Adrian Smith - The Rule of Three

Just a little more time.

Five centimetres to go. More shrieks. Branches shattered around him. The beasts could smell him. Jack glanced around. Through the willows, he could see the glowing yellow eyes of one of the creatures just a few metres away. It was sniffing the air. As he watched, its deformed head kissed the ground, then jolted back up.

Three centimetres to go.

“Help!” A frantic scream tore through the night.

Jack paused from his sawing and looked behind him. Had he really heard that?

“Please! Someone!” it screamed again, closer this time.

“Over here,” Jack called out. There was no use trying to hide his position; the creatures knew where he was. Jack had gambled that they wouldn’t reach him in time.

At last the log snapped with a crash and splashed down in the shallow water. The creature a few metres away howled and bounded towards Jack. In seconds, it had reached him and slammed onto the log. Jack threw his pack onto his makeshift raft and pushed the log into deeper water, ignoring the beast for now. He straddled the log like it was a surfboard and scanned for the source of the frantic cries.

“Wait!” shouted the voice.

Jack twisted and gawked as a woman broke through the thick trees and waded into the river. She held out a hand, pleading, towards Jack, her eyes wide in fear. She had twigs and mud tangled in her thick mane of hair.

“Swim. Hurry,” Jack said. He looked at the beast perched on the end of his raft. It was staring at the water as if some innate sense told it not to enter. To stay out. Danger.

The woman dived into the water and managed to reach the log. Jack didn’t watch her; he was too busy keeping an eye on the creature. It was crouching dead-still, only moving its eyes. The makeshift raft rocked as the woman pulled herself half out of the river.

Howls and shrieks erupted from the banks in a cacophony of noise. The monsters had returned en masse. Hearing his brethren screeching stirred something in their passenger. It snapped its head up and glared at Jack. Its eyes flicked to the woman. She screamed and dropped back into the river. With a shriek, the monster bounded at Jack. He fell back and jabbed the saw into the beast’s throat. The jagged blade pierced the creature’s neck and went up into its sucker mouth. Jack grunted and tried to shove the monster off. It clasped Jack and thrashed about. Jack slammed the palm of his hand against the saw’s handle, embedding it deeper into the creature’s mouth. He hit the handle again. The creature let out an almost pitiful whimper and went still. Disgusted at the thick black blood that oozed over his arm, Jack kicked the beast into the water.

The creatures that lined the river shrieked at the smell of blood, whether his or the beast’s, Jack had no idea. He reached out and helped the woman from the water. She clung to the tree, gasping, as they floated away. Jack left her to catch her breath and turned around, watching the dark countryside slowly drift by. He had a rough idea where they were. The river seemed to be taking them west, towards the Waikato River and Lake Arapuni. He hoped he was right. If he could find a kayak or, better still, a motorboat, he could stay on the Waikato all the way to Hamilton. To Dee.

“Thank you,” the woman gasped. She was still lying on the log, clutching a branch. Jack could see her jeans and shirt had been torn in several places. She had dozens of bleeding scratches and a deep wound on her arm.

“No worries,” Jack said. He nodded towards her myriad cuts. “You okay?”

“Barely,” she said, moving slightly to face him. “They nearly got me back there.”

“What happened?”

“You first. I still need to catch my breath.”

Jack opened his pack and handed her his spare water bottle. She took it and gulped it down.

“I’m Jack.”

“Emma.”

He let her keep the water and offered her a protein bar. He wanted to keep them for himself, not knowing how long it would take him to get home, but the good side of him wanted to help.

Emma looked up at him. “So, what happened to you?”

Jack sighed and relayed all that had happened to him in the ten hours since receiving the news. Emma listened, nodding, but offered no questions. Finally, Jack was finished.

“Hamilton, eh?” Emma said, chewing on the last of the bar.

“Yeah. Long way to go. Especially with those things out there,” Jack grumbled. “They seem to be afraid of the water, so I’m going to hunt for a boat.”

“Good idea. Mind if I tag along?” Emma murmured. “What about going to an evac centre on the way?”

“Evac centre?”

“Last announcement I heard on the radio, it told everyone to head to the nearest evacuation site. Cambridge would be our closest.”

“We could check it out on the way. But my main concern is getting home to Dee,” Jack said. “What about your family?”

Emma turned away and gazed over the farmland. She leant back against a branch and rubbed at the congealed blood on her arm. She examined Jack before letting out a sigh. “He came back, you know.”

“Who?”

“My husband.” Emma pointed back to where they had met. “We have a small dairy farm. A few sheep. Living away from town, we were used to having plenty of food. We figured we would just wait it out. Yesterday, we heard screams. Jon went to help. After a few hours, I started to freak out. Jon had shown me, years ago, how to use the shotgun. As I was fetching it, he came home.” Emma paused, and turned her head away. When she turned it back, Jack could see the tears glistening in the early morning light. “I knew something was different as soon as I heard to the screen door bang open. I don’t know if it was the weight of his feet on the floor or just the way he was standing. Whatever it was, he attacked me.”

Jack waited, but Emma stayed silent. He didn’t press her. They had both done things to survive. Things Jack had never really imagined himself doing in a million years. He swivelled around and faced forwards. The creatures still tracked them downstream.

The sun was slowly rising over the Kaimai mountains. Jack watched as the sky went from grey to pink. Orange to yellow, and finally blue. He shifted his gaze north and prayed that Dee was safe.

They were scratching around out there, clawing at the ground. Dee could hear them sniffing. She could even hear their breath rattling out of their lungs as though they all had a bad infection. She alternated between sucking air through her makeshift snorkel and holding her breath. Somehow, the compost had the creatures confused. They seemed to know that she and Rachel were in here somewhere but couldn’t figure out where.

Dee kept herself still and focused on taking small, shallow breaths. She recalled the calming technique Jack had taught her and used it now to remain still. Dee could feel Rachel next to her. She would move her hand an inch or two now and then, but otherwise stayed as motionless as Dee.

The creatures sniffed around for several more minutes, scratched at the floor and let out the occasional shriek.

Finally, she heard them leave the shed and felt the vibrations of their strange, contorted limbs as they thumped across the yard. Rachel began to move but Dee held her back with a gentle hand on an arm, still fearful of the beasts. They could have left a sentry behind. It could all be a trick to lull them into a trap.

Without a visual, Dee wasn’t going to move unless she was certain. She counted to one hundred, then slowly dug away at the smelly compost and scraped some egg shells and vegetable scraps off her. She looked around.

It was now fully dark. The shed was empty, but Dee could see several footprints in the dry potting mix. She waited a few more minutes before digging the rest of her way out. Rachel rolled out of the soil and picked some celery leaves out of her hair.