Page 30 of A Very Monstrous Desire

“Now go, Theo,” the monster growled. “Go.”

Another cry, sonorous and soul-wrenching. Theo shivered from it as he stood and ran to the shaft of light. He ran faster than he ever had, desperate to escape the wretchedly unhappy creatures. Behind him, Baku followed.

It took less than a minute for them to emerge from under the canopy of dead branches. Their heavy footsteps crashing through the wintery forest, waking up monsters around them whose shrieks and screams soon joined those of the creatures. A minute more and they were on the very edge of the forest. Spider monsters scuttled past, running away as well. Something shrieked in pain behind them.

More shadows swopped above them. The creatures’ howling cries, edged with a rapidly developing rage now, came closer. Had they been just a little deeper into the forest they would have been close enough to reach Baku and Theo before they made it to the light, but the spider monster’s nest was on the very edge of the forest for the exact same reason. And it had been very hungry and intended Theo only for itself.

A moment later and Theo and Baku burst free from the forest and into the last of the day’s light. It was weak, but it was enough to have Theo squinting after so many minutes under the forest canopy. He did not stop running through. He wanted to get as far away from the creatures as possible.

He sprinted away from the forest and back in the direction of the shelter. Baku kept pace with him, and they drew in harsh breaths as they covered the distance that the giant spider had managed in a much quicker time with its scuttling legs and its leaping jumps.

Maybe fifteen minutes later Baku slowed them to a stop with a hand on Theo’s arm even though his adrenaline was still pumping, and frankly he’d have carried on for much, much longer given the chance.

“We will walk the last of the journey,” Baku said softly. “Eyes open. Completely alert.” He shook his head. “As I should have been before.” He paused before saying very formally, “I am sorry, Theo.”

“You saved me,” Theo said.

“You should not have needed saving in the first place,” the monster replied with another of those growls of his before pulling Theo close to him, hand wrapped in his hand, bodies just inches apart.

“There are more monsters,” Theo said, and it was not a question.

“Yes, the monster replied, and he left it at that because there was simply no point in stating the obvious. That the worst of the monsters were behind them…waiting in the forest…to which they would soon have no choice but to return.

Chapter

Fifteen

It was twilight when they made it back to the shelter, and the rapidly darkening sky was interrupted only by the lights of the forest, which had started to brighten not long after Theo and Baku had escaped.

Baku closed them in tight, dropped his backpack on the floor, took something from it and then set that something smoking at the entrance. When Theo gestured to it, he said, “The spider monsters live on the cliff faces. This will stop them from trying to enter if they come back from the forest.”

“If?”

“It is possible they will be eaten before then.”

“By the other monsters in the forest?”

“Yes.”

Theo slumped down on one of the chairs surrounding the table, his body aching all over. He checked his hand, which had two angry little bites on it, and his arm, which had two large ones, then asked the question that had been chief in his mind since he’d entered this god-forsaken dimension.

“Why is it so fucked up here?”

“What do you mean?” Baku asked, though in truth he looked as angry as Theo was shaky. That anger was not directed at Theo but in the direction of the forest.

In the direction of the rages.

For surely it was them that had cried out in the forest, them that had muddled Theo’s mind to the point where he would have willingly given himself up to them. That first, horribly haunting cry flashed through Theo’s mind. Even now, removed from it, with it being just an echo, it seemed to hurt him. He shook his head. How could they possibly re-enter that forest?

“There are monsters everywhere just waiting to eat us,” Theo said after a moment, and it was only then that he realised that if Baku hadn’t rescued him the rages would have done exactly that, and he quickly said as much. Baku did not respond.

Theo shivered.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

“The spider monster would have eaten me,” he said aloud. “The pincer monster too, him and his spawn. And the rages…they were the rages, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

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