“Dunno,” said Mike, “but don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”
“You’re a dear,” said Jane. She patted him on the head and stepped into the van via the side door, then slid it shut after her. The van was slightly warmer than outside, but was still uncomfortably chilly. A bank of blinking monitors lined one side and she sat on the stool in front of them. The monitor on the left showed the studio feed that was currently going out live to the nation. The monitor on the right showed the feed from Steve’s camera outside – the images were still streaming but were not being recorded. Back at the studio, one of her colleagues was interviewing an ecology expert. He was currently refuting claims that a damaged Ozone layer could be the cause of all the snow.
Something caught her attention on the other monitor. The camera mounted on a tripod outside had picked up the image of Tony, the other production assistant. He was currently taking a piss off the top of the bridge to the deserted road below.
“Nice,” Jane commented, shaking her head. Steve was in the picture too, speaking on his phone. He was probably checking in with the studio to confirm it was okay to come in. Beyond them both of the men, though, was something else: a dark shape in the background, partly out of focus and obscured by the snowfall.
What is that?
The shape seemed to be coming closer, heading towards Steve and Mike at the centre of the bridge. Jane leant closer to the screen to try and make out some further details. The dark shadow didn’t seem like another person. It was closer to a small vehicle than anything else – perhaps a motorcycle.
As Jane continued watching, the shadow continued getting closer. Inch by inch, the shape revealed itself. When it became clearer, Jane was even more confused.
“What the…?”
It appeared to be an animal of some kind; a huge dog maybe – but too big and too hairy. It was creeping up slowly behind Tony, who was still taking a leak.
Jesus, is that guy part-camel or what?
Jane kept waiting for Tony or Steve to notice the creature, but they did not. She tried urging them through the monitor to look around, but of course she knew it was hopeless – she wasn’t telepathic. Just when she was about to lean out of the van and shout for their attention, the creature made itself known to the two men outside.
The over-sized hound pounced at Tony from behind, crushing him up against the bridges railings. The monitor didn’t give out sound but Jane could hear his startled cries from inside the van anyway. The bloodcurdling screams that followed were unpleasant enough, but twinned with the disturbing images on the feed monitor they were horrifying. The beast outside had pinned Tony to the ground and was ripping and tearing at his back. The snow turned red all around.
Steve realised the situation and made a run for it, most likely heading for the van. He exited the view of the camera and Jane was left wondering how close by he was. A second later her stomach turned as she watched the hound-beast leaving the mutilated corpse of Tony behind to give chase to Steve.
Jane stared at the monitor and tried to control her breathing. Steve’s screams were coming closer and it wasn’t long before she heard Mike’s join them. Outside of the van the two men were being attacked by something she couldn’t describe – something unnatural.
Banging at the van door.
“Jane, let me in. Open the door.” It was Steve.
Jane stared at the door handle and found herself unable to move from her seat. Every part of her mind screamed at her to let Steve in, but every fibre of her nerve-endings refused to let her move. Steve continued to scream as ripping sounds began. Whatever was out there was ripping him to shreds. Mike was probably already dead, and here she was, hiding like a coward while it all happened only inches away from her.
I just report the news. I don’t take part in it.
Steve’s screams finally stopped and Jane sat in silence, listening only to the sounds of her own panting breath. She turned back around to face the monitors. The live feed from the studio had gone black, but the camera outside was still recording. On it she could see the snarling face of a jagged-toothed demon appear from off-camera. Then she saw its jaws gape wide and the video feed was no more.
Jane waited in terror for what seemed like an eternity, hoping against all hope that the beast would go away. But it didn’t.
The van began to rock as the creature attacked it, trying to get at the prize inside. Jane Hamilton cowered in the rear of the vehicle, knowing it was only a matter of minutes until she joined the recent death toll.
CLOUD COVER
Quinton Barstow was worried. Flying an airliner was nothing new to him; he was more nervous driving a car in actual fact. In a car you have to trust in the driving skills of other people, and trust that people are even paying attention, but in a plane it’s just you and the clouds; nothing to crash into and nothing that could go wrong in the engines – there were just far too many ground checks to miss anything. Piloting an airliner was an almost fully-automated and pretty plain sailing – or flying to be more accurate, and excuse the pun. Yet he was worried all the same.
All of the above only applied, however, when the aircraft’s electrical systems were responding correctly. This evening they were not, and Quinton could think of no reason why. Any errors with the plane’s on-board computers should have been rectified by a quick reset, but he had tried that several times now to no avail. He needed those systems to compensate for what his eyes could not see. The current weather was making his natural vision near-useless.
“I can’t believe they cleared us to fly in this,” said Quinton’s co-pilot, James.
“They didn’t see it coming,” replied Quinton. “The weather reports for the week ahead were mostly clear. All of this cloud cover doesn’t make any sense.”