What Lurks Between - A SciFi/Horror Novella - Part Twenty-Three
So now we know where the monster came from.
What to do about it?
What Lurks Between - Part Twenty-Three
I jerked awake, or back to reality at least, sitting bolt upright as the shock of the vivid recollection hit home.
The bunny monster. It was the bunny monster’s eyes I saw through the smoke on Ketcham Station. Dr. Liu and her associates created the bunny monster. Not intentionally, to be sure. But whatever they were doing with those rings - I had to assume it was some sort of teleportation device - changed that rabbit, made it into something…different. Something twisted.
And then Sheila pulled at me again and I remembered the situation I was actually in. The bunny monster, hugely grown now from what it had been at first, was approaching steadily, its eyes narrowed as it focused in completely on me.
“Get up!” Sheila shouted, and I wasted no time in obeying.
For a brief moment, I considered how to fight against the bunny monster. But then it roared again and I realized the futility of that thought. So instead, once again, we ran.
Fast.
It was only after I had put a couple dozen running steps behind me that I realized the crushing pressure that I had felt in mind my just moments ago - was it even that long? - was gone. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The bunny monster was still there, still coming. It’s eyes still burned with fury, a fury that was directed at me with a fierce intensity.
And yet I suddenly felt nothing.
No, that wasn’t right. I felt it, but it was somehow not as mind-crushing as it had been before. Because of what I had remembered?
I slowed, then stopped, and turned to face the monster.
“Barry, what are you doing? Run!”
Sheila’s voice boomed in my ears, but at the same time it was like I was listening to her from within a glass bubble - the words came through but they were stepped down, slower and deeper than normal. Almost stretched out.
In the depths of my mind I heard another voice, also muffled and muted, raging at me and trying to force me to bend. To break. It was the bunny monster, that much was certain. But it was as though the beast had lost its power, or something was shielding me from it. Something strong.
Whatever mental strength or protection had manifested itself within me just then, it obviously did not offer physical protection as well. What trick of the mind ever did? But even knowing that, I found I could not turn away and run, no matter the urging of my mind. I stood tall and stared it in the eye as it advanced, and found, somehow, that I was smiling.
“You are an ugly bastard under all that fur,” I said.
I did not say it particularly loudly. Hell, I did not even say it in my normal speaking volume. But the words cut through the air between us like a knife, the sound seeming almost deafening to me for a second.
The bunny monster reacted even more strongly. My words struck it and it recoiled, its eyes widening. In pain? Anger? Confusion? All of those? More?
Whatever the reason, it stopped its advance. In the brief respite I made a waving gesture with my hand toward Sheila. I silently willed her to take the hint and run, get away, while I ran interference here. And for a moment, I thought she did. Then a movement to the side drew my gaze and I saw her standing to my left, her jaw set determinedly despite the fact that she was visibly trembling. My heart sank even as my mind shouted her praises, both for staying to assist against the beast and for her composure in fighting back her fear.
The bunny monster growled and I looked back at it. It had drawn back on itself, crouching like a cat ready to spring at us. Which was a neat trick, since it still resembled a bunny, at least partially.
“Fools,” it said softly. But again, soft as its words were, they reached my ears without difficulty. “I have seen a million of your worlds begin and end, watched the turning of ages unnumbered. You would stand against me?” A deep, rumbling chuckle, fill with mockery, issued from it.
“What are you?”
Sheila asked what I had been wondering for days. But I already knew the answer before the bunny monster replied. It came to me in a flash, an insight that blossomed seemingly from nowhere. I can only assume it grew out of my sudden recollection of the events on the station. I told myself that was all it was; the alternative, that it had come from…elsewhere…was too unnerving to think of.
The bunny monster was not just a warping of that poor rabbit by the teleportation process. No, in making their teleporter, Dr. Liu’s team had torn a hole in reality, a hole with no distance, as we know it, between one side of it and the other, even though those sides in fact stood several meters apart. But creatures inhabit that world between the sides, between what we call space. The monster had taken the rabbit the way superstitious people used to believe a demon could take possession of a person. Now it was revealing itself. Maybe it really was what those people called a demon. And now it was prepared to give birth to its progeny, a progeny that would be at home in our world, not in the spaces between. And that would spell the end. For many people, certainly, and maybe for everyone and everything.
We could not let that happen, Sheila and I. Glancing at her again, I saw that she did not understand the way I did. But she could see it was an abomination, and for whatever reason if I was not going to flee it, neither was she. Her jaw, already set, firmed even more and her eyes narrowed in concentration.
The bunny monster spoke again, and its words were a call to battle if ever I had heard one. Not that I had ever heard one. But they seemed to fit, regardless.
“I am your death.”
Previous Posts:
- Part One
- Part Two
- Part Three
- Part Four
- Part Five
- Part Six
- Part Seven
- Part Eight
- Part Nine
- Part Ten
- Part Eleven
- Part Twelve
- Part Thirteen
- Part Fourteen
- Part Fifteen
- Part Sixteen
- Part Seventeen
- Part Eighteen
- Part Nineteen
- Part Twenty
- Part Twenty-One
- Part Twenty-Two
If you like what you've read so far please go to where it's sold and leave a good review on it, and then buy a copy (I am a professional and like to be paid).
Visit My Website - http://michaelkingswood.com
Say Hi on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/michael.kingswood
Or on Twitter - http://twitter.com/michaelkingswd
Sign up for my newsletter to receive notifications of new releases (guaranteed spam-free) - http://www.michaelkingswood.com/newsletter-signup/
Support Me On Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/michaelkingswood
Finally, here are my various wallets if you just want to give me a tip.
BTC: 3QQ7EhBDMwdG8YypHJjErwpW6hbP4mC14W
LTC: LNG2qRCJHJSybidtNw3os1tayfXjLU8b4g
ZEC: t1Nmjz8P2sPcmBpKmUviaTcxekTW9m7Aj2D
ETH: 0x5842c89FD421c4B92bf826bf7bA5214841B0f660
Very attractive story. every paragraph have a lot of action that generate different feelings, you are professional in drive the excellent events.
my best one is I slowed, then stopped, and turned to face the monster.
“Barry, what are you doing? Run!”
makes me wonder why he do that and interesting to what is come after?
Great Work.