Eldren: The Book of the Dark

by William Meikle

  ~-o0O0o-~

  He was on a vast plain that stretched out flat to the horizon in every direction. It was night, and the sky overhead blazed with a curtain of stars, so clear that their individual colors could be seen, so bright that the plain was bathed in shining silver. He walked...had been walking forever...through a night that had no end.

  There were no buildings, no factories, no streetlights, no smoke, and no offspring of the usurper Adam. There was only the soft grass of the plain and the sky.

  And everywhere there was food...hot pulsing life that ran and crawled and swam, life that was his for the taking whenever he chose.

  Far out on the plain something moved, a great beast that could have been a lion or tiger but was bigger and faster than either.

  The body Brian inhabited began to move faster; running with no apparent effort as he halved the distance to the creature, then halved it again.

  The creature had noticed him and began to run...great leaping bounds that carried it yards at a time. But he was catching it...closer and closer until he could smell its fear.

  The great maned head turned towards him, and he took joy in the despair in its eyes as he leapt to land on its broad back. It was still running when his fangs pierced the fur, the flesh and, finally, the vein.

  He laughed as he fed.

  “So it was in the beginning, so it shall be again,” a voice intoned in his left ear and the scene shifted once more.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  He was inside a building; a giant cavernous sepulchre carved in a black marble that shone with its own inner light. And all around him, quiet and still, stood rank upon rank of robed, hooded figures, all eyes fixed on an altar high in the west wall, a single slab on which a naked body lay.

  A vampire stood there beside the body. He looked like a pale white ghost, and in his hand he held a silver dagger that flashed as he brought it up and brought it down and red blood spilled.

  The crowd screamed, a howl that shook the stones and sent a flock of bats squealing overhead as the old one showed them the knife. He pointed it, still dripping, straight at Brian.

  Brian felt himself move forward, his limbs refusing to obey commands, the crowd parting to let him past, a look of naked envy on every face as he moved closer to the altar and his prize.

  The vampire’s eyes burned red as it took Brian by the hand and pulled him up towards the altar and the red dripping thing that lay there. Brian’s head was pushed down towards the body; down into the gore filled hole that had once been a chest. The dead skin felt like cold rubber as his face rubbed against the ravaged flesh.

  “Drink this in remembrance of me,” a voice said in his ear and laughed. Brian felt hot coppery liquid in his mouth, in his throat.

  He swallowed, twice, and darkness dimmed his sight, a red darkness that filed his mind and sent him down deep into an oblivion from which there was no return.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Tom’s head came down toward Margaret’s neck, almost before her reflexes could kick in.

  She only had time to bring up her left hand. She cried in shock as Tom’s new fangs ripped into the flesh just above her wrist, twin grooves that flared with a deep heat.

  He didn’t seem to notice that he had only pierced her hand. His jaws worked frantically and the wounds opened further.

  Margaret’s eyes were only inches from his, but she saw no recognition, no spark of humanity...merely an animal lust for food...or rather, in Tom’s case, drink.

  She screamed in his face, spittle flying around them, but he didn’t flinch. She squirmed, but his grip was tightening, tighter and tighter behind her back. She brought up her right hand and managed to wedge it under Tom’s chin, pushing hard, and at the same time bringing up her knee hard into his groin.

  He grunted and his grip loosened...not by much, but enough for her to shift her balance and give herself more leverage against his chin. She put her weight into it, forcing his head backwards and to the side, hearing his neck muscles creak and the grating of bone against bone as his neck vertebrae twisted.

  She kicked him in the groin again, and again, and as his head came forward she butted him, just above the bridge of the nose. A wide gash appeared...a one-inch split in his skin that gaped whitely. There was no blood.

  And still he held her tight, and still those rotted fangs continued to gouge new furrows in her hand.

  She could feel her strength beginning to go and she didn’t think she would be able to hold him off much longer.

  She let herself go limp, putting all her weight against Tom’s arms at her back. Then, as he leant forward with her, she fell back further, using his weight against him and taking them both to the ground.

  As she fell she twisted to the left, bringing her right leg round in an arc and throwing Tom off sideways. She rolled in a tight tumble and was on her feet and running while Tom was still regaining his balance.

  She didn’t look back as she pounded her feet down on the hard tarmac. She was vaguely aware that she ran in the wrong direction...heading away from the town...but all she could think of was escape. Heavy drops of blood splattered from her hand leaving a jagged pattern strewn on the road behind her

  The pain wasn’t getting through to her yet, but she knew that her ravaged hand needed medical attention, and needed it fast. Off to her right trees loomed over the road and she considered veering off...trying to lose her pursuer in the dark, but somehow she knew that would be fatal.

  Her life had suddenly taken a turn into “The Twilight Zone”. Up till now she had given little thought to the occult, and had always laughed at the theatrics of vampire movies. But the reality wasn’t cozy, and it wasn’t sexy. No expensively clad Count would whisk her off for nights of ecstasy...there was only old Tom with his raincoat and rotting teeth. And he was somewhere out there in the night. He could even be watching her now. The thought added urgency and she picked up the pace.

  The road stretched off in the dark ahead of her and she couldn’t remember whether there were any turnoffs, any paths that she could take. She knew that she couldn’t run very far...she felt tired, bruised and bleeding.

  Behind her she could imagine hurried footsteps, but still she wouldn’t turn around.

  The road turned to her left, away from the grounds of the house, and now she didn’t even have the relative comfort of the trees. She couldn’t go on much longer...her breath was coming in heavy gasps and her hand was beginning to throb in red pain.

  Her right foot hit a pothole in the road, sending her tumbling to the ground. Instinctively she put out her hand and screamed as rough gravel was pressed into her palms and her wounds screamed again in pain. She almost blacked out and had to slap herself on the cheek to stop the desire for sleep taking over.

  She got to her feet, stumbling forward in a half couch, but it wasn’t long before she slowed, unable to make her legs move any further. She slowed again to a walk. And now she could look around, but all she could see was the black road and the twisted heather that bounded it. She stopped, turning in a full circle, but there was no movement, not even the slightest whisper of wind.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Tom Duncan lay on the rough gravel drive just inside the main gate and screamed at the stars overhead.

  Jessie had been there...he’d heard her, seen her, tasted her. But she had spurned him. No, not just spurned, she had thrown him away like he was no more than a child’s doll.

  And now the thirst was back, raging and strong within him. He ran a swollen tongue over his lips and picked up the taste of the longed for liquid.

  “Jessie,” he whispered as he pushed himself upright, and there was an answering crunch of a footfall on the gravel behind him.

  He turned towards the noise and could dimly make out a figure standing in the shadows beneath the trees. She had come back to him. He should have known better than to doubt her. He stretched out his arms.

  “Jessie,” he said, his voice soft and pleading.

  “Wrong lady,” a
voice said, and Tom never even saw the crossbow bolt that entered his right eye socket and crashed through the remnants of his brain before lodging in the back of his skull.

  He just had time to take in the long black overcoat and the blazing fury in the eyes of his assailant before the second bolt took him in the heart and the blackness came and took away the thirst.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Jim Kerr walked slowly up to the body on the ground, the crossbow cocked and loaded in his right hand. He spat on the body and said the words…the one’s he’d been saying for far too long.

  “That’s for Sandra, you bastard!”

  That made two tonight, and he knew that the odds were that he’d missed at least one...the old one had got away from him for more than an hour, more than enough time to turn even more of the townspeople.

  He had a feeling that it was beginning to run away from him...that the situation would get a whole lot worse before it got better.

  He prodded the body with his left foot, a hard kick in the ribs that would have produced at least a flinch if there were anything left in the old man. He kept the crossbow high, waiting, but the remaining eye didn’t blink. He knelt and grabbed hold of the quarrel which protruded from the body’s face, having to kneel on the chest and use all his strength before it came free with a soft, moist sucking.

  He wiped the bolt clean on the coat as, with his other hand, he removed a clove of garlic from his pocket and placed it between the dead creature’s lips.

  There was no pity in him for the dead man...he’d allowed himself to be seduced, allowed his blood to be taken. That made him one of the weak ones, not worthy of pity.

  The quarrel joined the others in the quiver under his arm as he stood up and gazed up the drive towards the house.

  The old one knew about him now and would be more careful, and the house was its home territory...a place where it would be at its most dangerous. He knew that he had more chance of overcoming it by daylight, but the lust for action and execution was burning in him.

  What tipped the balance was his tiredness. He had been pursuing the old one for days...ever since he’d read the signs...the cattle mutilations, the dead child...he’d known as soon as he read the newspapers that there was more work for him to do.

  Breaking out of the wing had been easy. He’d been a good boy for a long time, and they thought he had settled down enough to relax security. And that had been all the chance he needed.

  He’d had to steal the weapon, but he hadn’t had to hurt anyone. That was a promise he’d made to himself years before. He only hurt people who were already dead. And now it looked like he would have to hurt some more.

  The police would be looking for him...he knew that. He’d never managed to persuade anyone of the rightness of his actions and he realized that he was considered insane.

  Maybe he was, maybe he had to be to survive in the nightmare that his world had become, but he was just sane enough to know that if he didn’t succeed, then this town would be in serious trouble. He intended to do something about the possibility.

  But not tonight. Tonight his body needed rest.

  He dragged the old man off the drive and managed to get him hidden under a rhododendron. Not a great job, but enough to keep the body out of the way for a couple of days, and that would be long enough, one way or another.

  Before he covered the body up he searched the pockets for car keys, but there were none there. He checked the car itself but again the keys were missing.

  There was a mystery here, but it was one that his tired brain refused to consider. He slid like a shadow into the trees, heading deep into the foliage until he found a small clearing, just big enough for him to lie down in.

  From his pocket he took out a large bag of white powder which he released in a rough circle on the dry ground. He stepped into the circle, pulled his coat around him and lay down, clutching the crossbow tight to his chest.

  In less than two minutes he was fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  MARGARET HAD been walking for a long time with little idea as to where she was going. All she knew was that she got ever further from that house, further from the nightmare.

  She had shut off the part of her mind that dealt with the events of the past few hours… thinking only of putting one foot in front of the other...anything else was dangerous.

  Several times already memories had threatened to bubble to the front of her mind, bringing with them a strong trembling verging on hysteria. Each time she had managed to push them back, to clear her mind, but she knew that she would have to face it some time.

  Just not yet, she thought, Dear Lord, just not yet.

  Her left hand was wrapped tight inside the folds of her T-shirt that was rapidly turning a dark red, almost black in the moonlight. She had only looked at it once, then put it away...out of sight and out of mind deep in the place she wasn’t going to think about till later.

  Overhead something passed in front of the moon, and she flinched, expecting attack, but there was only the forlorn caw of a night crow, then everything was quiet again.

  The road stretched out before her and she knew she should be thankful for the moonlight that showed her the way. But she knew that it merely served to light her up, her white skin shining like a beacon in the night, advertising her presence. She hunched herself into a crouch, trying to make herself smaller, less conspicuous.

  Her whole body felt like one massive bruise, as if she’d gone fifteen rounds with a heavyweight boxer, and she felt more tired than she had ever felt in her life...the same tiredness that came from a heavy bout of exercising but without the accompanying feel good factor.

  In fact, there was a considerable ‘feel-bad’ factor. She giggled to herself at the thought, then stifled it with her good hand.

  Going mad old girl, she told herself.

  “Got to hold it together,” she muttered, under her breath this time. “Knew it was a bad idea to go for a curry.”

  She told her left leg to move and, by some small miracle it obeyed her. Suddenly she thought of school, of the first cup of coffee of the day, and of the pleasure in seeing a group of kids be successful at something you had taught them. She could see all those young, keen faces before her and she held on to it, let it lead her onwards.

  She knew that she wouldn’t be on the road forever...the towns in the area just weren’t that far apart. It was just a matter of walking. Walking and watching.

  She was going up a hill...had been ascending for several minutes before she noticed the extra pressure on her calves. And when she crested the rise, it was several seconds before her brain processed the information that her eyes were sending.

  The town lay spread out beneath her, streetlights twinkling like fireflies in the night. In her confused state she couldn’t even tell which town it was, but a town meant people, it meant doors that could be locked and beds that would be safe.

  She almost broke into a run as she started down the hill, but her legs wouldn’t let her move any faster than a sedate walk.

  When she arrived at the first streetlight it felt like she had crossed a barrier back into the real world, and when she passed the first house she began to feel a small fragment of security and safety.

  She realized that she knew where she was, that she was back in her hometown, on the road that came down off the moor.

  Somewhere in her wanderings she had managed to get back onto the main road, but she had no memory of taking a turning...it was somewhere back in the spot that she tried very hard not to remember.

  What she did know was that her home was still over two miles away, almost exactly at the furthest point in town from here. She didn’t think she would be able to make it, and, as if to confirm the fact, her legs buckled, threatening to send her tumbling once more. It was only force of will that kept her standing upright.

  She called out for help, but the sound that emitted from her mouth was little more than a moan, and even a second attempt would scarcely be he
ard more than ten yards away. The houses on either side of her stayed dark, no lights showing.

  Her body was crying out for sleep, and her brain was nearly ready to give in to the urge. She needed help, and she needed it quick...she wasn’t tired enough not to realize that.

  Off to her left she caught a flicker of movement. Turning, she could see a light still burning in a room and she recognized the bulky shadow of the church and the smaller shape of the Manse beside it.

  She dredged up a mental picture of Bill Reid. She had known the man for some time, and he had seemed pleasant enough in a scruffy, religious kind of way. She also knew of his fondness for staying up till all hours, unable to let go of a good book until he had seen the characters through to their fate. Tonight must be just such a night.

  Besides, a churchman might be just what she needed; he might be the only person who might believe her story.

  She willed her tired limbs into action and headed towards the beckoning light like a boat towards the harbor lights of home.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Tony sat in the too large chair and watched the Minister read the book.

  He could remember it all, as if it had been permanently etched in his mind, even though he had only read it once, one night not long after Billy had gone away.

  He’d taken it out from under his bed, gingerly, almost reverentially, and once he’d read the first page he hadn’t stopped until he’d reached the last. A lot of the words were too big or too strange for him, but the pictures they produced in his mind told the story true enough.

  He could have told the Minister about ‘The Redeemer’. How she came from the dried blood of the Eriah the first made. How she had rebuilt the great temple, and how she had re-united the disparate bloodlines, bringing together the Eldren, and the Unforgiven, and the blood children into one tribe who lived together as one in the frozen wastelands of the north. He could have told the Minister about how she gave her soul to Shoa in return for the release of her people, but he let the Minister read. He would let the Minister see for himself the obvious truth in the stories told.