed as well. Sherlock wasn’t sure if they were communicating with each other, or just making noises designed to cause their prey to freeze in terror.

The distance between the reptiles and the three of them had almost halved now, taken up gradually by the reptiles making small steps. No rush, no sudden attack, just a progressive and intelligent process of backing their prey into a corner where they could be eaten at leisure.

And Sherlock couldn’t think of any way of stopping them.

“What about the water?” Matty whispered, as if the reptiles might hear and understand him. “Couldn’t we get in the pond and wait them out?”

“I think they’re partly amphibious,” Sherlock said. “Look at those feet. They’re webbed. They can probably swim better than we can.”

“I can’t swim,” Virginia said suddenly.

“I take it back,” Sherlock said. “They can definitely swim better than we can.” He looked around desperately, hoping there might be something lying about that might help, but apart from rocks and bushes there was nothing.

The reptiles were getting closer now, and the stench of rotting meat was becoming almost too much to bear.

“Oh, I dunno if it helps,” Matty said, “but I got this from that bloke’s jacket pocket.”

Sherlock turned to see that Matty was holding the small, two-barrelled pistol.

“It’s a Remington Derringer,” Virginia said. “Pa got me one, once, but I lost it.”

“How the hell did you get that off him?” Sherlock demanded.

Matty shrugged. “I live off my own resources,” he pointed out. “Pickpocketing is one of them.”

Sherlock looked from the gun to the advancing reptiles and back again. “Two lead balls, three creatures,” he said. “Not good odds.”

“It increases our chances,” Virginia added.

“It just means that one of us gets killed and eaten rather than all three of us, and that’s not an acceptable solution.”

“You got a better idea?” Matty asked.

“Actually,” Sherlock said, “I have.” His gaze scanned the walls. “How did they get these things in here? I doubt they walked them along the plank. Too much chance of them getting hurt when they fell.”

“You think there’s a gate or door or something?” Matty demanded.

“It seems logical. All we need to do is look for it.”

Sherlock considered the approaching reptiles more closely. “They’re slower than us,” he pointed out, “but they’ll wear us out eventually.” His gaze skipped over the rocks. “Look, if we’re fast we can climb above them, then jump over their heads and get behind them. Then we can look for the way in. They can’t move fast.”