White Manor

11. The Soul-Eater

The journey seemed to last an eternity to Freida, who floated along lazily. She missed her tentacle and felt annoyed that her azure arms were identical. Her friends and captors shone dimly ahead, making steady progress through the tunnels. It occured to Freida that she could escape now, trusted to be half insane and lagging behind the group.

But if I escape, she thought, I'll never recover my squiggly limb. That thing may have eaten my body, but it had plenty of squigglies to spare, just like the octopus on black beach.

Freida decided to stay with the others for a little while longer, at least.

Soon the party arrived in a small chamber with dozens of standing mummies lining the walls. Their hollow eyes watched the spirits approach warily. A single ray of moonlight escaped from a crack in the high ceiling, illuminating metal ruts stuck into the dirt walls.

A ladder to the surface, Freida thought, But where are we?

"This is the way out," the ghost children said together. "The sun is rising soon, take cover in the barn past the cornfield, The Thing Beneath the House won't find you there. Next twilight, make for White Manor."

They thanked the children, and Freida gave them each a hug. Then it was time to leave, rising through the air and phasing through the dirt, back to the surface.

The spirits of Constance and Freida materialized from the old well by the cornfield, like pale blue fire spilling out instead of water. There was no wind, just the sound of crickets and the faint flapping of wings in the distance. The smell of acres of corn was overpowered by the sick scent of rot. They saw the barn that was to be their shelter in the distance, towering over the forests of corn. The spirits made their way toward the it.

As she levitated through the cornfield, the stalks phasing through her astral body, Freida thought she heard whispers from the vegetables. They seemed to tell her to return to the crypt, to what was waiting somewhere in those dark tunnels.

A rush of wind hit Freida like a wave and almost unbalanced her, floating or not. Constance screamed with an awful icy static sound.

Above them, eclipsing the moon was a giant silhouette of a bird, wings outstretched and diving towards its prey. Diving at them.

"The barn, Freida!" Constance called, rushing the girl through the cornstalks. "Don't go too high, we have to hide from it!"

The monstrous bird slammed to the earth with a shockwave, sending corn flying in all directions, one ear phasing right through Freida.

The thing resembled a hawk, only four times the size, and where eyes should be there were only hollow sockets. Its long beak was jagged and scarred. The Soul-Eater stood on sharp talons and stretched its wings wide, scanning the fields for its prey.

Constance and Freida moved silently through the corn to the creature's left, just a few dozen feet away. If The Soul-Eater saw them now, it could be on them in a few hopping steps.The corn was angry now. They whispered hateful things to the specters as they moved stealthily past, and when they phased through the body they felt cold.

Just when the barn was within sprinting distance the corn shifted in a sudden movement, as if whipped by a strong wind. The Soul-Eater's eyeless face turned towards the spirits and spotted them, letting out a great cry that sounded like a hawk and a bear combined. It took flight quicky, uprooting all the corn in the area with its huge wings.

The monster drilled through the air just as Constance and Freida managed to close and bar the large barn doors. It slammed into them like a battering ram and the whole barn shook, the doors almost caving in immediately. They wouldn't stop another divebomb.

Freida heard The Soul-Eater's wings flap, felt the force as it lifted off the ground again, returning to the sky to prepare for another attack.

The creature reared its monstrous head and dove, slicing the air like a jet. But before The Soul-Eater could collide with the barn, it sparked in midair, a blinding flash of blue and white light. Its feathers caught fire as it fell from the sky, and it was burned away completely before touching the ground.

The sunrise, Freida realized, and then cried herself to sleep in Constance's lap.