by Paul Freeman
A shadow crawled along the wall dividing the two stories of the building. Logan used his left hand to steady his aim. The vampire came into view and he pulled the trigger – click.
“Oh shit,” he said under his breath and began quickly fumbling in his pockets for a spare clip. He pulled one out, but it slipped between butter fingers. “Fuck!” he roared as the feeder flew across the room.
Elaine hit it hard in the head with a shovel, its own momentum increasing the damage done. “Bastard!” she shouted at the screeching vampire.
The demonic beast snarled its anger at her making inhuman noises. The sight of its exposed fangs turned Logan’s blood to ice as he fumbled with the gun and clip. He flipped out the empty and rammed home the new one as the monstrous beast picked itself up off the floor. It had taken a full blow straight to the face, bursting its nose and lips. Blood weeped from the injuries, although not as extensively as a living person might bleed. The vampire recovered its composure and launched into the air. Logan shot it three times, each time in the chest.
A scream from Elaine snatched his attention away from the dead monster, as another one followed it down the stairs. Before he had a chance to fire Elaine flung a lantern at the feeder. Oil leaked from the lamp onto the vampire and flames quickly ignited across its worn and shredded clothes. Both of them backed away from the shrill screeches of the burning feeder as it sought an escape from the agony of the flames and its fear of the light. Logan shot it, putting an end to the blood curdling screams. Elaine rushed to douse the flames with a blanket before the whole house went up.
“I thought those cursed creatures were supposed to be afraid of the light,” Elaine said. Logan could see that she was shaking.
He shrugged. “Only sunlight kills them, but yeah, usually they’re afraid of any kind of bright light.”
“Well, apparently not anymore,” she said.
They both turned sharply as they heard cries for help from the outside. Jeb checked his gun and started for the door.
“Where are you going?” Elaine’s lip quivered as she spoke.
“People are dying out there,” Logan answered.
“You can’t go out there.”
“I can’t leave our people to die on the street.”
“Please, Logan. Don’t go out there.” Tears steamed down her cheek as she pleaded with him.
It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he gently pushed her away and pulled back the bolt on the door. Swallowing hard, he walked out into the night.
In the center of the square he could see a group of feeders bent over, like a pack of wild animals caught up in a feeding frenzy. He couldn’t see who they had trapped beneath their demonic huddle. He could see two more bodies lying close by. His heart melted when he realized one of them was a child. He started walking towards the feeders and their victim.
“Get the fuck out of my town!” he roared and began firing at them. He sensed a presence behind him and frantically glanced over his shoulder. Elaine was there, she raised a rifle and fired, matching him step for step.
“I wasn’t staying in that house on my own,” she said. His heart swelled with emotion, love and pride for his woman. And shame that he had put her in danger. More gunfire came from across the street and he saw Jeb approaching the square from the opposite side. He seemed to be holding his rifle awkwardly as if he’d injured his arm and couldn’t grip the weapon properly. Others came out too, men and women of Colony braving the dark to fight for their own. They killed three vampires and the rest fled into the black safety of the night.
Logan stood over the body of the dead child. It was a little girl called Jessie Watson. The other two victims were her parents.
“Bastards snatched the kid from her room and the parents came out after her,” a man said. Logan turned and recognized the grizzled head of Hank Jebson, his handlebar moustache covered his mouth and twitched when he spoke. “I saw it all from my place. Nothin’ I could do.”
Logan nodded; he understood where Hank was coming from. “She can’t be allowed to turn,” he said softly. He stared at the face of the girl. It seemed as if she were just sleeping. Angelic except for the bloody line across her throat and savage cut on her upper thigh where a second vampire fed from her. “I hate them, I hate them!” he said with venom lacing his words. “One day we’ll take back our world from these demons.”
“Ain’t goin’ to happen, brother. This is God’s final judgment on mankind.”
“You can’t believe that,” Logan said.
“You can’t not believe it,” Hank responded. “Want me to take care of this?” he then said, pulling a knife with a serrated edge from his belt.
Logan looked into his eyes and nodded. He had no stomach for mutilating the bodies of little girls. Not now. Not ever.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
His heart warmed when the wooden palisade came into view. It would be nice to have a comfortable bed with a roof over his head and a safe place to sleep. The aches and cramps all over his body were enough to tell him he was no longer a young man. Perhaps it was time to stop his expeditions. Why had he taken this mission upon himself in the first place anyway? Vocation or penance? It started with a burning hatred of the feeders. Most people feared them, and with just cause, but his loathing of them overrode the normal terror people experienced when confronted by a vampire. The hate burned so bright that he could sense them before he could see them, the paralyzing fear most people felt when they looked into the eyes of the beast had no hold over him. He alone would take the fight to the Demon even if his god had deserted him and all of his people.
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with him.
He kicked the horse into a trot when he was close enough to make out individuals on the wall. A solemn party greeted him at the gate. Logan was out front waiting on him. He recognized other faces; all of them looked somber and glum.
“Take Pastor’s horses round to the stables and give them a rub down,” Logan instructed a boy and then offered his hand. “Good to see you, Pastor. I’m glad you’re back.”
“What’s going on?” he asked, swinging his leg over the saddle.
“We had some trouble last night. Colony was attacked by a large clan of feeders. We lost three – little Jessie Watson and her parents. She couldn’t o’ been much more than eight years old. Night before we lost Harry and Will Davis. Harry and Jeb Brown went searchin’ for Jeb’s girl, Amy and the Davis lad. Jeb came back with the girl but Harry and Will didn’t make it.”
He could see the emotion in Logan’s eyes as he spoke. His own feelings of despair and dread were gathering in a tight knot deep inside him – so many dead. He didn’t know what to say. These people looked to him for leadership, yet when they needed him most he wasn’t there. It was only then that he heard the sound of spades shoveling dirt coming from the other side of the fence. He had no need to ask what they were digging.
“They attacked the town?” He couldn’t believe what he’d heard.
“Yeah,” Logan said.
He was a taller man than most and could see over the heads of the small crowd that had gathered to greet him. He recognized each one, he knew everyone who lived in Colony, just as they knew each other. He was surprised to see a young couple carrying a baby approaching who he did not recognize.
“That’s Bart and Penny Wesley and their young un. They hauled up here a couple days ago lookin’ for a place to stay. Said their own settlement had been destroyed by feeders, somewhere up in the mountains, an old minin’ town or some such. I told them they could stay ‘til you got back.”
He nodded his head. He didn’t like strangers, strangers only brought trouble as road companions, but he understood how it was hard to send people away when they came looking for sanctuary. “I’ll talk with them later. Right now we have to decide what to do about these feeders. If they’re brazen enough to attack Colony once then they’ll do it again. Their nest wi
ll have to be rooted out.”
“We’ll need to find it first,” Logan said.
“There can’t be too many places close to Colony where they could go to ground.”
“There’s the old commuter station. Creepy as hell the last time I was there, which was a good many years ago. There’s a tunnel that connects to an old mine from way back,” a man he recognized as Isaac Howard said.
“Listen, Pastor, this’ll be a big nest. You can’t do this on your own,” Logan said.
He scratched the bristles on his chin. He always hunted alone.
“Let me think on it. In the meantime you’d best send some people out to recover the bodies of Harry and Will Davis. We’ll put them in the ground with the rest of our folk.”
He pushed through the group then, on the outside he was calm and confident, carrying an air of someone who knew what they were doing and who was taking charge. On the inside rage built inside him. Once again he felt as if he and everyone else in Colony had been betrayed. He walked towards the church and pulled off the crossbeams he himself had nailed to the door. He was aware of people watching him, calmly he turned to them. “Go back to your homes, or to your work.”
“Are you gonna open the church again, Pastor?” someone asked.
He shook his head. “Go on home now.” He pushed open the door and walked inside. The interior was cool and dark and smelled of mustiness and stale air. He took out his tinder box and lit a lantern hanging in the hallway, then he turned and pushed the heavy doors closed behind him.
He walked around the sides of the pews, lighting lanterns and candles as he did so. Everything about the building smelled of age from the wooden benches, even the white-washed walls. The golden glow from the lamps threw his shadow up the wall at the top of the church, passing over a large wooden crucifix. A shiver ran down his spine as the carving of Christ on the cross appeared to shine in the gloom of the ill-lit church. Once he lit all of the lamps he calmly walked to a wooden cabinet against the back wall and retrieved an item from a drawer, all the while staring at the cross and the white body nailed to it.
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
“Was this your plan all along?” he said as the quote from the bible: Isaiah 26:19 entered his head. “To surrender the world to the dead?” He stood directly in front of the crucifix, roughly hauling his coat over his shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. “What do you want?” At first quietly then louder. “What do you want from us?” He pictured the face of the little girl killed while he was away, he knew her well, as he knew all the children of Colony – his children. “Blood! Is that the answer? You want blood?” he was shouting now as emotion spilled out of him in a torrent. He tore his shirt from his back and held up the thing he’d taken from the drawer. Its leather coils unfurled. “You gave your son to save the world and then abandoned us to the Devil. Now you stand by and watch while your children are murdered by demons.” He lashed his back with the flail, flinching as the leather bit deep into his skin. Then he hit the other side, red stripes appeared on his back. “I’ll give you all the blood in the world if that is what you want.” He whipped his back again, feeling the sting of it adding to the scars already on his soul. “Damn you!” he cried, whipping his back, his eyes never leaving the tormented face of the figure on the cross.
Eventually, with his back a raging inferno and the muscles in his arms aching so that he could barely lift them, he collapsed to the floor and his eyes drifted close.
*
Logan drifted back into the shadows as he watched Pastor’s self-flagellation, his eyes widening with each stroke, wincing as the preacher marked his own back with the whip. For Logan and everyone who called Colony their home Pastor was larger than life, it was he who had gathered the first survivors together, binding them as a unit. It was he who hunted the vampires, rooting out their nests so that everyone could live a relatively safe life in the new, backward world. He was like their father, and just like all children witnessing a parent’s weakness and vulnerability for the first time, Logan wanted to weep. He yearned to turn back time and un-see what he’d just witnessed, to be free of the burden of Pastor’s shame. But Logan was not a child, he was a man and one who’d survived the Fall.
He’d only stepped into the church in the hope that Pastor had finally relented to allow the Lord back into their homes and their hearts. Not that he was much of a God-fearin’ man himself, but he thought faith was a strong thing for those who believed, a spiritual bond for all. He had hoped Pastor would lead his congregation back towards the light.
He remembered, shortly after the Fall, when the world was teetering on the brink of madness, several fundamentalists groups pushed themselves to the fore, blaming the woes of mankind on sinners and such, homosexuals, practitioners of other religions – Jews, Catholics, Muslims… just about anybody who didn’t believe in their ancient ways. They had the solution, repent and face the evil with a pure heart. The feeders fell on them just like everybody else. Maybe Pastor was right after all.
To Logan, he looked old now, no more the strong, dependable parent, the safety net for the ills of the world, just a sad, lonely old man. He was hurt, Logan could see that. His back was crisscrossed in angry, red welts. Under normal circumstances Logan would be straight over to help the man, to carry him in his own arms to a better place. But to do that he would not only have to admit to the weakness of Pastor in his eyes, but by trespassing into Pastor’s privacy and letting the man know what he’d seen his aura of power would somehow be diminished. And their small corner of the world needed Pastor and his iron will.
Logan quietly retreated back out the door and closed it behind him. He sat, alone on the steps of the church lest anybody else wandered in, his head buried in his hands, his shoulders gently rising and falling, until Pastor was ready to face them with renewed vigor.
*
He dreamed dark, terrible dreams of fiery pits with black shadows chasing him through the flames of damnation. All around him light and dark, night and day fought a war for dominance over the other. The soldiers of each were black, winged beasts and knights in shining armor, white against black. He felt something light brushing his cheek, as if someone was rubbing his face with a feather. He smiled when he first woke, but that turned to a grimace when he felt the burning pain of his back. Perhaps he really was in Hell after all.
When he opened his eyes the girl was crouching down beside his head, her hand caressing his cheek, taking his tears onto the end of her finger and examining them as if the stream of wet was something to be in awe of, something so precious that she could scarce believe what she was looking at.
“What… how?” he stammered, wondering how the hell she’d ended up here beside him. But when he blinked she was gone. He sat up quickly then, searching for her in the dim glow of the candlelit church. He looked up at the crucifix. “You’ve taken my mind too,” he said, wincing as he moved. The interior of the church was bathed in the soft glow of candlelight. The windows were shuttered closed blocking out all natural sunlight. I’m worse than a vampire, he thought, living my life in the shadows.
He looked around for the girl, knowing he wouldn’t find her, he even began to wonder if he had really seen her in the woods, or was she some sort of hallucination brought on by the vampire venom. When one treads on the brink of madness how is it possible to tell the difference between one side of the line from the other? His back was a burning agony and every movement sent a lancing pain shuddering through him. Outside the doors of the church he himself had barred the world was cast in shadow, evil reigned while what was left of humanity hid behind walls and ineffectual prayers. Each night they wished for the sun to come up, each day they wondered if it would be their last; such was the world, such was the lot of man.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That night the demons came again. This time the reside
nts of Colony had barricaded themselves into their homes and their fires burned bright in their hearths. Many heard footsteps on the roofs of their houses and saw the strength of their windows and doors tested, but the vampires were thwarted and left before the first rays of the sun spilled golden light across the fields chasing away the shadows hanging over Colony. In the morning Logan stood in the town square with a large group of Colony residents. He noted that all of them were armed. Nobody was taking any chances after the feeder assault on the town. They’d survived this night, that wasn’t to say they would the following one.
“Is Pastor goin’ after the feeders?” a voice spoke out from among the crowd.
Logan looked over the anxious faces and then glanced in the direction of the church. After what he’d witnessed the day before he wasn’t sure what sort of mindset Pastor was likely to be in now. “That’s up to Pastor, but I’ll say this – if he is, he’ll need help. That was a big clan, too much for one man.” There was a ripple of sound through the crowd. “Any volunteers?”
“Will you be goin’ yourself, Logan?” a man asked.
Logan swallowed hard, any expedition would be dangerous. What sane man willingly walks into the demon’s lair? Fear took hold of his soul as he imagined searching for the vampires in the darkness of a damp cave, or loneliness of a long disused tunnel. “Yes of course,” he answered.
The man nodded. “Reckon I’ll tag along with you,” he said.
Logan stared into the man’s eyes; he was tall and sported a bushy black beard, flecked with gray. His name was George Muller.
“I’ll come,” Isaac Howard said.
“Yeah,” Ben Crawford simply said with a nod.
“Come where?” All eyes turned to see Pastor walking towards them from the direction of the church. Logan was amazed he had come up behind them without he or anyone else noticing him emerge from the church. He was even more amazed to see how freely he was walking. He remembered a conversation he’d once had with Beth Patterson – a midwife and nurse pre-Fall and the closest thing Colony now had to a doctor – she mentioned how quickly Pastor seemed to heal any injuries. He would often arrive back from one of his trips with more than one hurt, seeking medical aid from Beth. It all added to the mystic of the man in Logan’s eyes.
