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Book: HIGHWATER: a suspense thriller you won't be able to put down by T. J. Brearton
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Authors: T. J. Brearton
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drink.
“What,” he panted. “Another one?”
There had to have been two of them, one at each end of the house, because this fresh break-in attempt had come only moments after Jared had fired the shotgun.
Elizabeth fought the urge to turn around, to look through the kitchen to the front door, where the first creature had been trying to get in. She knew the damage done to the front door, and she calculated that whatever had been on the other side must’ve suffered significantly. But a terrible, rat-toothed inner voice told her that some vestigial piece, an appendage, one of those twisted hands, was left there, flopped over the threshold. If she looked back she would be able to see part of it lying there, and if she did that she would surely lose it.
Better to focus. Better to stay right where Jared was, think what he was thinking, look only where he was shooting, killing. Best just to kill and to keep killing until whatever was going on was over, and then they would leave, and he would put her in the Jeep and drive her back to Glastonbury, to her parents’ house, and he would leave her there, and she would go into her room where she’d lived not so long ago, alone in her room, and everything would go back to normal and sane.
They watched the door to the front porch.
A hand slapped the Plexiglas, making her jump and cry out. The hand then slid down, leaving some greasy trail behind it that made Liz think of oily hair. Filthy, dandruff-ridden, foul junkie hair. Her stomach clenched and threatened to empty itself.
Jared started his crouch-walk forward.
To his right, past the fireplace, next to the stairs that went down into the shallow basement, outside the quadripane window came another thwack . Jared jumped and swung that way and pulled the trigger. Liz hadn’t been expecting it. The sound of the blast was terribly loud again, but the glass seemed to shatter silently, as her ears closed down and began to ring.
“Jared!” She screamed. Her voice sounded muffled in her own head. “You’ll let them in!”
From outside came a shriek, cutting through the gauze of her hearing. It sounded like tires squealing on pavement. The sound conjured an image, it made her think of those same tires running over some species of bird. The kind of bird likely to flap around in the spilled paint of nightmares, one with misshapen human eyes; oddly long-necked, with a bloated body and curved, tawny talons — but sickly cartoonish in a way specifically designed to scare the living shit out of little kids.
The buckshot had flung into the wall by the window, chewing up the drywall there, leaving it ragged. The glass tinkled down and away now, crystalline, jagged chunks. Jared swung the shotgun back to the front porch’s storm door, and then back again to the blasted window. Liz could already feel the cold air blowing in, the heat gasping out into the night. She opened her mouth to say something else, perhaps, to see if her vocal chords were reliable again, when she heard yet another noise from behind her.
Something else there was getting in, climbing over the thing Jared had killed, the thing that, indeed, had one twisted limb sticking out over the front door threshold, lying on the linoleum floor. It was looking at her, this new abomination, its head squeezed in through the gap between the door and the door frame. It didn’t make sense what she was looking at. The face she saw there, it didn’t make any sense.
“Jared,” she tried, but now her voice was gone completely.
The thing in the door, its face, trying to enter, looked like a little baby bird’s, a dark rust-red color, only twisted, wrung up like a towel. The feathers encircling its head were entwined and covered in some kind of wet char. The body behind it was fleshy, devoid of feathers, with smooth, pink and pliable skin. The face of a wretched bird, the scrubbed, waxen body of a person.
Trying to crawl into their home.
Liz’s legs gave out beneath her and she
“What,” he panted. “Another one?”
There had to have been two of them, one at each end of the house, because this fresh break-in attempt had come only moments after Jared had fired the shotgun.
Elizabeth fought the urge to turn around, to look through the kitchen to the front door, where the first creature had been trying to get in. She knew the damage done to the front door, and she calculated that whatever had been on the other side must’ve suffered significantly. But a terrible, rat-toothed inner voice told her that some vestigial piece, an appendage, one of those twisted hands, was left there, flopped over the threshold. If she looked back she would be able to see part of it lying there, and if she did that she would surely lose it.
Better to focus. Better to stay right where Jared was, think what he was thinking, look only where he was shooting, killing. Best just to kill and to keep killing until whatever was going on was over, and then they would leave, and he would put her in the Jeep and drive her back to Glastonbury, to her parents’ house, and he would leave her there, and she would go into her room where she’d lived not so long ago, alone in her room, and everything would go back to normal and sane.
They watched the door to the front porch.
A hand slapped the Plexiglas, making her jump and cry out. The hand then slid down, leaving some greasy trail behind it that made Liz think of oily hair. Filthy, dandruff-ridden, foul junkie hair. Her stomach clenched and threatened to empty itself.
Jared started his crouch-walk forward.
To his right, past the fireplace, next to the stairs that went down into the shallow basement, outside the quadripane window came another thwack . Jared jumped and swung that way and pulled the trigger. Liz hadn’t been expecting it. The sound of the blast was terribly loud again, but the glass seemed to shatter silently, as her ears closed down and began to ring.
“Jared!” She screamed. Her voice sounded muffled in her own head. “You’ll let them in!”
From outside came a shriek, cutting through the gauze of her hearing. It sounded like tires squealing on pavement. The sound conjured an image, it made her think of those same tires running over some species of bird. The kind of bird likely to flap around in the spilled paint of nightmares, one with misshapen human eyes; oddly long-necked, with a bloated body and curved, tawny talons — but sickly cartoonish in a way specifically designed to scare the living shit out of little kids.
The buckshot had flung into the wall by the window, chewing up the drywall there, leaving it ragged. The glass tinkled down and away now, crystalline, jagged chunks. Jared swung the shotgun back to the front porch’s storm door, and then back again to the blasted window. Liz could already feel the cold air blowing in, the heat gasping out into the night. She opened her mouth to say something else, perhaps, to see if her vocal chords were reliable again, when she heard yet another noise from behind her.
Something else there was getting in, climbing over the thing Jared had killed, the thing that, indeed, had one twisted limb sticking out over the front door threshold, lying on the linoleum floor. It was looking at her, this new abomination, its head squeezed in through the gap between the door and the door frame. It didn’t make sense what she was looking at. The face she saw there, it didn’t make any sense.
“Jared,” she tried, but now her voice was gone completely.
The thing in the door, its face, trying to enter, looked like a little baby bird’s, a dark rust-red color, only twisted, wrung up like a towel. The feathers encircling its head were entwined and covered in some kind of wet char. The body behind it was fleshy, devoid of feathers, with smooth, pink and pliable skin. The face of a wretched bird, the scrubbed, waxen body of a person.
Trying to crawl into their home.
Liz’s legs gave out beneath her and she
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