Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz

by Tim Marquitz

  Which leaves just one more.

  Lali is almost on top of me. She’s so close I can see the tears on her cheeks. I can smell the fear in her sweat and taste her sweet, ragged breath in my mouth. I should probably turn and run with her right now. But we won’t make it to the Dome in time. Actually, I probably would. I haven’t been running as far and as hard as Lali. I don’t have the bear on my back like she does.

  But even if I did start running, I couldn’t leave her as she started to fall behind. I might be scared shitless—the Biloko’s wicked red eyes and wicked snouts with wicked sharp teeth are more than enough to scare the shit out of me—but I will stand ready to die for my treefrog. For my covey-mate. For Lali.

  And then Lali streaks past, and the Eloko slams into me.

  I can’t breathe. The wind has been knocked out of me. I feel like I’m dying. But I’m not so out of it that I don’t find the short, almost furry grass covering the Eloko’s entire body surprising. Somewhere in the back of my mind, where it doesn’t register that I’m about to die, I want to giggle because that short dark green grass tickles against my skin.

  But I don’t because its wide open snout is trying to tear my throat out. I’m quite large for my age, and the Biloko are dwarf-sized, but it still takes all of my strength to get an arrow out from under me and stab the Eloko through the ear. I don’t kill it, though. I just make it angrier.

  Those enormous, curved fangs come at me again, but I’m able to roll to one side just enough and the Eloko tears into my right shoulder instead of my neck. The Biloko might only come up to my waist, but they’re massive. Solid. My leverage is gone no sooner than I had it, and I’m flat on my back again with a face full of stinking, mad-as-hell Eloko perched on my chest and stomach.

  And then it smiles. The Eloko actually smiles at me. There couldn’t be a more terrible smile in my worst dreams.

  But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, an arrow goes through its left eye, and that’s how the Eloko dies. On top of me, smiling.

  ~

  It was Kerana who named them warblers and treefrogs. As if I would do some silly shit like that. But it fits. And my followers seem to like it.

  When we first arrived on Earth, Kerana tried her best to embrace the situation, even though she was dying. Her warmth began to fade the moment I took her from the Core.

  But she didn’t complain. She didn’t weep. I don’t know what I would have done had she cried. Probably told her to stop. There are no tears in godhood.

  Kerana didn’t want to be a goddess, though, which was just stupid. I mean, why not? We had just inherited a planet of nearly eight billion desperate people looking to be saved from the end of the world. They were seeking a literal light in the midst of the growing darkness. Me and Kerana might not have been as bright as we used to be, but we were damn sure brighter than the fading Sun.

  So the first thing I did was set myself up as supreme being, lord and ruler, God the Almighty. How could I not? My comings and goings were like dawn breaking and dusk falling.

  I think I understand why Kerana wanted no part of it, though. She had been the shit and then some within her tessling and the Core of the Sun. Prominences could dance like nobody’s business. Filaments were strong as hell and could launch Prominences millions of miles into space. And Radiants made us all shine.

  But the Quintessence, Their shit didn’t stink because They were too good to take a shit. They knew where They stood in the pecking order of the Sun. At the top. Where Their shit would roll downhill onto the rest of us if they ever gave a shit.

  Maybe Kerana was tired of all the hierarchical bullshit and didn’t want to swap it for goddesshood. Maybe she’d had enough. Or maybe—just maybe—she wanted to die peacefully. I’m not too much of an asshole to realize that. At least, now I’m not. After the fact. After she’s already dead.

  Oh well. Shit happens. Life goes on.

  Or doesn’t.

  No matter what anyone says, I did my best for her. I loved her like no one did. Like no one could. Her core-mates, her tessling couldn’t love her like I could. Eight billion people worshipped me, but I worshipped Kerana. I treated her as she deserved to be treated. Like the goddess she wouldn’t become. But it wasn’t enough.

  Kerana needed the Sun. She needed the Core. She needed her tessling. She was such an integral part of it all. As her glow faded, the Sun faded. She was like the Sun itself. But better. She was power, beauty, energy and warmth in its purest form.

  And I fucked that all up.

  What bothers me about all this is I couldn’t save her. No matter how much I tried. No matter how much I loved her. And she didn’t want to be saved. She pushed me away. She disappeared for decades in some dark corner of the earth. It was obvious why. She didn’t want love from this asshole.

  I tried not to let that bother me. I tried to shake off her rejection. Ignore it. It wasn’t like I didn’t have other things to do. I wasn’t sitting around with my thumb up my ass. I had other people to do that for me.

  Humans might be dumb as rocks, but they aim to please.

  The best of them was Ruthie. Yeah, that boy’s sister. Ruthie had nothing on Kerana, but she was a nice distraction. As long as I didn’t smile. Whenever I did, my dazzling gorgeousness struck her blind, deaf and dumb for weeks at a time.

  Which made a nineteen year old girl that much less appealing.

  But a nineteen year old girl has only so much appeal, anyway. Especially after the fiftieth one. I wanted Kerana.

  The good thing about it all was she always crawled out of her hole in the ground and came back. Never for long, though. Infuriating assholes do that. We drive others away. After a day or two of me begging her to be my goddess-wife, Kerana would go back to the ass-end of the earth.

  And then one day, she didn’t come back again.

  My mistake was thinking Kerana would last as long as the Sun. I should have never tied its ebb and wane with hers. But it made so much sense at the time. Their mutual decline seemed symbiotic.

  I found dimmed motes of Kerana in the exosphere. That’s where she would go when she hurt the most. It was the closest she could get to the Sun. To see it better. To feel its weak warmth.

  But it wasn’t enough. Her body had dissipated. Faded away. Just like that.

  Pissed me smooth the fuck off, her dying on me like that. After all I did for her.

  Yeah, I know. Don’t even say it. I did a lot for her.

  And she up and left me. All by myself with a handful of simps who can’t even follow the most basic of instructions.

  The world is such a lonely place when there’s no one to rule by your side.

  Ungrateful bitch.

  ~

  “Levi! Let’s go! More are coming!”

  Citlali has caught her breath, but fear is shot all through her voice. She sounds hysterical. I push the dead, smiling Eloko off me and sit up on one elbow.

  Behind me, Lali is at the edge of the apple orchard frantically waving me towards her. Ashni nocks another arrow. Kentaro points like a crazy man to where we just came from. I follow his insistent finger with my eyes.

  The Dark Lands near the pol’anga grove are a living mass of expansive dark green Biloko. They breathe and move and shake their bells as one, in a single thick, fluid motion. Toward us. Toward me. Hungry. Angry. Deadly.

  Shit.

  I’ve always been the slowest one of our covey-mates. Ever since we were little.

  Lali is the fastest (and the prettiest). Ashni is the nimblest (and quite good with her bow). Kentaro is the smartest (and one of the few male treefrogs). I’m the slowest. But I’m a good shot. I’m even better than Ashni. Right now, I’m going to need all of that good shooting if I want to live to see another day. Which I’m not sure is going to happen. I try, anyway.

  As fast as I can, I jump up and run to the apple orchard in the distance and my covey-mates. Out of force of habit, I slow as I reach for my arrows, but grasp nothing. Air. That’s when I realize my bow an
d quiver are gone. I left them back there when that last Eloko attacked me.

  Double shit.

  For all of two seconds, I ponder whether I can run back, get my bow and arrows and make it to my covey-mates before I get eaten. But I know I can’t. I don’t think Lali could fresh. So I decide to keep running, but I don’t move. I can’t.

  I can’t help but stare at the advancing horde. I’m fascinated by them. There are scores and scores of Biloko. Even through the dim light of the Dark Lands I can see the lot of them. Short, grassy fur. Long, muscular arms. Razor-sharp claws. Short, powerful hind legs. Wicked snouts. Wicked eyes. Wicked teeth. Loud bells.

  All scary as hell.

  Lali snaps me out of my stupor. It’s as if she’s appeared out of nowhere. She yanks me toward the apple orchard. Just beyond it are the safe bright lights of the Dome. Ashni lets arrow after arrow fly as Lali and I run toward her, but her arrows are not enough. Besides, we won’t make it. The Biloko are too close.

  And then the Bright Lady comes to save us.

  ~

  Well, I’ll be damned. She’s alive. I should have known.

  I’ve heard the rumors. Time might move fast on this planet, but these creatures are so simple. Cellular fission? Try nuclear fusion. I lived that every day of my long life before I came to this godforsaken place. Hell, I kidnapped that.

  I know the thoughts of these simps before they can even speak them. I can parse out each and every word of each and every person as it’s being spoken—no matter the language—and follow the thousands of conversations with ease. Their complexity is my simplicity.

  Cellular fission my ass.

  So I had an inkling Kerana still lived. There were too many mentions from my followers of seeing a Bright Lady in the Dark Lands during the last Biloko horde attack six hundred years ago. I thought it was all bullshit. But it makes perfect sense now that I think about it.

  See, Kerana thinks she’s slick. The Biloko horde is her doing. She didn’t create them, but she did transplant them.

  When greenery all over the world first began shriveling and dying, no longer sustained by the weak and dim Sun, Kerana plucked the Biloko from the dark forests in Zaire and put them in the thriving forests of her Dark Lands. She allowed their numbers to flourish, so they could feast on my worshippers.

  Sabotage. From the moment we got here, Kerana wanted to undo my godhood. So I could be alone. Her big ha-ha fuck you to me.

  You know what I have to say to that?

  Fuck you too, bitch.

  I loved you.

  Okay, wait. I take that back! I’m sorry! I still love you.

  But that doesn’t make me any less mad at you right now.

  ~

  Blessed be the Shadowchildren, for they shall see the Bright.

  A good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor does a bad tree produce good fruit.

  Each tree is known by its fruit, and each Shadowchild by his worth.

  A Shadowchild who does not pick good fruit shall be devoured by the Biloko.

  A Shadowchild who picks good fruit shall live long in the Bright.

  Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know the Shadowchildren, and ye shall be sustained.

  That’s the prayer we say in secret to the Bright Lady before we venture out into the Dark Lands. But it can also be a blessing when the Bright Lady comes down from on high and utters it to protect us from the Biloko.

  She hasn’t done that in a very long while, though.

  But now, as me and my covey-mates approach the safe zone just outside the Dome, the Bright Lady gives us each a hug and the blessing. The Biloko stop their chase. Her embrace is so warm. I want to stay within it forever.

  And then she goes ice-cold because he is here. So we start running again.

  ~

  She’s beautiful. As always. But angry. I don’t care. I don’t really give a fuck right now. I just want her to end this secret goddess bullshit and come to my side to rule this worthless world until the Sun goes dark forever.

  Instead, she glows. For a moment, she gets as bright as she was when she was within her tessling. But then, her body dissolves into glowing motes, which rise and fade away.

  All that remains are the Biloko. And they’re still hungry.

  They swarm me. At first, it just tickles like the boy Levi said.

  But then, their teeth and their claws rip and rend and shred chunks of me. My perfect ears. My muscular arms. My hard round ass. My chiseled stomach. The entrails within.

  But I heal. My body repairs itself with an urgent immediacy, functioning at its complex cellular level. More and more Biloko keep coming, though.

  It’s not long before I can’t see my own beautiful body. All I see is grass-furred dark green. The Biloko are ravenous. Insatiable.

  Their bells are loud. They never stop ringing.

  My pain is eternal.

  The Beastly Ninth

  Carl Barker

  The storm clouds were gathering. Lord Wellesley was sure of it as he sat atop his mount and watched the sky. His horse panted and swayed from side to side, struggling beneath the weight of so much plated metal in addition to its human charge. The restless animal’s breath came in uneven snorts, puffing erratically around its sweat-streaked flanks. Within his welded suit, the Duke of Wellington was not faring much better.

  “Are you well, milord?” inquired chief of staff Sir William Howe DeLancey, glancing nervously at his master from a few feet away.

  “Well enough for now, my good fellow,” Wellington responded from within his shell, not wishing to betray any discomfort in front of his senior officers. He attempted to nod his head, but the constraints of the plating prevented him from doing so. “However, I might partake of a little brandy if you have some? For the cold, of course, you understand?”

  “Of course, milord,” DeLancey replied, fumbling inside his jacket for what seemed like an age in search of his flask. “I seem to have misplaced it your Grace,” he concluded. “Damn shame, too. It was given to me by my wife before we left England. Engraved with my initials, so it was.”

  “Never mind,” the duke said, attempting to stretch his back and feeling thirstier than ever. “Probably better to meet the French with a clear head, anyway.”

  The main body of his force had been positioned outside Champaubert for almost two days now, their numbers hidden by the slope of an oversized hill. Having received word the French were on the move again and marching towards their position, the duke had given orders for his men to make ready for battle around sunset. As such, he had been seated upon his mount since dusk, overseeing the formation of his columns from the vantage point of the saddle. He was now beginning to regret that decision. Although the temperature had cooled somewhat since sunset, within his armor, Lord Wellesley had more in common with a lump of roast beef than a man, slowly cooking in his own juices.

  Ignoring his growing discomfort for a moment, he cast his eyes over the lines of men. Row upon row of stern-faced soldiers stood huddled together in the dirt, a few of them glancing up at his watchful gaze. The duke noted with dismay the number of boyish faces amongst the ranks. Though his army was great in number it had been raised quickly from an already war weary populace. Most of them were either fresh-faced recruits, who did not yet know the horrors of war, or were ill equipped mercenaries from Spain and Prussia—hired guns bought with plundered French gold.

  Across the expanse of plain before them, a threadbare mist coveted the ground. Emerging from loose pockets of earth, it seeped through the topsoil and made its way toward the Allied position. Murmurs of unnatural and witchcraft were heard making their way amongst the ranks. Despite his reasoned military mind, Wellington had to agree.

  Stories of Napoleon’s improbable escape from Saint Helena, atop a mighty two-headed sea serpent, had already made their way to English shores. The duke was powerless to halt the tide of unrest, which had washed over his men since dark had fallen. Despite his best efforts at Waterloo, that accursed French
sorcerer had somehow found a way to outwit his captors yet again and return to Europe a second time, to raise another army.

  Within weeks of his escape, tales of Napoleon’s unbridled barbarism had returned to the front pages of the Times. Spanish civilians told of fur-covered monsters in uniform emerging from the night to feast on human blood as Napoleon’s army surged north into Aquitaine, butchering villages to the last man and marching inexorably towards Paris. Wellington had paid little attention to the headlines, preferring instead to rely on the efforts of his spymaster, Wickham, but even he had begun to suspect that perhaps the specter of the emperor’s terrifying Ninth Hussars had not been completely vanquished from the field as previously thought. Wellington only hoped the advantages, which Congreve’s technological developments, and his new alliance with the Brotherhood of Uclés had brought him would be enough.

  In the night sky above, banks of thick cloud rolled in from the east, bringing with them the threat of torrential downpour. If the weather turned against them, things would become much more difficult. Tightening his grip on the reins, the Iron Duke shifted uneasily inside his armored suit and prayed it wouldn’t rain.

  ~

  Young Thomas Worthington, former vagrant and thief, did not know what to make of it all thus far. This being his first experience of battle, he was unaccustomed to the great deal of waiting about, which often accompanied modern warfare, and so hopped from one foot to the other as he waited with the rest of his unit, some two hundred yards back from the duke’s position. Beside him, Sergeant Reginald Foss stood leaning on his rifle, his pale eyes transfixed upon the distant horizon.

  Though not much older than a lot of the raw recruits, Foss held the distinction of having served under Wellington in the previous campaign and had acquired a degree of awe and respect amongst the men. Many of them tried to emulate the sergeant’s steady posture as they waited, but few, Thomas saw, maintained the same unruffled composure. Rechecking his rifle for the umpteenth time, Thomas re-shouldered the weapon and wished he had been able to pilfer more than a solitary flask of brandy from amongst his comrades. Peering over the shoulders of the forward ranks, he tried to make out whether anything was happening at the front.