by Rue Volley
“I did this, you ran into me and hurt yourself, I am so sorry. I did not mean…” I held my hand up and covered my nose.
“No…I get them from time to time when I get startled, it was not you, no worries,” I said as I tried my best to compose myself and the vision I had just had. I looked up and saw the door closed in front of me and heard whimpering behind it and looked back to Devon, then a scream and nothing and he ran to the door and tried to open it as I stared at it and felt a terrible evil presence all around us.
I reached out to him as he leaned in and we both heard growling and then another scream and what I swear was several voices at once. I said “no” quieter than I intended to as he banged against the door with his shoulder, showing why he is a doctor and has a special capacity to save those he believes are in trouble. Finally the door opened and all was silent but what followed was a stench that rolled out of rotting flesh and sulfur. Devon stepped into the darkness and ripped the torn curtains from the window and I covered my mouth as a body of a woman hung in the center of the room. Her flesh blackened with death and skin cracking. I could not stop myself from walking towards her as Devon tried to speak to me and held a hand up. I stopped and looked upward to see her eyes open, black as night, skin cracking with dryness and a tongue swollen and protruding from her mouth. It did not bother me one bit, as most disturbing things would normally do to people. I tilted my head as I tried to study the deep laceration into her chest with dried blood welling up through her nightgown. I pushed it aside and saw a symbols, cut so deep into her pieces of her rib shown through and as I stepped back and ripped it from her it was shown to me…that of a pentagram and then I saw the knife lying on the floor next to her and her hand bloody as if she had done it to herself. Devin then took my arm and pulled me out as others entered the room including the owner and screams welled up from women who could not stand the sight. I looked down the hallway as Hilary and Emma stood at my doorway and Emma smiled at me and I narrowed my eyes as I swear her teeth looked sharpened for a second and then Devon blocked my view and stared at me.
“Are you okay?” he asked me and I blinked and looked up to him.
“How did Hilary’s husband die?” I asked him and he paused.
“I should check on them, they are both fragile in times of crisis.”
I watched him leave me and stood there rubbing my arm as others moved around me in a panic. Me, not so much, I suddenly felt like things were about to change forever.
****
Dinner was not pleasant as everyone sat in the dining room of the bar and ate in silence. Devon, being a doctor, had removed the body and it had been placed in a make shift morgue for him to tinker with, but he had not left Hilary or Emma since the discovery and I was sort of out of it. Not in shock, but I just felt like a storm was brewing. I am certain anyone could relate to that, or perhaps not. I do not know. All I know is I had changed into my clothing that I wear to hunt predators in ranches and my guns, two of them. My favorite and they both fit in my hands like they were made for me, but that is crazy to think. I mean a gun is made to its own design and then the buyer happens across it. There is no way a gun is made for you and you alone but mine are very comfortable, like an old friend and I had purchased them years prior from a blacksmith who had made them and never sold them to anyone, but when I came along he had said to me… “Ahhh, and there you are.” Like he was waiting on me, or they were, I have no clue. It was all so long ago and a bit bizarre even for my taste that the details sometimes elude me. I was pulled from the memory of that day when Emma crawled onto my lap and Hilary reached for her but I smiled and held my hand up mouthing ‘it is okay’ as Emma leaned back on me as if she was listening to my heart. I looked to Devon who was chewing and staring off into nothing.
“Are you okay?” I asked him and he looked at me and grinned, waving his fork about and flinging a bit of potato from it. It landed on my plate
He laughed as he leaned back and added a pretty smiled too. He let the laughter take him and Hilary smiled and Emma laughed too. His clumsy behavior was needed to break the tension and I watched him as he leaned back up and sighed.
“Would you like to join me on a walk?”
I nodded and stood up, handing Emma to Hilary and he took my hand as they watched us. I stood up and looked back at them.
“Lock the door,” I said slowly as I took my skeleton key off and handed it to Hilary and she nodded. I looked back to Devon and smiled at him.
“After you,” I said as I waved a hand and he allowed me to man handle him.
We walked down the dirt street as I glanced up at the full moon and then over to him as he was caught staring at me and then returned his gaze forward. I cleared my throat and opened my mouth as he stopped and grabbed my arm. He pulled me to him before I could say ‘no’ but honestly I didn’t want to. He touched my face and then undid my hair I had wound in a ball on the back of my head and let it flow over my shoulders. I looked up to see an old woman staring us down shaking her head and I took his hand and walked quickly from the street and towards the woods. Once in, I drug him along until we reached the creek bed and then I turned and started to undo my blouse as he watched me. I grinned and glanced at his shirt and he started to fiddle with his buttons too. His hands were visibly shaking and I stopped and stepped up to him, reaching up and touching his face and he relaxed a bit. I mean he has certainly been with a woman before at his age. Most men have there go at a girl by 15, some as young as 13 but he seemed awkward and unknowing so I took his hand and placed it against my cheek, closing my eyes as he muscles untightened and he let his fingers touch me gently as I hoped he would. A bit of tenderness is needed I would say. For both of us and here in the calmness of the woods and a gentle purring of water running behind us, maybe we can just pretend everything is normal for a moment and enjoy something as it should be…for just what it is, with no lurking expectations. He stopped and leaned in, allowing his lips to brush against mine and his eyes closed first. I guess even now, feeling completely fine and knowing I can handle myself I still stand vigilant just in case anything goes sideways on me. I can’t have it and in the end the truth about me will not allow me to love anyway. I am perhaps a beast, not so different from the one that hung in that room. I enjoy the kill, every single time, almost as much as the touch I am feeling now and the impending orgasm that will hopefully follow.
Devon lowered us together but I quickly pushed him back and straddled him, undoing my top the rest of the way and pulling it off to expose my breasts, which are average as they go I would assume. I mean at least they are a decent size and do not sag as I have had the displeasure of seeing at the hotel before. Not the prettiest of sights when a woman does nothing on upkeep. My secret is the inability to age past where I am physically, but mind, is that of an old soul I would assume at this point.
I reached down and undid his pants as he squirmed a bit. I smiled and looked at him.
“Have you always had the upper hand?” I asked him and he shook his head at me.
“Would you like to be on top?” I added and he rolled me over smiling at my lips.
“Izzy, I have never known a woman such as yourself, it is a shock to the system.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
He kissed me hard on the mouth and I quickly parted his lips with my tongue and he moaned as I moved mine slowly against his, giving him a bit more pleasure than a normal kiss would provide you. It made him press against me harder and I reached down and undid his pants the rest of the way and slid my hand in, letting my fingers graze his hard cock as he shuddered slightly and sighed at my lips.
“Izzy” he whispered and I rolled him over again as I had him transfixed on my ability to please him and I leaned up, placing his cock into me and it slid up as deep as I had taken any before. I leaned back and moaned as I settled down onto him and could feel every part of myself waking up in desire I had not known before. I rotated my hips slowly and he arched his back, grabbing at m
y outer thighs and squeezing as he allowed me to find a rhythm on top of him. I suddenly started to move quicker and quicker, not minding him or anything else really as I felt an orgasm welling up in me much stronger than any I had produced for myself in a decade of masturbation. He quickly sat up, grabbing me up and standing up easier than I would think anyone could and backed me against the large tree half hanging over the water. The hard bark digging into my back almost added to his sudden aggression and it made me even wetter as he had my legs up on his arms and thrust into me harder and harder as I called out his name and dug my nails into his back deeper and deeper until I stopped and he came but the smell of his blood is what made me completely lose my moment of pleasure. I pulled my fingers from behind him and the blood was dark against the light of the moon but what struck me even more was the smell...that of sulfur. He stopped thrusting and I heard something odd, that of a tearing, of flesh and I watched as two large black wings unfolded behind him and I pushed him back dropping quickly and looking for my pants and the guns that lay with them. I finally spotted them as he stretched his arms out and his wings followed almost as if he was using them for the first time. I have to assume yes, for some reason his attraction to me was animalistic as was mine to him and it had no doubt a connection to the blood that flowed in his veins, almost the same as my own as I am obviously infected with the same curse as he is. I scrambled to my guns and Devon looked upward and was in the air before I could roll onto my back and get a shot off. I stood up quickly as I tried to see his silhouette against the night sky and it was then I knew where he was heading, back to town and I pulled my shirt on and my pants as I stumbled through the woods and then broke out of the trees, fastening my belt. I then pulled my guns and held them up as something strange happened. I felt a slight vibration in my arms and looked down to see light. That is the only way I can describe it, but it was deep in my skin, hidden and held back by something I do not know. I blinked and it had faded away and it was then that I heard the first scream, followed by another and then gun shots, so I ran as fast my legs would carry me back to town where I found exactly what I did not want to see.
I cocked both of my guns as I stared down the main dirt road and saw 5 demon beasts circling overhead and one in the middle of the road with a woman pinned down. Its claw rose and I held my guns steady out in front of me and aimed as it tensed up and its black wings twitched above it. Was it Devon? I could not let that stop me so I took a slow breath and as I had done so many times before I aimed without aiming and sent my bullets downwind and hit their mark as always. The beast screamed and I had to cover my ears from the volume of it not unlike what had happened earlier in my vision. It tried to rise but twitched to the right and then the left as my bullets had obviously done it harm but not mortally wounded it. I then ran towards the woman as she rolled on the ground and bled. I stopped above her as I looked down and saw the demon had bitten into her neck and blood was coming out far too quickly. I covered the gash with my hand and the blood felt warm and a bit to enticing from where I stood. I could easily drink it and that thought alone disgusted me. I then felt a bit of burning in my mouth and reached up, only to be cut by the sharpness of my own teeth and it was then I stood up as the woman lay dying at my feet and pulled my guns again, full of rage at what lurked in me and it was then that I knew the human in me was the only thing keeping me alive, the only part of me worth saving. I am demon, I am just as the black hearted beast had made me and this gave me skill and ability to see them…but somehow, I hung onto my will and never transformed into what rested in my the pits of my soul, even if I had one…I cannot be certain. I then felt my body tremble as symbols started to glow under my skin once again and they rose, slowly at first and then burrowed their way out of my skin without cutting or leaving a trace of ever being. I watched them all culminate into light as they snaked around my hands and then seeped into every part of my guns, the letters started to appear on their own, on the outer edge of each gun and I turned them as the word “IZZY” appeared in each one and I smiled as I felt it fill me with a sense of purpose finally, after all of this time and the fading hope of ever being more or getting one answer.
One beast descended upon me and I ducked and rolled onto my back as my hands gripped my guns and I kept my eyes open for the first time. I focused on it as it rose into the air and then turned on me again, its sharpened teeth drooling and stench rolling out before it of sulfur and rotting flesh. I took a breath and everything seemed to slow down around me as it had in the hallway and it was then that I placed one gun high and one low as if my body knew and as I squeezed the trigger it felt new, as if I was being born into the world I had always wanted to be in. A world I was made to protect from these things that had accidently created me, the only thing that could kill them.
One bullet ripped through its skull, taking fragments of bone and blackened flesh with it and the other burrowed deep into its chest. I did not know for sure if this was the key but my hands remained steady and my fingers tight against the trigger just in case. But then it stopped, mouth agape and looking confused and it dropped, as I had to roll out of the way. It’s mass lay lumped beside me as I breathed hard and scrambled to my feet. I looked at the woman and she lay dead, no life left to save and my heart ached but more than that it filled me with a bit of rage that gave me even more courage to stand again and raise my guns into the air but the beast all rose higher, screaming at me as they saw their fallen brethren beside me in the dirt. Black ooze rolling out underneath it. I lowered my guns and looked up to the hotel, which was completely dark and knew then that this was not even the battle, it was the prelude to something I dreaded in my heart needed to be done.
I stepped up to the door and kicked it wide open, one gun in first then the other as my eyes adjusted to the dark and suddenly could see as I had never had before. Everything had a bit of life to it and the only way to explain it properly would be to say, if it had a heart beat it also had a sound, a humming…a blood flow and a smell undeniable to me as life. I turned quickly as the owner rose from behind the counter grinning in the most diabolical way, he reached up and cracked his head to the side and for any human it would have been a fatal blow that would strike them dead but this is no human, as I would suspect much of this town is not now and the whole reason I was drawn to it as was Devon, his sister and Emma... I paused and thought of her sweet face and looked towards the ceiling as I heard small footsteps running and a giggling and the hotel owner took it as a sign to rush me but I blew a hole the size of a fist straight through his eye and he grumbled something that resembled the word “bitch” and dropped to the floor, twitching and hissing like a snake slit from belly to asshole. I lowered my guns and smiled at him.
“Really?” I said and I shot him again in the heart and he immediately stopped moving. I then heard the laughter again and looked up as a small face peeked around the corner at me from the top of the stairs and she had black eyes, deep as night and soulless as any beast I had encountered thus far. It infuriated me to think of her soul being ripped form her at such a young age and hurt me even deeper to think that my first awakening would include killing her. But first I have to find Devon, as he rushed from me and I lost him in the excitement outside. I mean he may have been one of the beasty shits hovering above me, how am I to be certain. Then I ducked as a doll flew over my head and once again Emma scurried from site, up the wall and quite disturbing. I cocked both guns and knew I had to handle it now before it became more. I mean how long had this town stood, feeding on visitors? 20 years no less I would bet. But I am here now to set this shit right and that I shall.
I stepped up and the first board creaked, making me sigh. This building is shit as they all are and sneaking up on anything will be completely undoable. I stepped again, holding my guns up close to my face, IZZY shining from the slivers of moonlight penetrating the holes in the outer wood. I stopped and moved against the wall as I heard a thud and then what sounded like dragging of a body perhaps? I could o
nly hope that Emma had not killed Hilary, who I would assume was not stricken with the demon bite as Emma and Devon had been. At least she never appeared tainted in anyway and for now I am assuming she is human and needs my help desperately. I peeked around the corner and down the hallway as quickly as possible and saw Hilary’s limp legs being drug into a room to the right and pulled back, taking a slow breath and then jumping out and holding my guns up, shoulder height as I stepped forward and stopped. The door to the left was open and the room dark and it was a perfect trap so I turned and held steady as I waited for anything to jump out at me but nothing did. I looked down and realized I was standing in a pool of thick blood and then as my eyes rose I saw a hand, fingers extended in an unnatural fashion and I leaned down, touching the wrist and it moved not attached to anything and I tossed it and stood up quickly as I looked back down the hallway and saw a shadow, small and childlike, hands behind it’s back and humming a nursery rhyme of some sort.
“Emma?” I said and she stopped moving and tilted her head.
“IZZY,” it whispered back to me, half hissing and a much deeper tone than any child could produce.
“Who are you?” I asked it and it laughed at me.
“Who are you?” it said in Emma’s small voice and it sent a chill through me then it bent backwards and I could hear a bit of cracking as it contorted her body to the point of almost breaking and I lowered my guns.
“Hey!” I said and it stopped and rose up watching me as I wiggled my guns and started to lower them.
It grinned and stepped forward a bit, allowing the moonlight to give me my first glimpse at what I was dealing with. It was Emma’s small body, her sweet face, but her eyes were dark, dark circles embellishing them and her hair a mess. Her skin looked dry as well as her lips as if skin was starting to flake and wanting to fly away in the wind. She stared at me not as if she knew me but as if I may be a toy she would love to own and play with and perhaps the demon blood in her could not quite get up to killing speed as the child struggled to understand what was happening to her. I lowered to the ground and laid my guns down as she watched me and remained calm.
