The Sound

It was a cold spring evening when I first began to notice it. I’d just stepped out of the door to hit the shops, right before closing, when the scrape and clang of metal rang out behind me.

There was nothing around that could explain the sound, and certainly nothing as close as it felt. In a different environment, it might be ordinary, but here it was shocking and unfamiliar. All the same, I dismissed it. It was easy to do once it had ended: perhaps the sound wasn’t so harsh, or maybe there was some obvious point of origin I hadn’t considered. I went on my way, content to push it from my mind.

It sounded again while I sat on a bus, a week later. No one else even looked up, while I clung to the edges of my seat in absolute certainty that the bus was being torn apart. When the vehicle moved, and there was no explosion or rupturing of engines, I dismissed it again. I always did have an active imagination, perhaps I was too easily frightened.

The next time it came to me I was sat in an open field. The sunlight streamed down, and there was nothing but beautiful and buzzing nature in sight. The rusty scrape and clang split the natural and comfortable silence, and a few crows flew up, possibly perturbed by the noise as much as myself. After that the silence fell empty and cold, and I remained there, shivering in a sudden and aching isolation.

I looked over my shoulder often after that. In each and every quiet moment I waited for the tearing and screeching metal.

It didn’t come.

The next time, I came to it.

I’d been walking through a maze of houses for some time, attempting to find my way to a small shop I’d been told about. Hannah’s directions were quite terrible, and I found myself entirely lost and walking rather hopelessly. The streets were silent, not even a car to be seen, but I was so distracted by finding my way that in this moment of quiet I didn’t remember the scrape. The clang.

I eventually turned down an alley, only to find myself looking at a set of steps leading downwards.

In retrospect, I should have recalled that the town only sloped upwards in that direction. That as such, there was no possible place for that stairway to lead, not really. I should have recognised the scraping - distant now, as if behind a door, but there all the same. Instead, I dragged my weary body down those steps in the hope of finding myself closer to my destination. I wouldn’t.

Three steps down. I couldn’t see to the bottom, it was as though my vision was blurred. I could just about make out the shapes of buildings.

Six steps down. The screeching came into focus, drawn out and persistent. I looked over my shoulder to see only blackness. I knew I couldn’t turn back.

Ten steps down. The buildings ahead were metal; industrial sheets welded together at odd angles. The doors bore huge and old fashioned locks, along with deadbolts on the outside that were, mostly, open.

Fifteen steps down. A face peered out through a gash in the metal, that was lined with solid bars like a prison. The face was pallid and fearful, with white knuckles gripping tight on the jagged edges of the opening.

Two more steps, and my feet hit the ground. There were no more stairs behind me then, only dark.

The ground beneath my feet was metal; rusty and irregular.

I heard the scrape, tear, clang.

Then a resounding thud.

The sound got nearer - coming up behind me from within a blackness my eyes could not penetrate.

A screech split the air, and joined the scraping in an unearthly and discordant thrumming.

My heart pressed desperately against my ribs, pounding as though against the bars of a cage that it might somehow escape. My skin now ice cold, I turned and saw yet more faces pressed at the gaps in the metal. Eyes were wide and fearful. In many places there were a few pressed together, trembling with one set of hands gipping another.

The metallic rasping got nearer. I couldn’t make my feet move again. My knees trembled, each breath ragged and empty.

A painful cry of despair suddenly erupted from one of the buildings, a deadbolt clanged open, and a figure ran out to me. She surged forward; her searching hand finding my own and pulling me, stumbling, into action.

I followed as quickly as I could manage, but she pulled me on still faster. Her nails bit crescents into my hand and my shoulder ached and tore as she dragged on my arm. The metal plates beneath my feet resounded with every footfall; the vibrations sending tremors up through me that made my muscles weaken and quiver.

We turned down one street, and then another. Each one had the same houses that could have been pieced together from a scrapyard, the same grim faces looking out, the same strange deadbolts. Some bolted shut. The screech and rasp kept coming: at times closer or further, but always coming. The figure ahead of me didn’t look back. She ran determinedly on, her bare feet drawing little sound from the plates beneath us. I felt like every sound from my own thudding soles would draw it closer.

Was drawing it closer.

Screeeeeeeee

I looked behind me.

I shouldn’t have looked.

It towered immensely, silhouetted against the setting sun. Its outline, for that was all I could see, was irregular and angular; it was as though it had been welded together much like the buildings that surrounded us. It was so huge that for every dozen steps we took, it took but one. And it was gaining, its long arms dragging and scraping on the ground.

Then it disappeared from view as she yanked me around a corner, and just the rasping and screeching remained.

There was a chilling scream from our right. The figure looked to the side, and I saw her face for the first time; pallid and gaunt like all the others. Her mouth hung open in a wordless terror, her pace faltered, her nails pressed deeper. I didn’t look.

Couldn’t.

A roar of bending and twisting metal filled the air. More screams. An iron door, now torn in two, flew through the air in front of us. I felt something fly by my head.

I couldn’t look.

More wrenching and twisting and rasping. The screeching from the creature grew higher and louder. Closer - from the right, not behind now. So close.

The figure snapped her jaw closed; gritted teeth and turned. She pulled harder and faster. My shoulder surged with burning and aching.

A heavy thud. Clang. Right behind us. I could feel the massive vibrations through the soles of my feet, shaking up my spine to my skull. My shoulder burned as though my arm could pull free of it, and there was a horrible crack and splitting agony as I was thrown forward. I spun around as she let my hand go, her face set intently on mine.

I did not look at the shape behind her.

“Go!” she screamed, and pushed me backwards.

Then I was falling, time slowed for a moment. Her hand reached out, then pulled back. She turned quickly, and a hand with claws that eclipsed her whole body was above her. It thrust down, fast, and she was thrust down with it. Into the ground.

I was falling. Blackness engulfed the scene. And me. It was as though I might fall forever. I was almost convinced I did.

My back hit the ground with a small impact, as though I’d fallen no more than a step. Above me, the black that I fell from melted away to leave just the evening sky. Then it all went black once again.

-----------------------

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed the next town over. Someone had found me there, apparently. In the middle of a road in an unfamiliar town, with a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, and strange scratches in my palm.

I couldn’t tell them why I woke up screaming.

Couldn’t answer their questions about what happened.

Couldn’t tell them about the stranger whose life I stole. Who found me in that unknown place, and saved me from it. I’m not sure I’d want to.

I still hear the screech and clang in quiet moments. Sometimes, I see an improbable stairway. I turn away.