Sourmouth (33 page)

             
Seeing his wife happy, even if only for a moment lit Riley’s heart up.

             
“I’m so...so sorry,” he said, banging the back of his head off the wall to help
hold back his tears.

             
Violet closed her eyes as hers welled up, reaching out to place a hand on her
husband’s chest.

             
“I am, too. I want you to know that whatever happens here...I don’t blame you.
I don’t regret anything...as hard as that might be to believe”.

             
Riley leaned forward to kiss his wife.

             
It was in that moment that
Sourmouth
rammed its
hulking body into the front door, nearly cracking it in half. Then it hit
again, forcing the top half off of its hinges and tilting the door into the
house, angling over the sofa that held the bottom in place.

             
Riley grabbed the axe from his wife’s hands and started off towards the
entrance.

             
Violet reached out and grabbed her husband by the arm, “Stop! It’s going to
kill you!”

             
He briefly looked back and then again to
Sourmouth
who was trying to maneuver itself through the small hole and over the couch.

             
Riley started off towards it again and was pulled back once more.

             
“We can go up to the second floor. Plan something there. Maybe find a way out
of the window or something,” she tried to reason with him, desperate to stop
him from trying to fight a battle he couldn’t win.

             
“I can barely walk as it is, I won’t make the fall to the ground without
shattering what I have left if I jumped out the window,” he replied, constantly
turning back to check on the creature’s progress, “I wouldn’t be able to crawl
away, let alone run”.

             
Sourmouth
had backed out and resorted to clawing at
the top half of the door, ripping pieces of wood off in splintered chunks,
splashing streaks of its blood on the door and walls.

             
“Then let’s go to the attic. We can hide up there. That fucking thing can’t fit
through the tiny hole”.

             
Riley watched as
Sourmouth
tore the door apart piece
by piece, figuring it would be through in seconds. It was now or never to
attack, to get it while it was distracted and at a disadvantage. But if he
failed his wife would be left alone and
defenceless
.
That wasn’t an option. Riley reached out and grabbed his wife by the hand,
heading towards the stairs as partners.

             
Another crash of thunder echoed from above which elicited another thunderous
roar from the beast in reaction.

             
The
Tylers
weren’t two steps up the stairs when they
heard a heavy crash, the sound of
Sourmouth
squeezing
its way through the broken door and falling to the ground over the blockade.

             
“Go!” Riley said as he turned around, walking up the stairs backwards in a
defensive position with the axe held high above his head.

             
Violet sprinted up the steps, slipping slightly on the semi-wet mud that caked
the bottom of her shoes.

             
Sourmouth
regained its footing and crept into the
living room, staring across it to Riley. It lowered its head in a readying
position as it tore forward, its feet crushing the wooden floor underneath it.

             
Riley was prepared for its lunge, responding with a downward strike of his own,
finding contact with
Sourmouth’s
torso. The axe head
lodged deep in the wolf’s left collarbone, eliciting a piercing screech of pain
from the creature that no animal should have ever been able to make.

             
Sourmouth
reached out with its injured right arm and
clawed at Riley’s chest, ripping through his jacket and slicing deep through
the skin on his chest.

             
Riley cried out as he fell backwards on the stairs, pulling the axe out of the
animal’s body as he went down.

             
Sourmouth
stepped backwards, clutching its paws to
the gaping wound on its body.

             
Riley didn’t know much about the physiology of wolves or even humans for that
matter, but he could recognize that he had done immense damage to the creature
that could possibly prove fatal. The wound spread open at least four inches
wide horizontally, even more vertically. It had blood pouring out like a faucet
onto the floor and itself, painting the creature’s fur ruby red. At the top and
bottom of the injury, the skin continued to tear open as the beast thrashed
about. The muscles in
Sourmouth’s
face had retracted
as far back as they could, exposing the entirety of its pinkish brown gums and
its razor-like teeth in a show of unbridled aggression.

             
Looking into
Sourmouth’s
eyes told Riley that if he
had any notions that he might get out of the house alive, now was the time to
rethink them. Not being one to give in to the concept of being torn to shreds,
Riley began his ascension upstairs, scrambling his feet on the steps below.
Every time that the animal reached its deathly claws out Riley responded to it
with a kick to the face, each blow sending waves of pain up his leg.

             
“Riley!” Violet called from above.

             
He tilted his head upwards towards the top of the steps where his wife stood,
her legs bent from the weight, her face red with exertion as she heaved the old
rocking chair at the end of the hallway up to her chest.

             
Riley placed his hands over his head and rested his face against the steps to
get as flat as possible as his wife hurled the chair over the rail-less edge.

             
Sourmouth
let out a guttural grunt as the chair fell
full force onto its back, knocking all of the air out of its lungs and forcing
it to collapse to the ground in a heap of hair and wood.

             
Violet started off down the stairs, grabbing her husband by the wrist and
helping him up to the second floor.

             
The
Tylers
were rushing towards
Poyam’s
old room when Riley had an idea. He turned back and ran to the master bedroom,
taking off his jacket and tossing it underneath the bed before slamming the
door behind him. One final touch was rubbing his blood covered hands over the
face of the door. He hoped that the smell of his blood on everything would
convince the beast that they were hiding in the master bedroom instead of in
the inconvenient attic.

He returned to
Poyam’s
room
and Violet quietly closed the door behind him. Riley contemplated lifting up
the cot and wedging it against the door, but he reasoned that he physically
wouldn’t be able to lift himself into the attic without it to stand on. And
even if he was able to, the flimsy cot offered little in terms of resistance to
the massive creature that would soon be at the door.

             
“You first,” he said to his wife, placing his hands in a folded position in
front of him in the same way he first did when they broke into the house their first
day on Bowen Island.

             
Violet placed a muddied foot in the palms of his hands and leaned forward,
placing a gentle kiss on his forehead before stepping upwards. After a few
awkward movements and some pushing from her husband she finally got up to the
attic safely. Reaching down she took the axe from her husband so he could have
his hands free to climb.

             
Riley mounted the cot and reached up into the attic, grabbing hold of the ledge
to pull himself up. In his weakened state, it was a lot more difficult than the
previous times he had done it, so he needed assistance from his wife not to
fall back down.

             
The attic was pitch-black; too hard to see even an inch in front of them. Riley
cursed not having brought a candle to light their way and contemplated jumping
back down to get one. But the fact was that even if they had a candle, it would
do little to benefit their predicament aside from making it a bit more
comfortable. Regardless as to whether they had the light to see it, they were
trapped without an exit. Their only hope was that
Sourmouth
would lose their tracks and they could survive until morning and the break of
the storm.

             
Sourmouth
snarled as it stalked around the floor
beneath, searching for the naughty playthings that had eluded its grasp.

             
The
Tylers
could barely hear its thudding footsteps
echoing through the house against the rain that assaulted the roof above them
with its relentless pitter-patter. They tried to trace the beast’s location
with their eyes, from where it would be in one room to another. But it was a
fruitless idea attempted in fear. As the only course of action they could take,
the couple hunkered down in a corner against the roof wall, kneeling with the
axe rested in front of them. It wasn’t more than two minutes before they could
hear the wolf approaching, breaking through the door below with savage purpose.
Within thirty seconds the door would be nothing but kindling. After that it
would surely find the breach in the ceiling.

Although the
Tylers
couldn’t
see it, they knew when they had been found. They knew that the creature could
smell their abundant sweat from below. Certainly it could hear their hearts
drumming against their chests.

“We need to get out of here,” Violet whispered to her
husband, her hand clenched tightly onto his.

             
He blinked in the darkness as if it might suddenly illuminate the way. He knew
what she was thinking. But he also knew that they could never make it past the
animal if they jumped back down, whether they used the axe or not. And even if
they did somehow get past it, where would they go? The car wouldn’t run in the
mud and they couldn’t outrun the creature on foot.

             
“We can’t go downstairs, we won’t make it,” he responded tiredly, squeezing his
hand against hers.

             
She couldn’t see it, but Violet could sense that her husband had his head
lowered in defeat. She knew by the sound of his voice that he didn’t have much
fight left in him.

             
Like something out of a monster movie, they watched as a hand slowly rose from
the light below, its claws extended and retracting as it explored the space in
front of it, searching for something to grab. Its claws found home in the wood
planks, digging in and creating grooves to hold onto. With seemingly deliberate
caution the creature pulled itself as high as it could, its head poking through
the hole so that it could stare directly at them. Its broad shoulders were the
only thing that stopped it from clambering through to get to the
Tylers
, a small but blessed gift.

             
Riley gulped deep what was left of the saliva in his mouth as he readied
himself to attack, hoping that he could get the drop on the animal and take off
its
head.

             
“What if it grabs you?” Violet asked, almost sensing what her husband was
planning.

             
He didn’t answer. He didn’t answer her because he didn’t have one. This was the
only plan that he had.

             
Sourmouth’s
eyes seemed to shine menacingly in the
gloom, taunting, as the couple contemplated how they wanted to try and survive
as if it knew that it was hopeless. 

             
Riley clutched the handle of the axe tightly, to the point that he was afraid
that it might snap. He wanted to attack. He at least wanted to die trying to
take the brute out with him.

             
Sensing his anger,
Sourmouth
seemed to leisurely
retreat, its head retracting backwards and out of sight. It wasn’t five seconds
later that its arm reached out in a flash, coming down with tenacity on the
wood planks around the entrance. The crash fractured the wood around the hole
to the attic, leaving it dented and damaged. The wolf reached out again with a
growl and stroke downward, cracking off a piece of an already impaired plank.
It was clear that
Sourmouth
was trying to tear an
even bigger hole to climb through.

             
Riley prepared to press forward, ready to throw all he had left at the creature
to prevent it from scaling up.

“...I don’t want to die here...” Violet cried out from
beside her husband, tears flowing down her face, invisible against the black.

She knew that it wasn’t fair to her husband, to try to
make him stay with her, to want to live when he had just given up. But she
couldn’t think of anything else to say when she hadn’t given up herself.

“...I don’t want to die alone...” she sobbed.

             
Riley bowed forward, finding his arms resting against his wife’s chest, his
hands clasped around Violet’s face as he put his against hers.

             
“I don’t know what to do,” he choked out. He didn’t know how to make her
unafraid. And he couldn’t stand that thought of her being terrified in her last
moments.