'Til Death (The Fearlanders)

by Joseph Duncan

  Orgasm swept over her like a breaking wave, and she cried out in ecstasy, feeling her whole body throb. A moment later, her husband’s organ swelled and she felt his icy seed sluice inside her.

  “Yes!” She gasped. “Yes! Kill me! I want to wither and die here with you!”

  She heard a muffled howl then, a resounding thud. She twisted toward the stairwell, startled, as one of the monsters upstairs threw their body against the door. They’d heard her! She screamed and scrambled from his husband’s lap as the door at the top of the stairs splintered and cracked. This is not how she wanted to die! Not like this!

  Pa Frobisher stumbled into view, jagged hunks of the door tumbling down the stairs ahead of him. He lurched, almost fell, then shambled down a couple more steps.

  Rachel retreated to her cot, squeezing herself into the corner of the alcove. She tried to cover her nakedness with her arms, sobbing, “No! Oh, god, no! Not like this!”

  Charles was going crazy, heaving his body violently on his cot. He raised his entire torso up and then slammed his buttocks down on the mattress. Metal squealed as he contorted, his head swiveling back and forth.

  Ma Frobisher appeared next, shuffling down the stairs behind her husband. Her teeth glittered in the candlelight, torn flesh jiggling where lips and jowl should be. Then the kids, pushing all at once through the stairwell, and the little redheaded girl went over the side. An errant blow from one of her older brothers had knocked her over the bannister.

  She landed head first, her skull connecting with the concrete floor with a sickening thud.

  Rachel heard a high-pitched clang, and then her husband was loose. She covered her face with her hands, expecting him to fall on her as well. She watched him rise from the collapsed bed through the gaps between her fingers. His filmy eyes narrowed at her.

  But he turned on the Frobishers instead, swinging the bedframe toward them like a lion tamer brandishing a chair. He’d snapped one of the ropes binding his wrists, though the other was still tied to the frame. As Rachel watched, he swung the frame with a snarl and one of the metal legs connected with Ma Frobisher’s temple. She hit the wall with a splat and went down, her legs twitching.

  Pa Frobisher tried to go around him, heedless of his wife, but Charles threw himself on the larger ghoul. They embraced one another, tested their strength, snarling like wolfs, then Frobisher lifted her husband from the ground, bedframe and all, and heaved him out of the way. Charles sprawled across the floor, but was up in an instant.

  Charlie and Old Man Frobisher met in combat once more. They locked hands, straining against one another, a temporary stalemate, but the two boys were still coming. They circled around the embattled adults, their eyes locked onto their prey—Rachel, cowering in the corner. They were both as tall and as stockily built as their sire.

  Rachel remembered the axe then, leaning up against the cot where she’d kept it the last few days. She grasped the handle and jumped to her feet, and caught the closest of the boys just as he leapt.

  The lad wasn’t decapitated, but his head flopped over like a flower with a broken stem, black blood jetting into the air. He did an oddly graceful half-pirouette and collapsed on Charles’s cot, flattening it completely.

  His brother stepped over the twitching body, stalking fearlessly toward her.

  Rachel swung wildly and missed, then swung again and caught the boy in the temple. The axe came out of his skull with a wet sucking sound as he fell.

  She turned to help Charlie, and saw that her husband had been overpowered. Pa Frobisher had driven her husband to his knees and had taken his head in his hands. The big man was trying to rip her husband’s head from his shoulders! Charlie clutched the man’s wrists as Frobisher twisted and tugged on his head like a man trying to pull a cork from a wine bottle.

  “NO!” Rachel screamed, and she ran toward the combatants, axe arcing up over her head.

  She brought it down with all her strength.

  Pa Frobisher’s skull split open like a watermelon, and all three of them fell, Rachel to her knees, and Frobisher atop her husband. Rachel felt the man’s cold cranial fluids gush across her face and chest. A hunk of gray brain matter plopped onto the floor in front of her, jiggling like Jell-O.

  Snarling, Charlie heaved at the big man’s carcass, but he couldn’t roll the dead man’s body off of him. Finally he gave up, and he turned his head to look at her.

  “Raaaayyyy-chulllll…” he groaned.

  “Charles? Charlie, is that you?” Rachel cried, struggling to her feet. She slipped in the goo puddled on the floor and went down again.

  Her husband’s face twisted into a rictus of fury then, and he snarled at her like a badger.

  No, not at her--! He was hissing at something behind her--!

  Rachel felt two cold hands seize her by the arm, and then the redheaded girl sank her teeth in Rachel’s wrist.

  13. Love’s Life’s Ending

  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless, and darkness held sway over the surface of the deep. The spirit of God descended from the heavens then. It moved across the face of the waters, its timeless countenance shining like the moon. In all of creation, that was all that had ever existed: God, the void, the deep. It was a lonely thing, that primal trinity, and so God spoke:

  “Let there be light…”

  Until that moment, no other words had ever been spoken. They were the first words in all of time and space. No other words would ever again have such importance.

  Rachel Carlson opened her eyes.

  The light flew inside her brain like a thermonuclear explosion, bright, white, all-encompassing. She threw up her arms, trying to block out the light, the glaring light that stabbed into her eyes like burning daggers.

  Pain!

  There was so much Pain!

  The whole universe was Pain, and she was the center of the universe.

  The light was Pain. Her eyes were Pain! The arm she moved to shade them was Pain. She could not think. She could not remember. The Pain was all there was, and all that had ever been.

  She tried to rise (PAIN!) but the effort was too great for her and she collapsed back onto the cold stone floor beneath her. In agony, she cried out (PAIN!) and she felt tears run down her cheeks (MORE PAIN!).

  A shadow blocked out the light, and she felt cool hands slide beneath her knees and shoulders. She was lifted into the air. Cool lips brushed against her brow.

  She mewled as the light grew brighter and brighter, and she tucked her face into the soothing shadow of her husband’s chest.

  She did not know that it was her husband’s chest. She did not know anything but the Pain, but she was comforted by his presence. She let him carry her deeper into the light without complaint.

  Up… Up… And then out.

  The light intensified, but with it came a pleasant breeze. She smelled green things and heard the twittering of living creatures, somewhere out there inside the light. She was lowered gently to her feet, but she clung to the cold body standing beside her. Her legs were still too weak to hold her.

  One hand helped her stand while a second took her wrist and pulled her palm away from her eyes. She blinked into the devastating brilliance.

  NO! IT HURTS TOO MUCH!

  But she wanted to see. She had always hated the darkness.

  Gradually, the light began to wane. She saw shapes, colors, movement. The world solidified around her, molecule by dancing molecule.

  She turned her head and examined the man who stood beside her. His face was still hazy, but she felt that she should know him.

  If only she could think around all the pain! If only she could remember his name!

  The man brought her hand up to his mouth. She was afraid that he would bite her, but he only brushed his lips across her palm. She smiled and moved her hand to his hair, and his ducked his head, his eyes drooping closed, as she ran her fingers through his swirling locks.

  She heard a sound like
rolling thunder and turned to look at the vast expanse of the heavens. She squinted, trying to bring more of the world into focus, locate the source of the echoing rumble.

  There, at the edge of the world, a thin gray line was slowly being drawn across the sky. She watched, entranced, as it descended toward the distant hills. She wanted to follow it, find the place where it would fall. Perhaps it would be something she could eat. She’d begun to realize that the Pain was really Hunger, and it might go away if she could eat.

  The man who had carried her from the darkness put his arm around her shoulder. Though the physical contact hurt her, she didn’t move away.

  The needle pulling the gray thread across the sky glinted once, brilliantly, then it vanished, dropping below the marching green hills. She lost interest in the needle when it passed out of sight and turned to the being standing there beside her. All thought of hunger or pain had drifted away. She knew that face. That… funny face.

  She didn’t flinch at the noiseless white light that flashed suddenly in the distance, or see the strangely shaped cloud that rose ominously in the sky.

  “Charrr...llliiieee,” she croaked.

  Let there be light.

  END

  About the Author

  Joseph Duncan lives in Southern Illinois with his wife, his kids and all the voices in his head. He is the author of eleven novels, including Mort (in whose fictional universe this short story takes place) and the Oldest Living Vampire Saga. He is currently working on his next novel.