Tad Williams - The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

Ed Stillman and his bodyguard turned and walked back toward the darkened house, visible only in the intermittent flashes of lightning.

“No!” screamed Lucinda. Gideon had his hand over her face now, pushing so hard it felt like her nose might break. “Don’t leave us like this! Don’t do it!”

But only the storm answered her.

In all the world there was only Colin and the manticore and the flashing sky. The orange eyes stared as it paced toward him. The weird, almost manlike face showed no expression, a pale, wrinkled leather mask with feral jaws agape so that he could see every terrible tooth. As it neared the smell of the thing struck Colin like a blow: instead of trying to run he collapsed like something broken that should never have been forced to stand in the first place. Then the huge shape loomed above him, blocking light and hope, choking him in that terrible, sour smell as he waited for the end…

Then it stepped over him, and rain struck Colin’s face again. Sky. The sky was above him once more. But where was the monster?

For long, long moments he waited, empty as a torn sack, and in the screaming center of his thoughts he wondered if the thing meant to play with him before it killed him, like a cat with a mouse. At last, when nothing but warm rain had touched him for long seconds, he cautiously opened his eyes.

Colin turned his head slowly, mud rolling beneath him, and saw with blinking surprise that the manticore was walking away from him, less like a stalking predator and more like a ship in a strong wind, lurching and swaying as it stepped onto the gravel drive. It turned and took a few steps toward the far end of the house, away from the kitchen, then it slowed, stopped, and began to shiver, a violent shake from tail to head and back again so that the creature seemed to be pulled between two invisible masters, one at each end. It staggered, overbalanced, and then collapsed to the ground where it lay kicking and twitching. Colin did not even consider moving: he lay peering at it through slitted eyes, holding his breath. As he had feared, the creature lurched to its feet again and took a few wobbly steps before finding its balance, but instead of turning toward him it resumed a slow, slightly unsteady march toward the space between the end of the house and the nearest outbuildings. Where was it going? The beast seemed have some terrible duty, something that would carry it forward as long as strength lasted.

As it vanished into the dark and Colin lay gasping, he realized that the tickling he felt on his feet and ankles and legs and wrists and fingers was not mud but what could only be termed a horde of snakes, frogs, worms, and other slithering and hopping things, all following in the path of the limping manticore.

He jumped up and shook the small things from his clothes and backpack. This seemed like a good time to head back to the house, and quickly: his heart had just begun to slow, and in the comparative calm he realized that several other manticores were still unaccounted for.

But what was that human-faced monstrosity doing in this part of the farm? Could the electrical storm have somehow sprung the locks on the manticore cage, or had someone let the things out on purpose, as Colin had once done himself? Could it have been Tyler? The Jenkins brat was always making mischief, but somehow even in his most indignant certainties, Colin Needle couldn’t quite convince himself that Tyler, horrid though he was, would deliberately let loose a killer like that.

When Colin reached the house he locked the front door behind him. The power was still out but his flashlight gave as much light as he needed to see that the house seemed empty. The Snake Parlor next to the entry hall was a shambles and Gideon’s bed there was empty. Smaller pieces of furniture had been thrown around, and Colin also saw what looked suspiciously like spatters of blood on the floor. He felt a sudden chill. What had happened here? Where was Gideon? And more importantly, where was Colin’s mother?

Azinza and Pema and Sarah were locked in the kitchen and wouldn’t come out. Sarah shouted something about shooting and screaming, but refused to open the door, as though Colin wasn’t just as much of a victim as any of the women. He hurried up the stairs toward his mother’s room; to his relief he could hear her voice as he stepped onto the landing, but her words were uglier than anything he’d ever heard from her before.

“The snake! How dare he? I will show him his own beating heart, freshly torn from his chest and still steaming…!”

“Mother?” He stepped into her office. Her desk and the floor around it were littered with papers. “What happened?”

She looked up sharply at his entrance and for a moment just the sight of her face twisted into a grimace of pure rage was enough to make Colin take a step backward, hands raised as though to protect himself from a blow. His mother’s expression froze, then relaxed into something less terrifying. “Colin Needle, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you! You were supposed to be in your room!” Her eyes widened as she saw his backpack. “Have you been outside? When I told you very, very clearly to stay in the house?” For a moment he thought she might cross the room and strike him, but then she shook her head, her mouth like a tightened string. “Go to your room.”

“Where’s Gideon? What happened?”

“Not now.” She turned back to the papers, rummaging through them frantically, as if the disordered pile was a haystack and she had dropped her last needle into it.

“Mother, stop! Everything’s crazy! One of the manticores has gotten out, and it almost… ” But she was no longer paying attention, as if her only child had suddenly ceased to exist. “What were you shouting about when I came in, Mother? What are you trying to find…?”

“ Not now, Colin,” she snapped.

“You aren’t listening! One of the manticores is out-maybe all of them! We have to find Walkwell! He’s the only one… ”

She turned on him in fury. “You have become a very disobedient child. Go to your room this moment and lock the door. That is an order. ”

Such was the force of her voice and the nature of their long, unequal relationship that a moment later Colin was stumbling out of his mother’s office and headed toward his own bedroom. He pushed through the door and dropped his pack on the floor, then shoved it under the bed with his foot. Whatever happened, he wanted the Continuascope safe. It was bizarre to think how excited he had been feeling only half an hour ago, how optimistic, how triumphant!

Then he saw that his laptop computer was open on his desk.

But Colin Needle never left his laptop open. He hated the thought of the dust that floated through the ancient house, the residue of its moth-eaten carpets and uncleaned rooms, filtering down onto his keyboard. He always closed it. But who had been into his computer, then? And why?

As he stood, still wearing his dripping jacket and muddy clothes, he considered the possible guilt of the Jenkins kids, and even whether old Caesar might have left his laptop that way after some senile attempt to dust it, but he couldn’t forget that earlier in the day his mother had told him to stay inside-several times and very forcefully, in fact. She had said she was worried about the storm, and of course Colin had ignored her, since the place he had planned to go was underground and would be unaffected by even the worst electrical storm. But now that he thought about it, she had been very insistent.

And other than Colin himself (and of course Gideon Goldring, who had been too sick even to talk much, let alone climb the stairs to play with Colin’s laptop) the only regular resident of the farm who knew how to use a computer… was his mother.