Chapter Text
It had been dark outside for a while already when Sid yawned and checked his watch. The nights had been getting longer and colder as the year grew to a close. The cold was especially noticeable to Sid as his caravan had no central heating. Luckily he had plenty of thick woolen blankets to keep him warm at night. The watch told Sid that it was time to head for bed. He had a couple of jobs, legitimate ones, lined up the next day and he wanted to be well rested. The first one would be not long after sunrise and although that was a lot later around this time of the year, it was still early. Sid had no idea why Mrs. Egret wanted him around so early, but she paid well enough. He needed the money, especially with Lady F out of town and thus no chauffeuring jobs. The night had been quiet. Sid’s caravan was parked nowhere near anywhere busy. So when Sid heard something outside his caravan, he decided to take a look out of one of the windows to see what it was. He was pretty sure he hadn’t left anything edible outside that would attract wildlife. Perhaps it was Blind Harry coming for a visit. He would let the man sleep inside the caravan and give him a blanket if he was. The only light around came from inside the caravan, making it hard to see what was moving outside in the dark. Sid struggled to get a good look. However, what he did see made a shiver go down his spine and he grew completely still. Had he already gone to bed and was this the start of a nightmare? He had never seen anything like it before.
It was massive. That was the first thing Sid had been able to make out in the darkness. Sid guessed it was about the size of a car. Sid hoped that part of its apparent size was caused by thick fur. It seemed to be following a trail with its nose that led to the door of Sid’s caravan. As the creature came closer it stepped into the ring of light that leaked out of the caravan. Now Sid could see four powerful legs ending in massive claws, a lithe but strong body connected to a feline head with a maw full of enormous teeth by a muscular neck. Sid let out an involuntary gasp. Apparently the beast also had excellent hearing as its head immediately turned in Sid’s direction, looking straight at him. For an eternal second blue human eyes stared into orange slitted ones.
With one singular leap and a roar the beast bridged the distance between where it had been standing and the window Sid had been looking through. It slammed into it, causing the window to crack and the whole caravan to shake. Sid lost his footing and fell to the floor with a yell. Another attack on the window and the broken glass rained down upon Sid. He screamed and scrambled backwards as one clawed arm came into the caravan to tear it apart from the inside. It was too big to fit through the relatively small window, but its arm had reach. Sid was pressed against the opposite wall to avoid it. It led out another roar as it discovered it couldn’t get to its intended prey. Its arm retracted from the window and Sid tried to think of anything he could do in a panic. The caravan had no phone he could use to call for help and he instinctively knew that no scream or yell he could make would be loud enough for anyone to hear. The sounds were unlikely to carry far enough to alarm anyone. Time to think was over quickly as the beast had moved to the back of the caravan where the largest windows were located. It smashed through both windows with ease and it put one arm through the resulting hole and its head through the other. Sid yelled as he scrambled to the front of the caravan. The beast could now reach further into the caravan, but Sid now also had more space to move away from it. The holes were also still too small for the beast to get its entire body through. Sid and the beast locked eyes again. Prey and predator. Then the beast let out a roar, louder than any of Sid’s screams had been, but still not loud enough to reach any helpful ears from the caravan’s isolated location, and started to sink its claws into the floorboards of the caravan. Quickly Sid realised that the beast was trying to pull itself into the caravan. The walls around the windows were starting to bend inwards from the immense pressure. Sid started to pray to the God he barely ever talked to and begged Him to allow the thin walls of the caravan to hold against the onslaught.
Sid’s body shook and he had been unable to make it stop. Repeated shivers ran through his body as the terror remained constant. His heart was beating at a pace that made Sid feel like it would break his ribs sometime soon. His breath would repeatedly become short and shallow and Sid would have to force himself to breathe normally again and again before he became too lightheaded. Something that wasn’t easy in his current situation. There was little doubt in his mind that if he were to lose consciousness he would never wake up again. He wished he could wake up that moment, wake up from the nightmare he was in. But he wasn’t asleep, so there was no waking up to do. The beast had not let up. The only quiet moments being when it moved to attack from a different direction. It was relentless, seemingly never growing tired. Sid had been able to find his hunting knife among the debris while crawling through the mess that was now the interior of his caravan to get away from another attack through a broken window. For a fleeting moment he had felt hope as he held the weapon in his hands. Only for it to be squashed as he realised the hunting knife was no bigger than the beast’s claws and the fact that he would have to get within swiping distance to use it. He still held onto it for the comfort that it brought him, no matter how useless it actually was.
Tears were streaming down his face as Sid checked his watch. He didn’t know when he had started crying, only that he was. He hated it because it made it more difficult to see and he HAD to keep an eye out for the beast. It was three o’clock in the morning. The onslaught had been unending. Why hadn’t the beast given up? Wasn’t there some livestock out there he could get to much easier? Sid knew of no predator that would keep going after the same prey for hours on end like the beast was doing. It had somewhat changed techniques as time passed. Horrible high pitched noises reached Sid’s ears as the beast scratched its claws against the exterior of the caravan, trying to tear its way inside. It caused dents to form, but it had yet to breach the metal. The beast would switch between this and reaching through the broken windows. Every time it attacked from a different direction Sid would have to crawl through the debris again and again, cutting himself on sharp shards of glass and ceramics again and again, to avoid its reach again and again. It hurt, but not as much as Sid imagined it would if the beast ever got him.
The beast had been on the roof of the caravan for the past half hour. It seemed to be trying to cave in the ceiling by jumping up and down on top of it. Dents were forming above Sid as he watched. He was lying flat on his back, pieces of glass piercing into him from below, but he had long since grown numb to it. Tears were no longer streaming down his face. That had stopped about an hour ago. A headache had replaced the tears as Sid had dehydrated himself with them. Keeping track of time had been the only thing keeping Sid relatively sane throughout the night. At some point Mrs. Egret would notice that he hadn’t turned up to fix her leaky faucet and, knowing her, she would call the presbytery to complain about it. His second job was supposed to be with the Connoly family who lived next to Mrs. M and would likely tell her if Sid didn’t turn up. Then he was supposed to have lunch with Mrs. M and the Father at the presbytery. If he didn’t turn up for that and they knew he also didn’t turn up for his other appointments that day, they were sure to raise the alarm and then help would come. He would be saved by midday. Sid would just have to hold out until then. He could do it, he kept telling himself.
Sid sat up as the noise from the roof stopped. He strained his eyes and ears to figure out where its next attack would come from. It had been a while back when Sid lost the hope that the beast would leave of its own accord. Sid was thrown across the caravan as the beast violently threw itself against the side. Scrambling for purchase, Sid found a handhold near the front of the caravan. Another thumb had the caravan slide off one of its axle stands. Oh no, oh no no no no no. A new wave of horror crashed through Sid as he remembered exactly where the caravan was parked and exactly which direction it was being pushed towards by the beast. At the time it had seemed like a brilliant idea. The view from the spot was amazing as you could see far from the top of the hill and the farmer the land belonged to was one Sid had always gotten along well with. Now he was realising how far the caravan would go if it fell down the hill. To make matters worse, the side of the hill the beast was pushing the caravan towards had a river at its foot. Being submerged in its cold waters in November would be a death sentence without immediate medical attention and Sid was only expecting help around noon. He would die of hypothermia. Sid wasn’t even going to try and attempt to figure out why the beast could want this, if it even understood what was about to happen. Another beastly push and the caravan started making its way down the hill. It did not take long at all for it to start rolling. As Sid and the debris became airborne time seemingly stopped. With an oddly tranquil mind Sid realised that the tumble down the hill couldn’t make the interior of his caravan any messier than any of the beast’s previous attacks. Then the St. Christopher medal that the Father had gifted to him escaped from underneath his clothes and smacked him in the face. Time returned to its regular speed and Sid was knocked violently into a wall while most of the debris inside of the caravan fell on top of him. The caravan continued its trajectory and all Sid could do as glass, wood, ceramics and other debris hit him and he hit the walls, floor and ceiling, was hold on and pray to St. Christopher to save him.
The caravan had come to a halt partially submerged into the water with only the front sticking out. Which had to be a miracle as that was the part Sid was in. The caravan had also slowed down enough during the final part of its descent that the splash had been minimal. The result was that Sid had been able to remain mostly dry and avoided submersion all together. Another miracle was that the caravan hadn’t fallen apart during its trip down the hill. It had bounced a couple of times, but it had not broken into pieces. However, Sid was now stuck in one place. He was sitting upon a small ledge, unable to move much unless he wanted to risk falling into the water and getting hypothermia. He could not move away when the beast would push one or two of its claws through the tiny windows, still unable to reach him, or when he would scratch at the exterior of the caravan near Sid’s head. The caravan seemed to be properly stuck though as the beast no longer seemed to be able to make the caravan move. Sid took the St. Christopher medal between his hands and started praying again with a voice hoarse from the screaming and yelling he had done through the night. Praying to St. Christopher, Jesus, God and any Saint or Angel he could remember, even switching to Latin whenever he knew the words in that language.