Tandem of Terror (23 page)

It was just a matter of time until Face would
start losing limbs to the disease. The Rot, once it got in your
system, took away or broke down the force that kept people from
decaying after they were born into unlife. The disease didn't kill
instantly, instead it ate you alive, inside and out, and left you
open to natural predators like maggots, worms, and their like until
you became nothing but a mound of rotting goop. There was no known
cure for it. Red grunted at the thought wondering how in the Hades
he would replace Face. The man was a damn good and experienced
wrangler.

Hole broke the silence. A series of guttural
hisses came out of the deep wound which had once been his mouth. To
anyone else but Red and Face it would have just been incoherent
noises, but the pair had worked with Hole for a long time. They had
come to being good enough at listening to him to pick out what he
meant.

Red glared at him, shaking his head. "The
cattle's always restless, Hole. I'm sure it's nothing."

"I don't know boss," Face added flinging a
worm from his lips into the fire as his lips moved. "I think
putting that wild one we caught out at the edge of the ranch in
with the others was a bad idea. It's like he's talking to them,
riling them up somehow. I could have sworn I heard him yell actual
words, something like "Die you bastard", when he attacked me
today."

Red bothered to sigh. "He's wild. What did
you expect him to do? Sit around waiting on the butcher's axe like
the others?"

"I'm just saying maybe we should put him down
is all. We got a pretty decent herd this year anyway," Face
urged.

"Cattle don't talk. That's crazy shit. They
have been inbred so much over the years there ain't nothin' left in
their heads. This new one ain't no different even if he wasn't
raised in the pens. Humans just don't have any fight left in them
anymore." Red saw that Face was far from convinced. He knew when he
was fighting a losing battle. Red ground his cigarette out in the
dirt angrily. "Fine, you want to put him down, let's do it." Red
picked up the Winchester lying beside him.

"You mean right now?" Face sputtered sending
more worms flying. Red scowled at him.

Face nodded. "Okay, but like I told you,
they're all worked up already. We're going to have to get him out
of the pen first or they all really will be in a frenzy. They may
even start tearing each other apart. Lord knows how many we could
lose if that happened."

The trio made their way to the pen with Hole
readying a lasso as they went. They reached the massive fence and
Hole climbed up the small walkway above the gate to try to spot the
new member of the herd in the starlight. Red could hear him hissing
his complaints before he found his target and started slinging the
lasso above his head. True to his old nature before he'd contracted
the "rot", Hole snagged the newcomer on the first try. Hole pulled
and strained on the rope with Face leaping up help him. "Now!" Face
shouted and Red opened the gate.

A naked, long haired man caked with dirt and
grime came charging out at him. Face snared the man around the neck
with the lope of a handling pole and fought fiercely to keep the
animal off of Red as slammed the pen's gate closed.

The human managed to escape the handling
pole's noose as Face was jerking back on it. Face lost his balance
and careened over the edge of the fence. Hole grabbed for him but
it wasn't fast enough. Face thumped to the pen's floor and the
cattle poured over him in a rage. His screams as they ripped him
apart carried off into the night on the wind.

Red wasn't listening though, he had his own
problems. The naked man charged him again and knocked them both to
the ground. The wrangler and his head of cattle wrestled in the
dirt, clawing and punching at each other, each trying to get the
upper hand on the other. Then it happened. The man sank his teeth
into Red's arm at the exact moment a bullet entered the man's skull
from the rear spraying Red with blood and brain matter. Red
collapsed on his back as the man's corpse rolled off of him.

Hole raced to his boss's side with the
Winchester in his hands. Red looked up at him. "Shit," Red
muttered, examining the teeth marks in his gray flesh. "I screwed
up this time, didn't I, Hole?"

Hole said nothing. He merely stood there with
a sad expression on his face.

"Hole, I want you to end it for me."

Hole shook his head, lowering the weapon.

"Come on, Hole! He bit me. I can feel it. I
got the Rot just like Face had. Don't make me live wasting away
until you can scope me up off the pavement."

Hole appeared torn in deciding what to
do.

"The business is yours now, okay? Just do it
already!" Red pleaded, partially sitting up.

Hole braced the rifle against his shoulder
and the shot echoed off the sides of the pen as the humans howled
and screamed inside its walls.

In The Shadow of The Lilies

John Grover

Outside the white-haired girl was
screaming.

I stared out of the window and felt his hot
breath on my neck. The road beyond the field of flowers was a hint
of moonlight. He handed me the sickle and returned to his rocking
chair.

"
They're too slow to catch
you," he said. "But, your mother and I are too old. We'll wait here
for you to return with help."

"
Yes father," I said. They
thought I was their daughter because I used her body. I let them
think that. It was easier that way. "Bar the door as soon as I am
gone."

They nodded.

"
I love you Lily," he said
with a half-smile. "We named you after the lilies in our field, you
know."

"
I know. I love you too,
father." The words were strange to me but his eyes lit up like the
dawn when I said them. Opening the door I sprang from the
house.

They should have named me Death.

Out in the lilies a form floated towards me.
A moan escaped its hungry mouth. Translucent skin glowed in the
moonlight. Seconds later I soared over it, a bald, deformed head
beneath my gaze, and landed behind the creature. I cut the sickle
through the air and took its head off. The bloated body that
hovered in the air suddenly dropped to the ground. White mist rose
out of the gaping mouth of the severed head and shot off into the
distance.

My blade gleamed in the moonlight as I shook
chunks of dead flesh from it and then silence swallowed everything.
I no longer heard---

Terrible pain scorched my shoulder while
coarse teeth gnashed through it. I'd been clumsy. I doubled over in
pain and toppled off my feet. A second creature wavered above me
and savored the scarlet drool that wet its lips, the once life
force of this shell.

Fortunately the attack wasn't enough to expel
me from my temporary host. The creature advanced, floating through
the air, reaching with long, gaunt arms but I swung my right leg
hard, catching it across the jaw. Bits of bone and razor-sharp
teeth soared across the field. Yellow puss showered the tall lilies
that surrounded me.

With it stunned, I turned onto my belly and
set eyes on my predecessor, my failed ally. Her body was nearly
stripped to the bone. Two more of those things hovered around her,
blood soaking their gnarled hands. The white-haired girl no longer
screamed.

My host's body shook, the heart pounded
violently. I rolled onto my feet and spun around, relieving the
creature behind me of its head. Then I focused on the others.
Gritting my teeth, I let out a wail and shot at them like a
bullet.

Rip. Slash.

My sight filled with red. My flesh burned
hot. Body parts littered the field hat glowed phosphorescent in the
moonlight.

A smile crossed my lips as I stared at their
putrid remains.

I turned and looked down at my fallen
comrade. She was called Lily too. We were all called Lily. The
females that is, I do not know what the males were called. I have
yet to see any of them or be joined by any of them. Any way, one
name made it easier. Easier to remember. Easier to blend in. There
were too many names here. It got confusing.

My smile quickly melted as I remembered what
I needed to do. With a clean stroke I severed her head so that no
others could use her body. Selfish criminals! Jealous of this
carnal world. We have no bodies of our own and most of us are at
peace with this...but not all.

The Wights. We call them Wights, outlaws of
our kind. They hide in other worlds, other realities on the same
plane as ours and wait...wait for a shell to become empty. Upon
death the Wights quickly seek it out and possess it, entering
through the mouth.

Foul parasites. We are not supposed to have
bodies. It is unnatural. I cannot rest until they are sent back.
Back some time ago the people here learned how to protect
themselves, even how to stop them but it was not enough. There were
not enough who believed, dismissing the criminals as legends or
myths, superstition run rampant.

It was then that the Wights gained the upper
hand and the balance shifted. Now there are too many. This world is
in jeopardy. That is where my allies and I come in. We are the
warriors, the justice. We must turn the tide. All of them must be
sent back or it is too late. I hope to meet up with more of my
kind. Many of us were sent but I have found very few to stand
beside me. Sometimes I am alone in this fight.

Finally I reached the road. A faint light
glowed back at the old couple's homestead. I didn't have the heart
to tell them I would not return. My mission was too important. The
infestation too vast, a world unbalanced. Sometimes I still hear
that white-haired girl screaming. Sometimes that girl is me.

Murk woods. I was searching for Murk woods.
The first place they were known to inhabit, the first place where
the legends grew. The Wights hide in the mists, above the oceans,
within the forests, across countryside, among the rolling hills and
over lakes or ponds. Murk, according to the locals, had always been
filled with mist, as long as anyone could remember. It was there
that myth became a weapon.

That was my first destination. The trees
would speak to me. They were forced to share habitat with those
vile monsters. History would be burned there, and I hoped to learn
much. Any knowledge was useful in this war.

Murk woods in the town of Sotherton, I
couldn't find it quick enough.

Death was in the air. I could smell it all
around me. Soot tickled my nose. Decay crept slowly behind it. My
grip tightened around the sickle. I never wanted to let it go. It
was an extension of my right arm now...arm?

Who would have thought I'd actually have an
arm? Don't get used to it. I have no arms. I am free of a fleshly
existence. I am free to move between worlds. This body is
temporary. Her body. A means to an end. Without borrowing this host
my mission would surely fail.

It was by pure luck that I found her. I
floated across the surface of a random lake when I first entered
this world, black waters hid more than just bacteria and fungus. It
concealed a depth that was deceptive and vast. I was seized
abruptly. The vacant shell called to me. She had drowned in this
lake and her body was never recovered. It was caught between jagged
rocks, and emerald forests of algae entwined it like a shroud.

My entire being tingled when I discovered her
and I felt strangely pulled down to where she lay. I dove beneath
the water and absorbed this twilight world flowing with life and
death. Thoughts, past lives, energy streamed past me and flooded my
consciousness. It was almost overwhelming.

Before long alabaster flesh with a tinge of
emerald winked in the darkness, I drew closer until empty eyes
glared at me and blue lips revealed my entry into the world of
carnal existence.

I crawled onto the shore, feeling grass and
gravel against my new skin and paused to let the first rush of air
fill the host once more. Heaving, I turned onto my back and sat up.
On new legs I stumbled over to the water and stared at my
reflection in the black waters, I could see that my invasion had
turned the host's once dark tresses white. A slight side effect to
my occupation of a place I did not belong. It was nothing compared
to what the Wight did to their hosts.

Their corruption, their negative cores
distorted and mutated their hosts. The bodies became gaunt, the
arms now long and spindly grew gnarled and clawed, all hair
withered from the corpse as the eyes fell black. They were mere
specters of what they once were, barely resembling human form.

Not so with the rest of us. We respected
these life forms. We had a higher purpose. We only wanted to right
a terrible wrong. Our true intentions kept our bodies whole and
undefiled. Only the hair color marked our possession.

Movement caught my attention as pain tore
down my back. Seconds later I was soaring through the air and
landing down hard. The Wights were waiting for me, gliding up
behind me and launching their first attack.

They had the ability to float silently off
the ground. An ability harnessed by the negative energy they used
to merge the corpse with their incorporeal form. The rest of us
were not so fortunate. We would not use such foul power or abuse
the nature of the body. It was an abomination. Only some increased
motor function and an expansion of muscle aided our fight. It was
all we would allow.

Two of the creatures hovered by the edge of
the lake. I could feel the cold blood of this body run down my
back. I tasted it in my mouth. Such a strange sensation. Anger
pulsed through me as I felt strength suddenly fill my arms and
legs. I knew what to do.