Rattleyard Read online

  Crispin fell to the ground and felt a burning in his arm; in the blue night, he could see the black shadow of blood on his skin. Rattleyard careened through the trees and the sound of his body as it clanked against itself reverberated with the forest.

  “Stay down!” Dick’s voice called, but Crispin couldn’t see him. Arthur was at the edge of the clearing, and he too was looking for the source of the voice. Then it was silent. Rattleyard was nowhere to be seen. They listened for the metal of the monster, but there was no sign. Some twigs snapped in the distance, but none of them thought it was Rattleyard; just some animal trying to get away from all the commotion. Then they could hear the ripping again; it was maybe one hundred feet away. That noise was so terrible to the Constable kids by now that though it froze them to the spot, they wanted to run like hell every time they heard it. There was a rustle in the trees above and Crispin and Arthur looked up. There was something up there, but it was hard to make out what. The ripping got closer, and they both looked in its direction now.

  “Stay where you are kids,” a voice called down from above, Dick’s voice. They couldn’t see him, but he was definitely up there, and there was something else up there too. Then the creature sprang from the earth, much closer than they thought it was. Rattleyard’s limbs and tail flailed through the air looking to cut anything that would get close to them. He was only metres away when some snapping noises echoed through the trees and a huge heavy rope net fell upon the fast moving creature. Rattleyard slashed through the first ropes to snare him, but he quickly became bogged down and tangled as more nets fell on him.

  “Get back kids!” Dick shouted, and they ran to the trees, as they did they heard some liquid splashing about behind them and they heard unearthly screams coming from Rattleyard. They turned to look and saw hot molten liquid falling from the trees from the vats Dick was overturning. The screams were horrific, and they had to cover their ears. Dick scrambled down the tree and set a blowtorch to the heap of burning rope nets and the monster within. The metal creature writhed and its movements became less like an animal and more like a liquid, he was melting, and pieces of him were beginning to fall off.

  Finally, it was done, and the creature was no more than pools of metal that were quickly drying in the cool of the evening. Dick pulled on some heavy gloves that he had with him, and he began to separate the pieces of Rattleyard into different bags.

  “I hope that’s the end of him, boys,” he said as he got his breath back.

  “Us too,” Arthur said.

  “Let’s get you to the car,” Dick said looking at Crispin. “I have a first aid kit we can use on that cut.”

  They went to the car, and Crispin was cleaned and bandaged up. Dick said that he should go to the hospital just in case but that they should come up with a different story as no one was going to believe the truth. Crispin got the sense that Dick was saying goodbye.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I’m going everywhere, and I’m gonna leave these pieces of Rattleyard all over the world, so they never have the chance to melt together and bring him back ever again.” There was a look of grim satisfaction on his face, but Crispin knew he would never know how Dick truly felt about the demise of this creature who had haunted his life for so long.

  The next morning the children all watched as Dick drove past their house out of town. Their mother came out and ushered them all inside, and she looked out after the car as it drove away into the distance.

  “We want to see Dick leave,” Crispin protested.

  “He’s gone,” she said back to him, “And he’s taken that thing with him. With any luck, we will never see either of them again.”

  Crispin knew that his mother was angry with Dick for not telling them what he knew about Rattleyard, and, in particular, their father’s death. She blamed him for the wounds Crispin had received, but Crispin would never forget what had happened in these last couple of weeks. In a way, he hoped that his arm would scar, so that when he was an adult, there would be no way that he would be able to convince himself that none of this had ever happened.

  The End

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