Beast Read Free Page B

around me not in the air. No movement and no sound. The silence was deep everything was silence.
    There was pain everywhere there was so much of it that I didn’t know what to do. I lay with my eyes open. My head was bleeding there was blood on my face. I felt that things were broken. Some of my ribs were broken. My left leg was numb where I was lying on it. I thought that was broken too. I lay still and thought about moving. I was scared to move but I was scared not to. I wondered what had happened.
    Slowly I tried to bend my left arm at the elbow. It was trapped under me it was numb but it did move. I felt a great relief. I tried to move my right leg I bent it at the knee and at the ankle and it worked too. It hurt but it worked. Then I did the same with my left leg andmy right arm. My left leg was hardest it was still numb and when I moved it a huge fire shot through my knee and up my thigh. I almost screamed. But it moved. I brought my right arm over my chest and placed my palm on the ground and I pushed myself up slowly with my right hand and my left elbow. As I pushed myself up I felt something in my chest give way. On the left side of my chest where I had been lying I felt something shift inside. I nearly threw up I nearly fell back down again and stayed down.
    But I stayed up. I stayed up and then I pushed myself further until I had both hands on the ground and then I shifted my right hand back around to my right side and I slowly pushed myself up until I was sitting. The pain in my chest was enormous. Things were moving inside me which should not move I was sure of it. But I stayed up I stayed conscious I stayed alive. After a few minutes of sitting and breathing and willing myself to stay strong I shifted again over onto my right thigh. The pain in my chest was still there things were still moving around in there and now my left leg as well was screaming at me there was a shooting pain all down it and my left knee would not do what I wanted it to. I shifted onto my right thigh and I started to lever myself to my knees. My left knee wouldn’t take anyweight so I put all the weight on my right and now I was on all fours.
    I turned my head to the left and to the right as far as I could. I felt the muscles or tendons in each side of my neck pulling taut as I did so. I seemed to be in some kind of farmyard. Behind me was a broken-down barn and to my right a wooden five-bar gate through which I could see a track leading down a small valley and out of sight. To my left was a stand of great silent trees huge in the stillness towering over the buildings. In front of me was an old stone house with its door ajar. I breathed heavily and carefully and then using all the strength I had left I started to crawl towards the door.
    I could hardly put any weight on my left side at all though my left arm seemed to be working despite the pain. I shuffled like this I shuffled like a broken creature dragging my damaged leg behind me breathing deeply and steadily gritting my teeth moving slowly across the dark yard towards the door. Through the window I could see what looked like the dancing orange glow of a fire. There was no rain it was still and hot like summer though I felt it wasn’t summer. I breathed in and out in and out I got into a rhythm of steady pain and slow movement as I shuffled slowly across the hard ground.
    When I reached the door I pushed it open with my head and I crawled into the house like an injured dog. A fire was burning in an iron stove and the place was far too hot. I was thirsty I realised when I saw the fire that I was so thirsty. There was a mug of water next to a bed. I made my way over to it still crawling and I drained it. Then I levered myself up onto the bed limb by limb and I sat on the edge. I sat up as straight as I could which was not very straight because my chest would cry out if I tried to uncurl it.
    I felt myself all over with my hands. My head was bleeding there was a long damp cut across my