Yesteryear Fiction

The Creature
By Madeline Dyer


The wind howled, begging Sarah not to close her eyes against the looming darkness. Trees scratched the window above her, their harsh squealings penetrated her terrified thoughts. She sat huddled underneath the window seat, staring at the door...

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Sarah flinched at each bulking sound, at each deafening crack as the creature tried to get in.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Wood splintered. Hinges broke. The door flew open. The beast entered the room. Sarah screamed.

Bang.

                                                   *         *        *

“Seven,” Dr Filsara mused thoughtfully as he chewed his pen lid. “Seven.”

His apprentice, George, looked up at him bemused. “Seven is a powerful number?” he suggested, a smile on his face.

Dr Filsara looked at him, frowning slightly, “How did you know?”He tugged at his long beard, twisting it around his little finger.

“You tell me, every day, you tell me: seven is a powerful number.”

“That it is, my boy! Don’t let no one tell you otherwise. Seven is the mystery. It is the power! It is the almighty force not known to man! It is the key.”

That night, George returned to his house. His mother had his dinner all ready for him: steak and chips, his favourite. He ate quickly and rather greedily, then went into the living room to watch the latest clip on quantum physics the doctor had ordered him to watch. He watched it for some thirty minutes or so, but it was so boring. George wasn’t a physicist, neither was Dr Filsara. Yes, they were doctors (or at least George was training to be one), but doctors of a whole rarer kind: doctors of the paranormal; investigators into everything preternatural.

They’d been documenting the latest unnaccountable deaths for some time now, the number totaled seven. And the latest, a sixteen year old called Sarah Whitmurs. He’d known Sarah. Not that well, she’d been a year or so below him in high school, but he still knew her.

George turned the tv off and went up to his room. He shut his door and turned the music up loud. It was heavy bass music that was sure to make his mum come halfway up the stairs and yell ‘turn it down!', but she didn’t. George texted a couple of his friends, but no one replied. He shrugged, maybe everyone was ignoring him for some unknown reason.

Bang.

The volume shot up a level and the room went cold. George frowned, got up and reached for the stereo. He turned the dial back down.

Bang.

His door flew open, slamming into the wall monstrously. George jumped and after a few seconds in which he sat petrified on the bed, turned the stereo down and moved hesitantly towards the door frame.

Bang.

Standing just before the door frame, George listened, and then he frowned. What was that he was up to? Three? Three already...

Bang.

No, no, he thought frantically, no it couldn’t be!

Bang.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice shaking.

Screams filled the air, inhuman screams of misery and pain. The voices shrieked and called, begging George not to go any further.

He stepped over the threshold.

Bang.

The creature stood before him. It was magnificent.

Bang.

Something hit him. Hard. He stumbled and fell unconscious.

                                                  *          *          *

“We tried to warn him, master! Really we did!” The Lost Souls pleaded with the old, old man. “We screamed and shrieked! We told him not to! He didn’t listen, it wasn’t our fault.”

The man tugged at his beard, menacingly. “You could’ve stopped him. He was the only one who truly knew. He knew of the creature. He was our last voice in that world. He was the last person who knew of the deadly creature. He’s dead.”

“He didn’t know as much as some of them,” one of the imps came forward, “the girl, she almost had the code cracked, she-”

“Silence!”

The Lost Souls obeyed, shrinking back into the depths of the forest. Their master looked up. “The creature is still out there,” he spoke slowly, “It is clever. Only humans can kill it. The humans we’ve exposed the evidence to, they’re gone. It got them. The creature knows. It knows who’s close to discovering it. It wants never to be discovered. It is clever.”

The Lost Souls murmured quickly and quietly among each other. Some spoke in the their last voices; tones of pain and anguish, others in soft, gentle whispers. Together they melted into the darkness, leaving the old man alone in the forest.

                                               *            *           *

In the days that followed, the Creature got eight more people; seven were innocent, but one knew. And the Creature couldn’t have that. No, he couldn’t. No one could know of his existence. He was already the last one of his species, and it had to stay that way. He had to stay a secret. And he had to stay alive. He had to hunt - it was a necessity. And it was fun.

Hunting was the best part of life for one of his nature. The feeding, it really was amazing, so electrifying, so exciting, so satisfying. If he wasn’t careful, he’d easily wipe out the whole existence of this new planet, Earth.

After all, that was what had happened back home. That was why he’d left, he’d seen it coming. That was why he was the only Creature to survive, the last of his race.

From the safe distance of the next planet, he’d seen his home explode. A firework of life and death that erased everything. His home was gone. His culture was gone. His people were gone.

He had to remain alive. He had to survive. He had to carry on the tradition. He was a Creature. And his name was Seven.


- - -
Madeline Dyer lives on a farm in Devon, England, and has a strong love for mythology and folklore; this in particular inspired her to start writing fantasy. She is currently working on a young adult fantasy novel.