by Greg Dragon
Ma rose and shuffled the other kids into the bedroom. They huddled together in the corner between the wall and the bed, away from the window.
“Lions,” whispered Wyatt as he gave Hannah a knowing nod.
“Shut up,” she hissed back as she reached over Maddy to smack his arm.
Outside, Abby and her father were creeping toward the barn. Pa carried his shotgun in one hand and a lantern in the other. The lantern bobbed as they walked, casting strange jumping shadows over the ground. Pained screams still echoed out through the night, mingled with snarls and growls that were unfamiliar.
Pa held up his hand as they reached the door. Abby crouched beside it and held her shotgun at the ready.
The screams stopped short, but they could hear muffled grunts from inside. “What is that?” Abby whispered.
Pa scrunched his face up and shook his head. “I don’t know. Stay here.”
He pushed the door open and peeked inside. “Oh my God...”
The grunts stopped instantly as he spoke out loud.
“Shit.” Pa took a step back. “Run, Abigail.”
Abby rose and stumbled away from the barn. “What is it?” She raised her shotgun toward the door.
Her father stepped in front of her. “Go, Abby. Just go. Don’t stop until you reach the house.”
She took several stuttering steps and turned back toward the barn. A growling moan echoed from just inside the door.
Pa turned and saw Abby standing just behind him. He ran to her and gave her a rough shove. “Don’t look back! Just run!”
The terror in his eyes got her moving. She took off at a run. Behind her, the shotgun barked once, twice. Then Pa screamed.
Abigail tripped over her feet as she tried to simultaneously move forward toward the house and turn back toward her father. The shotgun spun out of her hands and landed in the bushes next to the stairs.
The lantern flew from her father’s hand and crashed onto the dry grass. Flames licked across the ground toward the barn. The growing flames silhouetted two men. At least, Abby thought they were men. Their skin was ashy gray in the orange light.
For a brief moment, Abby watched in horror as they bent over her father and tore chunks of flesh from his body. His screams pierced deep into her soul.
Then one of the men looked up. Her eyes met his. He snarled and rose from his crouched position with her father’s blood dripping down his chin. He stared at her long and hard. Time froze as her heart stopped beating and her breath hitched in her chest. Then he took a step toward her.
That was all the urging she needed. She climbed to her feet and raced up the stairs, slamming the door closed behind her. She stumbled across the room and yanked open the door to the bedroom. Her sisters screamed as they scrambled over each other to try not to be in front.
“It’s me. Shhh, it’s just me.” Abby whispered. She pressed her ear against the door. Slow steps thudded across the porch and the door to the house crashed open so hard the windows rattled on their frames. “Out the window.” She urged her family up and to the small window.
Wyatt hoisted Hannah up onto the sill. Her eyes met Abby’s briefly before she disappeared out into the growing night. Madeleine was already climbing up on Wyatt’s knee before she was on the ground.
“Wyatt, go.” Abby’s eyes darted between the window and the door as her brother hefted himself up and out. She heard him grunt as he hit the ground.
The bedroom door rattled. “Abby.”
Abigail turned from the window. Her mother stood with her back pressed against the door. She held a broomstick in her hands. “Go,” she said.
Abby shook her head. “No, Ma. I won’t leave you.”
“You have to. Save them, Abby. Please. No one else can.” Tears welled in her eyes as the door slammed against her back again and again, trying to shove her away from it. “I love you. Go.” Then she turned her back and threw the door open. With a scream, she launched herself at the man.
“No!” Abby stared in abject horror as her mother grappled with the intruder, torn between helping her mother and protecting the rest of her family. For one intense moment, he looked away from her mother and his eyes met Abby’s. She gasped. His eyes were the dull emptiness of death.
“Abby, go!”
Her mother’s cry snapped Abby out of her daze. She threw herself over the window sill. Her brother and sisters were huddled outside, waiting. Maddy was sobbing and Hannah was shaking with fear.
“Around the house. To the horses.” The three horses were in a corral on the side of the house, away from the barn where the cattle had been. Pa’s horse, the Crawford’s old plow horse, and the horse Madeleine had borrowed from the stables were all snorting and shuffling in annoyed confusion when they arrived.
“Hurry.” Abby vaulted over the fence and led Pa’s horse back to it so Hannah could climb on as Madeleine got on her own horse. Wyatt mounted the plow horse and they were ready to go. She opened the gate and then swung up behind Hannah.
Madeleine led the way out of the corral, but in her heightened state of panic, she steered the horse toward the barn. The other man who had attacked Pa saw them as they exited and made a beeline toward them. His gait was slow and halting, but Madeleine’s horse fed off her fear. She had such a tight grip on the reins that the poor creature didn’t know which way to turn. His instincts collided with his training and in the confusion, he reared back and threw her to the ground.
Madeleine’s screams rent the air, but they were cut short as she hit the ground. Her neck was bent at an uncomfortable angle and her eyes stared into the night.
“Maddy!” Abby shouted for her sister as more men swarmed out of the barn, drawn by the noise. They descended upon the still warm body like a horde of dogs.
With tears threatening her vision, Abby steered her horse away from the barn toward the road. “Wyatt! This way!”
The boy made to follow, but his horse was slow and scared. The man who had been angling for Maddy was nearly at his flank. He lunged at Wyatt and latched onto his leg with a death grip. Wyatt shouted and kicked, but the man’s teeth sank into his ankle.
Abby spun her horse around and raced at the man. As she rode by, she drove her foot into his head. He released his grip on Wyatt and fell to the ground. Wyatt kicked his horse into gear and they fled to the road. The men fell further and further behind until they were out of sight. Abby kept them running until the horses were slathered in sweating and breathing so hard she thought they might collapse. Only then did they slow down. Hannah sank against Abby’s back and wept. Tears streamed down Wyatt’s face. Abby buried her pain deep beneath the hate and anger that was growing in her heart.
Chapter 12
Little Bear beckoned for Charity to move next to David. Her body was still weak and shaking, but she dragged herself across the floor until she was next to her husband. He stared at her. Not at her, but at the blood covering her mouth and dress. The strange hunger in his eyes both excited and terrified her. It was the same hunger she felt when she saw Isabelle.
“You are not like the others.” The translator settled back onto the floor by Little Bear’s side and relayed his words.
Charity looked up at the young man’s empty eyes. “What others?”
He waved a hand at David and the soldier. “The others like us. The other turned ones.”
She shook her head. “I don’t...” Her brain was clouded, like she had been drinking too much wine.
Little Bear reached out and brushed a hand over her hair to smooth some of the knots. “Do not worry, my dear child. You will understand all soon enough.”
Charity felt sluggish and confused, but a little worm of thought niggled at the back of her mind, forcing its way forward. He had called her a child. He was patronizing her. She was pretty sure she was older than him by several years, yet he spoke to her as if he was her elder, a grandfather coddling his young ignorant granddaughter. It was the way Catherine had, the way David began to after they moved out
west, and she hated it with every fiber of her being.
She stiffened and pulled her head away so he couldn’t touch her without stretching. “Please explain to me what is going on.” Her voice had dropped an octave and she put a sharp edge on it.
He sat back in the chair and steepled his fingers. He didn’t seem to notice her change in demeanor. “Very well, my child. It is a long story, with much pain. Are you sure you want to hear all of it?”
“We have time.” She rose and pulled her chair over. She would not sit on the floor like a dog. She took her time arranging her skirts before turning her attention to him.
The corners of Little Bear’s mouth flickered. Was it a smile? A frown? She couldn’t tell without the expression in his eyes to guide her.
“It started several months ago,” he began. At times he spoke in his own language and Walton, the soldier sitting on the floor beside him, had to translate. “I don’t know exactly how long. A band of men came while I was away from my village. They were mostly soldiers who ran away during the war. They were disgraced, and what little mercy they had was torn away by the harsh life they led. The men killed everyone in my village, my whole family. It was all gone, burned to the ground. Barely a dozen of us remained, mostly those who had not been there when it began.”
He paused as his voice cracked. Charity waited for him to continue. “My grandfather was the village shaman. I was to follow in his footsteps, and he had taught me how to contact the spirits. I used what knowledge I could remember and attempted a ceremony. I called upon them for help, to make those awful men pay for what they had done. The spirits did answer, but not in the way I expected. Their gift was both a blessing and a curse. They gave me the ability to seek my revenge, but at a horrible price.”
He was silent for awhile. His nostrils flared and his jaw was set in a tight line. “What you see, the gray skin, the dull eyes, it is both a tool for vengeance and the cruelest form of torture.”
“What are we?”
He smiled sadly. “I do not know, to be honest. We are beyond the living. We are greater than them. We do not feel much pain, unless it is very intense. We do not feel cold, though it makes us slower. We are stronger, and at night when the sun has gone down, we are faster. But we must eat.”
“We feed on people? The living?”
He nodded. “We feed on living flesh. It sustains us. People, animals, anything will do. We have discovered that humans taste the best and provide the most energy. But I prefer animal flesh.”
Charity stared at him. Their conversation was so surreal, so impossible. Her eyes darted to David. “Are you the leader? Is that why they listen to you, why they act like trained dogs?”
Little Bear laughed. It was a hollow, low sound that sent shivers up Charity’s spine. “You are a very inquisitive one. Yes, I am the leader. I was the first to be given this... gift, if you will. Unlike the others, I have retained all my abilities, all my memories. My mind is clear, it is sharp.”
The young woman shot a glance at her husband. “And what of the others? How are they different?”
“They are...” He paused, searching for the right words. “Few of those who have been turned are fully themselves. They lack memories. They are listless and slow to respond unless there is fresh meat around. Many do not know who they are or where they came from. They are simply beasts who wander in search of food. Unless they have direction. They follow directions very well. They obey without question. Only twice have I had to kill a creature who did not respond, who let the power of hunger overtake them. The others seemed to understand that and they feared me even more. The fear works to my advantage.”
“David?” Charity called her husband’s name. He was still staring at her, at the blood on her face and neck, but he did not immediately respond to her call. “David,” she said again, more firmly. She waved a hand in front of his face and he lifted his head slowly until his dull eyes met hers.
“He did not know his name. Your maid told us. He is like a newborn pup, untrained, confused. I had to stop him from doing to you what you did to your maidservant.”
Charity shook her head as pictures of her past life flashed in front of her eyes. Sitting on her father’s knee as a child, crying at her mother’s side at his death, the pain and anger she felt, the embarrassment. Meeting David for the first time, the joy of finally being released from the poverty, at finally becoming part of the society she adored, and the devastation when she realized it was all being taken away again. She remembered David’s betrayal as he slowly turned against her, treating her like she was inferior instead of his wife and equal. She remembered the shock and fear of the night before when she awoke to find him at her bedside, when he lunged at her, when he attacked her and turned her into whatever it was that they were.
A hand went unbidden to the wound on her neck. She brushed it gently with her fingers. “Are we dead?”
Little Bear cocked his head. “We are turned.”
Charity frowned at him for a moment as she remembered an article she read a few months back in one of the newspapers she subscribed to that was shipped out regularly on the train. It was about a woman in some jungle in some far off place Charity had never heard of who was dead and came back to life. She snorted now as she had then. “Impossible,” she said, shaking her head.
She could feel Little Bear’s curiosity as he stared at her with those empty, soulless eyes. He was looking at her in his own way. Judging her, appraising her. It made her skin crawl and she had an almost unstoppable urge to hide behind her chair. Instead, she lifted her chin and stared back into the big red pits in the middle of his face.
The corners of his lips twitched again. This time it was definitely a smile. “What is impossible, my dear child, is you. You seem to have suffered none of the effects of this... disease, we will call it.”
His continued hesitation at naming what had happened to them gave Charity an idea. “You’ve never had to explain this to anyone before, have you?”
Little Bear folded his hands in his lap. “No. I have not. I have thought about it often, pondered through the effects with each new convert, but I have not had the opportunity to discuss it with another person.”
“Until now.”
He nodded once. “Until now.”
Charity pressed her lips together. Her mind was working furiously. Her fear and confusion were receding rapidly, pushed back by the cool and intelligent side of her brain. She was in a very interesting position. A very interesting position indeed. “How many of us are there?”
Little Bear smiled. “A good number. Not too many to feed, but enough so that we do not have to worry about being overrun. I choose my targets carefully, and I am even more careful with those who we allow to turn.”
“Why? Why not just turn everyone? If they’re all like David, why do we need to worry?”
The man laughed again. “We cannot turn everyone. We need to eat. Some are injured in such a way that they cannot be turned. If their neck or back is broken or their skull crushed, they will not turn. And a smaller band can travel easier without worrying about being spotted or attacked.”
Charity raised an eyebrow at him. “Attacked? You said we were stronger and faster. We should not fear being attacked. We should not fear anyone.”
Little Bear’s lips pressed into a line for a moment before he spoke. “You are still young, my child. You do not understand. It is better this way. Trust me.”
He said ‘trust me’ like a father would tell his child to trust him, basically scolding her for questioning his leadership. Irritation and rebellion boiled up into Charity’s throat, but she forced it back down. Instead, she forced a puppy-dog smile to her face. “You are right. I am still young and I do not understand all of this yet. Will you teach me?”
His hard face broke into a grin. “Of course. You will be my student, I will be your teacher. Together we will run this ragtag band of converts.” He rose from his chair and held out his hand. “Come, I will show you the he
rd.”
Charity slipped her hand into his and let him lead her out onto the porch. “Come, David, Walton.” Her husband and the soldier rose from their positions and shuffled along behind the pair. Little Bear pushed open the screen door and beckoned for Charity to walk through.
It was quiet outside. Not even the wind stirred. The sun was hot and in the sky. Charity took Little Bear’s offered arm and together they stepped off the porch. Her skin immediately began to sting. The intense heat pulled the moisture from her skin as they walked. She now understood the cracks she had seen on Walton and Little Bear’s faces and hands. She lowered her head and let her hair fall around her face to offer a little protection.
“Ah, yes. The sun does not like us. We must move around when it is weakest or it sucks our energy. I have had more than one man fall from its vicious heat.”
Charity cut a glance at Little Bear, but said nothing. Her lips were already starting to burn as she hurried along. Her eyes went wide as they passed the corral. It was empty of horses, but pools of sticky blood seeped into the cracked earth. She tried not to think of the animals she had cared for and allowed him to lead her to the closest barn. As they approached, she could hear noises from inside. The shuffling and moaning grew louder when Walton opened the door.
There was a large group of men and women just inside the barn, but they moved aside as the doors opened, crowding out of the rays of sun that burst through the opening. Walton closed the doors behind them, but the others stayed where they were, leaving a gap of several feet between the crowd and the newcomers. The stairs to the hay loft were to the right and Little Bear led Charity toward them. Others shuffled out of the way. Two large men who looked much like Little Bear were standing at the base of the stairs, blocking it. When Little Bear and Charity reached them, he nodded to them,
“Gray Wolf, North Wind, please step aside.”
The men immediately moved off the stairs to let them pass. Walton followed them up to the loft, but David stayed below with the rest of the crowd.
