Limbo's Child

by Jonah Hewitt

  Lucy followed the thick-knuckled hand of the person who had shut the door all the way up to his brutish, pockmarked face.

  “You’re not doin’ this.”

  “MILES!!” Sky yelled, “Get your hand off the door!”

  The red-haired vampire just ignored Sky and pushed him back against the car.

  “Hey! What are you doing?!” Sky yelled, but something in Miles’ look didn’t make him protest any further. Miles just turned to face Lucy with a look of determination on his face.

  “Put her down,” he said to the vampire holding her as he folded his arms defiantly. Lucy raised her eyebrows.

  “Um…I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Miles,” Tim said nervously.

  The red-haired vampire sighed, then spoke directly to Lucy, “If I have him put ya down do ya promise not to run until I have said me peace?”

  “Miles, what are you doing?” Sky said, disbelieving.

  “Shut ya gob, Sky!” Miles shot back. Then he turned back to Lucy and continued to stare her down.

  “And then what?” Lucy asked cautiously.

  “Just listen to what I have to say. Then ya can make up yer own mind to come with us or not.”

  “Miles, are you crazy?!” Sky said impatiently behind him.

  “Shut up, Sky! We’ve done it yer way long enough!!” He looked back to Lucy but said nothing.

  Lucy looked nervously back and forth. This was a better chance to escape than she was likely to get again. She nodded once quickly. Miles and Tim exchanged glances. Tim slowly let her down and quickly backed away to avoid another sharp jab in the ribs.

  They all just stood there stupidly for a minute before Lucy said, “Well?!”

  Miles looked around as if hunting for the right words. He was obviously having a hard time thinking of just what to say. Looking at him, Lucy realized he wasn’t much taller than her and not much older…well at least he didn’t look much older than her, fourteen, maybe fifteen tops.

  Finally, he clapped his hands together and rubbed them nervously before starting out a little haltingly, “Um…well…we are vampires.”

  Lucy stared at him contemptuously. “Uh, yeah…I kinda figured that out, thanks!” Lucy responded sarcastically.

  “I’m not,” Tim said, chagrined, from behind her.

  “Right,” Miles said kind of embarrassed. “Sky and me, we are vampires, but Tim’s an orderly.”

  “An orderly?” Lucy said, disbelieving. “But I saw his teeth! What was all that about?”

  “Fake,” Tim said simply.

  “Why would you pretend to be a vampire?!” Lucy asked in disbelief. Tim opened his mouth but never got to answer.

  “Yeah, and you still owe me for those!” Sky interrupted, sounding annoyed.

  “Well then you owe me for the dented fender!” Tim retorted.

  “Dude, that was her fault,” Sky threw his chin towards Lucy.

  “My fault?! You’re the creeps who grabbed me in the first place!”

  “Anyway!” Miles jumped back in to stop the argument, “None of that matters right now!” There was silence for a minute as Miles rubbed his forehead in thought. He was certainly taking his time getting to the point. “What matters is that…we…” he rubbed his scalp as if he needed to massage the words out of his brain. Finally, he just blurted it out in one breath, “We are on a mission, of grave importance, from the Fawder of all Vampires, Hokharty-Ra, to take ya back to Rivenden, that’s our den in Philly.” He paused. “Soooo…let’s go.”

  Sky rolled his eyes and then began banging his head against the roof of the impala. Lucy looked at Tim. He just shrugged. When she looked back at Miles he was smiling stupidly.

  “L-let’s go?!!” Lucy stammered dumbfounded. “That’s the great explanation of why you tricked me and kidnapped me and tried to tie me up in the back seat?! Let’s go?!! Well, SCREW THAT!!”

  “Well there’s a bit more to it than that,” Miles tried to go on.

  “A BIT?! Ya’ think?!”

  “Well, there’s the whole end of the world thing too.” That came from Tim behind her. She turned to gape at him. Schuyler went back to banging his head on the car roof.

  “End of the world?!!” Lucy replied in sheer disbelief. Lucy was near exhaustion from the night’s revelations so far. Just in the last few hours she had found out she was a necromancer, her only potential guardians were a psycho-witch and an unknown great uncle, these three idiots were vampires, well two of them were, and now it was the end of the world?! It was just too much. “How is it the end of the world?!!” she yelled.

  “Well, we’re not exactly sure…really,” Miles said at last and cringed a little.

  “Yeah…we’re kinda new at the the whole ‘End-of-the-World’ thing,” Tim tried to add helpfully.

  Lucy gaped at them all in turn, ending on Sky. “Don’t look at me!” he said, “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even be hanging out with these two losers.”

  Lucy looked down at the ground, her jaw was slack, her hands numb. She just kept shaking her head back and forth in shock. “What. On. Earth. Has the End-of-the-World got to do with ME?!!” she yelled at last jumping up and down in frustration.

  “Well we ain’t exactly sure,” Miles said cautiously rubbing his neck as he spoke, “All we know is that our master, the Fawder-of-all-Vampires, well, he has a master too, ya see, some bloke called ‘The Necromancer.’ ”

  Lucy’s eyes widened, staring off into space as a dawning realization hit her. “Lazlo Moríro,” Lucy said the name barely above a whisper, retrieved slowly from her conversation with Amanda.

  “Yeah, that’s him!” Tim jumped in enthusiastically, “Do you know him?!”

  “Um…no…well…maybe…he’s my uncle. I think,” Lucy said at last. She buried her face in her hands.

  Everyone exchanged glances, but no one knew what to make of this. Lucy was numb. What had Amanda said? There must always be one Necromancer or the world will fall into chaos? But hadn’t she also said the current Necromancer had lost his way – that he had taken on too much for himself and wouldn’t let go of the power?! Who was right?! Amanda or these clowns? Who was the good guy and who was the bad guy?! She felt like she wanted to sit down, but she couldn’t move for fear that if she tried she would crumple like a piece of paper.

  Miles and Tim looked at her a little worried. “Well we were supposed to fetch ya an all and bring ya back to him so ya could help him or sometin’,” Miles tried to explain. “Only we were supposed to try an’ persuade ya.” Miles shot a dirty look towards Sky.

  “Wait…what?” Lucy had been distracted in thought over this new revelation about the end of the world and the Necromancer, so it took her a while to digest what Miles was saying. “You were supposed to come here and persuade me to come with you? So what…you just decide to what…LIE to me instead?! Is that it? And when that didn’t work you were going to tie me up?!!”

  Tim and Miles looked shame-faced at their shoes.

  “What kind of screw-ups are you guys?!!”

  “That was Sky’s idea,” Tim pointed an accusing finger at Sky. Miles rolled his eyes.

  “It was your call, OH FEARLESS LEADER!!” Schuyler shot back as he leaned against the car and pouted while twirling his lollipop stick. “So, don’t give me that butt-covering crap now, Tim!”

  “NONE A THAT MATTERS NOW!!” Miles jumped in to stop the fight. “What matters now is that we need yer help. We’re sorry we lied, but sometin’ big is gonna happen, sometin’ important and we don’t know what, but we know we need yer help to fix it. So, please…will ya come with us?”

  There was silence for a moment while Lucy considered it. Then Tim added another tidbit of information, “Oh…and we also have your mom’s body.”

  Lucy turned slowly and looked directly at Tim, her nostrils flaring.

  “YOU’RE THE JERKS THAT STOLE MY MOM’S BODY?!” Lucy was fuming.

  “Don’t look at us, we weren’t there! That was all orderly boy’s doin
g,” Schuyler said dismissively. Schuyler’s main operative seemed to be to pin the blame on everyone else.

  “Well it’s not like I had a choice!” Tim whined defensively.

  “A CHOICE?!” Lucy said tearing, “Why. On. EARTH! Would you steal my mom’s body?!”

  “Lucy?” A timid voice came from the other side of the car.

  “What could it possibly mean to you?!” But none of them answered.

  “Lucy?” It was Yo-yo’s nervous voice again, but Lucy ignored it.

  “What in the world would make you think that I would trust you three NOW?!”

  “Lucy!” Yo-yo’s voice was louder this time.

  “Not now, Yo-yo!!” She didn’t like to be stern with him, but she was strained to the breaking point and had to get this out. “After all the times you’ve lied to me,” she gritted her teeth and glared at Sky, “And all the horrible things you’ve done!” she shot venomous looks at Miles, “And what you’ve done to my mother’s body!” she yelled right in Tim’s face, “What makes any of you think I would ever go anywhere with you, EVER?!”

  Hot tears were pouring down her face and she was breathing hard through her teeth. She pulled the sleeve of her bathrobe over her face to wipe them away and spoke more softly this time, but no less forcefully, “I’m not going with you anywhere.”

  There was a pause before Sky stood up and clapped his hands together. “Ok, so we’re back to the tying her up in the back seat plan then. Tim! If you don’t mind?”

  Miles rolled his eyes again, but Tim had already grabbed Lucy.

  “WHAT?! Let go of me!! YOU LIARS!! You promised to let me go!” she yelled, kicking and screaming, but Tim was holding her tight by the elbows this time so she couldn’t even jab him back.

  “Lucy!” Yo-yo said again.

  “Sky! We promised!” Miles stood nose to nose with Sky, indignant.

  “No. You promised. I didn’t agree to anything.”

  “Sky, let her go!”

  “Um…no.”

  “But Hokharty said!” Miles tried to argue, but Sky cut him off.

  “Yeah, and Hokharty turned the last people who didn’t do what he wanted into a pile of vampire nuggets and some charcoal, so if you don’t want to end up like Wallach, Forzgrim and Ulami I suggest you open the back door for Tim.”

  “Unngh!” Miles was storming off again, so Sky just opened the door himself, keeping clear of Lucy’s kicking feet, but he stopped to look when Yo-yo tried one last time to get their attention.

  “LUCY!!” Yo-yo screamed with intense urgency. All turned their eyes towards him and even Lucy stopping flailing for a moment. Yo-yo was peeking through the car windows just above the door, with one slender finger pointing down the isolated road.

  All eyes turned and followed the finger into the darkness in the direction it was pointing. A faint ka-chunk barrap, ka-chunk barrap came up the road getting louder and faster as it got nearer. In the distance they could see a weird, lumpy, misshapen thing with large spikes jutting out of its back. It was getting closer and closer and approaching fast. It looked like a pig or a goose or some horrid, half-broken animal. Lucy couldn’t make it out, but as it came down the road, it filled her with an unspeakable sense of dread and horror.

  “What in the HECK is that?” Tim said at last.

  “PANT-FHWOOOOT!!” it bellowed ominously, somewhere between a squealing pig and a foghorn.

  “Isn’t that the thing we hit a couple miles back?!” Sky said in horror.

  Lucy looked hard, she couldn’t tell. It was difficult to figure out what in the heck it was. It had an awkward, sideways gait like a crab but was moving at such a furious pace it was a blur. Ka-chunk Barrap! Ka-chunk Barrap! It was half running, half scraping itself along the asphalt and there, in one hand, was a flash of metal. Lucy squinted her eyes…it was a knife! A huge…absolutely gigantic butcher knife, and the thing had a look of pure murder in its eye. It had a long snout like an anteater and coming from it was a froth of saliva and a bloody, red tongue. Tim saw it too.

  “Um…maybe we should get in the car,” Tim said.

  “PHARAAAANTTT!!!” it bleated out a horrifying war cry like a dying horse strained through an accordion.

  The fear of the thing spurred Lucy to action. She had an idea. “I’m all for that!” Lucy stomped hard on Tim’s instep.

  “Ouch!” Distracted by the oncoming whatever it was, he let go of Lucy and she lunged forward. Sky tried to get in the way but she jabbed him with a bloody finger and thought “GET AWAY!” as hard as she could. It worked! There was a crack and he shot back and plowed over Miles in the process. She jumped in the door and yanked it shut and locked it. Then she scrambled to the other side and opened the door for Yo-yo. He leapt in and locked it himself. Sky and Miles were pulling themselves up off the pavement. Tim was banging on the car door and jiggling the locked door handle when the creature hit them like a bowling ball crashing through a set of china.

  There was a lot of indistinct jumping and screaming and crashing and yelling.

  “What in the bloody…YEARGH!!!” That was Miles.

  “AAAAAAAAAHHHH!” That was Tim.

  “Not the blazer!!” THAT was Sky.

  Lucy hunkered down for a second in the car, thinking desperately what to do. She clambered over the back seat and plopped down into the driver’s seat. Fortunately, Sky had left the keys in the car. She turned the key and it started. Outside, the fight intensified. She looked down and saw three pedals. She stomped on the gas hard. It revved, but the car didn’t move. DANG!

  “ARRGH!!”

  “PHARRNT!”

  “GET THAT THING OFF OF ME!!”

  “WOOOONT-ParfarNAAWWWNT!”

  “SWEET BRIGID!!” Things were not going any better outside. She stomped on the first pedal and tried the gearshift. “Ack!” She flinched at the screech of grinding metal.

  Tim shook off the fear of the monster outside long enough to exclaim, “NOT THE TRANSMISSION! What? OH, CRAP!!”

  “FAAAAARNT!!” The monster flailing around with the enormous butcher knife obviously took offense at its lack of precedence.

  She tried the other pedal and yanked hard on the gearshift. More grinding, but this time it stuck. She sat back up and grabbed the steering wheel. Her mother had let her drive for a few yards on the driveway, but she had never driven a clutch before. All self-doubt disappeared however when the point of a butcher blade came through the roof of the car.

  “AAAAAAH!!” she screamed and stomped on the gas. The car leapt forward and the thing on the roof rolled off with a thud and a painful hoot.

  “MY IMPALA!!” screamed Tim.

  She swerved madly from side to side, overcorrecting as she went. The car lurched like a boat dragging its anchor. Thank goodness there were no other cars on the road! She let up on the gas. A few seconds in she had gotten it under control enough to look back. The thing was charging after the car and right behind it was Miles. He was running on all fours like a dog, a cloud of black smoke surrounding him. Why was everybody always chasing her?!

  “LUCY!!” Yo-yo pointed out the windshield. Lucy spun around. They had veered off the road and onto the shoulder and the guardrail was missing! She let off the gas and stomped on the brake, but the car barely slowed and just squealed a high pitch whine, then she remembered the clutch and stomped on both it and the brake and yanked the wheel to one side. The car turned 180 degrees and skidded to a halt, stopping just short of where the guardrail was supposed to be. The engine sputtered and went out. She tried the key. The starter whined but the car did not start. Coming right at her was the THING, ka-chunk barrap, ka-chunk barrap, getting closer with its massive knife and hooting and panting in rage the whole time. Right behind it was this monstrous, black dog surrounded in a thick black fog!! What in the heck was that!! Was that the red-headed vampire?!! She decided she had to abandon the car. She flung open her door and scrambled out.

  “C’mon Yo-yo!!” She reached into the back seat and grabbed Yo
-yo by the hand and dragged him out behind her. She went over the edge and the steep embankment and the two slid down to a small copse of trees lining the road. Then she froze and slowly looked up. She knew the place instantly. She was standing under a tree with two trunks in the shape of a “V,” each trunk was badly scraped up and scarred from last night. The car had been cleared away, but she could still feel the shattered glass and broken plastic from the lights under her toes. This was the site of the accident. This is where her mother had died.

  She lost all sense of time and place and horrible visions leapt through her mind. She had to grab on to her head. It was like she was falling in slow motion. The woman with long hair. Yo-yo in the high beams. A boy with a shaved head. Was that the boy they had just seen?!! That strange pig-thing chasing them!! A boy with blond hair and a red-haired sullen boy! She had seen them all!! And more. A city of tombs under a pall of darkness, blind children screaming, running everywhere and flames of ice! Her mother was with them. Why was her mother with them?!! An army of abominations and monsters, each worse than the previous one, gathered on the edge of a vast swamp, crushing everything in their path. Behind them, an enormous pit that was growing larger and larger consuming all – the swamp, the city, the children, everything!

  And then suddenly another vision. A house in a wood. A large, elegant manor of brick and stone. She is there. She enters. She sees a vision of her mother, no her mother’s body, lying on an old-fashioned lounge. Amanda is there too, standing behind her mother, along with the others, Miles and Sky and even Tim. Lucy approaches her mother’s body slowly, stepping up a low set of stairs to reach her. She leans over her, her mother’s body is lifeless until suddenly, her eyes open, but they are nothing but blind, white orbs.

  Somewhere, as if from very far away, someone called her name. She heard it as if from under a thick pillow. Something was tugging on her. It was Yo-yo.

  “LUCY, we have to go!!” Yo-yo yanked on her arm desperately and she came back to herself. She looked back. The pig-goose thing was already clambering down the embankment. The dog monster was right behind it. Yo-yo tugged hard on her hand and dragged Lucy away from the accident scene and into the woods. “He was amazingly strong for someone so small and skinny,” Lucy thought. Lucy didn’t think to look back, she just ran headlong into the woods, Yo-yo leading her on. At first, her heartbeat was pounding in her ears so hard it was the only sound she could hear at all, until she heard the thing crashing through the brush behind her. Ka-chunk barrap, KA-CHUNK BARRAP!! PHAARNT!! She could feel the swishing of the large blade at her heels, and her eyes began to dim. The blade stabbed at her bathrobe and pinned it to the ground.