Voidstalkers Chapter Two

Two

     The uneven wheels of the rickety cart jolted over a stone in the road and Colby nearly bit through his tongue. He hunched his shoulders lower, glowering at the ground as it trailed away from his legs dangling from the back of the cart bed. Even the squealing iron axles below couldn’t drown out the grumbling and muttering of his Uncle in the front manning the reins, though the old greying piebald workhorse knew the way. Every few minutes or so he would start up again, and Colby would catch the words half-heard on the cool night breeze.
     “Three dollars!” declared his Uncle grumpily. “Three whole dollars! Think the glass was made of gold, three dollars. Stupid boy. Stupid, stupid boy.”
     Colby’s head sank lower and the intensity of his glare increased. None of them understood. Not his uncle and certainly not the stupid pastor who’d come sprinting out of the church, arms flailing and puce in the face with rage. By then the bullies had scarpered, faster than a coyote at a gunshot. With no-one else in sight to blame the pastor’s wrath �" and his uncles �" had all fallen upon Colby’s head like a bolt from God himself. He was damned. It’d taken hours of yelling for his uncle to hash out recompense for the vandalism with the aged, balding priest, though he still muttered and grumbled on and on about it. Colby didn’t get it. His uncle wasn’t the one who’d have to scrub the church steps and window shutters after Sunday school every week for two months. Neither had either of them listened to his adamant defense that he’d been fighting for his life against the three scoundrel boys - and barely escaped unscathed. Though the bruises still hurt.
     The ground rolled on by underneath, impervious to his death-stare. He hadn’t even mentioned the circus, not with his uncle going on like that. He hated him, hated the three wretched bullies, and hated the pastor. He hated the world. It wasn’t fair.
     The sun had set some time into their journey, late back due to the confrontation at the church. The diving light had painted the few long, drifting bars of cloud brilliant gold and amber, as though the whole sky was ablaze. Usually that would have been enough to lift Colby’s chin after a day like he’d had but he was in a foul, black mood so he just stared down at the road. The rolling hills of burnished grass and gold wheat had waved on by in the breeze, dry with the heat of the waning summer. Soon it would the turn of the season, which meant pumpkins and the hallows eve festival in town. He doubted he’d get to see that either.
    Passers-by had come and gone. Other farmers or farmhands going about their business or heading into town for a night of carousing. A cowboy or two, travel stained and weary from a long muster. Those earned a disapproving look from his uncle that he shied away from himself. Colby didn’t want yet more trouble, and simply being noticed was sure to land him in more.
      Carriages had thundered past pulled by handsome gleaming teams of horses on the road just outside of town. With the fiasco at the church still fresh in his mind, he’d barely spared them all a glance. That was until a lawman had come galloping past from behind, leaning low on his stallion. Colby’s head had sprung up with interest at that, and he’d watched wide-eyed as the sprinting beast had fired past, lathered and blowing. A long lever-action rifle had been slung across the lawman’s back, making him gawk all the wider. Craning his head to follow as he’d thundered past, Colby had accidentally met the eye of his fuming uncle, which had set off the muttering and cursing. After a while the dust kicked up by the galloping horse faded and, Glum and morose, Colby consigned himself to hang his head as the cart had rolled into the night through the patchwork fields of the farmlands outside of Larnwick, deep into the countryside.
      With a sudden lurch the cart came to a rattling halt and he looked up and around. Without him noticing they’d rumbled up the long straight road to the farmstead and come to a stop in the yard before the house itself. It was a rickety, leaning old two storied thing with greying timbers and a wide porch running right around. The shingle roof was prone to leaks and none of the windows had glass set; all were closed with drab red painted shutters pulled to. The yard bordered an old barn house on the right converted to a half-stable for the workhorse, though there were more of the beasts in the fields. The other half was a tool shed, lined with racks for pitchfork, shovel, hoes, and a huge wicked looking curved scythe that his uncle used to harvest the grain in form the wheat fields. It looked so massive and dangerously sharp that it gave Colby the heebies just from looking at it.
     Across the yard to the left were the long, low rows of the chicken coops, the nesting birds within having retired with the sundown. Usually they would have come clucking inquisitively at the sound of the cart pulling up, but the hour was late. Aunt Gracie would be furious. Likely there’d be no supper tonight.
     Colby hopped down from the cart bed and onto the cool ground, hard and grainy against his bare feet. He looked down at himself. Still caked in filth. The day kept getting worse. He plodded off towards the farmhouse and up the splintery wooden stairs, face down. Behind him his uncle was busy haltering the workhorse and seeing to it with a feedbag in the barn house. Usually he would have called Colby back to help unload the days unsold produce and wares �" sacks of excess grain and piled carrots, cabbages, and beets from the fields �" but it seemed he was still in a foul mood of his own. Colby trod on and up to the front door, an olive green half-door split in the middle �" opened it and tip-toed in as quietly as he could. If she saw him in such a state and at this late hour, his aunt was sure to crucify him. And in Sunday school that hadn’t sounded pleasant.
     In the entranceway lined with boots and shoes he paused to listen. The narrow stairs on the left leading up to the level above were dark and quiet. There was a faint glow and scraping coming from the end of the long hall on the right, down where the kitchen was. Quiet as a mouse, Colby stole up the stairs, his skinny legs working in a flurry. He was so light that his passage didn’t make the ancient boards squeak, yet something must have given him away despite his caution.
     “Colby? Richard? Is that you?” His Aunt Gracie’s soft-yet-stern voice floated down the hall from the kitchen. Colby ran harder, feet thumping and to hell with caution. At the top of the landing he swung the door on the immediate right wide and then vaulted in, slamming it behind him.
      His room was sparse by any means. A small wooden frame cot, barely a bed at all sat in one corner, bright maroon blankets tucked neatly underneath the straw mattress and not a wrinkle in sight. His aunt’s doing. The walls were papered with a horrid floral pattern that seemed to twist into viney demonic faces leering at him in the dark. The room was otherwise unfurnished but for a small wooden stool and a wide chest of drawers where he kept his clothes and a tin pot beneath his bed for at night. Upon the stool was a candle and a box of matches, one of which he yanked out and struck furiously. It broke in two. Enraged, Colby forced himself to carefully light another and then the candle before hurling the box at the wall, where it clattered to the floor noisily. A dim, ruddy glow filled the room as the candle caught revealing his dirt-covered figure.
      Colby tore the soiled clothes from his body, suddenly all fire and rage as the events of the day and their injustices welled fresh in his mind. The filthy overalls and shirt and his trousers landed in a heap in the middle of the floor, and he kicked them savagely. Cursing low to himself �" so that no one could possibly overhear and berate him for it �" he yanked open the chest of drawers on the left side of the room and ripped out a fresh shirt and a tattered pair of trousers, faded and many times patched.
     He slammed it closed again and leapt to his bed, heaving the covers off messily and over his head as he hunkered down haughtily. It had by far, been the worst day of his life.
     In the quiet stillness of the room he heard loud thumps from the house below, and the door crash shut. Colby jumped. His uncle was home. The long drawn out silence that followed was almost as bad as when it was abruptly interrupted by loud shouting, and the tinkle of breaking glass. Colby tucked his head down deeper into the mussed blankets.
     There were slow, soft footsteps working their way steadily up the stairs. He knew because halfway up there was a distinctive squeak, one he always avoided when he was sneaking around when he shouldn’t. The steps, ominous and foreboding seemed to go on forever, until with a scrape right outside his door they stopped. His ears were ringing with the strain of hearing. The metal of the door handle rattled loosely for a second and was followed by a long drawn out squeak than set the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. There was an intake of breath.
     “Colby?” It was his Aunt Gracie.
     She was a tall, kindly faced woman, plump and homely. The men in the taverns in Larnwick would as like not give her a second look, or a first. And she towered, taller than even his uncle. They were a mismatched pair, though Colby used to fancy that made them fit all the better. She was prone to wearing old floral house dresses like the wallpaper underneath an ever-present apron. Colby couldn’t see her now. He resolutely glared at the wall opposite him, back to the door, even though he knew somewhere that it was unfair, and none of the days events were her fault. There was a heavy sigh.
     “I know, Col. You’ve had a day. There’s some stew and bread on the dresser. When you’re ready.”
     There was a clink and an odd rustling, then the clack of the door closing shut behind her. In the flickering, gloomy light of the lone candle he listened to her footsteps retreat down the stairs with the creak in the middle. Then and only then did he rise up, shrugging the covers off his head.
     The ruined clothes in the middle of the floor had vanished. Colby was confused. Usually his aunt was all firey-eyed and wrathful at his misbehaviour, especially at church. Aunt Gracie loved church. She slept beneath a cross with a bible on her bedside table every night and sang very loudly, if poorly at every service. He’d ruined some of his best clothes. Why was she not angry? Tears sprang to his eyes then. Of guilt. Of anger. He scrubbed them away irritably and got up. His bare feet scuffed as he plodded over to the great wooden dresser where he kept his clothes. There was a steaming bowl of stew, lumpy with beef and carrots. Beside it was a whole half a loaf of bread- half a loaf! It was a feast. The tears threatened him again. Why was she being so nice to him after he’d been so wretched?
     Colby reached down and slowly slid open the top-most drawer of the dresser. Inside lay his socks- heavily darned �" and his breeches. He dug deep into the folds until he felt something hard, and pulled it out. A shining metal belt buckle as big as his hand came out, gleaming in the flickering candlelight. It was oval, stamped with a shape like a horse-shoe and shone like polished silver. There was a tiny engraved bronco on the front inside the bend of the shoe. Taking it with him he gathered up the stew and the bread and returned to the bed, sitting down to consume his meal.
     Suddenly he was ravenous, and tore into the stew and bread both. Colby realised he hadn’t eaten since early that morning, when they’d left the farmstead for service and market. Starving, he polished off the bowl and the bread, setting down the ceramic dish carefully next to the cot so he wouldn’t trip on it in the night. Full, exhaustion weighed him down, sinking into the soft folds of the bed. He knew his face, feet and hair were still filthy, but he didn’t care. Until he fell asleep he caressed the oversized belt buckle, rubbing its shining polished surface with a thumb. His father’s buckle.

 

*

     The day was almost unbearably hot, even for Colby. Even the wind blew warm, tossing the waves of the golden straw fields in mimicry of the ocean, though not a bead of moisture could be found on the lot. There was plenty on his forehead though, and he occasionally had to wipe it clear of his eyes as he worked.
     The day had started out as well as could be expected. His uncle had been absent from the farmhouse, gone to some of the furthest fields to coral a small herd of beasts across to newer pasture, though all were browned and fickle in the summer heat. He’d had some hard panbread, still hot, with some quickly fried eggs that his Aunt Gracie had put on for him when he’d come creeping cautiously downstairs. Finding himself alone with his Aunt, Colby had munched down the breakfast with haste. Neither of them spoke of the events of the previous day, which suited him fine. At her instruction he’d donned a fresh set of overalls over a ratty white work shirt �" these ones dark green thick denim �" and set about his chores for the morning.
     The milk cow, Beth, produced a whole two pails of steaming warm milk that morning, lowing the whole time. He liked the cows, they were gentile docile creatures and many of them recognised him by sight alone, Beth especially. When she’d seen him approaching, tin pail in hand, she’d given her little tail flick in welcome. Some of the older beasts in the herds would do so to, those that knew him. The newer ones gradually came to remember him for the head and chest scratches he gave out, along with the bales of rolled up hay when it was feeding time. And so, sitting on his little stool out the back of the barn house where the workhorse was kept, he rubbed her thick hide and scratched her sides between the tinny sounds of streams of milk jetting into the pail. After that was done it was off to the rows of the coops.
     They were long and wooden with roofs shabbily thatched, requiring patching nearly every wet season. That would be soon, after the long hot dry summer, and he dreaded the long afternoons with the hot tar and the heavy paintbrush, lathering on yet another square over sprung leaks.
     The chickens were less fun than the cows, but the way they clucked around self-importantly was funny. Their rooster, which he’d named King Arthur was jet-black with a crest of the deepest, brightest red. He crowed at dawn and occasionally throughout the day, informing them all of very important chicken news. Stooping low inside the coops, he fumbled under the nesting hens in there and carefully extracted the treasures within. The chickens, in a wide variety of plumage, eyed him beadily and warily, but allowed the disturbance to continue with muted clucks. When he was done the wicker basket he had with him was half-full and heavy, which brought a wide smile to his aunt’s face. Seeing her happy with the eggs made him feel a bit better, like he hadn’t been so rotten after all.
     After that he’d weeded the vegetable garden out back, swept the porch and raked the yard. Missy, their aged and mangy cat watched him from where she lay in the sun atop the wagon bed, her favourite position. She was old, and so after the area around the farmhouse was tidy he trekked off down a dirt path away from the house and deeper into the eastern side of the farm, towards the wheat fields. From his hands swung little iron mouse traps on metal hoops, like keys. Doubled up in one hand with the traps was a cloth sack full of old, stale bread for bait. It was getting late in the day, and the morning was well and truly over, the sun at its zenith high overhead. Aunt Gracie had promised lunch upon his return, and the chance of an afternoon free if nothing else needing doing caught her attention.
     The hoops of traps rattled in his hands. Up ahead and down the path, the huge grain silos towered against the blue of the sky, rusty and gargantuan. Beside them was the barn proper, where their bull Hector was, confined to the pen. He’d be let out again come the next season to sire more young calves with the herds, and to be rented out to those farms near those without their own bull �" a lucrative partnership his uncle had cooked up.
     Colby whistled idly and chewed a long stalk of hay slanting from the right side of his mouth. His stomach grumbled but he felt in no particular hurry. The day was only half over and setting the traps around the grain silos wouldn’t take long. He though he could hear lowing from moving cattle on the wind, though he couldn’t be sure. His uncle would be returning soon most like after the days herding.
     Walking up to the side of the great timber barn he began to unhook the great number of traps he’d brought with him. They were simple enough, with a spade-like trigger tensioned by a strong spring that would jerk a bar down onto the vermin at the slightest disturbance. He’d put his finger into one once, to test its effectiveness. Leaping around with his finger smarting to the roaring laughter of his uncle, Colby had cursed loudly and colourfully - words he’d heard drunkards use in town when he'd been passing though. The memory of the belt whipping afterwards still made him wince and his rear tingle. Near the back of the barn and towards the towering silos he began to set the traps, placing chunks of hard crumbling bread carefully onto the triggers of each before releasing the bars that would fire forwards.
     There was an odd chittering sound from nearby and he stood up and looked around. A way off between the silos he could see the waving sea of wheat, rippling in the wind. The chittering sound came again, behind him. The barn. Colby dropped the second hoop of traps and the sack of old bread and went to investigate. He skirted around the large structure and proceeded towards the front, where the thick log railings of the pen extended out to enclose a small area of pasture for Hector to wander listlessly in. He was about to round the corner when there was a flare of blue light from within the barn, bright and shining through the cracks in the ancient wood and the gaps between the planks of its walls. It fell too on the grass before the barn, briefly illuminating the space. Colby froze, heart fluttering. The light had come suddenly, and had startled him. He strained, listening at the corner for the chittering again but it never came. Summoning up his courage, he rounded the thick square pillar of wood marking the edge of the barns open front and ducked underneath the railing of the pen.
     The barn was a tall, two layered affair with a wide open lower half full of rusting old farming equipment and broken ploughs. The upper platform was sturdily made and stacked high with round bales of hay, the very same he and his uncle had harvested together not two weeks hence one balmy day. It’d taken the entirety of the day and into the dark before they’d stacked the last bale high into the upper level to be distributed as feed during the colder months ahead, or when the droughts hit. The wide-open face of the front of the barn was doorless, standing forever open to the pen outside in a makeshift shelter for their bull. That’s where he found Hector.
     The great body of the beast lay upon its side, awhirl with flies borne of the summer heat. They pulsed and roved over the black shiny hide beneath, searching for the source of the pervading stink that hit his nostrils at the same time the sight met his eyes.
     There was a huge crater torn into the bulls side, caving though the white-showing ribcage beneath and into the carcass below. Blood in great spatters lay across the grass in all directions, glistening wetly in the sun.
     Colby’s heart turned to ice. Bile rose in his throat, threatening to pour forth and his heart fluttered. He’d seen dead animals before, but nothing like this. Nothing as visceral and savage as what had been done to the beast. Their bull, their prized Hector was dead, ravaged. But it was more than that. The massive bovine must have weighed about two thousand pounds. It was aggressive, ill-tempered at the best of times. His uncle had warned him dozens of times over to steer clear of the pen if he wanted his head to stay the same shape. It was by no means a docile creature. And something had rent it open, torn its body wide and delved into its guts, gnashing and feasting by what he could tell.
     Colby turned tail and ran. His entire body was afire with the instinct to put his head down and sprint back to the homestead, and that was exactly what he did. Arms pumping, he raced back up the dirt path towards the homestead that seemed so far away in the distance. His mind screamed at him to look back, to see some dreaded creature closing in on him quickly behind, but he daren’t not lose pace. In his flight Colby’s panicked mind conjured up countless demonic monsters from his imagination and the depths of his nightmares, every one of them just a hairsbreadth behind him, a second away from tearing him apart. The path ran close to the border of the waving sea of wheat, the tall stalks whipping in a sudden and unexpected breeze. He thought a shadow passed overhead briefly, but when he glanced up the sky was as clear as always and the wind vanished as instantly as it had arrived.
     From his left inside the tall strands of wheat there was a bright flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, the same flare of light from the barn. There was a quiet chittering immediately afterwards.
     Colby braked hard, shuddering to a stumbling stop and looked around. Behind him the path was empty. Away in the distance the barn and grain silos sat just as they had when he’d left them, solid and tall, undisturbed. There was a crunch of breaking wheat stalks, like the crumbling of dry paper an he whipped towards it, eyes scanning frantically. The tall strands nearest to him parted open.
     The head of a curious creature poked forth. It had a large ovoid head, round and bare of any hair, affixed on either side by large bat-like pointy ears. Its skin was ruddy and pink, leathery like the way his uncles neck got after so long in the sun out in the fields, hunched over working. It had huge, almond eyes that sparkled brilliant green but with slit-like pupils as a cat would have. Instead of a protruding nose, four small holes blew air from just below the middle of its large eyes, above a thin line of a mouth that seemed to run the entire length of its head. Colby froze where he stood.
     The thing stepped out of the wheat to reveal a stubby, thickset body that seemed unbalanced with its massive head, clad in the same bare skin, furless and naked. In the centre of its tiny torso was a great metal ball, with square lights that sporadically flashed green lining its circumference. The flashes seemed random, without pattern. Over all the thing stood at just over half his height, short and stocky, each of its two arms ending in stubby four-digited hands, three fingers and a thumb. The feet on its bipedal legs were even more bizarre, two huge thick toes jutting out in front with an elongated one at the rear like an extended heel.
     The thing blew out heavily though its nostrils, as though testing the air. Colby opened his mouth and gave a croak, rooted to the spot. The creature’s ears slanted back, and its thin lips peeled back in a wide snarl, bearing multiple rows of razor-edged triangular teeth which it opened wide and revealed its wet gullet. Bright red blood oozed along its lips and teeth and dripped wetly from the exposed fangs. Deep crimson blood. Hectors blood.
     Before he could lurch away there was an explosion of light that filled his vision and suddenly the thing had vanished completely to let the wheat spring back into place right where it had been standing. Colby gulped. There was no doubt in his mind. He’d just seen the Chupacabra old Mr. Hershall had been describing to Samson outside the general store. He turned to race back to the farmhouse.
     In another blinding flash of blue light the thing was at his side, appearing from the very air itself. It growled low and reached out to grab at his leg which came up to its shoulder. He jerked away in fright, pulling just out of the creatures reach. The blue flash again and it was gone. Colby whirled around, searching. The light came from behind him, this time. He spun, but not before the creature charged. It tilted its enormous head forward like a battering ram and cannoned into him hard and fast, despite the shortness of its legs. Colby’s own legs went out from under him, and he sprawled in the dry dust of the path, sputtering dirt from his mouth.
     The creature latched onto his ankle with its stubby fingers. Its skin was smooth and oddly cold, as if it had a much lower temperature than both him and the surrounding sun-soaked land. He kicked out viciously until it let go, snarling at him once more. Scrambling, Colby kicked up off the ground and lurched to his feet, braking into a run away from the odd pink thing that was trying to eat him, off down the path towards the farmhouse in the distance.
     Another flash. This time it was bent low, right in front of his sprinting form. There was no time for him to react, no time to slow down. Colby tripped over the kneeling thing and went bodily rolling to the dirt once more. Using his momentum, he reacted on pure instinct, continuing the roll until his legs wound up back underneath him and he pushed off once more, hurtling down the track. In his peripheral vision, several more bright flashes of blue light illuminated the ground and the tall expanse of wheat to his left as he ran, but none in front of him. Nor was he accosted as he neared the side of the house, just before the chicken coops. He fired between them, gasping for breath. Without a blue flash, a stubby creature identical to the one chasing him stepped out around the end of the coops, blocking his path. Colby slammed to a halt, windmilling his arms, and turned to keep running.
     Another off the evil things blocked the narrow way back out between the coops and was steadily approaching on its stunted legs. He was trapped.
     Flicking his head from side to side, trying to keep both in view, he watched as they closed on him, bearing twin bloody maws bristling with those horrible, razor teeth. The lights upon the spheres in their chests twinkled mysteriously. He opened his mouth to scream, lungs filling up with air. The narrow wooden channel between the coops flared with the bright blue light. His hair and head were suddenly and painfully yanked backwards and he found his vision filled with the green eyes of yet another of the things perched atop the coop roof behind him, latching onto his hair with its surprisingly strong fingers. It held him fast, though his hands came up to beat at it, pummelling the sides of its weird leathery head as hard as he could while panic filled his chest.
     The creature holding him exploded, viscous purple gore geysering out sideways as the top half of its head suddenly and brutally vanished. The grasping hands fell limp and Colby leapt away, sputtering at the pinkish grey blood that flecked across his face. Hissing, the other two approaching things looked up and around. One flashed brilliantly blue and disappeared. Half of the others torso erupted, tearing from its body in a gory mess. In fear and revulsion, Colby scrambled the opposite direction, towards where the other had vanished, back away from the house. He was very nearly to the end of the gap between the coops, full of chickens now burbling awake and clucking in alarm from the noises coming from outside their safe enclosures. He got a step out.
     A huge black figure, towering over him stepped around from the left of the coops and blocked his path, and he cannoned into it painfully, bouncing back hard.
     It was eight feet tall and shaped like a man. Head to foot it was made of angular metal plates coloured a dull, non-reflective matte black, deeper than the darkest midnight. The flat planes seemed to mimic the muscle structure of a man similarly enough, from calves and split thighs to ribbed abdomen, and flared wide in flat panels over the chest. Its thick arms ended in five-digit hands unlike the creatures though. The head was somewhat more rounded, though showed no facial features but for a thin glassy tinted visor extending in a line over where the eyes would be. The material was hard, like the carapace of a black beetle Colby had found once, though the imposing being reminded him distantly of a medieval knight clad all in black armour, much like those he’d seen rarely in fanciful picture books.
     At its waist on its right side hung two long, slim baton-like rods. Slowly and seemingly with deliberation it grasped one in its great metal left hand and drew it aside. The terrifying visage spoke in a booming, deep electronicized voice.
     “Get behind me.” It commanded.
     It spoke with such an air of certainty and authority that Colby found himself doing as he was told and scurried around behind the black metal giant. From behind he could see two brightly reflective metal spheres atop the rear of its shoulders, like the ball-joints of wings.
     Down the length of the centre of the chicken coops there was another of the ruddy pink creatures, viciously snarling at the looming figure. It gave a prominent hiss and several things happened at once.
     The huge metal man raised his right hand in a fist, pointing directly at the stubby creature. From the top of its forearm jetted a plume of fire with a loud distinct clack, followed by dozens more in blindingly rapid succession. The hissing thing exploded as the others had as if struck, purple fleshy innards splattering outwards in a grotesque plume of viscera.
    At the exact same moment two more of the wicked beings flashed into existence atop the coops themselves in their flare of blue energy. They vaulted forward in a blinding sprint, nearly too fast for Colby to hope to follow. The slim baton held loosely in the black giant’s left hand seemed to pulse, and from it liquid metal spurted in a fountain that arced unnaturally from the source on the top and quickly formed and solidified in a blink into a wicked half-moon axe that the mechanical man then began to raise. The creature racing forward on the right was annihilated by the fire coming from the armoured forearm, while the one on the right leapt desperately forward. With a flourish, the wicked looking axe spun, and the creature separated in half directly down the middle in mid-air, the halves tumbling messily to the ground next to Colby where he stared at it, horrified. Bile rose in his throat.
     Several more flashes of bright blue and more of the creatures flared into being, closer this time. They flew in arcs through the air, three directly towards the metal man in front of him and two more onto the rooves of the chicken coops, from inside which Colby could hear the frightened birds screeching and flapping at the commotion. In a quick backhand the tall armoured one ended the first two creatures from left to right with spurts of fire from his wrist. The last he caught in a wide-open hand that encircled the leaping things neck. Its forearm seemed to flex and there was a sickening deep crunch. With a flick of his arm, the dead thing went hurtling away to thud solidly into the brown grassy ground several meters away.
     The two upon the coops faltered. The metal man seemed unfazed by the onslaught and calmly brought his right arm around to point at the closest of the two as they snarled and hissed some more. But yet the flames did not leap from it again. The axe in his left hand came down to rest at his side loosely, but readily.
     The two demonic evil-faced things left sneered, hissing even more loudly. With a last blast of the blinding blue light they were gone. Silence returned to the farm. The towering black metal man-like being lowered his right arm and slowly returned the black baton to where it sat adhered to his right side, secured by a mechanism unseen. The blade had disappeared. He turned, and regarded Colby silently.
    Colby took a shaking step back. He didn’t believe the thing was there to hurt him, after the display. But the sight of the sheer violence it was capable of had left him stricken and fearful nonetheless.
     “Colby Harper.” It boomed suddenly, voice buzzing strangely.
     Ever so slowly, it knelt down upon its right knee so that its hard, armoured and visored head was lowered towards his own. Colby trembled. It knew his name. How did it know his name?
     It extended a huge black hand out towards him, offering it. It wasn’t a gesture or action of aggression, merely an invitation. Colby stayed put where he was.
     “Please. Take my hand.” The kneeling thing boomed.
     If it had wanted to harm him, it definitely could have by now. That much was supremely obvious. Tentatively, he reached out a shaking hand towards the outstretched fingers. His tiny pale digits looked miniscule next to the giant’s. He hesitated an inch away, looking up into the reflective glassy visor. There he saw his own face, sheet-white with fear and flecked with the blood of the defeated monsters. The large metal fingers twitched forwards, bridging the connection. There was a sharp crack, and Colby saw oblivion.