Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

Repulsed and terrified, Steven squirmed back into the seat, but the ram’s forelimbs held him trapped and all he could do was sit there and stare up into the haunted visage. Less than a foot away, its glowing yellow eyes peered back at him in hatred.

‘Give me back my key!’ the animal roared, its great chest pressing against the pillars of the windshield.

Steven said nothing but, thanking God he’d got the engine going, pulled the car into gear – any gear, he didn’t care – and stomped down on the accelerator. He could think of no other way to shake off the three-hundred-pound hood ornament before the dead creature managed to reach him.

The demon ram’s lifeless lips opened in a maniacal grin and it snapped at Steven’s face, missing his cheek by inches. ‘My key, Taylor. I want it now.’

The sound of Nerak’s voice booming out was horribly unnerving, especially as there was no breath, only flat teeth, snapping and clicking together like the jaws of a wolverine trap. Steven tried to ignore it as the car bucked, spun its wheels and finally gripped the road with a screech, tearing backwards down the valley towards Idaho Springs.

Nerak, though still some miles away, was using all the power at his disposal to end any opposition right here and reclaim the talismans for ever. Steven braked hard and turned the wheel towards Alps Mountain, barely managing to duck a vicious snap as the force of the turn shoved the ram’s snout even further inside the car. The old car spun, and Steven realised he had only the illusion of control on these snowy roads, but still he rammed his foot on the accelerator, turned back towards Devil’s Nose and shouted, ‘Get off my goddamned car, you prick!’

Steven was deafened by the V-8’s engine screaming; the oil light flashed a warning and the speedometer dial showed red. He was dangerously close to sliding headlong into the ponderosa pines that lined the road, but once again he slammed on the brakes. This time he pushed the gear shift into park, letting forward momentum drag the ram’s dead body from the hood. There was a loud crumpling thud as the beast hit the road, but without waiting to see if the animal would spring up again, he wrenched the gear shift back into drive and stood on the gas, praying out loud that the Thunderbird wouldn’t give up yet.

The powerful engine roared and the car bounced clumsily over the devil ram’s carcase.

Several hundred feet beyond the body, Steven checked the rearview mirror. The ram, broken and bloodied, hadn’t moved. He swallowed hard, fighting the revulsion he felt at the sight of the beast lying there, mutilated by a monster. He glanced into the back seat, saw the far portal and the stone and breathed a heavy sigh. ‘Round one,’ he croaked, ‘that was round-’

The car bounced hard over something in the road and Steven rammed his head into the roof, bouncing again when the rear wheels cleared the obstacle. In the mirror he saw a ponderosa pine, perhaps eighty feet long, had fallen across the northbound lane of Chicago Creek Road. ‘Sonofabitch, that hurt,’ he said, slowing down. He felt the gash on his head, bleeding badly now.

‘I don’t remember that-’ Steven’s voice trailed away as he watched, further ahead, as another pine pulled up from its roots and fell across the road.

He swerved around the second tree and avoided a third, slowing again another hundred yards along as a boulder, as large as a cement truck, crashed through the forest, bounded across the road and into the pines on the opposite side. As he drove down the twisting curves, rocks and trees came at him from all angles, some blocking his passage, others attempting to crush the car, heading for the outskirts of town and the Interstate 70 ramp.

Steven grinned as he dodged Nerak’s attacks: this he had mastered; it was predictable. He twisted and turned the Thunderbird, alternating between accelerator and brakes as he wound his way to freedom. The bighorn had been terrifying, but this wasn’t so bad.

‘Keep them coming, Nerak,’ he shouted. A cold wind blew through the broken windshield to numb his face. ‘I’ve got your number now, you motherhumper.’ He was less than a mile from home when, second nature, he checked the rear view mirror.

Terror gripped him and Steven froze, though the car continued at a steady fifty miles an hour. With his eyes fixed in the mirror, he inadvertently drove over the thick brambly limbs of a fallen pine and bashed his head against the roof a second time. He snapped his attention back to the road and braked hard, skidding to a sideways stop. He needed to see for real.

There, in the great draw between Devil’s Nose and Alps Mountain: an avalanche of flame was cascading downhill towards Steven Taylor and the resilient old T-Bird. Nerak hadn’t wanted to crush him with the pines and the boulders; he had slowed Steven’s escape long enough to bring all the fires of Hell roaring through the valley. The two million pines that had melted together to show him the three tears in God’s canvas were all in flames.

Steven watched, truly horror-stricken, as thousands of acres of forest were engulfed, then, screaming obscenities at the inferno rolling down on him, put the car in gear – just as a Ponderosa crashed down on the back of the Thunderbird, flattening both rear tyres.

So that was that. Steven reached into the back and grabbed the tapestry and stone, ramming the far portal into Howard’s backpack and the key into his pocket, then saluted the fallen Thunderbird and set off at a run down Chicago Creek Road. Behind him, the fire raged on. His only hope was to run as fast and as far as he could.

Coming into the outskirts now, he ran past the high school, recalling the rules his running coach had pounded into them twelve years earlier. Drop your forearms and bring them up until they are parallel with the ground. Done. Not fast enough. He could feel the heat tickling at the hairs on the back of his neck. Exploding trees were hurling bits of flaming bark and fiery brambles past him. Keep your head up and your hips forward. Done. Still not fast enough. Steven heard the Thunderbird explode with a devastating crash. Get up on the balls of your feet. Tough to do in Garec’s boots, but he tried.

Then he saw the bridge, a short span over Clear Creek that separated the city in the north from the high school in the south, the same span every high school student in Idaho Springs crossed every morning and every afternoon from September to June. How many times had he crossed that bridge in his lifetime? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? And yet, at the moment, he couldn’t remember what the stream looked like beneath the concrete structure. How far down was it to the water? Far. Maybe twenty-five feet? How deep was the water down there? Not deep enough. You’ll break your legs. Don’t do it.

The first flames passed on either side of the road, taking trees six and seven at a time, moving faster than any forest fire he had ever seen. Clear Creek was his only option. Don’t think about it. Just get there. He had less than a hundred yards to go, but his back and legs felt as though they were already on fire and he thought he could smell melting synthetic fibres. Was he already burning? No, not yet. The aroma wasn’t that strong, like the faint scent of tobacco in the demon ram’s saliva.

To his left, a pine tree exploded, and a moment later Steven felt boiling sap and burning needles slam into him, knocking him to the pavement. He fell hard, tearing the skin from both palms, rolled over and bounded to his feet once again. A droplet of boiling sap stuck to the side of his face and he felt it boring into his skin. In pounding agony now, he ripped at the sap droplet with bloody fingertips until he had rubbed it off his face.

‘Don’t think about it,’ he shouted between coarse, shallow breaths. ‘When you are running, run.’ And he did, covering the last fifty yards and throwing himself bodily over the guardrail at the edge of the narrow bridge. As he leaped, he tried to twist in the air so his feet were down, and in the long fall he prayed he would find a pool free from jagged rocks.