Chapter 4: A Glimpse of Ichor

Chapter 4: A Glimpse of Ichor

The breath on her neck was a physical violation. Hot, wet, and carrying a charnel stench of rot and wet soil, it extinguished all thought, leaving only a single, primal instinct: move.

Her desire was no longer just to hide, but to fight. To make the thing behind her recoil.

Her eyes screwed shut, a reflexive, desperate act to honor Jimmy's frantic warning. She couldn't look. She couldn't see the horns, the facelessness, the source of that putrid breath. So she would fight blind.

Her action was a raw, uncoordinated explosion of terror. With a strangled scream, she pivoted, swinging the heavy glass lamp in a wide, horizontal arc. She aimed for the space where the stench was strongest, where the heat had been. For a split second, she felt a satisfying, solid impact, as if she'd struck a side of beef. But the thing she hit was unyielding.

The lamp shattered. The base was ripped from her grasp, and the sound of breaking glass was followed by a low, guttural chuckle that seemed to vibrate in her very bones. It wasn't a sound of pain, but of amusement. The obstacle was far stronger than she'd imagined.

She stumbled back, her arms flailing, and her bare foot landed on a shard of the broken lamp. A sharp, searing pain shot up her leg, but it was distant, unreal, drowned out by the overwhelming terror. The creature was in the room, somewhere in the dark, and her only weapon was gone.

A deep, resonant voice filled the space, a voice that was both ancient and new. It was a mosaic of sounds it had collected—the smooth baritone of a radio announcer, the slight tremor of the 911 operator, the warmth of her own mother—all stitched together into something monstrous.

"Silly little rabbit," it crooned. "Nowhere to run."

It took a step. Clop. The sound of a hoof was muffled but unmistakable on the plush bedroom carpet.

Jennifer scrambled backward on her hands and heels, kicking away through the debris, her eyes still squeezed shut. Her hand brushed against something cold and sharp on the floor. Not a piece of the lamp. This was flatter, wider. Her fingers explored the shape. It was a large, curved piece of a shattered decorative mirror that had been hanging on the wall. Its edge was like a razor. A new weapon. A desperate hope.

She gripped the shard, its sharp edges biting into her palm. The pain was grounding. The creature chuckled again, a low rumble of satisfaction, enjoying her terror. She could hear its slow, deliberate advance, the soft clop... clop... of its hooves getting closer. The stench of decay intensified, thick and cloying.

"Just a peek," the mosaic voice whispered, now seeming to come from directly above her. "One little look is all I ask."

This was the turning point. She was no longer just a victim cowering. The pain in her foot and the glass in her hand had ignited a spark of defiant rage. If she was going to die in this room, she wouldn't die as prey.

Her action was swift and precise. She didn't rise. She didn't open her eyes. She lunged upward from the floor, a blind, upward thrust with the mirror shard. She aimed for the source of the voice, for the suffocating cloud of its breath.

The result was immediate and shocking.

The shard met resistance, then sank into something with a wet, tearing sound, like a knife through thick canvas.

The creature didn't chuckle. It didn't speak. It screamed.

It was the same unearthly, metallic shriek she had heard from the woods, but now it was inside, deafeningly loud, echoing off the walls of the bedroom. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated agony and surprise.

Something thick and warm spattered across her face and down her arm. It wasn't blood. It didn't have the coppery smell of blood. This was different. It smelled of ozone, of hot metal, and something else... something acrid, like burnt wires. She recoiled, scrambling away, the horrifying substance slick on her skin.

She had hurt it. The surprise was a jolt of raw power. This god of shadows, this ancient terror, was physical. It was vulnerable. It could bleed.

She risked a glance, not at the creature, but at her own arm. In the dim light from the alarm clock, she saw the fluid. It was a viscous, black ooze, thick as tar, that seemed to faintly shimmer with an internal, sickly green light. Ichor. The blood of a monster.

The creature’s pained scream devolved into a bellow of pure rage. The patient, mocking predator was gone, replaced by a wounded, furious beast. The air in the room grew heavy, oppressive. A heavy piece of furniture—a dresser, perhaps—crashed to the floor. The sound of splintering wood followed. Its rage was absolute.

Jennifer saw her chance. The en-suite bathroom door was just a few feet away. She crab-walked backward, pushing herself desperately toward it, leaving a smear of black ichor and her own blood on the expensive carpet. She found the doorknob, wrenched the door open, and threw herself inside, slamming it shut behind her.

She fumbled for the lock, her slick hand slipping on the small knob. She finally managed to turn it just as the full weight of the creature slammed against the other side.

BOOM!

The cheap, hollow-core door shuddered in its frame, a long crack appearing in the wood. It wouldn't hold. Not for long.

BOOM!

Wood splintered around the lock mechanism. A long, black talon, impossibly sharp, punched through the door near her face, then retracted. The monster was tearing its way in.

Trapped. The bathroom was a small, tiled box with no windows. This was the end of the line. Her mind raced, a frantic catalogue of her surroundings. A sink, a toilet, a shower stall. On the granite countertop, a collection of the Ellisons' expensive toiletries. Lotions, perfumes... and a large aerosol can of hairspray. Next to it, a decorative Zippo lighter.

A final, desperate gambit.

She grabbed the can and the lighter, her hands shaking so violently she could barely hold them. The can felt cold and solid, a modern weapon against an ancient evil.

CRACK!

The door buckled inward, the top hinge screaming as it was torn from the frame. A huge, dark shape filled the splintering gap. She still didn't look, keeping her gaze fixed on her own trembling hands.

With the roar of the enraged beast filling the tiny room, she flicked the Zippo's wheel. A spark. Another. On the third try, a small, steady flame bloomed to life.

Just as the door was ripped from its hinges, Jennifer aimed the nozzle of the hairspray can through the flame and squeezed the trigger.

A roaring torrent of fire erupted from her hands, a makeshift flamethrower that filled the doorway with a churning pillar of orange and blue.

The creature's shriek of rage was drowned out by a new sound: a piercing, agonized howl of searing pain as it was consumed by the unexpected inferno.