LIFE NEAR THE BONE

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  "Your friend might have been wrong He might not have…"

  She hissed. Silence settled between them like a heavy dew fall. Finally she said, "There is no cure. There is no antidote. You've wasted your time coming this far if you thought otherwise. Where are you from?"

  "Italy," he said. "You guessed correctly." He resumed his walking again though now his steps were no longer purposeful, and hope had fled from his face the way a butterfly races across the sky to flee the sticky petals of a poison bloom.

  "A beautiful country, I've heard."

  "Disseminated. One in ten dead," he said, thinking of his homeland and the terrible journey he had made on the strength of what his companion now called a deceit. His ship, with him in the hold, had landed in Miami and he'd traveled by night for a week to get as far as Mobile, Alabama.

  "As is this country," she said sadly. "Not even many of the Hosts are left to rule. It's all collapsed."

  "The world," he said, "will soon be a wilderness, overgrown with weeks, and ruled by the rodent."

  She shrugged. "So why waste what precious time you have left to go to Texas? They say the Hosts have cleared out from Houston to the panhandle. The ones left alive are in a fort near Abilene. You could starve to death looking for game or man."

  "And here? I've had no luck at all across the state of Florida either."

  "There's many Hosts left yet in this place."

  "But no hope," he said, walking faster as if to leave her behind.

  She must have halted for she spoke from his back. "How much do you want saving? I see you would travel on to a desolate empty place even when you're told there is nothing there to help you, but would you kill off the Hosts with a disease worse than the bio-metal, if you could? Even if you knew it meant the end of your human source of blood and you'd be forever dependent on the lower animals?"

  He hesitated, his steps slowing. He turned to her again. She was mesmerizing, a Merlin with riddles at her command. "What does this mean? That you can save me, that you have stop magic to stop this?" He pushed up the sleeve on his left arm and with long fingernails plucked a metal scab the size of a silver dollar from just above his elbow. The exposed raw skin glowed red a moment and then freely oozed his blood. He pitched the metal bit and heard it jangle as it hit the pavement of the street.

  "What if I told you that I am the antidote? That I am this city's liaison to gather vampires who have heard of the cure in Texas and decide which ones I'd like to save and which ones to let wander on toward death? That there are others like us scattered across the states, seeking out the wanderers? That, yes, Fondred ordered an antidote and it was created, and I was injected, and I am it."

  "I'd say that was farfetched."

  "More impossible than a phantom in Texas waiting with vials to save you?"

  He cocked his head and studied her. "Why do you tease me with all these stories? Just to confuse me so that I don't know truth from lie? I have no time for games! Even now there are bio-metal spots I can't reach formed on my back, and if I were to pull down my trousers, I'd find patches on my thighs. If I took off my shoes, they'd be there glittering between my toes, and here…" He grabbed one of his ears and pulled the lobe forward from hiding behind shoulder length hair. "Here is one trying to take over my skull!" With a wrenching movement and a groan he tore skin and metal and threw it at her feet. Long damp strands of hair clung to it and blood now poured fresh down his throat.

  "Come to me," she instructed in the seductive voice of the hunter. "Let me drink from you and save you all at once. I promise it is not a lie, nothing I have said is an untruth. If you wish for life immortal as was promised in the beginning, come to me now."

  Her hushed voice filled and thrilled him. It blinded his eyes, dampened the taste buds on his tongue, stilled the rapid beat of his heart, stole memory and fear and desire from his thoughts. He lumbered clumsily into her embrace, no more in control of his actions or emotions than he had been when he was made by his Master half a decade earlier. She was very powerful. A queen with skill enough to put him on his knees or to bay like a wolf at the stars. She could not be denied; no matter if it meant his admittance to final darkness or redemption into the everlasting ife f the undead with no worry of bio-metal encasement. He had lost all choice and did not even miss it or know the moment it actually deserted him.

  She leaned her head near the web, soggy hair that lay across his throat. With her long tongue she licked it aside. His heart slowed and he wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her in close to him, loving her, wishing to be one with her forever. It had been years, a lifetime, since he had felt such peace and serenity. Perhaps she did have the antidote in her bite, coursing in her rich blood, the miracle that would return his immortality.

  Just before she bared her teeth she said softly, "Now I will tell you the real truth."

  He sighed against her, his strength draining from him as it would if he had been hypnotized and told his limbs were turned to tubes of rubber.

  "There is no antidote in Texas. There is no antidote in me. There are no Hosts left on this entire continent, my dear friend. The few of us who are left must prey either on one another or on foreigners who come to his land. We spread the rumors that brought you. Many of us sailed to other shores, some who had the skills flew planes, but the rest, like me, who cannot leave, simply lie in wait for you."

  "Noooo," he said, drawing out the word in a whisper of breath. He felt her heat and it reminded him of the emptiness of Miami and of all the state of Florida, how he had not a human meal since he landed. Other vampires he encountered had looked haunted and frail, but none had the power of his one to capture him.

  "Yessss," she cooed, sinking her fangs into the carotid and drinking deep while Carmine silently cried for it to be over quickly.

  The fangs fastened, his head lay back, and he submitted to the last death. As he slipped from the bounds of his body he knew she had been right all along. She was the authentic antidote, the surcease from hunger and despair. He sighed with the breath of stale air left in his lungs and took the echo of that sigh with him into the blind darkness, stepping away almost happily from a world ravaged and beyond any hope of repair.

  THE END

  ROSA TWO-COINS

  Copyright Billie Sue Mosiman 1998

  First published in HORRORS! 365 SCARY STORIES, Barnes and Noble, edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, and Tekno-Books.

  In the moist twilight of New Orleans, Rosa Two-Coins wandered the streets like a wraith of fog, insubstantial. Some who saw her say she was a flower peddler, holding out nosegays for the tourists to buy. "Just two coins," she was heard to call. "For your ladylove, sir, just two coins."

  Some say she wore a nun's habit, and when she paused on the sidewalk near the haunts dealing in sickly sweet liquors, she would bless the people who came and went, holding up her rosary in ne hand against the sky like a talisman, and in the other a tin cup for offerings.

  Some called her demon. Some called her saint.

  They all knew Rosa was not of his world and, depending on what they believed, either shunned her or sought her out.

  On this night of summer mists and sudden showers, when the streets shined like wrinkled foil with reflections of lamplight, Bartholomew wove his way through the French Quarter in search of the mystical Rosa.

  Two coins were all he had to his name, having been luckless at the game of chance in this dreadful Crescent City, but he believed firmly that if he found Rosa and paid her the last he owned, his luck would return.

  Rosa found him, rather than he finding her. She stepped out from between two cedars near the church steps and said sweetly, "Young master, for two coins I will return your fortune."

  Bartholomew withdrew from her, afraid for his life No one had told him that Rosa was a hag with many decades of bitterness written in dark scrawls across her aged face. "I…I need luck, Rosa. I need my luck back or I'll be homeless by morning."

  He lay the two coins in h
er extended palm and saw them disappear. He followed her as she turned. They walked for blocks, past warehouses and closed fruit stands, walked on through the cold rainy night. Finally Rosa ducked into an alley and he rushed after her, not to be cheated of his money. There in the alley was a black door, and behind it he found Rosa squatting before a low hearth of embers.

  "Please," he said, "won't you help me? I've paid what you asked."

  "When you win, betting on credit, will you return to me here and pay me two thousand coins?"

  He almost choked. "Two thousand!"

  "It will be as nothing to a rich man like you come morning."

  He agreed quickly, but jumped when she stood abruptly and handed him a chunk of coal.

  "This is dead earth, cold and old, and for you, perhaps lucky. Keep it in your pocket and win your fortune, young mister."

  Bartholomew hurried away, drew credit on his good name, and played through the night. It was cards, it was dice, and it was the roulette. He could not lose. He began to be cheerful, a laughing, lucky man. Rains came to flood the streets and still he played, amassing more and more winnings. The dealers looked at him askance, the gambling hall's owner came from private quarters and stood by rubbing his chin, watching with a scowl on his face. A woman hung on his arm and cocktails were provided the moment his glass was empty. He laughed and laughed and laughed. His pockets bulged and on the books there was more than he could ever carry on his person. He was indeed rich now. He was the luckiest man alive.

  When morning came he had won so much that he asked for a leather bag to carry at least a portion of his winnings. The hall owner scowled more fiercely and gestured his customer be brought whatever he wanted, even a leather bag with a shoulder strap. Bartholomew's ship was sailing at noon and he must hurry, having business up-river. He snatched the bag from an employee's hand, stuffed it with his money, and tipped the boy a gold coin for his trouble.

  He forgot all about his promise to Rosa until he had boarded and the ship left shore. The sun was overhead, covered by an overcast of dark gray clouds. It would rain again. He sighed, then smiled craftily. Two thousand! The old hag was mad. Even if he had remembered, he never would have gone through with it.

  Before the ship docked again, Bartholomew had said too much about his luck, bragged too often, as happy, lucky people are wont to do.

  The thieves found him asleep in his cot and bludgeoned him until his happy face was pulp. It looked like a meat grinder had chewed his head. When the captain found the body, he set into the first landing and called for the authorities.

  A day later in New Orleans, Rose sold bouquets of violets on Desire Street. The sun was out once more, causing Rosa to shield her face with black lace s as not to scare off her customers.

  Two men came to her and dropped two thousand coins into her bucket, smiled, and bowed.

  "And the bit of coal?" she asked.

  "In his gullet, Rosa, to keep him warm in hell."

  Rosa Two-Coins cackled madly, covering her mouth with her hands. When she was done with mirth, she sobered, for she had a living to make. Her eerie voice bawled into the street, "Violets for your ladylove, sir! Just two coins, two coins only for your pretty one, two coins to make you the happiest person alive!"

  THE END

  Please read on for the opening chapters of my latest supernatural horror novel, BANISHED--available now as an e-book.

  BANISHED

  By

  Billie Sue Mosiman

  Copyright 2011 by Billie Sue Mosiman, All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Neil Jackson, Copyright 2011

  "The Magician rearranges the Universe to make himself the center, the Mystic rearranges himself to find the center."

  CHAPTER 1

  THE LITTLE DEATH

  She could barely breathe she was so hot. She could hear the night birds call and the rustle of her mother’s palm grass skirt as she moved about the small hut. She could see just the light from the flames of the fire in the center of the floor, but she could not make out anything beyond.

  She closed her eyes to blessed darkness and wondered when she would die. She knew she would never be well again, never stand and walk, never kiss her mother’s cheek, or feel the comfort of her mother’s loving embrace. She had not lived long, a handful of years, so there was not much to miss. Yet she knew she must fight against death. She must not willingly let it take her.

  A blanket of coolness slipped over her bare skin and it was not from the water her mother had been sponging onto her. She tried to reopen her eyes to discover the cause, but her lids were too heavy. She was so hot! The coolness that temporarily enveloped her was not helping. She wished they would carry her to the sea and float her in the waves.

  Dark grew darker. Grew to pitch black. Grew to encompass a vast void. She struggled to take a breath. It would not come; her lungs would not obey. She thought, Death has me. Death has slipped his arms around me and holds me so tightly I cannot breathe.

  Faintly she heard her mother’s wails, but she couldn’t lift a hand for her to come near, nor could she whisper the compassion she felt for the loved one she was leaving behind. She couldn’t even say goodbye.

  Take me to the sea, she begged of Death. Take me from this heat and pain and let me float in the cool frothy waves. I always loved…I always loved the sea.

  The heat grew like a malevolent cloud in the darkness until it filled the void. She couldn’t feel her body. She knew she was but a pinpoint of matter, a tiny bit of consciousness floating in the emptiness. It seemed time had stopped or it was moving so slowly it would last forever and nothing for her would ever change.

  I’m not ready, the child complained. I’m too young.

  And then she was swept off into the dark beyond where there was no more thought or heat or life.

  She was done with this world.

  CHAPTER 2

  A NEW TRUE BEGINNING

  “Life. A wriggling mass of cells blindly replicating, always in motion, endlessly in search of food. Is that life? They say it is.”

  The girl lay dying. Her week-long fever had put her into a coma and though her mother kept bathing her with cool water, her skin felt like hot coals. Though fevered, her light coffee-colored skin shone smooth and beautiful as a river stone in the flickering firelight.

  In the little one-room shack made from date palm leaves the heat was stifling. Not one stray breeze made its way through the open doorway. Flies were so thick they congealed the air and had to be batted away constantly from the comatose child.

  The mother, frantic about losing her only child, knowing in her heart death stood close with a skeletal arm extended, ran from the hut crying to the night heavens. She sped along the lone path through the jungle to the witch doctor’s hovel and stood outside wailing loud enough to wake the dead.

  In her native tongue she told the witch doctor about the dying child and begged for him to save her.

  It seemed to take him forever to gather his special feathers, shells, rocks, and sticks tied in bundles with strings of dried pig skin. As the mother raced back along the path to her baby, the witch doctor stayed at her side, pacing her, a pale sickle moon at their backs.

  Bursting into the hut where a small fire in the center of the floor burned, grotesque shadows swathed the little girl who lay against the back wall. Both mother and witch doctor knew it was over and done with.

  The child’s arm lay limp off to one side, her head was turned toward them, her eyes open, glazed, and forever stilled.

  The mother turned to the witch doctor and in her grief made the ultimate request. She knew of the rumors.

  “They say you have raised the dead. Raise her up!”

  “I have only raised a few animals,” he said. “Never a human being.”

  “Raise her!”

  It was true he was renowned across the island as the most powerful witch doctor ever to have lived, but what the woman was asking he thought was surely beyond his powers. He had brought a dead
chicken back to life. A dead dog. And once, even a dead panther, just to see if he could. But a human being? He had not dared try. He was not even sure that the gods would allow him that kind of power.

  “I will give you anything,” the mother cried. She beat her chest and rolled her eyes. “Anything! Anything!” She was close to madness.

  The witch doctor’s countenance darkened, his eyes took on a glow. His gaze left the mother and settled on the child. He stepped closer, two steps. Three. He went to his haunches and studied the girl. She was undeniably the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her skin was lighter than most islanders, as if it were lit from within by soft white flame. Her nose and lips and eyes and brow were perfection, and the face was shaped like a heart. Her long dark hair was smooth, shiny with whale oil, and it fell in curls like coiled snakes from her scalp. He reached out and trailed his fingers along her cheek. It was cold, so cold. It was a shame she was dead. It seemed to Mujai that the gods were intentionally cruel when children died.

  Suddenly, and without knowing how it happened, the witch doctor fell in love with the dead child. If he hadn’t known better, he might have suspected he was under a spell not of his own making. His face softened, his lips parted, and he let out a little sigh. He swiveled on his haunches to face the mother at the hut’s door opening.

  She was silhouetted in the firelight, a gaunt figure with clenched hands held before her breasts. He could feel her grief as if it were an extra person in the hut. It loomed over her, a dark, heavy figure bearing down on her thin shoulders.