Churn the Soil by Steve Stred

Author:Steve Stred [Stred, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Vampires, Supernatural, Forest, Canada, Wilderness, Winter
Amazon: B0BLLYDK4Z
Goodreads: 63247405
Publisher: Black Void Publishing
Published: 2023-02-17T07:00:00+00:00

thirty-four

She remained sitting on the snow, her back pressed against a dying Pine tree while she remembered that day. Nancy had repressed it so well, so perfectly, that she’d even forgotten how her grandfather had received the scar that crossed his face.

He’d yelled for them to run and so they ran. He pulled her as she struggled to match his pace, his legs covering the ground twice as fast as hers.

They bulled through the two that were there to protect her, continuing through the gathered swarm of hideously rotting things that screeched and hissed and clawed at them as they sped away.

From the lodge, a sound that she could only describe as nails on a chalkboard came, followed by the deep blast of something resembling a horn.

Movement erupted everywhere at once, but she kept her eyes on her grandfather and on the path before them.

“We have protection!” he yelled over and over and over, even as claws slashed at them, and she watched as her grandfather had to lower his shoulder and slam into them time and time again.

Once they’d left the encampment behind, he physically picked her up and ran until he couldn’t run anymore, collapsing near a brook that was maybe three feet wide. She sat by him in panic as he gasped for air. Nancy wasn’t sure if he was dying or if the beasts would be on them any second.

They’d remained there until her grandfather could continue. He wrapped his head in some torn fabric, the blood darkening the material like a strange Rorschach blot. She remembered the long walk back, the fear of their surroundings and the frantic meetings when they’d returned. It wasn’t long after that some of the people who lived at The Border left, walking north, never to return. Her mother was among them.

Nancy wanted to scream, shed the pain and anger that those memories brought back, but when she closed her eyes, she felt a presence, and when she opened them, she jumped where she sat. A Forest Guard crouched in an inhuman squatting position, staring at her through its murky eyes. Something swirled within Nancy’s memories as she looked at this thing, but then the two tips of its tongue flitted in and out between its sharp teeth, breaking that connection. It was only two feet away, but the stench that rolled off it was enough to make her gag, as though it was an inch away. It reached out an appendage, the three claws on the end of the winged limb undulating and dancing, as though a trick card shuffler with no card. The rough claws were dark and stained, causing Nancy to pull her face as far away as she could. It placed a single claw over its peeled-back lips – ‘silence,’ the gesture told her – before it looked above. Nancy looked as well and saw Crow swoop down and let out a fierce caw. Above Crow the trees pushed aside, and Nancy could see her guide

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