The Ring: Chapter 22
Part III: The creature emerges.
Need an earlier chapter? Check out the navigation page below:
We’re now on chapter 22 of 38. This is the latest novel of the Muldoon series (book 2). Chapter 21 ended with Ellen’s journal. She describes Fontini’s behaviour and how he frightens her. James Lacey is still missing.
Want to join the Muldoon Book Club for behind the scenes, outtakes and other interesting tidbits? You can either:
Get a copy of The Ring and DM me so I can give you a 12 month comp.
Upgrade your subscription.
It is night, and the creature has been hiding in an ash pit all day. The last time it fed, there was a commotion.
Its thoughts are stopped by a loud groan. It looks around the place. Silence. Then it comes again, this time, with a distracting pull inside its gut. Hunger. It tilts its head up and sniffs the air.
The horses and camels, frightened by so much as a whiff of it on the wind, grunt and whinny nervously, their handlers none the wiser as they shush and plead. One picks up his lantern and comes to investigate. He has a small knife in his pocket. It will at least show he means business, if the occasion arises. His hand shakes. What is rustling in the storage tent at this hour?
Mary, mother of God.
He blinks. He realises he’s not breathing. Through the narrow opening, he sees the great, black back first—covered in fur like a gorilla. It can’t be a gorilla. They have none. Also, it’s far too big.
It’s grunting as it shoves boxes out of the way. It’s looking for something. The labourer does nothing. He stands still. His body does the work for him. His trousers are wet and warm.
The knife. He has the knife. With his free hand, he slowly reaches for his pocket and releases the little blade from its leather sheath. It comes to him silently, and rests in his sweating palm. Cold, electric adrenaline fires in his chest as the lantern swings, squeaking ever so slightly. He needs to change hands. He’ll miss if he uses the left. The light is wobbling. If he could just stop shaking…
One, two, three. The thing is still rummaging in the tent. He can only see its back. Its monstrous, giant back. In the middle of the night, he fancies he can almost hear the metal sing as it tumbles through the still air and into the creature’s—what—leg, perhaps? Then comes the mighty roar.
He imagines he is experiencing what it is like to be a prey animal, and then his heart stops.
The beast has no time to spare. It runs and leaps onto rooftops, dripping its fresh red blood everywhere it goes. Frightened faces watch through thin windows, looking back to their bottles of gin and then to the creature, not sure what’s going on. It stops and breaks into quiet buildings, following the delicious scents of meat and blood.
A dog corners it, and yelps when it takes a retaliatory swipe. With its large, yellow canines it makes an easy job of the vicious hound and discards its carcass in an alley. The pangs have subsided. The next noise to startle the creature is the clang of metal on stone cobbles. The knife. That’s what it was.
It roams on. There’s no one around, until it hears the rattle of a cane. Instinctively, it hides. It crawls, it climbs, it slinks in darkness. It slithers like a snake across the rooftops, jumping across to reach the next street. It swings across the top of the streetlamps. It doesn’t know why. The steeple of a nearby church calls to it.
It wants to go to the church, but not before it quenches its thirst at the fountain. A drunk man is asleep next to it, the spray soaking his curly head as he slaps his lips together and snores. He sleeps through the visitation. The creature isn’t hungry right now. It’s thirsty, and the basin of the water feature will do just fine. It grooms its face like a dog, and washes away the bloodstains that had been matting and itching its maw.
Back at the recreation ground, Ellen wakes from a frightful nightmare, and decides she will tell Hugo it is time to leave. She won’t wait to hear his excuses—she will simply leave and he will have a choice of following or staying. She is sure that Thomas will leave, too. She throws on a shawl to go out into the night and wake them. All plans are halted as she is stopped by the body in the middle of the camp. It’s one of the animal handlers. She covers her mouth to stifle a scream, as she doesn’t know if the murderer is still at large. Not knowing what to do, she rushes to the ringmaster’s tent. She pulls the canvas back. He’s not there.
Would you like to know more about my writing process and some insight into the novel? You can join the Muldoon Book Club where I publish a bi-monthly newsletter with my own voice over so you can also listen at leisure. It’s never too late to join, and I always warn if there are spoilers. Here’s what’s already out from behind the scenes at the Muldoon Book Club:
Episode 1: Ominous openings.
That's superb! Brilliant pacing with the nice short sentences. Gothic hints of Caliban or Poe's rue morgue too (which is a good thing). Only suggestions of what the creature actually looks like, let the reader's imagination do the rest.
Exceptional stuff, Hanna!
Why does a cane's rattle chase the monster away? Why does it desire to go to the church? More questions than answers!