AWOL: A Character Lost

by Anthony Renfro

  “Who are you?” He asked, as the wind rushed across him again. He was glad to still be dressed in the clothes he had on in the zombie story. Their layers were keeping him nice and warm.

  “You need to get off the road. Death is coming.”

  The wolf howl again and it was closer.

  “Where are you? Why don’t you come out?”

  “I’d be dead if I did,” the strange voice replied.

  The character heard a rustling behind him. He turned and saw a werewolf racing across the lawn, heading right in his direction. A shot from a gun blasted off into the night as the beast leaped over the fence. This silver bullet went whizzing over the character’s head and hit the werewolf dead center of its skull. This shot killed it instantly and knocked it off its flying path. The beast fell to the ground, tumbled, rolled, and came to a stop.

  “I told you to get off the road. That was just a scout. The rest are coming.”

  The character turned to his left and saw a small pack of werewolves walking down the paved road towards him. They weren’t in a hurry like the one that nearly killed him a second ago. They were taking their time; and if they weren’t foul, evil beasts, you would think they were just out for a casual night-time stroll.

  These creatures were big ugly things walking on all fours, covered in silky grey fur, and from their paw to the top of their back they had to be at least 8 feet tall and about six feet from snout to tail. They had gigantic claws – 4 in all – on each paw, big white teeth that sparkled in the moonlight, and from their mouth a salivating liquid dripped that smoked when it hit the ground. They had red eyes that blazed inside their eye sockets, but these weren’t normal eyes. Somehow their eyes were able to shine like a spotlight or a car’s headlights. So, as they walked, they each had a small red spotlight in front of them to light their path. They had green noses that could sniff out any predator or prey, and their back sides ended with a long scorpion stinger and tail. This tail reached up into the air as they walked, ready to strike on an instant.

  “Now!”

  The character turned to see who had said that. It was the voice of the person from the bush who had greeted him when he first got here, a woman, about five three wearing jeans, long warm coat, gloves, hat and scarf.

  At least twenty people, maybe more, jumped out from their hiding places and ran out into the road after this command. The forward progress of these beasts was blocked, temporarily. Guns blazed and bullets soared as the people, men and women alike, put the ambush to the beasts. These creatures darted and moved their survival instincts on high alert. Some went down quick, but most of them didn’t. The wolves went on the attack, and it was ferocious.

  The character watched, frozen in place, as one woman lost her head to a fatal swipe. Blood erupted like a geyser from the open wound, and her body took two steps forward before falling to the ground. Two men on either side of her were showered in the blood, and it blinded them. They tried to clean their eyes, but the wolf who had taken out the woman, tagged one man with its tail, and lifted him into the air. This tail didn’t send out venom but electricity; so, as the man hung there suspended, he was sizzling like he was in an electric chair. He shook violently, screaming in pain as he died. While the one man was frying alive, the wolf stood up and gripped the other man in its gigantic paws. The man squirmed and fought, but the wolf just opened its mouth and clamped down on the man’s head. A sound of crunching bone filled that part of the fight as the werewolf tore off the man’s head and spit it out. The creature dropped the body onto the ground, and the man bled out.

  However, not to be out done, the people were handling themselves adequately well; and they were keeping the fight equal. It was the woman, the one who had tried to warn the character, that was doing the most damage. She took out at least three of them by herself, two with the gun and one with a silver blade she pulled from her belt. She killed the one with the blade by jumping on its back. It bucked, of course, but she had great legs, so she held on, shoving the blade into its head and twisting it until it reached the brain, killing the beast once the point of the blade hit the sweet spot.

  The character, still frozen in place, hypnotized by the continuing carnage around him, was pulled out of his frozen stance by a growling sound. He turned to see one of the beasts staring him down like he was dinner. The character looked up at it, painted red in the spotlight of its eyes, like he was on some macabre stage. It growled with gums pulled back in a sneer, teeth glinting, and the mouth dripping saliva onto the ground that erupted into smoke. A whistling sound found the character’s ears –something sailing through the air. Then he heard a thump like a knife being punched into a watermelon. The werewolf staggered sideways and fell over then its eyes went dark, like someone had just turned off a pair of car headlights.

  The character looked down at the werewolf, and he saw a long silver arrow sticking out of its neck. He looked up at a nearby tree, and he saw a man shimmy down from there to the ground below. He had an empty quiver on his back, but no bow in his hand. The character assumed he was out of arrows, so he had decided to join the fight by using the silver sword in his hand.

  As the fight dwindled, the remaining werewolves, six in all, decided moving on was the best idea. They were bloodied and beaten when they finally took off down the road, the lights of their eyes evaporating into the distance.

  “Are you okay?” It was the woman, the one who tried to warn him before.

  “I think so,” the character replied.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “If you only knew,” he paused, thinking of the author, warm and safe at home in his office while he stood here in the cold, terrified and unsure. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I guess it just has me on edge.”

  “You must not be from around here.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine, shaken, but fine.”

  “My name is Becky, by the way. Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

  “No.”

  “That’s my house right there,” Becky replied, pointing towards the house the character saw when he first arrived here. “You are more than willing to stay if you want. There’s a good size bed in the bonus room, food on the table, warm fire. Think it over.”

  “I will.”

  She turned and paused, then turned back to the character. “Got a name?”

  The character thought about that for a moment, happy the author had decided to give him a name this time. “Martin.”

  “You don’t look like a Martin.”

  The character wanted to say, the author of this tale gave it to me, I have no choice; but he just played it off as if he thought of it himself. “A lot of people say that.”

  She turned from him to the remainder of the people who were gathered in scattered patches around the now dormant fight.

  “All right folks. Let’s huddle up.”

  The people gathered around her.

  “I know we have suffered a lot. We’ve lost a lot, and we still didn’t get all of those bastards. Tonight, we need to clean the road, bury our dead, and burn the werewolf carcasses. Is everyone up for that? I can understand if you would rather go home. I won’t stop you.”

  She looked around the small group, who were bloodied, beaten, and bruised. No one was leaving.

  “At least I can bury my Silas.”

  Becky turned to see a woman kneeling beside her fallen husband. He was badly mauled. She was currently trying to put his left eye back into its socket. This woman was around sixty years of age, like her husband, with long grey hair and kind eyes. She was dressed in warm clothes just like everyone else.

  In the distance, the sound of hooves destroyed the still quiet of the night.

  “We know what’s coming next. Remember our plan and stick to it.”

  The character looked up the road as the people retreated to their hiding spots. Becky saw the character frozen, again. She grabbed his shou
lder and pulled him into the bushes. The character ducked down beside her as the group coming up the road drew closer.

  The horses they were riding were big black stallions, with strong muscular legs, black onyx hooves, brown manes and tails of thick coarse hair, and sharp eyes that sparkled in the bluish light of the full moon.

  The riders on these horses were vampires, but these weren’t textbook vampires. They had flesh colored ram horns on their heads, speckled skin of black and brown, no hair, and no eyebrows. Their eyes looked like uneven ovals with two yellow dots in the middle of them, and they had two fangs in their mouth for sucking blood and no other teeth. They wore dark red shirts and black silk pants with no shoes on their feet.

  As the horses and the riders passed, they didn’t stop when they saw the carnage in the road. They just rode through it like it wasn’t even there. Silas got his head stomped out by one of the horse’s hooves, and his widow ran out of her hiding place in pure hysterics. She had managed to piece him back together, but now it would be impossible to do that. It was more than she could take.

  One of the riders turned sideways in his saddle – brown and leather with boot straps and a saddle horn that ended in an ivory skull. This skull’s empty eye sockets lit up with green fire as the rider pulled up on the reigns. The horse stopped as the other vampires and their horses made their way on down the road.

  Two men came out of the bushes and tried to pull the woman back to safety, but it was no use. The character watched as the rider pulled out a bull whip. He held the handle in his right hand and let the rope part of it roll out to the ground. This whip didn’t have a normal tip on the end of it. What it had instead of a tip was a large leathery hand. The rider raised the whip, as the two men left the woman in the road; they knew she was done for. A second later, the rider cracked the whip, and it went flying through the air. As it flew, the hand turned into a fist so it could travel faster. When this hand reached the woman, it opened, and latched onto her neck. She stumbled backwards from the impact, but somehow stayed on her feet.

  The character wanted to get up to help her, since the two men had left her stranded; but Becky grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. “It’s too late for her. Once they get you, they have you.”

  The character, reluctantly, stayed put.

  The old woman was writhing in pain as the hand tightened its grip, digging deeper into her flesh. The rider turned back to the front of his saddle. He raised the reigns and snapped them. The horse took off at a gallop, and the old woman was yanked off of her feet. The character watched in horror as she went bouncing by, head banging on the ground, blood flying, arms and legs flailing, skin being torn to shreds. Her screams evaporated into the distance along with the horse and rider.

  Becky looked at the character who looked like he was about to vomit. “Come on,” she replied. “There’s nothing we can do for her now. Let’s clean this mess up and get home.”

  Becky climbed out of the bushes, and the others followed her lead. She went over to console the two men who had tried to save the woman. Needless to say, they weren’t in the best of shape.

  The character turned to the side and puked.

  Becky came back over to check on him. “We need some help. Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” the character replied, wiping his mouth clean. Confident he wasn’t going to puke again, he made his way over to the group, who were gathered together on the road. Most of them looked pretty stunned, but they were keeping it together. Becky introduced the character to them, and then they all began the task of cleaning up. The werewolf bodies went into one burning pile, and the dead bodies of their falling friends in their own plot of dirt and earth.

  When they finished, the sun was coming up.

  *

  The character stood in the shower and let the warm water wash over him. It felt good, and it seemed to be reaching all the spots he needed it to reach. When was the last time he had a shower? He had no idea.

  While he stood in the healing warm water, he thought of the road and the werewolves, the riders and their horses, and the woman and the sounds of her dying screams as she was drug off into the distance. The pounding water of the shower wasn’t strong enough to drown that noise out.

  He turned off the shower and toweled off. Becky had given him clothes from her deceased husband, and they fit him adequately enough – jeans, warm shirt, socks, and shoes. She had also given him a pair of boxers, but the character (like most men) felt uncomfortable being that close to another man’s junk. He decided to free ball it instead.

  When he finished dressing, he brushed his teeth with an extra tooth brush she had, put on some deodorant, and then made his way into the living room.

  Becky’s cottage looked small from the outside with its white siding, red roof, and black shingles; but inside it lived large. There was a kitchen, a living room/dining room, two full bedrooms, and one full bath. Becky had decorated it to her tastes after her husband had passed, so it had a woman’s touch everywhere you looked.

  On the mantle she had several pictures. The character walked over to look at them as the blaze in the fireplace cracked and popped. The warmth felt good.

  “That’s my husband,” Becky replied behind him

  The character picked up the picture. It was of a man with a large axe slung over his shoulder. He was big and brawny, muscular, with a thick beard and short hair. This picture looked like it had been taken sometime in the fall. The leaves on the trees were turning all shades of different colors, gold and red seemed to dominate the scene, but yellow was holding its own against those two.

  “Sorry for your loss.”

  “It’s okay. He’s been gone a couple of years now. I’ve gotten past the hurting, but the emptiness will never leave, no matter what I do, it will always be there.”

  The character put the picture back on the mantle and walked over to the table. Becky was putting out a good hearty breakfast – biscuits and gravy, sausage, bacon, eggs, grits, and fruit. It was more than enough to feed his appetite, which was suddenly alive and hungry.

  “You didn’t have to go through so much trouble.”

  Becky was in and out of the kitchen as she was talking. Currently, she was in the kitchen getting the coffee ready. “It’s nice to cook for a man again.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “Nope, just take a seat and dig in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She came back from the kitchen with the pot of coffee and two cups. She put one cup at each place setting and then put the pot down. “Cream, sugar, neither?”

  “Black is fine. Please take a seat.”

  “The clothes fit you well.” She sat down as she said this.

  “Thanks again.”

  “You didn’t wear the boxers, did you?”

  “How did you know?”

  “My husband was the same way. It’s a guy thing.” She looked across the table of food and then at the character’s empty plate. “Well, dig in.”

  The character did just that, in fact, both of them did.

  Time passed, breakfast ended, and they found themselves sitting on opposite sides of the couch in front of the fire.

  “I guess your wife misses you.”

  The character looked down at the gold ring on his finger. He hadn’t really thought about it before this day. Even when he was with the author or in the truck with Eric in the zombie story, he still didn’t think about it. Also, when he was in the zombie story, he had on gloves a lot so he really didn’t see it all that much. Those gloves had followed him from that story to this one, so this was the first real chance he had to look at it, to really notice it, and to think about it. Somewhere, there was a woman who had put this ring on his finger and he had no clue where she was.

  “I’m sure she does,” the character replied, twirling the ring for a moment as the light of the fire flashed off of the solid gold surface.

  “Where is she? You kind of just showed up without her.”

  Sil
ence for a moment. The fire talked as they waited for the next moments of dialogue to fall out of their mouths like ice cubes onto the floor.

  The character ended the silence by dodging the question. He wasn’t sure how to answer it, so he tried to move the conversation another way. He knew the author would be proud of him for not discussing it further. Becky seemed to understand the character didn’t want to talk about it, so, she left it alone, and didn’t press it further.

  “What’s going on exactly? With the vampires and the werewolves, which, by the way, aren’t textbook? I mean they aren’t the traditional way we know vampires and werewolves?”

  Becky drew in a breath, ran her hands through her short blonde hair, and got up. She walked over and threw a log onto the fire. It began its feast on this new piece of wood, instantly.

  Becky came back, and this time she sat down beside the character. He, of course, noticed the gesture.

  “It started right around the time my husband died. He was out late one night chopping wood for the winter. I heard this terrible scream; and, then when I went out to see what it was, one of those werewolf things was tearing him to shreds. He had managed to get an axe into it, but the thing was unfazed. It took us a while to realize silver was the weapon of choice against them. Anyway, I went out to help him, and I heard this whistle. I looked up and saw one of those vampires sitting on a horse nearby watching the whole thing. The werewolf was his pet, and it came when he called it, like a dog.”

  She got up from the couch again. “Excuse me a minute.”

  Becky went into the kitchen and got some water, wiping away the moistness from her eyes as she walked. She came back and sat down beside the character, ever so closer, eyes dry and red. She sipped on the water for a moment and composed herself. She put the glass down on the coffee table, and turned to face the character after putting her hand on his knee. He felt a stirring, but hoped it would contain itself.

  “Where was I?”

  “You had just seen them.”