Bursting through the front door, Garm scrambles to lock it behind them. When the lock finally clicks shut, the two move from room to room in silent cooperation, barricading windows with chairs, bookshelves, and anything they can find. The mad rush of overturning furniture, spurred on by their fear, is quick, efficient, and loud enough to make Sven peek out from under his bench to see what’s up.
Not long after, the two are sitting back to back in the middle of their darkened living room. Only sparse beams of moonlight can be seen peaking through their makeshift barricades before Hannah lights her lantern with a match.
In a hushed whisper, Garm asks, “Are you sure we should light that? We’re really visible, you know?”
“I’m not sitting here in the dark,” Hannah whispers back, some panic still evident in her voice. “The corners, Garm, I can barely stand to look at them.”
Feeling his sister shiver against his back, Garm nods and mutters a brief, “Yeah, I know.” Looking at the barely illuminated corners of the room, he also can’t shake the feeling that something might leap from them at any moment.
Remaining seated in their little sanctuary in the middle of the room, they sink back into silence. Hannah clutches a kitchen knife to her chest, and Garm holds the recovered rifle tight, checks it, and sees only a handful of bullets left. A measly haul, they knew, but none of them felt like volunteering to find something more substantial, whatever that might be.
Feeling around in his other pocket, Garm asks Hannah to hold out her hand. Obliging, she receives a handful of the only other thing Garm had thought to grab.
“Be careful, they’re sharp,” Garm says as he hands over half his push-pins.
“These are Mother’s…” Hannah starts but is interrupted as her brother tries to explain.
“Earlier, when we saw that monster take… Dad…” Garm pauses, but quickly gathers his thoughts again. “When I couldn’t move, he shouted that we needed to run and suddenly I could move again. It wasn’t much, but enough so that I could jab my leg with my knife.” Feeling the red splotch on his pant leg, he thanked god that it wasn’t too deep, now merely a faint ache. “It helped me move again, to focus on something other than what it was doing to…”
Tracing off again, Garm closes Hannah’s hand over the sharp metal. Seeing his sister wince as one of the pins jabs into her skin, he puts his hand gently on top of hers. Holding her hand shut, Garm looks his sisters in the eyes, “I don’t know how much it’ll help, but it’s better to be in pain than dead,” then he lets her hands go.
Giving her brother an uncertain look, Hannah pockets the push-pins. Breathing out a shuddering breath, she sits back up against Garm’s back, the possession meant as much for covering every angle, as it is for comfort. None of them felt like being alone at the moment and being cornered in their separate rooms felt like a decidedly bad idea.
A slight spasm goes through Hannah’s back, making Garm turn to her in question.
“We came face to face with a nightmare…” Hannah lets out something between a choke and a cackle, “And you decide to stab yourself?” Leaning forward, she holds on to her sides as she shakes uncontrollably, the emotional high of their situation seemingly overwhelming her for the moment.
Stolen novel; please report.
Frowning to himself before realizing how much stress they’d both been feeling all night, Garm’s lips slowly form into a manic smile. The laughter comes slowly, beginning as a choked hiccup, then becoming louder, working its way up to a raucous cacophony. A laugh, entirely free of cheer or happiness, but drenched in pain and desperation spreads throughout the house.
Images from earlier come to Garm one at a time as the two lose themselves in the madness of it all: Mr. Madsen’s mutilated corpse, his Father’s dying face, and his final words. Tears begin coming down like rain staining his shirt in between gasps of air. Sounding more like sobs now, the laughter slowly peters out. Soon both siblings are sitting upright again, breathing hard.
After another minute of gathering themselves back up, Garm wipes at his eyes with a sleeve and says in a low voice, “I don’t know why I did it. It felt right at the time, pain to replace pain, and it wouldn’t have made anything worse if it didn’t work.”
“Well, I’m glad you did it,” Hannah says, her tone somewhat back to normal again, “If you hadn’t…”
With Hannah’s final statement hanging in the air, Garm’s about to reply when three sharp knocks of knuckle on wood ring out from the front door.
Garm and Hannah both jump in sudden surprise before scrambling to their feet. Staring at the door in trepidation, Garm raises his rifle to point at it, and whoever’s on the other side. Swallowing a mouthful of spit, he tries to center his aim, but as he holds it up the barrel jitters visibly.
The siblings remain frozen in the middle of the room, eyeing the door like it just caught on fire, the moment stretching on without further disturbances.
Gathering her courage, Hannah takes a half-step forward and calls out into the dimly lit room, “Hello… w-who’s there?”
Another pause and a familiar grumbling voice call back to them, “Hannah, is that you?!”
Seemingly breathing out a year’s worth of worries, Hannah is about to take another step towards the door when Garm’s hand catches her shoulder and gently pulls her back. Looking at her brother in brief confusion she peers back towards the door, her face going pale.
“Is Garm with you?” their father asks, “What a night we’ve had, huh? Are you safe in there?”
As the door handle rattles, the siblings stare on unmoving. Memories of hazy trauma return in force, a dark form holding onto Jonas like a mother onto her child, a barbed tendril plunging into…
“Listen, kids…” the rattling stops, “...I know I’ve not been much of a father to you two…”
A slow patter of paws breaks Hannah’s gaze. Looking down, she sees Sven has decided to leave his hiding place under the kitchen bench and join them.
“...both of you came after me, chasing that monster through the night. My brave little children.”
Placing himself in front of them, the loyal farm hound is shaking terribly, yet he raises his head high. Flaring his teeth towards the entrance, he lets out a low and continuous growl.
A heavy weight slams against the sturdy wooden door, shaking the cabinet that’s blockading the entrance.
“Especially you, Garm…”
The breath catches in Garm’s throat.
“I’ve been unfair to yo…”
Garm pulls the trigger. A loud boom fills the living room and splinters fly from the spot where the bullet lodges itself in the wall, two centimeters to the left of the door.
A deep silence swallows the night as the moment stretches on. There’s no more rattling in the door handle, no more words, only the flickering flame in Hannah’s lantern can be heard.
“So be it… the hard way, then,” Jonas says with finality, his voice barely recognizable as it seems to ring out interposed on a distinctly inhuman guttural echo.
Eyes remaining locked on the door for another couple of moments, Garm finally remembers to breathe. The steely grip he’d been clutching the Krag with finally loosens and goes slack in his hands.
In a voice shaking with fear, Hannah whispers, “What was that? It’s not…”
“It’s not Dad,” Garm agrees between large gulps of air.