The New Son by Iain Maitland

Author:Iain Maitland [Maitland, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2024-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

I got through today, one way or other, by being practical and staying focused on what needed to be done, one thing after another. At least, I tried my best. As I will do every day from now on.

At night, I sleep so badly, in fits and starts, my tormented mind going over whatever troubles me. Before I sleep tonight, I run through everything that might go wrong in the days and weeks ahead. I believe, in my heart, the police will come. I’m sure they will. I will end my days in prison.

Even as I fall asleep, through utter exhaustion, I fight it, knowing the nightmares will cram into my mind. As they do most nights, as my subconscious surfaces and punishes me. They were always about my sweet baby and Gary beating me. Now, I fear there are others waiting to force their way in as I begin nodding off.

It is night-time, and I am in the middle of a field. It is pitch-black. The sky is cloudy, so I cannot see the moon.

It is silent except for the sound of my laboured breathing. I try to hold my breath as I can hear something, somewhere, behind me. A scratching, scraping noise, coming closer.

I can’t look back. I just can’t. But I know there are trees, so many trees. It is a forest. And it lives and breathes. And something in there is coming for me.

I break into a run, across this field, towards a fence that I must climb over to get into the next field, where I will be safe. I just have to reach it.

But I cannot move swiftly. I’m stumbling and falling into the mud that sucks at my feet. I pull one foot out and then another. And I try to run again.

I trip and fall once more into the mud, and this time my hands and feet are stuck fast. I pull and pull and pull until I collapse with exhaustion.

I lie there and hear it, whatever it is, coming towards me from the forest. It will kill me, I know that. I struggle again to free myself. I cannot.

It – the monster – does not come hurtling towards me so that my death is quick and merciful. Instead, it creeps and slithers and stops and starts and crawls forward again until I am shaking with fear, waiting for the attack.

I try to turn onto my back so that I can see it, whatever it is, and try to fight it off. But I cannot move at all. It is about to strike.

Then, in front of me, between my body and the fence, there is movement, a shaking, a rumbling, and I watch as the mud churns and moves this way and that, into a shapeless blob.

For a moment, a split second, I think it is somehow going to save me from whatever is coming up behind to kill me. I watch as it rises up.

The mud is now a living, breathing thing, and I sense it is malevolent.

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