by Craig Zerf
Nathaniel pulled off his armor with a sigh of relief and snuggled into the pile of warmth and softness, pulling one of the furs over him.
Gwencalon unclipped the brooch that held up her tunic and let the green shift flow to the floor. She was naked underneath and her body was hard and rounded. The firelight reflected off her erect nipples and cast her womanhood into mysterious shadow.
With her ever-present half-smile on her lips she pulled back the fur that covered The Forever Man.
To discover that he was no longer there.
Chapter 19
Aapep Nu stood at the window, his back to the room, ignoring the human maid who was cleaning his rooms.
Aapep was a lower order Fair-Folk mage. And, since the incident at the village of Pennance and the following death of the human Baker brothers, he had been sent to the Pennance garrison in order to ensure that the humans were kept under control.
This had not been as easy as he had thought it would be. Firstly, the thin skins did not actually do anything flagrantly wrong. They were more passive-aggressive as opposed to simply aggressive. They would deliberately stand in the way when one of the Fair-Folk or their minions would seek to walk a path. They would light bonfires and cover them with noxious weeds whenever the wind blew over the garrison and then, when asked to put the fires out, they would simply walk away. A group of young boys had been caught urinating in the garrison water tanks. They had been birched as punishment but had refused to apologize.
Of course they could be glamoured, and Aapep did make full use of his glamoring powers that could affect both the human’s perception and the way that they behaved. However, it was very tiring and, unlike they had first thought, the thin skins were actually fairly resistant to the process. It appeared that humans tended to find glamoring acceptable, only if they essentially agreed with what was happening in the first place. So, if you were well liked, a small amount of glamour would ensure that you were extremely well liked. However, if they were suspicious of you, then it took an inordinate amount of power to bend their will. They were an obstinate and irrational race, full of unnecessary feelings and devoid of logic.
Aapep turned from the window and walked to his desk where he sat staring at the female human. Her name was Debbie and she was sixteen earth years old. Lank, mousy hair. Hazel eyes. Thin. Aapep had no idea if she was considered attractive or not. To him she looked the same as all of them. Like the constructs that the Fair-Folk bred as workers, she was a pale color, built on a similar skeletal structure and of similar strength. But it was there that the similarities ended.
Unlike any of the Fair-Folk’s breedings, the humans had been granted emotion. Constructs felt no emotions at all. Orcs and goblins were capable of only the most rudimentary. As a result the Orcs, the Goblins and the constructs felt no fear, no curiosity. They had no need to question, and they never did.
The Fair-Folk, on the other hand, did experience emotions. They simply kept them well under control. But when they were in front of the thin skins there was no need for such control. In fact, quite the opposite. Many of the younger Fair-Folk, like Aapep who had only recently had his bicentennial celebration, had taken to openly glamoring humans in order to bring on excesses of emotional responses and then reveling in their after effects. Feeding on their fear and their pain, like psychic vampires. Imbibers of the raw emotions that the thin skins experienced when under the extreme duress of being physically glamoured.
They had tried joy and love, but the frisson that one experienced from these warm and fuzzy emotions were nothing like the high that one could experience by glamoring a subject into abject gibbering terror and then soaking up their emotion. It was indescribably delicious.
And, afterwards, if you released them from the glamour in the correct way, they forgot all about it and went on their way. Only to return for more pleasure enhancing mental torture when next summoned.
‘Debbie, child,’ he called her over to her. ‘Come here.’
The teenager walked over to stand in front of the small gray alien that she saw as a tall, blonde, strikingly handsome man.
Aapep started by drawing in some of the power of the life-light and using it to freeze Debbie to the spot. Then he forced her mind open and thrust himself in, pushing deep into the layers of her consciousness. And there he found it, locked away in some dark, windowless room. Heights. She was terrified of heights.
He drew in a little more power…and tweaked.
‘No!’ Debbie screamed. She looked down. She saw that she was balanced on the top of a tall spire. A cathedral. Hundreds of feet below, people scuttled like insects. Birds flew below her. Wisps of cloud caressed her face.
She cried out again. A formless sound of nightmares. A lowing, mooing sob of terror.
‘Please help me,’ she called out to no one.
Aapep allowed the teenager to see him. Standing in front of her. It made no logical sense but she was now in a dreamlike state of pure glamour.
‘I am here, child,’ he said.
‘Help me, sir.’
‘Of course.’ Aapep held out his hand. ‘Take my hand, child. Take my hand and I shall carry you to safety.’
Debbie shook her head. Tears poured down her face. ‘I’m scared.’
‘No need, child. I shall save you. Trust me.’
Aapep stretched towards her.
She leaned forward.
And Aapep snatched his hand back.
She fell. In reality, a short, one second stumble to the floor.
But, in her new reality, a fall of minutes.
Twice Aapep had to use the life-light to restart the girl’s terror-stilled heart as she fell. And then once again when she hit the ground.
Aapep’s breath came in shuddering gasps as he sank to his knees. Sweat poured from his rubbery skin and soaked into his loincloth. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and waited for the waves of the thin skin’s delicious, unfettered terror to finish washing over him.
Finally, he rose unsteadily to his feet and gave Debbie a mental nudge.
The young girl stood up and swayed in place for a while.
Eventually she spoke.
‘Can I do anything for you, sir?’
Aapep shook his head.
‘Go,’ he said. ‘I will send for you if I need you.’
Debbie nodded and left the room. It was as if all had never happened. She was totally unaffected by her glamoring.
However, deep inside the tissue of her brain a large blood vessel that had been weakened by the massive cerebral trauma started to expand like a balloon, causing a large aneurysm. That midnight, whilst Debbie was asleep, the aneurysm burst.
She never awoke from her slumber.
Chapter 20
Both Adalyn and Janeka rushed forward in an attempt to grab Nathaniel before he hit the ground but they were too late.
Gramma Higgins waddled over and knelt down next to the prone marine, feeling at his neck for a pulse.
‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘Though he look no better than a corpse.’
‘What the hell was that?’ Exclaimed Tad. ‘I mean, is it just me or did he just create a lightning storm?’ He gestured towards the burning tract of forest. ‘Did Nate just do that?’
Gramma nodded. ‘It appears dat he jus did. Now stop yo fussin and fetch me a blanket or sumat.’
Milly ran off and returned with one of Nathaniel’s furs.
‘Thank you, child,’ said Gramma, as she covered the marine.
The little girl lay down on the ground next to Nathaniel, pulled her own fur cloak over both of them and then she snuggled up close to keep him warm.
‘Dat’s good, Milly,’ approved Gramma. ‘Keep him warm. He be in some sort of shock right now and we don’t want him dying on us.’
Milly smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Gramma,’ she assured. ‘Nate can’t die.’
‘Thas right, child,’ said Gramma. ‘You think positive. Good.’
This time Milly actually laughed. ‘No, Gram
ma. I mean it. Nate cannot die. A few days ago, I saw him get shot in the heart by some bad men with big guns and he fell down, all blood and terrible stuff. Then the bad men stole all of his clothes and left him lying in the snow. Two days later he found me and rescued me. And he was fine.’
‘They probably jus nicked him, sweetheart,’ said Gramma.
‘No,’ argued Milly; ‘They hit him. Right in the middle of the chest. Twice. I was there and I saw it and two days later he was fine. He cannot die.’
Not wanting to belittle the girl’s story but keen to get to the bottom of it, Gramma leaned over and pulled the furs away from Nathaniel’s chest.
And there, easily visible in the firelight, were two coin sized pink scars. Newly healed. She turned him slightly so that she could see his back and, sure enough, in the corresponding areas, were two large exit scars. Perhaps the size of small teacups. Also newly healed. Gramma pulled the furs back up and tucked them tight around the marine.
‘She speaks the truth,’ she said. Her voice barely above a whisper.
‘Told you so,’ said Milly.
‘So,’ said Tad. ‘We have ourselves an immortal ex-marine who can create his own firestorms.’
Suddenly Milly screamed.
Tad jumped back. ‘What?’
The little girl pointed at Nathaniel’s face. On his right side a huge gash appeared, flaying the flesh from the side of his face. The marine’s body jerked slightly and Gramma pulled back the furs to reveal more cuts opening on his upper neck and forearms. None of them, however, bled. It was if someone had slashed open a week old corpse.
‘What do we do now?’ Asked Tad, his voice close to hysteria.
Gramma shook her head. ‘Nothing. We keep him warm. That’s it. Nothing else that we can do. Dis be way beyond our knowledge of tings.’
Milly was crying quietly. Adalyn stroked her hair. ‘Don’t worry. You said he can’t die.’
Milly nodded. ‘But he can still feel. And something has chopped his face up.’
There was no answer so they all simply sat in vigilance around the comatose body. Watching. Waiting. Silent.
Milly, Adalyn and Janeka eventually fell asleep. Tad and Gramma sat awake.
The son rose, heavy, gray and ineffectual. A light snow started to fall. Tad erected a small tent over the marine to keep him dry.
They waited.
‘Look,’ said Tad as he pointed at the marine’s face.
Both Gramma and he stared and, as they did, the horrendous scar slowly knitted itself together, leaving a thin pink line. The other visible scars also closed, some leaving hardly a sign of their existence.
Milly woke up, stretched, ran her fingers over Nathaniel’s scar and smiled.
An hour later the marine woke up.
He looked around him, taking in the familiar surrounds and said.
‘Cool. Home again.’
Chapter 21
The one that they all called G-Man swung his leg hard. The toe of the Doc Marten boot struck Harry in the chest, the sound like an axe chopping wood. The burly farmer fell backwards and smashed his head on the wall.
There was no way that could fight back. His arms were tied behind his back and his legs had been taped together with duct tape. And, even if he had been free to retaliate, he could not. The newcomers had his wife and his two daughters and he knew that they would harm them if he tried anything. So he didn’t. He merely absorbed their punishment and waited.
‘You know something, Harry?’ Asked G-Man. ‘You are one sorry asshole. Really, who did you think that you were? Jesus. Gandhi. You wanted to lead. You wanted to be the king, just like any one else. Admit it, Harry. You wanted to be the boss.’
Harry shook his head. ‘No, G-Man. I simply wanted to help. People were dying. I wanted to help.’
‘Well you have,’ said G-Man. ‘You helped us.’
More kicks were delivered. Savage, crunching blows.
Harry didn’t even attempt to stay conscious as the blows rained down on him. He knew that there was no humiliation in what was happening to him. He had done the right thing. He just hoped that they didn’t harm Ann and the two girls.
Eventually G-Man got bored of kicking an inanimate object and he skulked off, followed by his two main sidekicks, Jonno and Ratman. G-Man stood around six foot. A long slab of a face, like a sallow tombstone. Black hair slicked back close to his skull to reveal a widows peak. Green eyes, bushy eyebrows and a permanently disappointed expression.
All three men were armed with sawn-off shotguns and daggers. Ratman, a 300-pound gorilla of a man, also carried a three-foot long sledgehammer with a fifteen-pound head. He called the hammer “Daisy” and had used it as a weapon many times. He made a point of never cleaning it afterwards. The bits of bone, gristle and hair embedded in the layers of dried blood were mute testimony to that. Ratman, who had gained his nickname after eating a live rat, claimed that the grisly state of the hammer’s head intimidated people. He was correct.
The three men headed back to the main farmhouse. The same house that had, up until three days ago, when G-Man and his cohorts had arrived, been farmer Harry’s house.
They passed the neat rows of different size and color tents pitched outside the house. Outdoor latrines had been dug about one hundred yards from the tents and a six foot barbed wire fence surrounded the living enclave.
Outside the enclave was a working farm. Crops, mainly potatoes, were being planted and reaped as well as swedes and turnips. Hardy root crops that could withstand the cold. Dairy cattle and horses were stabled inside the secure enclave.
When the pulse had first hit, Harry, a well-known farmer in the area, had reacted quickly. He had saddled up his horse and visited all of his neighbors, convincing them to pack up and come to his farm, as it was the biggest in the area.
Within two weeks the people had fenced in the secure area, dug a well and started all of the routines necessary to subsist and prosper.
Initially there had been thirty of them. However, they had formed a four-man committee and had decided that small groups of three people, two men and one woman, would saddle up and ride forth to seek out other people in distress. At least one group set out each day, roaming far and wide. By the end of the first month there were over one hundred people living at Harry’s farm and another family arrived every two or three days.
Harry, his wife and his two daughters, lived in a tent, as did all of the other families. They had given the farmhouse over as a clinic, a kitchen and a common area. Some rooms held card games, others prepared pickles and jams and still more rooms were set aside for the elderly and infirm.
Harry’s farm was an oasis of calm. A haven of kindness and sanity in a world of madness. And, as such, it was doomed to fail.
G-Man and his buddies had arrived four days ago and had simply taken over. There were twenty-two of them. All armed with a mixture of shotguns, rifles, crossbows and edged weapons.
Harry and his people had welcomed them with open arms and, within hours, three of them were dead and G-Man had raped one of the teenagers. The two people that had died were both young men who had tried to stop the rape. It was not that G-Man and his compadres were that much stronger than everyone on Harry’s farm. It was not that the people on Harry’s farm were not brave enough. It was simply that G-Man and his buddies’ were of a type. Bottom feeders. Inherently vicious and paranoid. The results of a benefits culture that had not done an honest day’s work for over three generations. A culture of entitlement that had resulted in the selective interbreeding of the lowest of the low. They were, quite simply, consumers and destroyers.
G-Man led the way to the main house that had been turned into his residence since the takeover. The elderly and infirm had been relegated to tents. As had the cooking facilities.
Jonno and Ratman shared the house with G-Man and the other nineteen vagabonds had requisitioned the biggest tents for themselves.
The gentle commune had degenerated into a caricature of a Wild W
est town with G-Man as the villain.
But wherever we find a villain in such stories, we also find a tall, dark, stranger that rides into town.
Chapter 22
Sharing someone’s terror and enhanced emotional highs is exhilarating. It is exciting. It is both mind expanding and conscious altering.
However, it is also very addictive, as Aapep was in the process of finding out. To a species that had never been exposed to the radical highs and lows of humanities emotional states, mind melding with the thin skin’s terror enhanced minds was the equivalent of Fair-Folk crack cocaine.
The Fair-Folk lived very long lives. An average of over four hundred earth years. With their massive cerebrums, they all had what humans would refer to as eidetic, or photographic memories. As well as this, they had an ability to pass on their memories, or at least an almost exact facsimile. As a result, most Fair-Folk carried with them the sum total of their entire race’s memories. In all that time, Aapep could not recall anyone experiencing such hedonistic surfeits of emotion as he had been experiencing over the last couple of weeks.
Then, quite by chance, he had discovered the mother-lode. One of the thin skin serving girls had brought her child with her. She had left the child, a nine year old, in Aapep’s living area while she had gone to fetch cleaning rags and polishing wax. Aapep had taken the opportunity to glamour the child into absolute terror and the resultant waves of emotion were the most intense that he had ever experienced. Pure and unadulterated by logic or learning, the child’s terror was as clear and sharp as a blade.
And now all else felt feeble. As if a cloud had passed in front of the light of his emotions and left him in a fog of dull, unrelenting normalness.
Unfortunately, the child had suffered from a terminal heart attack while under the influence and it had died. When the mother returned Aapep had glamoured her as well, not because he needed another fix, he had been fully sated by the child. He did the woman merely to overtax her cerebral system and cause her death. Then he had contacted Orc sergeant Gog via mental telepathy and called him to his chambers.