This month, a more recent story than usual. ‘Big Steps’ is a quirky family sci-fi tale. More down to Earth than most of my other SF.
If you wanted your own copy to keep, you can grab it from the website here, or follow the Universal Book Link to get it from your favorite store in ebook ($2.99)or print ($12.99).
Big Steps – Blurb
A gritty, dark tale of endless flax forests and motorcycles on the loose.
Enveloped in infiltrating darkness Ingrid just wants to find her father.
But nothing comes easy in her world. Not for anyone.
With high stakes and a pulsing pace, this fantastical story takes you to the edge. With no guarantees of a safe return.
From the twisted imagination of Sean Monaghan, author of ‘Mangled Gravity’
[Cover illustration © Philcold | Dreamstime.com]
Big Steps
Ingrid stepped through the murky damp flax forest, unsure of her direction. Through the blades she caught occasional glimpses of a western crescent moon, cutting infrequent glints through layered cloud.
It was so easy to get turned around.
The ground was boggy. It squelched and gurgled with each footfall. Even her sturdy leather shoes struggled against the water. Her feet were wet and her toes were cold. The muddy damp was creeping up the cuffs of her jeans.
Not the kind of outfit to be wearing when lost out in the wilds. Boots, jeans, a tee shirt and a black vinyl motorcycle jacket. The jacket had red bands across the chest and a double way zip with domes. Great for the wind, not so great for the cold.
Stretching out her hand in the gloom, she touched the edge of a flax leaf. Sharp. The leaf was as broad as her hand with outstretched fingers. It shifted under her touch. Other leaves rustled in the light breeze.
The sounds could have been a soft lullaby—shh, a-shhish, a-shish, aa-aaa, shh—but in the cool dark the tiny sounds pushed at the edges, suggesting dangers and presences unknown.
Were there holes here she could fall into? Thick, gripping muds that might hold her in place? Might tear her boots from her feet?
Were there creatures abroad? Things with talons and fangs? With stiffly muscled legs ready to pounce? Ready to stuff her into their gullets?
Ingrid stopped. Took a breath.
She could be no more than a mile from the road. Maybe a mile and a half.
And she knew which way west lay. Ahead. The flickers of the moon.
All she had to do was bear to the right. Just a little. Keep it in sight.
It wasn’t as if she was afloat in a dinghy in the middle of the ocean, trying to use a brass sextant to determine her position.
Toru Flax Forest was only forty or fifty square miles, wasn’t it? Ten or eleven miles on its longest axis. No more than two at its narrowest. Hourglass shaped. Pressed between a curve in the river and the humps of old dunes.
New growth. Less than forty years old. A return to the old flax swamps.
And here she was. Lost.
At night.
Silly, really.
Stupid.
She took another breath.
Took another step.
From somewhere came the cry of an animal. Piercing at first, but descending into a growl. Something big.
East? Hard to tell in the maze of leaves.
Impossible.
Ingrid took another step.
Bartolemew cracked his knuckles and sipped from a beer. The brew was good. Full and rich and with just the right kind of tang.
The tankard was pewter and the table was wooden, and his motorcycle stood outside. The makings of a good evening.
Around him, customers circled the bar. Some staggered. Some swaggered. Some warmed their hands by the fire blazing in the central stone pit.
The floor was hardwood and the ceiling was high. On a shelf fitted just below the ceiling stood the detritus of ancient days, arrayed and displayed to bring some atmosphere to the place.
Magnesium alloy wheels. A big block of a wooden telephone with a winder on the side and a black speaking horn in the middle. A pedal car. A traffic light stuck on blinking red. A silvery coffee machine with spigots and spouts and handles and dials. A radiostereogram.
Bartolemew’s table was in the back corner. Where he liked it. Where he could keep an eye on proceedings.
There were twenty-two people in the bar, as well as Silvya, the barkeep. Mostly locals. A couple from up north who’d ridden the highway on a recently refurbished Triumph Nine.
Bartolemew rode a Triumph, so he’d gotten talking to them.
The pair were now thoroughly soused and kind of slumped at a table two over from Bartolemew.
Ah, people. He took another small sip from his tankard. It would last all night, which suited him. Suited Silvya, who was counting on him to keep trouble at a minimum. Saturday it could get a bit boisterous.
The door opened, admitting a new arrival.
Stoke. Ingrid’s father.
Stoke looked around the bar. Spotted Bartolemew.
Hurried over.
The mud squelched. Ingrid stepped around another flax. They were close together here. In places, jammed in one against the other. And that all seemed to make the bog worse. Stickier.
Something snipped at Indrid’s finger. A sharp jab. She recoiled.
Stumbled backward.
Glimpsed the glitter of a spiderweb in the moonlight. Shimmering in the light wind.
Her finger throbbed.
Had she been bitten?
Wouldn’t that just cap off the night?
Bartolemew gunned the Triumph’s engine. The beast fair hummed along. Some of the roads around were still in good shape. Peter and Jenni got out with hot mix from time to time and filled holes. The patience of those people.
Of course, they did all right with grateful locals who brought them fruit and bread and, sometimes, a carcass.
Stoke clung on behind Bartolemew, clearly terrified.
The wind whipped their hair and tugged at their clothes.
“She had a fight with Melissa,” Stoke said over the clatter of the engine. “I just now found out.”
“They fight all the time,” Bartolemew said. It was true. Sisters, huh? Never can agree.
“Melissa said Ingrid raced off,” Stoke said. “On her bicycle.”
“How old are they now?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Should be well over that kind of nonsense, you ask me.”
“Should be. Aren’t.”
“You’re sure she’s gone to the forest?”
“No. But anywhere else she’d just come home. Or be easy to find.”
“Yep.” That was right. No one should go into the flax forest after dark.
Ingrid sucked on her finger. There was a lump. She ran her tongue over it. Maybe hoping to find fang holes. Or worried that she would.
But she didn’t.
Could be anything.
Still, the finger throbbed.
She needed to get out of here. Go home and either slug Melissa across the chops, or make up with her.
No telling how it would go.
Ingrid pulled herself up. She was wet now. The back of her jeans soaked through. Water crept up her tee shirt.
She clambered higher, pulling up into one of the flaxes. Right into the bole.
It was soft and insubstantial and bent under her weight. But maybe if she could get some height, she could get her bearings a little better.
Again there came the cry of the animal.
Closer.
It sounded bigger than she’d first thought.
The last section of road, off the main strip, was rough gravel. Potholed and covered with runnels large and small. Few people came this way. Mostly just picnickers with horse and cart, coming down to the meadows at the edges of the flax forest.
Bartolemew took it slow.
The Triumph’s electrical headlamp blazed through the night. Shining off the old signs and posts and rusted out vehicles. Somehow the discards ended up just a little out of sight from the main throughways.
“I don’t like it out here,” Stoke said over the clatter of the Triumph’s engine.
The sickle moon was popping in and out of jumbles of cloud.
“What’s to like?” Bartolemew said. “There’s a job to do.”
And there it was. Picked out in the beam from the headlamp.
Ingrid’s bicycle.
Leaning up against a low wood pole fence.
Right by the entry to the old boardwalk.
Ingrid hunkered in against the lower stems of some big flaxes. The smell was earthy and organic. Rich and full. And usually it would be reassuring.
Something was moving nearby.
Could have been a boar, or one of the bigger cats. Either way she was in trouble.
“Ah, Melissa,” Ingrid whispered. “Look what you’ve got me into now.”
Truth was, she’d got herself into this situation. No one else to blame.
Things fell quiet for a moment.
Ingrid waited.
The quiet lay across the flax forest.
No cries from the animal.
Ingrid could hear her own breathing, and the sough of the wind. The tiny chirps of crickets and low croaks of the small brown marsh frogs.
She waited.
Waited some more.
Perhaps she could make a break for it. After her quick look-see she was sure that she was close to the end of the boardwalk.
She waited some more.
Maybe it had gone. Passed her by.
If she could reach the boardwalk she would be fine. Scramble back up onto the solid platform. Run back to her bicycle.
As she moved, something snuffled nearby.
Ingrid stopped. Became rigid.
It was right there.
Just around behind the flax bush right by her.
Bartolemew trotted along the boardwalk. Stopped ten yards in.
The light was bad, even with his kerosene lamp.
Stoke came up behind him.
“There are spirits around,” Stoke said. “Bad energy.”
“If by spirits you mean wild boars and pumas, sure.”
“Those too. But we’re not supposed to toy with the forest. We know that.”
“Yet you let your daughter—”
“Stop,” Stoke said. “There’s no ‘let’ involved in the raising of my daughters. They do what they need to do. Were I to ever try to stop them from anything, it would simply double their resolve.”
Bartolemew held up his hand.
“What?” Stoke said.
“Quiet,” Bartolemew said. “I think I heard something out there.”
He shone the lamp around.
“What did you—” Stoke fell silent as Bartolemew clapped a hand over his mouth.
There was something moving in the flax. If it was Ingrid, then he should call out. If it was something else, well, he needed to stay silent.
Some of the things that inhabited this place, it would kind of be better to just get back on the motorcycle and hightail it. Wishing Ingrid the best of luck, of course.
Bartolemew kept shining the lamp around.
The flax blades shone in the light. Their fat, fibrous leaves fat and brown-green. Tall flower stems stood up from some, black, with golden drooping bell flowers. Many were gray and white. Last year’s. Dead, with their seeds long dispersed.
Bartolemew dropped his hand from Stoke’s mouth. Moved along the boardwalk. His footsteps seemed loud. Echoey.
Stoke came right up by him. Whispered in his ear.
“We need to shout for her.”
“And attract critters? I think there are more subtle ways.”
“Like what?”
“Eyes and ears. Let’s head for the end of the boardwalk. I have a feeling about this.”
“A feeling.”
Bartolemew turned to face him.
“Stoke. You asked me to help. Let me help. From the end of the boardwalk there’s the trail. We’ll see her footprints.”
Possibly they would see her footprints. Bartolemew wasn’t hopeful, but Stoke needed to hear something.
“All right,” Stoke said. “Lead on.”
Ingrid backed into the cover of the flax bush. In places they almost knitted together, forming canopies and hollows. The twists and curls made the forest so dangerous.
They’d explored as kids, her and Melissa. Around the fringes. Never deep. Never at night.
Something was breathing nearby. Waiting.
Then, voices.
People trying to be quiet, but nearby.
To her right.
Were they in the forest too? The boardwalk was the main way through, she’d just lost track in the dark. But wasn’t it on her left now?
How turned around had she got?
She could stand and find the moon again. That would tell her where she was.
Because if she was close to the boardwalk, then maybe, just maybe, she could make a break for it.
The thing snuffled. She heard the sounds of it pushing through the leaves.
And a growl.
It wasn’t a boar. The sound was wrong.
Had to be a puma.
The thing could tear her apart in a second.
Bartolemew cast the lamplight out across the rough path that led through the flax. The path had been cut years ago. Someone’s idea to extend the boardwalk right out to the river. Ambitious. Never happened.
People were happy to come this far. Besides there were plenty of other places to access the river. Especially upstream.
A sound came from behind. Scuffling.
For a moment he thought—hoped—it might be Ingrid.
But it wasn’t.
The lamp picked out a toothy big cat. Tan hide, with subtle stripes. A puma.
On all fours it stood as high as his waist. The thing had to weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. Maybe more.
Stoke swore.
The animal had gone.
Ingrid leaned from her little hideout.
Gone.
For sure.
In fact she could hear it moving away.
Moving to her right.
Toward where she’d heard the voices.
She followed.
Bartolemew backed away. One of the boards creaked under his boot.
The puma pulled its lips back in a snarl.
It was maybe fifteen yards back along the boardwalk. Halfway between them and solid ground.
“Get behind me,” Bartolemew told Stoke.
“No. Let me stop it.”
“You’re not going to stop it. That’s just a killing machine.”
“I’ve heard that, but then how can they be so very different from house cats? They look so similar.”
“House cats have fires to lie by and their tummies tickled whenever they want. Food delivered twice a day. They’re not feral.”
The puma advanced on them. One slow step at a time.
It wasn’t taking chances.
“We should have brought a gun,” Stoke said. “A pike or anything. Any kind of weapon.”
Bartolemew put his hand on Stoke’s shoulder. Pulled him back. Stoke was trembling.
Something else moved at the edge of the boardwalk. Climbing up like the puma.
Not another cat, though.
A person.
Ingrid.
Ingrid rolled onto the boardwalk. It was higher right here than most parts. The muddy ground below burbled at her. Thanking her, perhaps, for the boot it had kept.
Her foot was cold and the boardwalk felt rough under her sole.
She stood.
The animal was there. A big cat. Tawny. Its fur glistened in the light someone farther along the boardwalk held up.
Two shadowy figures hidden there in the light’s backwash.
The cat turned.
Ingrid took a step away.
A puma. A big one.
The cat snarled at her.
“Ingrid!” someone called.
Stoke.
Her father.
What was he doing here?
The cat turned again. Faced into the light.
“Get out,” Stoke called. “While you can, Ingrid. Get home.”
“Don’t run,” another voice said. Bartholemew? Of course he would be here.
“We’ll distract it,” he said. “Get home safely.”
Ingrid stayed right where she was.
Bartolemew stared back along the boardwalk.
The puma looked ferocious. It would easily turn Ingrid into mincemeat.
“Hey!” Stoke shouted, waving his arms. “Hey, cat! Over here!”
He took a step closer.
Bartolemew put his hand on Stoke’s shoulder again.
“You’ve done enough.” Bartolemew pulled him back.
The cat advanced.
“Ingrid!” Stoke shouted. “Get! Go!”
Ingrid stayed where she was.
“Don’t let it get you too!” Stoke’s voice broke. He was just about beside himself.
“Come,” Bartolemew said, pulling again on Stoke’s shoulder. “Let’s lead it away.”
Bartolemew turned the lamp. Lit up the empty stretch of boardwalk beyond.
Ingrid stood still. Her throat clenched.
They couldn’t do this.
It was her fault.
They would be mauled and it would be all her fault.
The puma followed them.
Ingrid took a step after it.
She shouted.
The cat ignored her.
“Quiet down, love,” Stoke said. “Get going. It won’t stop with us.”
He sounded so sad.
Melancholy.
“Dad!” she called. Yet she’d never called him that.
“Ingrid. Go.”
They were slipping away into the dark. Him and Bartolemew.
Bartolemew.
That was how they’d gotten here! Of course. Stoke would never ride a bicycle. Would never bring a horse out after dark.
Ingrid turned and ran.
Her boots thumped on the boardwalk.
She didn’t even look back.
Bartolemew reached the end of the boardwalk. The builders had constructed a wider platform with a small roof, kind of like a band rotunda. There was a railing, and a long octagonal bench seat all the way around.
All around, the flax swayed in the breeze. Crickets chirped and the little cusper frogs croaked.
“Wait,” Stoke said. He ran by Bartolemew and scrambled around on the bench seat. Stood right up on the railing.
Reaching out, Stoke grabbed one of the flower stalks. The things were stiff and more than ten feet long.
The puma was still striding along after them. No hurry. It knew that it had them.
Bartolemew considered how he might smack it with the lamp. He’d get one shot. That would be all.
Stoke wriggled the stalk back and forth.
It gave a crack.
The puma’s ears pricked up.
From the distance came another sound. An engine.
Bartolemew had no time to concern himself with that. He swung himself back. Around. Over the seat. Over railing.
Dropped the the ground.
Lithe and agile, the puma followed easily.
Ingrid found Bartolemew’s motorcycle right near the boardwalk entry. She flung herself onto the saddle and kicked the engine to life.
She wasn’t going home.
She was going back after them. Along the boardwalk.
Bartolemew was so proud of the machine. He kept it oiled and polished. Once a year he took the thing apart and reassembled it. Fascinating how many pieces it took to make up a machine.
He’d shown her how to ride.
But she’d never actually driven it before. Three times she’d been a pillion, so she knew how to lean into the corners.
In principle she knew the gears. Knew to twist the throttle.
Knew where the brakes and other things were.
With her left hand clenched over the clutch, she clunked the motorcycle into gear. The engine thrummed.
She turned the throttle a little above idle.
Let the clutch out slowly.
The motorbike leapt away. Got out from under her.
It went careering into the flax.
Before Bartolemew had even landed, the Puma swiped at him. Knocked him down.
Spinning, he slammed onto the muddy ground.
The puma landed astride him. It bent its head down toward him. Its breath was fetid.
The lamp had spun away. It came to rest shining back into the puma’s eyes. They glowed, like little lamps themselves.
“Look out!” Stoke called.
He came racing in from the side of the platform. He had the flax flower stalk. Holding it out like a lance. Like a polearm. As if he was some jousting medieval knight.
The puma looked over.
The end of the stalk lance struck the puma’s shoulder.
The puma yowled.
The stalk broke with a meek cracking sound.
“Get up!” Stoke said.
“You didn’t hurt it.” Bartolemew sat up.
The puma had stepped away, but it was still watching them. Perhaps a little more wary.
“I didn’t want to hurt it,” Stoke said. “I knew I never could. Not with this. I just wanted to surprise it.”
“Good that was—”
The puma pounced.
Arms wide.
It collected both of them. Threw them to the ground again.
The puma slashed at Stoke’s stomach.
Ingrid retrieved the motorcycle. It had been lying on its side. In the mud. Draped against one of the big flax plants.
Mud dripped from the chassis. She got the motorcycle upright again.
Got on it.
Kicked the starter.
The motorcycle bucked.
Forgotten to take it out of gear.
She fixed that. Kicked again.
Pulled in the clutch.
Kicked.
Felt the thrum.
She revved the engine.
I’m coming back.
Gearshift.
Clutch.
Easy.
Easy now.
She eased it out.
Slowly. Let it grab hold.
The bike began moving.
She rode forward.
Turned.
Bumped along.
Headed for the boardwalk.
The motorcycle seemed to know where to go.
She was but its guide.
Bartolemew found himself wrestling with the puma. Trying to get it off Stoke.
Stoke lay groaning. Bleeding.
Thick. Heavy blood. Right from his gut.
Bartolemew was too.
It wasn’t a fair fight. The puma was designed to inflict damage on its prey. Claws like blades, teeth like awls.
All his work went into trying to avoid a mortal slash.
He heard his motorcycle again. Drawing closer.
Ingrid could barely hang on. Hard enough to be riding a motorcycle, but riding it along the narrow boardwalk was ridiculous. Every time she corrected it felt as if she was going over the edge.
The motorcycle’s headlamp flickered. It cast terrifying shadows through the flax forest.
The tyres drummed on the boards.
Despite her speed, the boardwalk seemed longer than she remembered.
Perhaps it was the dark.
The whole situation.
A puma.
Attacking Stoke.
And Bartholemew.
Ingrid gunned the engine. It felt like the only sound in the universe.
Then, ahead, the boardwalk’s end.
The platform with the seats and roof.
And, at the edges of the motorcycle’s light, movement.
Off the end. Beyond the little set of steps she’d taken earlier.
“I’m coming!” she shouted.
Words lost to the wind.
She slowed before the end. The motorcycle bumped down the steps. Slid on the muddy ground.
But she stayed upright.
The puma reared up. Back.
It roared at her.
Ingrid grabbed the clutch. Gunned the engine.
Louder than the puma.
Bartolemew was there.
Stoke was on the ground.
Ingrid started to get off the motorcycle.
“Stay there!” Bartholemew shouted.
The puma was on all fours now.
Prowling. Staring at Ingrid.
As if it wanted to eat her.
Bartholemew grabbed Stoke up from the ground. Staggered over.
“Shuffle forward,” Bartolemew said.
There was so much blood. On his face. His arms. All over Stoke.
The puma roared. Lunged.
Bartolemew swept Stoke around. Put him astride the saddle. Right behind Ingrid. She edged farther forward.
Bartolemew climbed on himself. Behind Stoke.
“Go now,” he said.
Ingrid let out the clutch as fast as she dared. They didn’t need for the motorcycle to take off out from under them.
The puma moved back on its haunches.
Preparing to jump.
The motorcycle hummed. Moved forward.
Bartolemew’s fingers dug into her sides as he clamped on. Holding Stoke in place.
Ingrid drove as fast as she dared. The headlamp showed the way ahead.
The little set of steps. They seemed huge.
Three people on on motorcycle.
“Lean back,” Bartolemew said.
“But…” She leaned back.
They bumped up the steps. The motorcycle chugged. The back tire spat and jerked on the edges of the steps.
They came up to the platform.
Instinctively, Ingrid leaned forward.
The puma appeared. Leaping. Landing right there on the platform.
Ingrid twisted the throttle.
The motorcycle took off. The puma swiped at her.
Then it was gone. Left behind.
The bike’s engine bellowed, as if taunting the animal.
Bartolemew held on tight. Ingrid was a natural. The boardwalk whipped by below.
They came to the end and she didn’t stop. Just barreled on along the rough road and onto the highway.
Without him having to say a thing, she made straight for Doc Millerton’s place. Parked the bike. Even put the kickstand up. They carried Stoke inside.
The house was warm and smelled of frangipani, and Doc brought them straight through to his little front room surgery.
“He’ll be all right,” she said, pulling on gloves and arranging medical things. “Stitch him up and he’ll be out digging post holes in no time.”
Ingrid sat in a surprisingly comfy chair in the corner of the little surgery. She must have slept, some, because already whiskers of light from a rising sun were working themselves through clouds visible through the window.
Glass-fronted shelves stood along one wall, filled with medical equipment. Brass and steel and old plastic. There were benches and drawers and an iron sink with a big spigot.
Stoke lay on a bed in the room’s centre. He had a sheet over him and he was breathing regularly.
Doc brought her a glass of milk and went and looked at Stoke. Touched his clavicle.
Doc turned to Ingrid.
“He’s awake. You can talk to him.”
Ingrid came and stood beside Stoke. Took his calloused hand.
He stared into her eyes.
“My girl,” he said. “You did great.”
“I did lousy. I ran off. I should have just gone and made up with Melissa.”
“Well, you can still do that.” He smiled.
He was right, of course.
“Also,” he said. “You ride a mean bike. I’m proud.”
Ingrid swallowed.
She nodded.
“Thanks Dad,” she said.
And he smiled even more.
I hope you enjoyed “Big Steps”. Feel free to comment. Nicely, of course.
As I mentioned at the top, if you wanted your own copy to keep, you can grab it from the website here, or follow the Universal Book Link to get it from your favorite store in ebook ($2.99)or print ($12.99).
Paperback isbn: 9798243015547
Discover other titles by this author at:
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, except for fair use by reviewers or with written permission from the publisher. http://www.triplevpublishing.com
No AI training: this work was entirely written by a human, and may not be used to train AI large language models, deep scraping or redistribution by any means.
