For kelkyag‘s prompt.

Thanks to @DaHob for brainstorming help on this one!)

Now.

Tom looked at the knife the girl had given him, if you could call it a knife. He didn’t look long; there was a monster in front of him. There had been a lot of monsters in front of him lately, since the – well, since whatever the hell had happened. The gates or something, the gods, they called themselves, the dragons and monsters pouring into the world.

“Kneel,” the monster snarled. Its breath stank of carrion, and its hands were dripping with blood. The other truckers were dead around Tom, or dying, and all he had was a wooden knife.

Three Months Past

The girl looked terrified. Tom couldn’t blame her; she was being cornered by three sleazy college-boy types who were, it sounded like, offering her all sorts of rides. From the bag she was carrying – bags, he corrected – she wasn’t looking for that sort of ride. And from the looks of her, delicate in feature, wide-eyed, and a bit fae – yes, she had pointed ears, sticking out of hair that was faintly green in hue – she might need a little help.

Tom wasn’t much of a fighter, but his size usually did him where skill didn’t. He lumbered over to help.

Five minutes earlier

“I am the God of the North Wind.” The creature’s voice reached them before he did, echoing through the parking lot. “I am the monster of your nightmares. Serve me or die.”

“Fuck that shit,” George rumbled, and loaded his shotgun.

“Fuck all these freaks.” The truckers prepared for battle.

Three Months Past

“Can I help you, miss?” Tom asked, in his deep bullfrog voice, the one his second wife had called the Don’t Fuck With This Guy tone.

“She’s fine, gramps,” Boy Number One sneered. “She’ll be fine with us.”

“Just fine,” Number Two chuckled. “Besides, you know how the fairy freaks are, anyway. She doesn’t need your help.”

“She might need a priest, though,” Number Three added helpfully. He had a knife, Tom noted. They probably all did.

“I think what she needs,” he rumbled, “is a ride. Am I right, miss?”

“A ride,” she agreed, her voice quavering. “Thank you.”

Three Minutes earlier

The creature ripped through George and Martin, their bullets seeming to do nothing more than irritate it. It looked, Tom thought, like a cross between Swamp Thing and an octopus, snarling “Kneel.”

“Fuck you,” Jake yelled, and emptied his shotgun into the thing. The thing, howling, clawed Jake’s belly open.

Three Months Past

“I told you, she’s fine, old man. Move along.” Number One brandished the knife. “Move. Along.”

“I think she’s coming with me,” he answered, letting his voice get hard. “Right, sweetheart?” He thrust an arm between Two and Three and took the girl’s outstretched hand. “You boys run along.”

Number One did not want to be stopped. He grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “The little fairy freak is coming with us.”

Tom sighed. He didn’t like fighting. “She’s coming with me,” he repeated, and punched Number One in the nose. The girl escaped in the startled spray of blood.

One Minute earlier

Jake was bleeding out. George was dead, and Clyde – you couldn’t live without a head. Martin was in bad shape; so were Liz and Little Mike. The guns weren’t doing anything. The fire seemed to hurt it some, but the flame-thrower had died. Tom was the only one still standing.

Three Months Past

“Thanks,” the girl murmured. “I’m Ner.”

“Tom. Nice to meet you.” He helped her into the cab of his truck. “Where you going?”

“Anywhere else?” She smiled wryly. “West and South, preferably. As far as you’re willing to take me.”

“I’m going to Minneapolis.”

“Sounds great.”

“I’ve, ah, got a hat…” he offered, tapping his own ear.

“Ack!” She frowned. “That’s been happening more and more lately. Something’s going wrong.” She concentrated, and looked normal, blonde, round-eared. “Better?”

“More human.”

The drive was nicer for her company, and it was with some reluctance that Tom let her out in Minneapolis. She smiled shyly at him, checked her ears, and offered a long wooden dirk. “Things are getting weird,” she murmured. “Weirder than me. This might help.”

How a wooden play knife would help, he didn’t know, but Tom said “thank you” just the same, and hung it behind his seat.

Now.

Nothing else had worked. Tom looked at the long knife the girl had given him, ducked under three tentacles and a pile of seaweed, and jammed the knife somewhere that looked vital.

As the monster screamed, writhing in death throes, Tom chuckled, and stabbed it again. ‘Ware fairy gifts, indeed!

~*~

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