Abby moved to her pack and took out a few herbs, the water skin, and a pot. She put these together and set the mixture over the fire, stirring it as it warmed. “What’s that?” He gestured toward the pot with a hand that he was disturbed to find was shaking, not horribly, but enough to make it clear he was still feeling weak.
“A cure-all Benjamin showed me. You should be all right by morning, with the help of this and a little more rest, that is. If we’re lucky we’ll come across some water soon, and a cooler climate.” Her tone was much milder than it had been that morning, almost genial. After a few minutes, the water came to a boil and she put some of the liquid in a cup before handing it him. “Sip it slowly, it’s bitter, but it’ll help. I think you might have had some sort of attack of heat exhaustion; at first I was worried it might be sunstroke, but you’re a lot more together than you would be after that.”
When he brought the cup to his lips he found that it was indeed very bitter. He drank it a little at a time, as she’d told him to do, and it seemed to settle his stomach and overworked body as he did. The headache seemed to ebb with every sip, drawing his consciousness with it. He was quite relaxed by the time he’d finished the potion and looked up to find that Abby had cooked some thin biscuits in the pan; she gave him a few with some torn pieces of jerky. He took his time, eating slowly to keep his stomach from getting upset again, relishing the flavor after the bitter taste of the medicine.
Abby watched him closely from across the fire, still and quiet. “Sleep now, you should be feeling drowsy and you’ll need it. We’ll have to start out again just before dawn.” He already felt it. Barely able to lift his head, he shifted to lie down again. He was never so glad for the rest in his life.
Chapter Ten:
The Ghost in You
Abby opened her eyes to the world and screamed.
There had been a dream, a horrible choking thing that clung to her thoughts like spiderwebs. Though the terror and unreasoning chill of it lay fresh in her mind, the meaning and exact events that took place in it eluded her. The one thing that remained in her thoughts was a name, a name she had wanted to forget since the end of her world. The feel of it in her thoughts was enough to choke her breathing and send a spike of fear into her heart. Jared. She gasped in the humid air of her world and wished she could take it all back for what must have been the billionth time in her life, but there was no way to take it back or make up for it. No matter how hard or how long she fought to do it, there were always ways she had failed.
Tired and bitter, she bit back a sob and scanned her camp. All seemed clear; Henry dozed on his pallet and the fire burned bright between them. But it was never really safe here, not in the sense of Henry’s world, not even in the soft, cold warning way of her own.
They were near it now, the place where she’d fought Jared in that horrible battle. She could feel the taint of it, the tang of spilled blood, the ache of regret, and the stench of death. She knew this place and it knew her too. The voices of the dead called out to her, demanding retribution. She pleaded that she had tried, that she had traveled for so long, doing everything she could to pay for it. She never got enough sleep, never enough warmth to heat the winter of her soul, and never enough distance to put it all behind her. The dead were beyond the needs and wants of the living and these spirits despised her with every element of what remained. She didn’t like it here, wanted to leave it behind again, but Henry had fallen ill and she didn’t have the patience to carry him away from here before she knew he was well again. As much as he pissed her off she still cared what happened to him, another person she felt responsible for in the world, another wanderer dropped in her lap with all his debts.
She could feel it closing in now, the haunts of this place and the memories in her mind were nothing compared to the demanding voice of its presence. It tasted her fear and her pain and relished them, savoring them from its perch a few hundred feet away. I am your master, it said in its silence, you know who and what I am just as well as I. You crave release but don’t want it when it comes. Why, dear Abby? I give it to you freely. Allow me to set you free, dear, sweet Abigail, and you shall live!
But I am alive, she said in her own silence, it’s me that’s decided what sort of release I need, when and why as well. I don’t want your brand of freedom or your cunning games. I want my life! I crave control and peace, not anarchy and violence. They’re not my emotions or my thoughts, what you release. They’re what you want me to think and feel. I have no master and I refuse you!
She felt its snide leer and curled her arms around her knees, wept for all that she’d lost and all that she couldn’t touch because of her pain and the idiot truths this creature breathed into her soul. She felt its presence like a weight in her mind, the smooth purr of its laughter sending a shock of terror up her spine.
Say what you will. I know you, and you know me. I am your master, Abigail, as I have always been and always will be.
Its words sank into her, transforming her thoughts and emotions, pushing her true self back and the dark form behind her thoughts forward once again. This was a dance she knew well, the horror of it swallowing her up, and she ran, ran like a mad woman through the branches of the forest around her, pulling the smells of it in through her nostrils, flared in their eagerness for a scent to discern. In this place she was more animal than man, a being he drew out of her and sent wandering in the night when he could catch her to work his will and she was never more susceptible to it than she was in this awful place. The feral creature she had become craved death and the taste of blood, scenting the air for prey, deaf to the howl and wail of her lost ones around her. These dead things, ghosts of her past, martyrs of this world, wept in their bitter death, exhausted beyond time. Sorrow as pitted and ugly as their own dead bodies rained from them as she ran past, and rage at the beast she had become once again.
Taking in their cries with the part of her that was still human, that remembered their agony and death as clearly as they did, as one she and the feral one wailed in the night. The choke of regret ripped at her in her helpless state, the craving for meat sinking her further into her horror. Yes, she knew the other, but she also refused to remember it, defying its demands for absence because it was the only thing she had the right, the will, or the strength to withhold. Only his name remained in her thoughts, a single word with such great meaning.
Jared.
***
Gagging in the pre-dawn air, Henry burst forth from sleep at the sound of the long, painful wail of some beast in the night, and then startled by what he saw, pushed himself back from the vision before him and shuddered.
On the other side of the fire, where Abby’s pallet lay as it should, he found, instead of her lithe form, that of another. It lay on its belly, breathed the scent of her in from her bedding, and growled warning to Henry as it writhed there, nostrils agape as it scented her, licking its lips, savoring what traces it found. Where in the fuck is Abby and what in the fuck is this fucking thing? Whatever it was, its entire body was a badly damaged mass of scar tissue, its only recognizable features the gleaming white teeth in its open mouth and the brightly blazing blue of its very human eyes. Is this, was this thing human once? It was an obscene thing, rocking to and fro on its hunched legs as it clawed at her bedding, an almost feline sexual languor to its pose. Its stench was horrible, some putrescence that permeated the camp and sent the few living creatures in these woods scurrying away from it through the brush with crackling sticks and leaves sounding in their wake. When it saw Henry staring, mouth agape at its terrible presence, it got to its feet, smiling, and threw itself off into the woods, laughing maniacally as it went. Yes, this was human laughter, a rich male sound that made him shiver.
It was the other.
Shock and repulsion shivered through his system as he lay where he was, shaking. Henry looked at the space where it had slipped back into the woods, his eyes locked as he waited to see if it would come back and remembered the power of it as
it had crept from the woods at them the other night, thick and cloying. This being, this other, was something that stood above the beasts of this world as Abby did over men. As he thought about that presence, smelled the lingering stench of the creature in his camp, Henry was reminded of that night when Abby had attacked him and the memory chilled him. Would it happen again? Would he die by its claws or Abby’s hands?
He pushed away the fear eating him alive and went to his pack a few feet away, then pulled out his gun, as suddenly afraid as he’d been when he’d first arrived in this world. The fog had returned as he slept, a heavy blanket over everything. As Henry watched, peering into the night, he saw that shadows moved in it, dimly human shapes that moved toward the camp and encircled it, pushing away any thought he’d entertained of running. These things, whatever they were, proved to be hard to make out, a gently rounded hip or curve of breast telling him the sex of each of the shadows in turn and little more. Faded muttering came to his ears; the sound of Abby’s name and a few random words were the only things he really understood from it. Cold whispers that shivered along his flesh and curled insidiously in his ears to slither into his thoughts.
“Abandoned…”
“Sacrifiiiiiced…”
“Slaughtered…”
“Death…”
“Abigaiiiiiiiil!”
Though the words gave him the vaguest inkling of what had happened here in Abby’s past, it helped him little with understanding these beings’ presence, with what they wanted from him. There was no question that there was meaning and weight to their presence, a demand for his attention, a warning or some truth to be taken from them. He stood and scanned the ring of shadows, worried that they might be like the other undead he’d experienced before, only older and perhaps insane. He didn’t get anything from the gaze. Only brief glances as he’d seen before, of leg and arm and dim outline of face; they told him nothing.
“Name! Your name…..” A male figure to his right demanded, stepping forward a little but never enough to expose himself to the light of the fire. “Whoo….arreeee…you?” His voice was a dull croak, like the sound of ancient trees groaning with age in an ancient swamp enshrouded forest.
“I-ah-I’m Henry, what-er-who are you? What do you want?” Had he asked it too much?
“Hennnnryyyy…”
“Abiiiigaillll!”
“Betrayer!” the word was vehement on the other beings’ lips, old and ragged as the male that had spoken before. The accusation confused him, was it directed at him or at her? Most of all, he wondered why it was leveled at all.
“BETRAYER…”
“Monsssterrr!”
“Liar!”
His fear grew, the hairs rising on his neck in response to the energy coming off them, all rage and loss. He didn’t know what would happen now, if they would kill him or only rail at him until the light of dawn came. He didn’t know which would be worse, being rent apart or terrified until he went mad.
“Killll herrrrrrrrrr!”
“What?” He asked them, shock making his eyes go wide. But no more words came from their withered mouths; they walked away, shuffling in their ragged clothes and the thick white fog. Their absence made the night go silent, only dim sounds carrying to him in the camp as an hour passed, maybe more, and Abby had not yet returned.
A crash and a yelp of pain came from the woods on his right, the roar of some creature on the hunt and its kill dying in its jaws. Henry shuddered, certain that there had been something human in both of their cries, human but all too alien.
***
The feral one tore through the shadows and the branches which choked her path, the scent of her prey thick in her nostrils. She ran and she let her, held a distance knowing that she would tire soon, dove over the ground and waited for her to weaken, bleeding and dying beneath her. Her wound was a gaping red slit that ran jaggedly over her chest and belly; a panicked but resourceful thing, she had continued running though she should be in too much pain. Her victim’s thighs and buttocks were wet with urine and soiled with waste. The hunt had been exhilarating and primally erotic; the tang of fear intoxicated her as she chased, her nipples erect with arousal. Her prey turned to look back at the feral one, a twisting and fearful glance made as she tried to escape, desperation clear in her features and the whimper that shook her lips. The killing blow was already made; her victim merely delayed the inevitable with her run.
Ahead, a long dead tree lay in the path. Her victim’s head was still turned toward the beast and she didn’t see what lay at her feet, weakened legs stumbled and fell over it, her temple stricken against sharp rocks with a loud pop. Seizing, she could only lie there as the feral one came, blinking and senseless beneath the hunter. The feral one dove down with a roar, striking the corpse’s upturned chest, the flesh of the wound torn wide, the sound like that of ripping silk, satisfyingly rich. Spattered in her blood, she pulled at its organs with her claws as the victim wailed, a high keening screech of pain that drifted into agonized whimpers as it died.
Behind the eyes of the feral creature she had become, Abby wailed her own despairing cry, aching to stop herself from this grim thing, but still too distant to touch and command her own body. Her mind was a confusion of conflicted emotion now; the satisfaction and bloodlust of the beast mingled with her own horror and the dark knowledge of what had come to pass as she was trapped within. Abby clawed at its strong walls, fought to regain use of her own flesh. Fear strangled her, pieces of her mind walled away from the beast in order to protect the parts of her she didn’t want it to use for its own awful amusement, for Jared’s. She had done that much, fought to keep what she needed to survive and go on. Still she couldn’t regain her body and still she heard Jared’s laughter as the beast maintained control.
When its hunger was sated, the feral thing stood straight. She had scented her mate and cast her face around seeking him out. Soon it ripped away what remained of Abby’s clothes as it ran, irritated by the fabric, confined in its closeness. His scent flared her nostrils, caused the feral one’s body to release its pheromones and her body to respond. She was called to him. She didn’t have to go far, over a hill and through a stand of close standing trees and then she saw his scarred form, the horror of his misshapen limbs in the moonlight, his eyes alight at the sight of her. The feral one smiled with blood-stained teeth when she saw his pleasure, ran her gore-streaked hands over her body in a dance of desire. Within, Abby recoiled, pleading for escape.
He smiled at her, his own teeth a blaze of white in a scarred face as he watched the feral one tease her nipples erect and hard, his sex grown hard as the feral one opened her own, masturbating before her mate. In the dim reaches of her mind, Abby screamed, knowing him, knowing who stood before her and wanting to run. Jared, no, no, you can’t have my body, you can’t claim me anymore, you bastard!
But none of her words mattered, not to the monster that held her body and not to the one that she was when he held sway over her. He stepped forward and fondled her body, biting at her nipples and exploring her sex with his fingers, a reflection of that first night when Abby had gone to him all unknowing about who he was, what he intended for her. It was deliberate, a sneer of calculated satisfaction on his horrible face as he saw Abby’s memories, drew satisfaction from the beast’s lust and the knowledge it reflected Abby’s own. The feral one enjoyed his attentions, bucked in pleasure as each touch brought new arousal and a subtle tease of pain. Playful, she sprinted back toward the dead tree, knowing that he would pursue. Eager, she threw herself to the ground there, legs spread and buttocks arched awaiting him.
The musk of her open sex invited him inside, and Jared came to her, mounted her from behind. The two rutted in the secret and fetid stench of her kill, cried out with their pleasure like animals.
Abby tore herself away from this vision, hid in the corners of her mind as again the thing that called itself her master raped her spirit and fucked her darkness. The rain of voices came to her again; her los
t ones stood around them, accusing hisses drew her back to what had happened and what was happening now. Fog banks moved in and out of her vision, but she could still see the young woman lying dead on the ground, her body eviscerated and chewed. Amused with her horror and ever a monster, Jared relinquished his hold as he laughed, knowing what he had done to her and wanting his mastery made clear.
Abby screamed her anguish, her body again her own as the creature climaxed inside her, his hands tight around her throat. Satisfied, Jared pulled himself from her and charged away; animalistic laughter followed in his wake, making her shudder as she lay on the fetid killing ground. When she knew he was finally gone, Abby let out all of her horror and grief with tears as the dead lingered with their accusatory eyes.
It would be dawn before she reached camp, as composed and calm as she could pretend to be.
***
When Henry awoke he realized that Abby had returned, her shadow falling on him from the other side of the camp as his eyes squinted open against the sun. He didn’t recall having fallen asleep at all, the last thing he remembered before waking up was having been seated pointed toward the woods, watching for any new horrors to come for him. He must have slipped off like that; his joints certainly seemed to protest enough for it and his gun was only a few inches from his hand when he went to sit up the rest of the way.
She kneeled naked by her pallet running a rag over her body, apparently cleaning herself with some of her water. The sight sent a shiver of arousal through him, stirring him out of the dregs of sleep. “I’d appreciate it if you could turn around, Henry.” He turned as she’d asked him to, his face going red with embarrassment.
Other Dangers: Slipped Through Page 10