Alright, continuing on, coming back to her own house and the place is abandoned. Very mysterious and spooky
1. How is the setting still?
2. What about the suspense? Still good?
3. Any other observations?
Normally around this time, her mother lit a lamp in the dining room until the family turned in for the night. But the house was nothing more but a dark silhouette. That was very odd indeed. Mother was never slack in such things unless she simply wasn’t there to light the candles. As Aryel watched the house, she got the feeling that she was being watched by someone. As if the eyes of some unknown watcher bored into the back of her head from all around her at once.
A twig snapped off in the distance and she squeaked in surprise. A moment later she realized the sound had come from the pen where the cattle still milled about. Just cows. The sky was dark out, but not dark enough that she couldn’t see the animals several hundred yards of away. She looked towards the animals, and in the darkness she could see they seemed a little… agitated.
The cows generally milled about in one section of the pen or another. Where they stood now wasn’t odd, but they seemed to be looking off towards the hill behind the cabin. She slowly started forward again towards the house, but the feeling of eyes watching never left her as she came close to the house.
A few steps brought her up to the wood pile where she dropped the sticks with a clatter into the dwindling supply of tinder. These branches were from the copper-bark trees and would burn fairly well. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in danger. The area around here was deathly still. She couldn’t hear her mother, her father, even her brother Martyn talking. And the cabin did not hold sound even slightly effectively.
They weren’t even there. The crowing sense of unease tripled in intensity. Have they abandoned me? Her journey out into the countryside would have provided the opportunity they needed. No, they wouldn’t! They couldn’t! The very thought that they had abandoned her here with the house and the cattle seemed laughable. They would have taken what they could with them. Maybe they went to town? That might seem more plausible. Her pa seemed malicious enough that he would leave her cold and alone for the night while he and the others went off to town.
The cattle starting lowing loudly again, and she shot a startled gaze back towards them. What is making them so fearful? Perhaps it would be better to get inside. She started edging towards the door, while she cautiously looked about the tree edge. Nothing moved at all beyond the cows in their paddock and they casting their vacant gazes off into the trees.
She realized with a start that they were watching something off in the woods. Was it the keyl? That had been heading in this area. That had to be the only explanation. By listening and watching the cows, she was able to watch where the animal must be moving in the trees. The animal had to be nearby, at least within two-hundred yards.
The cows seemed to be looking towards the far side of the fence, away from her, and she stumbled backwards, heading for the inside of the cabin. The door inside lay open, as if left that way in a rush from her family’s hasty retreat from the building. Perhaps they knew the keyl was here and had left? Her last encounter with one had been long ago, but she knew the animal was rather large judging from the pug-marks she had seen. The animal could probably be intimidating enough to make them flee the premises.
She bolted inside the house, and shut the door behind her. Blundering in the darkness, she managed to grab the big rocking chair her mother normally sat on and shoved it in front of the door. The feeling of fear and wrongness now pounded all around her, as if everything around her screamed that she was in danger.
She managed several steps into the cabin when a loud slam hit the side of the door and made the whole building shake in its foundation. Aryel yelped in surprise, and dashed away from the door, giving in to her fear and working just off of instinct. As she ran forward, her boot landed in something wet and slippery and she flew forward in an uncontrolled fall. Her less-than-graceful flight brought her straight into a broken chunk of a chair and then onto the ground. The blow knocked the breath out of her, bringing tears to her eyes from the pain and she fell to the ground with another loud thump.
Another slam rocked the house around her and the walls groaned with stress with the impact. She yelled out again, more in fear than for any other reason. Her hand reached out to grasp the ground to raise herself back up to a standing position. But instead of finding a dry but dusty wooden floor, her hand slipped across the wet substance that lay on the ground. Oblivious to the banging outside, she brought the hand that was covered in the liquid back to her face. Even in the failing light she knew that there was blood on the floor as well as covering her hand.
She gasped repeatedly as she scrambled backwards from the blood. What is happening?! Her panicked mind raced from conclusion to conclusion as she tried to gather what was going on. She realized that her eyes were acclimatizing to the failing darkness and she looked about the room partially in a stupor.
The chairs had been toppled over and more than one had been broken apart completely. Pots, pans, books, and any number of other objects lay scattered about the floor. The keyl. She knew that had to be it. Had it attacked her family? She looked around as if the answer would reveal itself, but no clarity came.
A scrapping sound echoed from the wall near the entrance as the animal pawed against the door. And in her mind, Aryel came up with a solution or at least some way of staying safe. Pa had a rifle, some old weapon that he had owned for as long as she could remember. She and her brother had once got it out to look at it some years back. That had certainly been a bad idea, she had never seen her pa so mad, and both she and Martyn had certainly felt his anger over that little stunt.
Still, she knew that he kept it underneath his bed. The rifle was always loaded and only required turning the safety on the gun off before it could be used. Maybe if I can just find it, I’ll be safe, she figured. She crawled along the floor, dodging the debris that was scattered about the room. Of her ma, Pa, or Martyn, there was no sign of anything. Thinking about the blood back on the floor made her sick. She knew that pool couldn’t be the extent of the viscera either. She feared what she might find if she looked more closely about that room.
A few strides brought her into her parent’s room. The room was almost vacant, looking as it normally did when neither of her parents was there. The bed lay up against the wall and the dresser was rested at the side of the wall. Both of the pieces of furniture were completely untouched. No windows peaked outside to the surrounding fields either, just the doorway back to the dining room. Pa had always said that was a luxury they couldn’t afford and didn’t need anyway.
The sounds of scratching still echoed through the walls, and she realized with increasing anxiety that the sound was now coming from the wall that the dresser stood against. On the other side of that wall, maybe three feet away from her, the keyl was trying to get in. She remained frozen in her place for several seconds until she finally managed to draw on some unknown strength of will to go over to the bed.
Reaching underneath the bed, her hand blindly flopped around in the empty space. Had he taken it? She almost let out a sigh of relief when her hand finally grasped the cold metal barrel of the gun. She dragged it out, and checked inside the gun to make sure it was loaded.
She had never actually fired a gun and had only held one—this one—once, but she had watched Pa enough to know what to do. The rifle was loaded and waiting and she flicked the safety on the gun to the off position. She realized how redundant such a feature on the gun was. A gun by itself never was safe even when the trigger was locked. She hoisted the gun up, holding it awkwardly. I don’t remember it being this heavy, she thought to herself.
She looked from wall to wall, waiting for the sounds to come back. The scratching had gone silent, but she knew the animal had to still be outside. It wouldn’t just leave like that. She paused. Was that a scratch? She turned towards the entrance of the cabin. Was it trying to get in through the door? That chair won’t be able to hold a person back, much less an animal that size.
She closed the bedroom door, and after a few moments, started dragging the bed up against the door as well. She groaned under the weight of it and the thing wouldn’t budge. The bed was made of copper-bark trees, which were rather heavy to begin with. This thing almost seemed to be immovable until she got it moving after a few hard exertions. She looked to the dresser as well, thinking of moving that to block the door as well.
A single pull told her that the dresser wasn’t going anywhere. And she doubted she would have time to have moved it anyway. A loud snap and the splintering of wood told her that the outer door to the cabin that she had braced with the chair had been broken open. She realized she had forgotten to throw the metal lock shut.
She whimpered with fear, but Aryel held the gun up and pointed it in the direction of the door. Maybe the bed could hold. Maybe. She didn’t realize she was shaking with fright for several moments until she realized the gun was likewise vibrating in her grasp. She could hear the sounds of objects being moved around as the keyl moved through the room, trying to get at her.
Soon the scraping started on the door, a little a first, but then it became louder and more pressed. She could see the door bend under the weight, but it was made copper-bark like the bed. It wouldn’t break that easily. A loud thump echoed through the room and she almost fired the gun in response. The door buulged sharply but held. The animal was trying to force it just as it had done with the other door.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t fire the shots into the door. I might miss; I might not even penetrate the door. As much as she hated to admit it, she would have to wait for a clear shot. And that was the last thing she wanted. For to get a clear shot meant nothing between her and the animal.
She crouched down on the ground, but held the gun steady as the clawing continued for a moment and then stopped. Then the entire cabin went dead silent, and all Aryel could hear was her own breaths and her heart beats. She felt exhaustion pawing at her like some starved animal but she knew that she wouldn’t sleep a wink tonight. Deep down, she knew she probably wouldn’t survive the night.
