Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Page 14

claws that he could slash at his enemies with.
“HAVE YOU CHOSEN?” David, loud, angry, demanding an answer.
“Chosen, no, yes, chosen, I, I...” Sally Ann couldn’t
think, with both men so close she was blind and deaf
to everything except the two, her love for them overwhelming everything else. She wanted them, needed
them, to offer herself to them, to belong to them. So
she stood, frozen in confusion as the two men stepped
closer still, now so close they could touch her, or each
other.
The sound of the side door squealing as it was pushed
open seemed deafening in the silence, three pairs of
eyes turned to look at the oblong of moonlight that
was now visible. A stocky figure silhouetted against
the silver glow, the double barrelled shotgun clearly
visible.
“Git away from them freaks girl, afore I blast ‘em.”
Her father’s voice was its usual rough growl. A lifetime of smoking and alcohol left the man’s voice
coarse and difficult for some to understand, but she
always understood. She had listened to that voice
telling her what to do her entire life. Her confusion
vanished as she recognised the shotgun and the threat
to the men, her men.
“NO DADDY,” she shouted. “They are my friends.
They love me!”
The sound of the hammers clicking back on the
shotgun, like the ringing of a dull bell, was sharp
and clear. She stood in shock as her own father lifted
the shotgun to point it at the two men, her two men.
Before she even knew what she was doing she had
covered half the distance towards him, and by the
time she regained control of her actions she was close
enough to touch the double barrels.
“Please daddy, put the shotgun down. I love them.
I won’t let you hurt them.” She took another step,
deliberately blocking the shotgun with her own body,
pressing the barrels to her breast. She would die to
save the two. She loved them more than life, and in

that instant she realised that she loved them more
than her father. He had always tried to stop her seeing
them; he never understood that she loved them. Them!
Not him.
The two men had stepped closer together, both hiding behind her where the shotgun couldn’t fire, both
staring hard at her father and for once not thinking of
fighting the other. For a moment there was a greater
threat to keep them occupied.
No one heard the main door swing open, it was the
sudden shock of moonlight flooding in that turned every head. For just a second the two men and the young
woman stared at three figures standing bathed in the
silvery light—three men in uniform, two with rigid
brimmed hats on their heads and gleaming steel pistols
in their hands. The third, broader, his bare head glistening in the moonlight, his revolver a patch of grey in
his big hands.
Then the shooting began, each shot echoing from the
walls and roof again and again till it sounded like
machine guns firing. Sally Ann screamed and turned
to run to the men, to throw herself between them and
the sheriff and his deputies, to use her body as a shield
against the death that flew toward them.
A heavy calloused hand grabbed her arm and yanked
her back, she was lifted and crushed against her
father’s chest by an arm still strong from a lifetime
on the farm. She screamed and cursed and fought,
but it was in vain. Her father was too strong. She was
trapped, helpless, as the men she loved were attacked.
She could do nothing. She screamed her hatred into
her father’s unflinching face.
David and Simon staggered back, both struck again
and again, the bullets tearing through the vampire’s
fine suit and the werewolf’s vest and shirt with equal
ease and sinking deep into the flesh below. Both collapsed, David snarling his defiance for a few seconds
longer than his rival who was motionless in the straw
that covered the floor of the barn.
Both deputies emptied their magazines, then the
sheriff took a few steps into the barn, his old fashioned

14