Part 2
It is 3 a.m. and I sit awake in bed. Bert lies asleep, but I notice his ear twitch in the candlelight. He does not twitch for nothing. I set the book down, its spine cracked and pages yellow from a world that no longer exists and let my hand rest on the pistol by the nightstand.
The sound comes again. A click, faint, like glass tapping against stone. Too deliberate for the wind, too soft for a branch. Bert stirs, his head lifting, throat rumbling low as his eyes fix on the door. I snuff the candle, letting the darkness fold in thick and familiar, and wait with my heart hammering in my throat.
I move to the window and push the curtain an inch. The moonlight spills silver across the trees, swaying in the quiet. At first there is nothing, only the usual stillness, but then I see it. A man, or the shape of one, stands at the edge of the tree line, motionless and watching. His head tilts, a twitch too sharp to be human, and my breath catches as Bert growls deep in his chest, ready for whatever comes next.
The figure steps forward, slow and mechanical, the crunch of snow under its boots too perfect, too even, like a recording played back on loop. I whisper to Bert, “Not tonight,” but even as the words leave me, I know tonight is different. The figure stops twenty feet from the cabin and holds its place, not moving, not blinking, as if studying the dark around it. My grip tightens on the pistol, finger brushing the trigger, while Bert’s growl turns into short, sharp barks that seem to echo through the trees.
That is when I hear another sound, softer but just as deliberate, from the left. A second shape stands at the edge of the woods. Then another shifts into view on the right. Three of them now, spaced out, surrounding the cabin, silent as stone. My stomach knots, and I press my back against the wall, every board of the cabin feeling too thin, too fragile to hold against what waits outside.
The Daemons have arrived.
kill -9