Chapter the Fifteenth: Opening Shot.

It wasn't early enough, the first of the frosty nights had reclaimed the neighbourhood and the red, orange and yellow leaves from the day's breezes lay in sugary piles on the side of the driveways and the street. My windows were misted and I had to start the blowers even though the engine hadn't warmed up enough. I was chilled anyway and shivered and blew as I backed the car out of my drive. It was dark, the street lamps were spaced far enough apart that they illuminated the area in small oases of silver circles in the gloom. The street was quiet so I was able to pull straight out and I used the lights from across the road to show me where the other kerb lay. I straightened up to drive away and glanced in my rear view mirror.

My street might be about four or five hundred yards before it disappears around the bend to the left, leading to the sports fields. I had thought I saw the lights of a car wink and checked again to see if one of the local youngsters was joyriding around without headlights (they'd done it before, ours was a quiet suburb). No car, but the view was slightly obscured by the misted rear window, I flicked on the rear wipers and watched the lights flare in the crystal flashes caused by the blades moving the dew drops around. I froze. The street was a long tunnel, dark trees lined it and the street lamps provided alcoves of receding darkness. There was no car at the end but I saw a movement. Or rather, the sudden disappearance of one of the islands of light. The whole bend at the end of the road was smothered in blackness. Then the next lamp winked out... And then the next...

I spun around to look out of the rear window directly. The advancing blackness held a darker shape in it's centre, a lumbering shape of indistinct dimensions, its lope bringing it towards me.

It had already closed about a third of the distance between us as I sat there.

I locked the shift into drive and booted the gas. The car lurched forwards with a short squeal from the tires. I watched the scene recede in the mirror and set off swiftly away from it. Whatever the beast was, it saw my movement and began to accelerate towards me. I could make out its gigantic musculature as it bounded after me. The hair on my neck prickled with the oppressive force of its intention and despite the fact that the vehicle's gearbox was doing a sterling job at moving us along, the black thing was getting bigger in my rear view.

The direction I was travelling was going to take me into the open farmland before Reddington and I realised that my chances were going to be poor if I lost the race with this brute. The main road curved away to the East and the lights of the first set of houses were dimly visible in the crisp distance. I had to change my direction and decided almost too late, to throw the car into the nearly invisible side track of the old Erking farmstead. The dirt track rushed us up and over the hillock next to the front meadow and would eventually meet the main road again a short way to the North. The engine was gunning as fast as it could go, the four-wheel drive shuddering with the gravel and I knew that most of the underbody was going to need a repair if I ever got out of this...

If I could manage to get to the wide paved main highway, there was a good chance I could get the speed necessary to reach help. The rutted farm track made it difficult to keep a good view of where I was going and at the last minute, I just made out the fence around the old duck pond at the fork in the track. The car nearly lost a headlight as it broadsided on a fence post and I only just managed to regain traction on the gravel. As I roared away on my new direction, the back of the car shuddered from a massive blow from the black mass that had almost been on me. The pond water flashed high in the moonlight as my pursuer slid past me. I left the scene shrinking in my rear-view mirror. This was a different path, one I had no idea where it went. I rarely even drove past this place, let alone, came on to the farmstead. The lights of habitation were still ahead of me but now across the open meadows of the farm. Hedgerows lay as black walls in front of me, I would have to find way through if I was going to avoid death. The car hugged the side of the hill as I followed the contours of the land around towards the East again, the moonlight showing an open expanse of meadow leading ahead over a higher ridge.

The top of the lumbering monster was jogging over the horizon of my mirror once again and I urged myself faster across the (thankfully) flat and open grass.

The narrow opening in the dry-stone wall leading into the ridge was taken at a slight pitch and the car settled once more into it's determined climb up towards the night sky. As I crested the hill, the race was lost. The foul beast managed to leap onto the back of the car and took the rear window out in one blow. I just yelled in fear as the snarling mouth full of black teeth roared in triumph.

It was perfect evil, the aura of malevolence palpable with it's urgent need to kill me.