by Reilyn Hardy
Maybe that made her an angel after all.
I wondered if it was the same girl who had given him that ring. He did tell her she reminded him of someone from his past.
“She kissed me,” he continued. “Her lips were like ice, but I could feel her warming against mine — like she was coming to life.” He frowned then. “Next thing I know, you’re in the room with huge crazy eyes and the window breaks.”
He sounded disappointed which made me laugh.
“I’m sorry I ruined your moment.”
“She’s not real anyway,” he said, and bit into his apple again.
I observed the broken window she disappeared out of, the curtains were being pulled out of it from the wind and they flapped wildly. How could he think that? I was pretty sure she was real. Whoever she was, I hoped she would come back.
I think he deserved for her to come back, but I kept my mouth shut about it.
I went back down stairs.
* * * * *
At first, the only reason I went outside was for a breath of fresh air, or so I told myself. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t giving in to my curiosities. That I wasn’t letting it take over again — but it was a lie.
I usually only left the house to pick fruit from nearby trees and bushes, even then I didn’t wander far. I didn’t know if it was fear of what could be lurking about in the eerily quiet town with us, or if I was in fear of myself and my lack of responsibility. This time was different, whether I wanted to admit it out loud or not. I didn’t leave the house for fruit. I left to look. For what? I wasn’t sure yet. Whatever I could find, I supposed.
I walked down the paved street, which was quiet, and far from peaceful. When I felt bold, I gathered the courage to peer through windows, and often saw dead bodies scattered across the floor. The whole town had been brutally murdered. Likely not long before we had gotten there.
I didn’t need to wonder who had done this. There was only one person who crossed my mind and I didn’t want to accept it as fact. I kept pushing it out of thought, until I laid eyes on the ouroboros symbol painted on a wall in blood. The tail-devouring snake. The symbol of Norhurst — the symbol of the necromancers.
It was the Grim Reaper — he had done this — or at least his creations had, and there was no denying it now. Not with that symbol painted on the wall.
I felt sick, but I couldn’t move my feet. My shoes were nailed to the ground. He knew about the stone, he must have. There was no other reason for him to send anyone here.
I could only hope they didn’t find it but I was far from being that lucky.
Maybe they did find it.
Turning away from the window, I spotted a large home, the only one much unlike the rest. The windows were boarded up from the inside. Windowpanes were broken, egg stains on the peeling paint of the walls and expletives written in paint. The only home that actually appeared abandoned. I thought I saw something move in the window beneath the boards, but after seeing the ouroboros symbol, I was no longer feeling brave and ran back to the home we were staying in. I wished I hadn’t left at all.
* * * * *
The following afternoon, I sat in the kitchen peeling an orange, pretending I hadn’t done anything wrong, when I heard Jace come running down the stairs. He jumped down onto the ground floor from halfway and looked at me as he landed on his feet.
I only glanced up for a second. “Back to your old self, I see.”
“I feel great,” he insisted as he fixed the cuffs of his sleeves around his wrists. We were both dressed in clothes that we had found in the house. “It was nice to be here. Recover, recharge — clean ourselves up.” He ran his fingers through his wet hair to push it out of his face. “And a bed to sleep in — still not my own but hey, at least I slept in it alone,” he finished with a grin like he was actually proud of himself for that accomplishment.
“I’m surprised you didn’t get kicked out of Newacre for your behavior alone.”
“Hey, I wasn’t breaking any laws. None of them were married or betrothed and it’s not like I can give them children out of wedlock.” He shrugged. “I’d have to find someone like me and we both know that’s not likely.”
“You’ve always taken it so well.”
“What?”
“Being the last.”
Jace grabbed another apple from the counter and tossed it in the air. He caught it in his other hand and shrugged again while he took a bite. I wasn’t sure how he wasn’t sick of apples by now. I didn’t think I could eat another for a while.
“There’s no point in dwelling,” he said after swallowing the piece of fruit. “I hope I’ll find some of us, eventually. Maybe one day, but it’s okay if I don’t. You’re my family, Mae. I don’t need anyone else.”
I smiled a little, and then I stopped. I still hadn’t told him who I really was and I had never felt guiltier for keeping it a secret. I should have told him then. Only it still didn’t feel like the right time. Maybe I was just making excuses.
“I’m going to start digging holes,” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“We should put the family to rest,” he continued. “No one deserves that.”
By that, I was positive he meant the way they died, and remained in the dining room untouched. No one deserved that. He was right.
How was I supposed to tell him that the whole town met the same fate?
We both went outside to start digging. And after a while, he took over. He was a lot faster at it. Jace didn’t stop till there were four holes dug in the yard, lining up beside one another. They were a family of four; a woman, a man and their two children.
I stood outside of the dining room and the door stayed closed with the towels still pressed into the bottom crack. I remembered the glassy eyes staring at me — my hands in blood — blood on my face when I tried to keep the smell out of my nose.
Then I saw David again.
I closed my eyes and looked away. I couldn’t do it.
“I’ll do it,” Jace said and I stepped away from the door. “I think you’ve been traumatized enough. I’ll make it quick.”
I’ve been traumatized?
“Jace —”
He pat the back of my shoulder and smiled.
“Don’t worry, I got it.”
I nodded and I went back upstairs. I didn’t want to chance seeing them again. I tried not to look at the wall as I went up — I didn’t want to look at the pictures — I did anyway.
I saw their faces, their bright eyes and broad smiles. I saw the life and the happiness, spread out across the wall. A timeline of their lives, all for me to see. The people in Edgewick didn’t even know what lurked past the Ashen Hills. I wondered what happened here, between them and the creatures of the night, and then I didn’t.
How much did I really want to know?
I didn’t want to know. Ignorance was bliss.
Mostly, I didn’t want to think about how they were sitting ducks with no knowledge that something else existed, something more than their ordinary, mundane lifestyles.
I forced myself to look away and I locked myself in my room.
But it wasn’t really my room, was it. The sheets weren’t mine, the bed wasn’t mine. The clothes I wore, they weren’t mine either.
We couldn’t stay there any longer.
I started to pack my bag with all of the items I had laid out to dry and I stopped when I reached for my dagger. I traced my finger over the side of the blade and stopped at the base where it met the handle. On the flat side, there was the etching of three interlocked spirals, the triskelion. It had been haunting me since the Vernal Equinox.
I shoved it back into my bag, slid the strap over my shoulder, and ran back down the stairs to find Jace. I didn’t hear anything from the dining room but I forced myself to check. There were bloodstains from where the bodies once lay, but they were all gone.
He moved them all.
I went outside. Night fell. I watched where I stepped so
I didn’t slip into any of the holes he dug. The backyard was darker, but incomparable to the Ashen Hills. In fact, even previous nights have seemed darker than tonight.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and I yelled, “Jace!”
There was no response. Not again.
I was about to yell again, but I didn’t when I spotted his bloodied shirt on the ground. I turned around and I slowly tilted my head back so I could see the sky — it was a full moon.
CHAPTER NINE
the time keeper
As we got older, Jace made a point to tell me about werewolves. He started off slow and would randomly slip them into conversation over the years. I think he did it so he’d know how I felt about them and what he had to teach me before telling me the truth. I remembered being completely caught off guard by his admittance because he’d talk about it so often, and Jace never talked about himself or his family. Despite being my best friend, despite knowing him for so long, there were still so many things I didn’t know.
Werewolves had been around nearly as long as vampires, created specifically by Mother Nature to hunt and kill these undead creations of the Grim Reaper. Over the years, people began to question alliance of the werewolves. As the number of vampires diminished with the fall of the Reaper, munfolk and other beings began turning their weapons to the wolves. As far as we knew, Jace was the last one.
My best friend wasn’t evil, but he warned me that the first full moon was always the worst. The first full moon after becoming an adult, would be the first transformation.
Werewolves only started changing after they became an adult at two decades, triggered by the first full moon that followed. It’s the worst transformation they would have because it was the first time they would experience their bones break and reform. The first time they would shed their human skin, tearing it off like an irritation because it kept them restrained.
He told me they were angry when they first changed; angered by the pain they were just forced to endure. It was only a partial transformation. No longer man, but not quite wolf yet either. It was in between, it was monstrous.
He had drawn it out for me once, and it was something I didn’t want to see up close.
There was only one problem; I had no idea where he was and I wasn’t about to wait around to find out. I ran to the next house with the hopes he would go back into the other one if he was still near. The door was already unlocked and I was fast to shut it behind me. I locked it, even though I knew it wouldn’t be of much use against a werewolf.
The house was hardly different from the other. It appeared to be a normal home, where people were living comfortably, but that time I found them immediately.
The smell of rotting flesh hit me as soon as I opened the door. They were murdered right in front of it. A dead body was sprawled on the stairs and I moved away when I saw a decapitated head at my feet. I thought of David again and I had to quickly shove those memories out of mind. The stench was almost unbearable and my eyes began to water. I understood now why Jace wanted the smell to go away and I hoped it would be enough to keep him from entering.
Then again, maybe not.
I heard howling in the distance, which didn’t sound nearly as far away as I wanted it to be. It was close, and I was uneasy.
He howled again.
He was getting closer.
I tried to convince myself that it was Jace. He wasn’t going to hurt me. Then I thought about the anger he described when we were younger. If I had to feel every bone break in my body, I wouldn’t be myself. I’d be in pain, I’d be angry. It was safe to assume he wasn’t himself either and I shouldn’t trust it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t make that mistake.
I didn’t have room to make mistakes.
A window rattled and I jumped — but it was just a tree scraping against the glass. When the wind brushed the branch against the window, the whole thing shook. But my heartbeat didn’t slow. It continued to thump loudly in my chest, pounding in my ears. It was the only thing I could hear and it was driving me crazy.
It was a deadening silence. When you knew something bad was about to happen, and there wasn’t anything you could do to prepare yourself for it. The beating of your heart would grow louder, unable to quiet it.
What are you even doing here, kid?
My heart is racing.
You aren’t even an adult yet.
Ferris’s voice was mocking me. I heard it ringing in my ears over the pounding of my heart. His words didn’t bother me before but now I couldn’t help but think he was right. I wasn’t an adult yet. I was a kid, and I was scared.
You know he can’t protect you from what’s out there, right?
What was out there didn’t worry me in that moment. Jace couldn’t protect me from himself.
I clenched my fists just as the window shattered.
Glass skittered across the floor and standing in the room now was a monster. He landed on all fours, but got up to his two hind legs. He had the face of a wolf, was the size of a bear, and he stood like man. It was Jace, or what was left of him.
I didn’t move, hoping he wouldn’t see me. Air was caught in my pipes and I couldn’t breathe, but I hardly noticed. Breathing wouldn’t matter if he tore out my throat.
He crept along, his steps were slow and his large claws were hanging out in front of him. I didn’t know what was worse, his claws or his teeth. I could see him snarl, but I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything over the pounding in my chest.
Hopefully he couldn’t hear it too.
Jace turned his head away from me and walked into another part of the room, disappearing behind a wall. I used this as my chance to move. Knowing I wouldn’t get far, I climbed to the stairs and dragged the dead body over me, hoping I’d smother myself in the stench. He didn’t like this smell and maybe it would keep him away — keep me alive.
I was still trying to get beneath the body when he came back. Dead weight wasn’t easy to move, nor was the smell tolerable. I stopped when I heard him, but I didn’t see him.
Just when I was beginning to think I was safe, the body above me began to move. It turned around and hissed at me, baring sharp teeth.
It clicked in my mind, these weren’t just dead bodies. They were turning into revenants.
He tried to hold me down by my wrists, and attempted to bite my neck, but Jace grabbed him. He threw the swelling body through another window and jumped out after him.
Jace wasn’t after me after all.
I ran for it. I hoped the smell of blood and rotting corpse that was now doused on my clothes was strong enough to cloak the fear I reeked of.
Nothing was chasing me, not yet anyway.
Edgewick was no longer eerily quiet. Many of the brutally murdered bodies were rising in their homes and I could see their shadows moving across the windows.
I ran faster.
Creatures of Drarkodon had come through here and I was beginning to wonder if they came back. The corpses were at a slowed decay. Weeks had passed and they remained intact as though they had just been murdered. Maybe they were preserving them. I was scared to think about what would have happened if we had arrived when we were supposed to.
I darted toward the boarded up home. To my surprise, the door unlocked when I jiggled the knob. I slammed it shut behind me. Breathing heavily, I hoped nothing saw me.
I kept myself alert, waiting for the undead to attack, but as I moved throughout the house and as I peered behind each door, I realized I was alone.
There wasn’t any blood on the floor from what I could see, or any signs of a struggle. The house was tidy, despite its outer appearance, and the mess was nothing that couldn’t have been caused by wind seeping through the broken, boarded windows. A few things were knocked over, but dust and dirt heavily coated everything. Whoever lived here, abandoned it long ago.
I anxiously twisted the ring on my thumb as I walked throughout the house. Floorboards creaked beneath my feet with every step I took and the whole ho
use swayed in the wind. Pages flipped behind me and shadows crept across the walls.
I was alone, but it didn’t feel like it. I had the feeling I was being watched, like someone or something was waiting in the shadows, and something very well could have been.
I closed my eyes and I heard footsteps on the roof, stomping heavily at first, then they got lighter. There was scratching at the windows, but I didn’t look.
Maybe I should sleep, maybe I should welcome whatever was to come for me. No, I couldn’t roll over and play dead. I wouldn’t.
I dug for my dagger, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I was a coward, trapped inside of a house when I very well knew that I should be out there. I should have been helping him, not locked away, hiding from anything that went bump in the night.
But what help was I? None. Coward.
For the longest time, possibly hours, I didn’t move. I couldn’t bring myself to move. Revenants were a lot different than a Witchfen Worm. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know much about them aside from the fact that they were cannibals.
Despite my better judgment, I finally approached the window and peeked between the wooden boards, fully knowing that I wasn’t going to like what I saw, and I didn’t.
Newly awakened revenants were roaming the streets. Jace jumped down, onto the pavement, and several of them leapt at him. He howled in pain and I tightened my hold on my dagger. I had to do something.
I was about to shout when something covered my mouth and pulled me away from the window. I turned around and saw a woman standing there. Her hair was loosely and messily tied back. She had a scratch on her cheek just beneath her eye and she stared at me in the darkness. She had her arm held out at me, and she wielded sai, only one was stuck into a metal cuff on her left wrist where her hand should have been.
“How did you get in here?” She asked me and I put my hands up in surrender. “Are you one of them?”
“Do I look dead?” I asked, it came out more sarcastic than I had intended for it to. I also didn’t want an answer, I knew I still looked awful from my lack of sleep. I dug my sheath out of my bag and fastened it to my belt before putting my dagger away. “I don’t mean you any harm.”