The Empty

by Thom Reese

  * * * *

  Tresset awoke the next morning. The fresh smell of moisture hung in the air. Despite the cleansing rain of the night before, he could still smell the man’s vomit on his chest. He snorted and gagged, wishing he could scour the skin from his own form. Blinking several times, he attempted to focus on his surroundings. It was early, the sun not yet inching above the eastern horizon. Few of the humans had yet to wander from their shelters. Tresset’s muscles were still cramped. His head throbbed and it was an effort to pull his vision into focus. He listened to the sounds of the village, his ears twitching at approaching voices—only three thus far, and a carriage, possibly two, beyond that, the unnatural sound of a motorcar far in the distance.

  He rose, tripping on the still-damp cobblestone, and then angled his head first to one side and then the other, listening to the sharp clattering pops and cracks of his bones seeking alignment. He extended each leg individually, working out the knots. A wave of vertigo washed over him and he nearly stumbled. His muscles still twitched and his innards turned and retched. Something within the drunken man’s essence did not agree with his system. It wasn’t the alcohol. That foul substance which humans used to purposely muddle their own capacities was not held within essence, and therefore not transferred. No, this was something at a more basic level—an inherited defect or disease. Tresset would need to infuse again soon, attempt to dilute this one’s effect on the whole.

  But first Dolnaraq.

  It was nearly daylight and the two had yet to reconnect. Tresset sniffed the air, drew in the invisible particles floating about on the gentle breeze. All of the obvious odors were there—sewage, sweat, meat cooking, moss, livestock, decay. No Dolnaraq. The breeze was from the southeast. It was possible that Dolnaraq was downwind and thus obscured. But this made little sense. Downwind would mean Dolnaraq had spent the night in the heart of the village, for the forest was to the south. It would not make sense for the young molt to move north, deeper into the confines of humanity.

  Tresset sniffed at the breeze, cocking his head, inhaling in quick, short snorts. His ears twitched at every sound. There was nothing on the air. No musky odor, no low growl or whispered message. No sense that Dolnaraq had been near to this place. Tresset staggered several steps up the rocky boulevard, moving northward, nose lifted to the breeze. Dolnaraq could not be far. The village was small. Surely Tresset would find him within minutes. Still, moving closer to the populace, especially in his weakened condition, seemed little wise in any strategic sense.

  He paused, sniffed. His ears twitched. Voices. Panicked. Back from where he’d felled the drunks. Now doors opening and slamming shut. Racing footsteps. More shouts. The shrill sound of a metal whistle, then an authoritative voice barking commands. Additional voices. A female’s shriek. A gun cocking. Multiple footsteps spreading out in each direction. He had become the hunted.

  Tresset glanced in each direction. To the right. The narrow alleyway. None had yet entered there. He turned to flee, but his legs were still weak. His movement was slow, awkward. He staggered through the trash-strewn alleyway. How foul these humans. A mangy canine emerged from between two structures. It growled and yapped until Tresset swiped at it with his talons, nearly missing the beast in his unbalanced state. But he did connect. Not a lethal strike, but a wounding one, enough to cause the small gray creature to scurry off with a terrified whimper.

  There were footsteps and then shouts from immediately behind. “Der werwolf. Werewolf.”

  Tresset turned, growling deeply and baring his long sharp teeth. If they wanted werewolf, he could give them werewolf. In fact, it was often these myths that brought fear into the human limbs, weakening them, causing men to doubt their ability to slay this strange foe. They believed that only silver could kill the were-beast, and so frequently fled when in truth they had the means to fell the molt where he stood.

  Tresset charged, not giving the humans enough time to logic through the situation. No guns had yet been raised, and no fool leader had yet mustered the courage or the wit to realize that they outnumbered Tresset seven to one. His movements were still slow and awkward, but the space was confined. In less than two second’s time he had clamped his jaw on the nearest man’s throat, thrashing from side to side as his teeth sunk deeper into the flesh. Then, in one fierce move, he jerked his head back in a splay of red and pink, nearly half of the man’s neck still hanging from between his clenched teeth.

  Spitting the warm meat onto the street, Tresset swiped his talons, catching the nearest man across the left side of his pudgy round face. There were screams, shouts, curses, but no gunshots. The space was too close, the risk of striking their own too high. Tresset used the confusion to his advantage, growling like a beast, slashing, biting, not giving the mob a moment to organize. Already, two of the men fled, weeping like frightened females. They were cowards, but would draw the attention of others. Adrenaline surging, Tresset’s earlier weakness was forgotten. He bit another man directly in the face, leaving his ample nose hanging only by a thin thread of flesh. Tresset leapt over a fallen man, barreled into another, and sprinted out of the alley and around the nearest corner. He fled three buildings south and darted onto another avenue, then ran down yet another road, all the while moving toward the nearby forest.

  There were continued shouts and screams. The air was heavy with fear and anger. Tresset roared at the wide-eyed cowards emerging from their homes, and slashed at any in his path. Finally, a gunshot rang out. The bullet whizzed past his right ear almost before he heard the booming report. He dived to his left, snatched a young human male of perhaps sixteen winters, and held him as a shield before him. The boy whimpered and fouled himself almost immediately, but Tresset held him close, dragging the struggling youth toward his goal. The tree line was less than a block away. Once there, Tresset could easily flee and hide. This was his element. If the humans sought him there, he could kill them off one-by-one.

  Reaching the end of the road, he considered slashing the boy’s neck, but remembered his need for essence. The drunk’s core had been bad. It was corrupting Tresset’s being. He needed another infusion soon. Keeping the boy would embolden the villagers. No matter how fearful they were, they would be obligated to find the lost lad. Still, Tresset had little choice, and so, pulling the wailing youth along, he entered the forest.

  Tresset sprinted through the woodland for nearly an hour, dragging the lad over branches and stones. He lost his grip twice, each time, scrambling after the panicked youth and terrifying him back into submission with his fierce appearance. Eventually, the boy wearied, and allowed Tresset to pull him along the still-moist ground with a minimum of resistance. What weaklings these humans could be. Their world dominance surely had far less to do with any great intellect than it did with their propensity to procreate in vast numbers. Tresset knew that even with his whimpering burden, the villagers would not be moving as quickly as he. They would realize that he was now in his own element and proceed with caution, first tending to their wounded, then arguing over strategy, then, finally forming search parties. But even this they would do only past sunup. These humans, they may have the wit and guile to create technical wonders such as guns and motorcars, but they were superstitious and feared the creatures of the dark more than any logic should dictate.

  Tossing the lad to the ground, Tresset paused, sniffing the air, listening to the sounds of his element—rustling leaves, birds, the lapping of the nearby lake, a wolf tracking a rabbit off to the east. No, the villagers were not close. He had time to recoup, time to draw the needed essence from the shivering youth. Tresset squatted, lowering himself to where he could gaze at the young man face-to-face. The lad was dark of hair and light of complexion. His nose was a bit straight, but not large. His mouth was small, but his lips reasonably full. All of this was bordered by a round smooth face with virtually no angles or juts. The lad was not so much handsome as he was pretty.

  The boy renewed his flagging whimpers as Tresset slowly reached ar
ound to the back of his neck, placing his palm there, inserting his bed of tiny needles into the spine, drawing essence from within. Once again, the burning tingle raced through his weary form as he closed his eyes and welcomed the essence with a gentle purr. Oh, how it stung. The glorious pain of it all. This youth was unsoiled, so unlike that pitiful drunk of the night before. His young, vibrant essence would renew Tresset; recreate him in some small fashion. Tresset would be fresh and pure, the corruption of the other, diminished by the new.

  The boy shuddered and retched. Tresset pulled away. He had nearly taken too much. This one must live. Tresset must draw from him again and then again until all that had come the night before had been eradicated. Tresset laid the boy back onto a bed of golden leaves. He would sleep. He would heal. Perhaps in another day, two at the most, Tresset would draw from him again. And then, perhaps a third time as well. By then the boy would be weak and useless. Tresset would allow him to succumb then. But only then.

  After drawing the essence, the familiar waves of vertigo rushed over him. But this made him smile. The lad’s substance was being integrated into his being, battling for supremacy over that of the drunk. Leaning up against a large bent oak, Tresset closed his eyes, allowing his body to work its wondrous miracles of recreation as he rested.

  * * * *

  When Tresset awoke, it was to a curious itching on his arm, and his leg, and on his other arm. He found that there were small red sores about his form that itched and burned.

  The drunk!

  The drunk had had such sores.

  Tresset hadn’t thought of it at the time—had barely noticed it really. But, upon reflection, Tresset could remember one on the back of the man’s right hand, and another just under his chin. What disease was this? What had this foul human done to Tresset?

  The resting place was beside a small lake. Tresset raced into the icy green water, scrubbing at his own rubbery skin with a jagged stone, drawing blood as he scoured the offending sores from his form. Again and again, he scraped at the things, allowing the frigid water to rush over the wounds. But the burning, the itching would not go away. He was unclean. He was unclean!

  Racing up the small muddy beach with an anguished roar, he made his way to the still unconscious youth. “You humans! You are diseased. You corrupt all that you touch.”

  The boy came awake with a start, and howled in fear at the sight of his captor. With the subtle pleas of, “Bitte, bitte.” Please, please. He attempted to scoot back out of the monster’s reach. Tresset had no patience for either the screams or the weak attempt at escape. His only thought was to dilute the drunk’s influence. His palm found the back of the boy’s neck. He pulled the lad to his feet, pressing him against his breast. There was a soft, moist popping sound as Tresset’s tiny hollow spines once again punctured the boy’s skin. He drew essence, and continued to draw.

  The boy’s eyes glossed over into a hazy gray.

  Tresset continued.

  The boy drooled thick yellow mucus, his head lolling to one side.

  Tresset still continued.

  The boy lost consciousness, his eyes rolling back, his tongue extending.

  Tresset still continued. His entire being burned, but he continued.

  The boy gasped twice, and then stopped breathing, his form becoming limp and useless even as Tresset pressed him even closer against his own chest.

  Still Tresset continued.

  Finally, when he could remain upright no longer, he dropped the withered corpse into the shallow lakeside water and collapsed onto the ground, quivering and burning, still scratching at the offending sores.

  He awoke beside the shimmering lake. The boy’s body had been pulled away as the tide had come and gone. Too bad. The youth would have made a tender meal. Tresset blinked. It was again nighttime. But which night? Had he simply slept through the evening, or all the way into the following day? He was confused, disoriented—and dirty. He felt such an incredible filth about his form. The sores were gone. Or, at least, they were no longer visible. But still he felt an amazing uncleanliness. His legs wobbly, his bearings skewed, he tossed himself into the lake and began scouring his own offensive form.

  He spent days like this. Alone in the secluded forest. The villagers had never found him, nor had Dolnaraq appeared. Tresset simply spent his days bathing, scrubbing, wearing his skin away. But still he was unclean. He must be. There was just a sense of it.

  Eventually he was forced to move on. The need for essence was upon him, and there was still Dolnaraq to consider. Where had his companion gone off to? Why hadn’t the younger molt come searching for Tresset and found him in his lakeside hideaway?

  Perhaps he had.

  Perhaps Dolnaraq had stumbled across him while he was riddled with disease and decided it better to leave Tresset to his own agonies. Anger welled up in the young reyaqc. Indignation. A sense of ultimate betrayal.

  But, no. Not yet. Find the pup first. Then determine his guilt. Perhaps he too had been infected by that foul village and feared revealing his own disfigurement to Tresset.

  The reyaqc swooned, a sudden vertigo upon him. Essence. First essence, then Dolnaraq. Tresset clawed at his own skin, picked at invisible scabs. He was, and would always be, unclean.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dolnaraq had heard the shouts, the cries, the panicked bustle as the townsfolk discovered the murdered drunks. He’d been toward the east end of the village, having drawn essence from a finely dressed man who claimed to be der rechtsanwalt, an attorney. The slight man with the large mustache and even larger nose had pleaded for mercy, begged for forgiveness, confessed of sins with someone called Abigail, and offered to handle all of Dolnaraq’s litigations. The young molt understood very little of this and simply silenced the annoying little man by drawing essence and leaving him slumped on a sofa.

  Dolnaraq had then discovered the man’s icebox, nearly empty but for a glass bottle partially filled with goat’s milk and a red slab of meat neatly wrapped in white paper. Dolnaraq quickly consumed the cold bloody flesh, ripping at it with his sharp canines, and grunting with pleasure at the bittersweet taste of blood. Still weakened from the infusion of essence, Dolnaraq then curled up on the patch of rug under the small dining room table, resting as his body worked to incorporate that which the man had given.

  The young molt awoke to the sounds of panicked villagers. “Tresset,” he whispered as he rose. “Tresset.”

  Dolnaraq cocked his head back, sniffed the air, his ears rotated, turning from side-to-side, attuned to the chaotic sounds. Within seconds, the young molt had discerned the scene. Tresset had slain a man and fiercely wounded another. The bodies had been discovered, his companion pursued. Dolnaraq was still weak. His limbs were sore and his vision clouded, but he was not incapacitated. He’d been slow in drawing the essence of the man, cautious. Unlike Tresset, he was still able to function at near full capacity.

  Bolting through the doorway, Dolnaraq sprinted toward the rising commotion. But he was not alone. Humans seemed to pour from every home, alerted by these same shouts of horror. Dolnaraq was quickly sighted and pursued.

  As had Tresset, Dolnaraq scrambled one direction then another, weaving between buildings, clawing at anyone who approached. There were screams and curses, cries of “der werwolf,” but Dolnaraq ignored all of it. He was focused primarily on the scents of the village, on locating Tresset. As he neared the wooded border of the town, a man stepped before him, lean, gray-haired, with the thin line of a mustache on his upper lip. He was old, but not feeble. Bare-chested, his biceps rippled as he lifted a broad two-sided ax above his head and brought it down, missing Dolnaraq by only inches as the frightened molt dived to his left.

  Dolnaraq was young, agile, accustomed to the fights of survival. Instinctively, he buried his long sharp canines into his attacker’s calf, bringing the man to his knees with a painful howl. Another quick chomp and the jugular opened, splaying a red fountain on the approaching mob and giving the young molt the oppo
rtunity to scamper away unimpaired as his pursuers gasped in horror.

  Tresset’s scent was on the subtle breeze. It seemed he had made the forest. Dolnaraq smiled as he sprinted forward, darting into the green sanctuary, racing between limbs and stones as only one of the forest’s true inhabitants could do. Small black birds fluttered to the sky and a lop-eared rabbit bounded out of the young molt’s path. The scents and sounds of the village diminished to near nonexistent and Dolnaraq savored the fresh aroma of vegetation.

  But there was another scent as well. A foul smell, and one too familiar. No villager could have raced ahead of him. None could possibly have outpaced him in his own environ. Then why did he once again smell the rank human odor?

  A shot rang out. The molt was spun around and thrown to the ground, his face buried in the brush. His left shoulder burned with a fierce fire that seemed to traverse the entirety of his arm. There was blood. Too much blood. He tried to rise but his limbs betrayed him. There were voices, but not those from the village behind. These were from ahead. Two brightly dressed men emerged from the trees just to the right of center. One was large, burly, with a belly that hung well over his belt. His slit-like eyes were shaded by unusually bushy brows, and his entire face reddened with the exertion of the hunt. The other man, thin and slightly hunched, was much younger, perhaps just exiting his teens. His loose brown hair spilled over his face nearly to the tip of his nose, and his mouth hung open in surprise and fear.

  The larger man lifted the shotgun midway up his chest, apparently contemplating another shot at Dolnaraq. They inched closer, cautiously, one step at a time. Step, pause, step, pause. All the while discussing what they should do with this unique kill. Dolnaraq attempted to speak, but it sounded mostly like a growl and the larger man hoisted his weapon to his shoulder as if to let off another shot.

  Dolnaraq heard the villagers approaching from behind. Obviously so could the two men for they jabbered even more, the larger man pointing toward Dolnaraq, then further into the trees. The younger man shook his head, a look of sheer panic on his elongated face. But the older, heavier man prevailed, marching over to Dolnaraq and giving him a swift kick in the ribs, apparently in an effort to prove that the injured molt was no threat. He proceeded toward the sound of the villagers as the younger man crept forward, cautiously grasping Dolnaraq by the ankles and yanking him into a patch of heavy brush. Dolnaraq’s eyes, fuzzy and gray, saw the dark trail of his own blood as he was pulled across the uneven ground, over a large jagged stone, and down a subtle grass-covered slope. He gasped, attempted to move one last time and then the darkness overcame him.