The Last Scarecrow

11 | Climber's Lodge

"Hello," said Twelve, stepping boldly across the threshold of the climber's lodge. "Who's there?"

Erin grabbed the scarecrow's wrist.

"What is it?"

"We shouldn't be here."

"Yet, here we are," Twelve replied plainly.

Something moved through the shadows of the climber's lodge at an incredible rate.

Erin gasped, raising the pistol.

Twelve swivelled.

The rocking chair creaking slowly back and forth—empty.

A shadow descended over Erin. It knocked her hand aside, the pistol slipping from her grasp. Twelve winced as the gun slid across the floor, expecting it to go off. But the pistol skidded to an anti-climactic halt beside a bookcase.

The shadow hauled them both inside, the door slamming shut.

As the gloom thickened, Twelve came face to face with the shadow. It stood a similar height to her, some seven and a half feet. Twelve's horns scraped the ceiling of the lodge, instinctively stretching for extra inches.

The shadow's face moved into a splinter of warm lamplight.

Twelve gasped. "Sister?"

The figure before her was undeniably another scarecrow, for she was utterly terrifying and abhorrent to behold. She was as dark as pitch from head to foot, as though set alight, or turned on a spit. Her clothes were similar to Twelve's. A dark dress with wrist-length sleeves, stockings stretched over rough-cut wooden legs, workman's gloves and electric-blue rollerblades that wriggled with mud and earthworms. Conversely, a wide rainbow-coloured belt circled her tiny waist, fastened with a shimmering gold buckle in the shape of a star.

Erin had clattered to the floor but swivelled onto her back, staring up now at one of her creations. She knew those rollerblades anywhere.

Twelve ran a finger over the pocket where the yellow fabric from Number Eight's cross was stashed. There was nothing bright and colourful about this scarecrow.

Nothing at all.

The new scarecrow's face was simply ghastly. Beneath a matted black wig sat the ruin of a blistered basketball. The uneven leather was coated in dirt and scum, forming a crust of blackened filth. Down one side was a deep gash, held together with uneven staples. Eyes had been crudely cut into the ball and held open with fine stitching in red and blue cord, and spread lazily across her face was a broken zip with missing teeth and a rusted metal tongue.

"I'm Twelve," she said gingerly, staring at her sisters face. In the middle of her forehead, undeniably written using a finger dipped in red paint, was a large number. "You must be...Five."

The other scarecrow stiffened.

"What are you?" she said, her voice cold and sharp. "Some kind of monster?"

Twelve's shoulders dropped. Her huge horned head turned aside. "I'm...your sister."

"Sister?" Five spat, her voice different, deeper. "Don't talk such poppycock."

She trundled away on her wheels until she butted against the top of a well-used sofa.

"You and I are not sisters," Five said. Once again, her voice had changed. "Look at you. You're an abomination. You're...despicable, horrid, a menace to the eyes!" Five studied Twelve's face. "My God. Your eyes are alive! They...wriggle."

"If I'm despicable and horrid, then so are you," she told Five, sounding annoyed. "We were made by the same hand. Born from the same mind."

Erin was slowly getting to her feet.