Devil Hawk
Raw Meat and Smoke
T’was an unease about the house. When the sun shined straight through the windows, the objects inside remained muted, as though constantly coated in a thick layer of dust. Step outside, and at once you were blinded by the ferocity of Mother Star. It was a bright world out there. In here, the shadows accumulated around corners, under the tables and desks, and stretched themselves greedily across ceilings and walls. They would not go but for the most direct of light, and any source produced a much stronger force of darkness behind itself.
When we lived in twilight and had to wait several minutes outside the door to readjust to the sun proper, we heard noises. They echoed through the vent. They were not the noises of the occasional rodent, or the tinkering of a mechanic, or the frustrations over a game that every now and again made themselves known. The only descriptor is truly that they were noises. Packets of sound information that contained no depth or direction.
Then they began to come from the walls.
One afternoon, on my father’s request, I opened the door to the basement, seeking to fetch something. I opened it to a thick, suffocating blackness. It recoiled at the light, but creeped forward along the walls and stairs.
I ventured down.
Halfway through, when I stepped into the dark, the regular noise of a lived in house cut. I pulled out my phone, using its flashlight to guide my way. It cut a path in the thick blanket attempting to choke me, but a thin one. The first room, to the side of the stairs, didn’t have what I needed. The next, by the furnace, didn’t either. I moved deeper in, the already-small stretch of illumination growing ever dimmer. I tried to turn on the light switch.
A few feet in, and it could no longer find anything to illuminate. The light was there, however feeble; caught in it was the stray dust or hair. Rather, it came across something physically dark. Something that took up the rest of the basement, including my brother’s room. Something that breathed.
I ran out, not looking back. I shut the door, content to let the dark fester so long as it couldn’t escape.
I didn’t speak about it to my dad.
On a night in the future, when the air caught in your throat and the wind made down your spine, but the humidity vanished and the stars seemed near enough to touch, my father asked me to go outside with him. We leaned against the old Tahoe as he fidgeted with his drone equipment. It would be a great show, he assured me. He had been putting something together, that we had never seen before. My step-mother joined us but a minute later through the garage door, binding a coat around her. Dad had his signature monocolor hoodie, and I a large, red blanket, a christmas gift from them two years prior. When he was about to start the show, he asked me to go grab my brothers, as they had yet to come out. They wouldn’t want to miss this.
At the front door, just before the one step to a slab of concrete, I stopped. It was dark inside, pitch. There was a revulsion in my gut, the same revulsion that compelled Hera to cast down Hephaestus off Olympus as a babe, and I could not go further. I turned, and I ran. Off into the night for at least where death lurked in the cold and the wilderness, he may take my soul someplace better.
I turned back once, to see the fires of Hell erupting from every window. Something stalked on four legs from the blaze, and ravaged my family as they watched. Its calls—like boulders rolling down a mountain—as it ate reached me. I ran yet more.
I huddled and scurried among the reeds and plant stalks in the field until the sun beat away the cold. It was a hostile night, and every nocturnal thing stayed in their dens and hidey-holes, choosing to starve instead.
But on the morn, I had a direction, and hurried along it, out towards the forest.
Wingbeats overhead like the thrum of a heart. I was still.
Shadows passed the ground, larger than any bird, circling in a wide arc.
In one of the many old holes in our fields, from landscaping lost to the wilderness, I tucked in, and covered myself with the blanket. Although it was a bright red against the yellows and tans and light, earthen greens, I had it on good faith that the stalker hunted by movement.
It landed. Devil hawk. A draconic body and a mighty beak attached to a narrow head, on either side which harbored black orbs masquerading as eyes. Brown, it was all brown, and stank of raw meat and smoke.
I waited. It turned around leisurely. Baiting me to move. I resisted the urge to hold my breath, and forced myself to take small, slow puffs as I peeked just barely from the wrapping.
With shudders in its wings it took off, and when its shadow disappeared from sight, I jumped up and continued running.
In the forest, I had but one choice, which was to survive. Fortunately, I was an adventurous kid, and had collected in the clearing already a significant amount of supplies and built a fort. It would not be suitable habitation, but modifications could be made. My brothers, too, enjoyed the forest, and made their accommodations in old ice houses from previous property-owners. No longer human, they would not be needing their tools any longer.
I gathered the shovels, the pickaxe, the axe, and the miscellanea, and tore down the existing structure. I dug, and then I reburied, turning the earth anew and flattening it down tight before layering it with old shingles and older wood. The sun weeped tears of gold and they dripped onto the evening clouds.
Days passed in toil. Nights were cold, but I worked through them to keep warm. The days were hot, so I worked in the shade. Water I could source from the creek, low as it was, that divided the woods in two. Rabbits and squirrels were easy to catch, but fire was more difficult.
On one foray on a path that led near the stream, I saw a large dot appearing in the blue sky. I ducked into the treeline and buried myself within the weeds. It came close, circling overhead. I could still smell smoke. Then it passed. Two things were confirmed: they still wanted me, and they still hunted.
I chipped away at sticks and stones and added that to my routine. I amassed a collection of spears and other tools, though to what end I wasn’t sure.
I had built not quite a home, but something liveable. There was a roof of tin and insulated shingles, and walls of chopped logs packed with ruddy clay. The floor was threshed and comfortable, and a firepit outside was kept stocked and ready and warm.
One night, when the moon was full, I sauntered down the main path in the woods. Bright night, dark forest. There were no trees overhead, but it felt like a new moon.
I felt their eyes on me. Both of them. I froze, but broke the ice and forced my joints to warm back up. I walked as naturally as I could, as though I did not know them, and clenched my jaw such that I feared I would crack a tooth. I did not let my eyes wander. I looked ahead.
I made it back, but did not escape their gaze. I went inside, grabbed a spear, and waited. Sweat dripped over the course of minutes, and more minutes, and my arms ached from the hold.
A twig cracked.
The walls collapsed in, and screams sent the forest birds flying.