“I’d die before I did anything to help you.”
“Ah,” he said, “but you already have helped me.” He began to back toward the door. “It’s a pity we won’t have any more sessions together, Jacob. Though it isn’t a total loss, I suppose. The four of you together might be enough to finally shift old Malthus out of the debased form he’s been stuck in so long.”
“Oh, no,” Enoch whimpered, “I don’t want to be eaten!”
“Don’t cry, it’s degrading,” snapped Bronwyn. “We’ll just have to kill them, that’s all.”
“Wish I could stay and watch,” Golan said from the doorway. “I do love to watch!”
And then he was gone, and we were alone with it. I could hear the creature breathing in the dark, a viscid leaking like faulty pipeworks. We each took a step back, then another, until our shoulders met the wall, and we stood together like condemned prisoners before a firing squad.
“I need a light,” I whispered to Emma, who was in such shock that she seemed to have forgotten her own power.
Her hand came ablaze, and among the flickering shadows I saw it, lurking among the troughs. My nightmare. It stooped there, hairless and naked, mottled gray-black skin hanging off its frame in loose folds, its eyes collared in dripping putrefaction, legs bowed and feet clubbed and hands gnarled into useless claws—every part looking withered and wasted like the body of an impossibly old man—save one. Its outsized jaws were its main feature, a bulging enclosure of teeth as tall and sharp as little steak knives that the flesh of its mouth was hopeless to contain, so that its lips were perpetually drawn back in a deranged smile.
And then those awful teeth came unlocked, its mouth reeling open to admit three wiry tongues into the air, each as thick as my wrist. They unspooled across half the room’s length, ten feet or more, and then hung there, wriggling, the creature breathing raggedly through a pair of leprous holes in its face as if tasting our scent, considering how best to devour us. That we would be so easy to kill was the only reason we weren’t dead already; like a gourmand about to enjoy a fine meal, there was no reason to rush things.
The others couldn’t see it in the way I did but recognized its shadow projected on the wall and that of its ropelike tongues. Emma flexed her arm, and her flame burned brighter. “What’s it doing?” she whispered. “Why hasn’t it come at us?”
“It’s playing with us,” I said. “It knows we’re trapped.”
“We ain’t any such thing,” Bronwyn muttered. “Just gimme one square go at its face. I’ll punch its bloody teeth in.”
“I wouldn’t get anywhere near those teeth if I were you,” I said.
The hollow took a few lumbering steps forward to match the ones we’d taken back, its tongues unfurling more and then splitting apart, one coming toward me, another toward Enoch, and the third toward Emma.
“Leave us be!” Emma yelled, lashing out with her hand like a torch. The tongue twisted away from her flame, then inched back like a snake preparing to strike.
“We’ve got to try for the door!” I yelled. “The hollow’s by the third trough from the left, so keep to the right!”
“We’ll never make it!” Enoch cried. One of the tongues touched him on the cheek, and he screamed.
“We’ll go on three!” Emma shouted. “One—”
And then Bronwyn launched herself toward the creature, howling like a banshee. The creature shrieked and reared up, its bunched skin pulling tight. Just as it was about to lash its trident of tongues at her, she rammed Martin’s ice trough with the full weight of her body and levered her arms under it as it tipped and then heaved it and the whole huge thing, full of ice and fish and Martin’s body, careened through the air and fell upon the hollow with a terrific crash.
Bronwyn spun and bounded back in our direction. “MOVE!” she cried, and I leapt away as she collided with the wall beside me, kicking a hole through the rotten planks. Enoch, the smallest of us, dove through first, followed by Emma, and before I could protest Bronwyn had grabbed me by the shoulders and tossed me out into the wet night. I landed chest-first in a puddle. The cold was shocking, but I was elated to feel anything other than the hollow’s tongue wrapping around my throat.
Emma and Enoch hauled me to my feet, and we took off running. A moment later Emma shouted Bronwyn’s name and stopped. We turned, realizing she hadn’t come with us.
We called for her and scanned the dark, not quite brave enough to run back, and then Enoch shouted, “There!” and we saw Bronwyn leaning against a corner of the icehouse.
“What’s she doing?!” cried Emma. “BRONWYN! RUN!”
It looked as though she was hugging the building. Then she stepped back and took a running start and rammed her shoulder into its corner support, and like a house made of matchsticks the whole thing tumbled in on itself, a cloud of pulverized ice and splintered wood puffing out and blowing down the street in a gust of wind.
We all hollered and cheered as Bronwyn sprinted toward us with a manic grin on her face, then stood in the pelting rain hugging her and laughing. It didn’t take long for our moods to darken, though, as the shock of what had just happened set in, and then Emma turned to me and asked the question that must’ve been on all their minds.
“Jacob, how did that wight know so much about you? And us?”
“You called him doctor,” said Enoch.
“He was my psychiatrist.”
“Psychiatrist!” Enoch said. “That’s just grand! Not only did he betray us to a wight, he’s mad to boot!”
“Take it back!” Emma yelled, shoving him hard. He was about to shove back when I stepped between them.
“Stop!” I said, pushing them apart. I faced Enoch. “You’re wrong. I’m not crazy. He let me think I was, though all along he must’ve known I was peculiar. You’re right about one thing, though. I did betray you. I told my grandfather’s stories to a stranger.”
“It’s not your fault,” Emma said. “You couldn’t have known we were real.”
“Of course he could’ve!” shouted Enoch. “Abe told him everything. Even showed him bloody pictures of us!”
“Golan knew everything but how to find you,” I said. “And I led him straight here.”
“But he tricked you,” said Bronwyn.