The Fabulous Beast Read Online Free Page A

reveal to humankind a new page in the history of our planet.
    ~
    Disaster.
    I woke just three hours ago, at 2 o’clock in the morning, with William shaking me by the shoulder.
    ‘Fire!’ he yelled at me. ‘Fire! Fire!’
    Roused from a deep sleep I was befuddled and all I could see by the strange flickering light coming through my window was a mad-eyed William. His voice was shrill and he appeared almost demented. I sat up quickly and shook my head, trying to clear it sufficiently to listen to his shouts.
    ‘The piggery, sir! It’s on fire.’
    The piggery? I leapt out of bed and pulled on a pair of trousers. Then we both rushed outside and William pointed, unnecessarily. Indeed, the old pig sties were blazing, the flames reaching thirty feet in the air. There was the stink of burning hair and flesh, which made me gag on my breath. The heat was tremendous as the red and yellow inferno swallowed the blackness above it and oxygen rushed in from beneath to further fuel the disaster. Thankfully the screams of the trapped residents ceased after a very short while.
    ‘Did you manage to save any?’ I cried, hopefully. ‘The creatures, are any still alive?’
    William shook his head as we both stared at the conflagration. Nothing inside that building was going to escape. The lower part, perhaps reaching three feet from the ground, was brick, but the upper walls and roof were timber. Inside the piggery there had been heaps of hay and straw everywhere. Once a fire started in there, it would have spread very quickly. I now see how inflammable the building was, but now is too late. I should have thought about it earlier, though if I am honest with myself I have not been attentive to ordinary matters lately, being on a higher plane with my dreams of triumph.
    ‘William,’ I said, ‘how did it start? Did you drop the hurricane lamp?’
    ‘No – no, sir. I was in with Her Majesty,’ he answered, pointing to the old barn, ‘but then there’s more bad news there, eh?’
    The hairs on the nape of my neck rose. ‘What bad news?’
    ‘She’s gone. Busted out. Ran off somewhere.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Not my fault,’ cried William, backing away from me. ‘She just lit out, when the fire started and them animals started wailin’.’
    I ran over to the barn, but it was dark inside and I had no torch or lamp with me. I fetched a torch and then returned to inspect the interior. The beast had indeed broken out, through the back wall of the barn. The planks there, old and somewhat rotten, had been shattered leaving a huge hole. I gathered my thoughts. This was a terrible occurrence, but not a catastrophe. Once we had saddled the horses, we would probably soon overtake the mother beast and persuade her to return, as we always did when she was put out to pasture. No doubt she would be highly strung after the night’s events, but with calm handling I thought we would get her home safely.
    It was then I heard a sound, a low moan. I looked at her straw bedding and shining my torch I saw a naked form there, slick with afterbirth. It was the latest arrival from her anomalous womb, obviously abandoned by the mother when she panicked and crashed through the wall of the barn and out into a dark night on the plain. I stared at the creature caught in my torchlight. It blinked and then did something that chilled me to the bone, a signal that this new ‘mythical’ creature was more than just another fabled animal. There was astuteness there and other major differences. I knew for one thing for absolute certainty, that though it might have originally been born androgynous, somewhere in its history on the Earth it had developed the means to procreate.
    ‘Oh my God,’ I whispered.
    I stood staring down at this fresh birth in horror. The implications raced through my mind as the creature reached out to touch me with one extended limb. William was just coming through the barn doorway carrying rifles and saying, ‘Horses are saddled and ready,