Vampires Don't Sparkle! (17 page)

“What about morning, if that thing’s not natural, I … ” Jacob began.

Alfred interrupted, “There!”

Following the older man’s gesture, Jacob saw the living nightmare reaching over the top of the roof. It seemed to be having difficulty trying to climb.

“Coming to claim the last few breathing,” Dr. Grayson remarked solemnly.

“Now or never, it’ll go back to mist soon. You are the fastest left, lad. Think you can get the bastard to the garden in back?” Alfred asked. “Get him there, keep his attention, I’ll do my best.”

“Not encouraging, but there’s no better plan,” Jacob responded curtly.

He scrambled down the back of the roof, and quickly took account of the garden area. Surrounded by a high privacy fence made of wooden planks, it was accessed by a small gate on the right side of the house. Unsure whether it was locked or not, Jacob braced at the roof’s edge, turned, and dropped to the ground.

He hurried over to the gate, and saw it was locked from the inside. Lifting the latch, he swung the gate open, and strode out.

He fixed his eyes upon the huge, ghoulish figure out front, which was still occupied with trying to get to the roof. On the ground level, Jacob was reminded how massive the monster was. For a moment his courage wavered, and he thought about racing back through the gate and locking it.

Steeling his nerves, he reminded himself that no gate could stop a being that could turn into mist. It had to be fooled, and Jacob had to trust that the older man had a viable solution.

“Hey! Want to get me? You won’t have to climb!” Jacob yelled.

The shadow-being stopped, and turned towards him. Jacob edged backward, his breath quickening, calling upon all reserves of willpower to keep from running. Stepping carefully, he backed into the enclosure, keeping his eyes trained rigidly on the figure. His heart froze as it moved in his direction, its lengthy strides closing the gap swiftly.

Once he was in the middle of the backyard, Jacob waited. The creature passed through the gateway and tromped forward.

Jacob squared himself towards the hideous entity, though his body trembled. The creature’s back was to the house, and out of the corner of his eye, Jacob could see Alfred inching down to the lip of the roof.

Jacob kept his feet planted, his heart about to burst through his chest. Every part of him screamed to run. A wave of putrescent odor engulfed him, a moment before the being loomed over him, causing him to choke as the entity grabbed for him.

The creature lifted him effortlessly, leaving his shoes dangling a couple of feet off the ground. His pants became soaked as his bladder emptied, pissing himself in his terror. The unholy gaze of the entity held him riveted in place, as Jacob stared into the abyss within the creature’s eye sockets. Set deeply within were small points of red, glowing light, a spectral hint of hell itself.

The distinctive, rattling hiss sounded through a mouth missing its upper and lower lip, exposing blood-soaked, blacked teeth, unnaturally long. Jacob knew he was helpless to do anything, and all hope fled as he stared into the deathly countenance. He felt himself being brought in closer to the entity, as it leaned forward and opened its maw wide, to quench itself on his blood.

Jacob did not see the axe blade severing the neck of the entity, until the creature’s head toppled free from its body. He was held suspended in the air for a moment longer, until he fell heavily to the ground. He cried out as he landed awkwardly, spraining his ankle.

It took him a few moments to realize the entity was no longer a threat, and that he had been freed. He saw Dr. Grayson and the others getting down from the roof, as he took in the welcome sight of Alfred, who had wielded the axe that decapitated the creature.

“Not saying it’s over yet. Going to make damn sure,” Alfred muttered, as he began hacking at the stinking corpse. Severing limbs one by one, the old man chopped the creature apart. Alfred yelled over his shoulder, “Get a fire going, now! Right here!”

The father and son who had joined them set about gathering scraps of wood as Dr. Grayson went to Jacob’s side. The middle-aged woman that Brenda sacrificed her life for hung back from the others, eyes still wide and gleaming with fright.

“You did a great thing, Jacob. You saved us,” Dr. Grayson commended, in a low voice. “We wouldn’t have made it, if you hadn’t occupied its attention. I know that.”

Jacob winced from the pain in his ankle, as he looked to the professor. He said nothing in reply.

A small bonfire was soon blazing within the garden plot. Alfred and the two village men tossed pieces of the creature into the flames, until every last part of the entity was being consumed in fire.

Not a word was spoken among the group as Jacob stared deep into the flames. He felt numb to the core, drained of energy and emotion.

He was still in the same position when dawn’s first light fell upon the village, as the horizon lightened to the east. A melancholic silence reigned over the area. Nobody in the group had said a word, all wrestling with what they had seen and been through.

“And so the dawn rises, once more,” Alfred stated, closing his eyes, and loosing a sigh that conveyed the weight of many generations.

SKRAELING

Joel A. Sutherland

Joel A. Sutherland is the Bram Stoker Award nominated author of Frozen Blood and Be a Writing Superstar, a creative writing guide for children published by Scholastic. His short fiction has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including Blood Lite II & III and Cemetery Dance Magazine. He has a Masters of Information and Library Studies from Aberystwyth University in Wales and works in a public library near his home east of Toronto. Sutherland also appeared as ‘The Barbarian Librarian’ on the first season of the Canadian edition of the hit reality show Wipeout.

He has yet to meet a vampire without a single redeeming characteristic, but some of his favourites can be found in
Salem’s Lot, 30 Days of Night
and
I Am Legend
. He’ll also admit (in the right company) to enjoying watching
True Blood
with his wife.

–––––––––––

A
speck.

Nothing more than a pinpoint of black on a sheet of pure, brilliant white. Like a star in reverse. Like the smallest pupil surrounded by the largest eye.

Just a speck.

But it’s enough to set my pulse racing. Enough to clutch my heart within an iron hand and squeeze my lungs so every breath is pain. Enough to make me contemplate abandoning my task and turning around.

It’s only a second or two before I shake the thought and carry on. I can’t head back now – I know that. But it’s tempting. Oh, so tempting.

Because that speck of black, although small, is far, far away. Must be ten or fifteen miles, I reckon, across snow-covered ice on the empty horizon. And if I can see it from this distance, it’s big. Much bigger than an elk, moose – hell, even bigger than a damn polar bear.

And I know it can only bring one of two things.

Life.

Or death.

-----

I hope for life but plan for death.

My gloved fingers dance over my body in a well-rehearsed pattern like a horny teenage boy getting frisky with a girl under a sleeping bag. But my motions are much more practical than anything hormone driven. I finger the guthook hunting knife, twelve inches, at my waist. The scaling knife, eight inches, sticking out of my right boot. And the micro dagger, three point five inches, strapped to my left wrist. Check, check and check.

Next, my fingers snake over my shoulder and grip the crossbow strapped to my back. With a quick, strong pull it slides out of its holster and into my hands. It feels so right there, its weight reassuring. I always keep an arrow preloaded but I check it anyway. My remaining six arrows are always kept in a quiver on my left side but I check them anyway, too. Safety, safety, safety – three rules that have kept me alive so long in this frozen, skraeling-infested world.

I return the crossbow to its holster and drop my hands back down to my sides, but I know their idleness will be short-lived. I’m too jittery, too anxious, and my hands will restart their silent checklist of my weapons in a few minutes.

I keep walking, never stop.

My boots drag through snow drifts and glide over ice where the wind, howling and bitter, has exposed it.

The speck grows larger, large enough to turn into something more than a black dot.

It’s a ship.

My fingers caress my knives, my crossbow, my arrows.

I keep walking.

Never stop.

-----

One hundred paces from the ship, I stop.

It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. In a few of the books that we had managed to find – before we had to abandon them – I’d read about buildings called skyscrapers – structures so tall they could kiss angels. The ship looks as big as I imagined skyscrapers to be, if one had fallen on its side. It’s lined with hundreds of windows and big blue letters that say DISNEY ALASKA CRUISE. I recognize the letters, of course, but the words are foreign to me.

Time has passed. I don’t know how much. That’s bad, dangerous.

The ship is frozen in place, big jagged shards of ice surrounding it like a ring of mangled teeth.

I sprint to the side of the ship and take a quick moment to catch my breath and my thoughts. Not only was it bad and dangerous to lose myself in thought so long, but stupid, too. Other than my wits and my weapons, all I have on my side is the element of surprise. If there were humans or skraelings on the ship, there’s a better chance they now know I’m here. And if there are humans or skraelings on the ship and they now know I’m here, not only is my mission to gather supplies at risk, so is my life.

Leader would say that’s not just stupid, that’s suicidal.

I resist the temptation to board the ship immediately to forage for supplies – Leader would kill me himself if he learned I did that – and begin a perimeter search. I crouch low under the windows and slip silently over the ice, making my way north to the prow where I’ll double back on the other side.

There are long gouges in the ship’s hull, strips of metal peeled away and left to dangle in the air. A closer look reveals similar gouges in the ice’s surface. These ominous marks, coupled with the lack of bodies, make it clear what happened here.

Skraelings.

The only question that remains is whether or not they’ve left, or if they’re still here.

I lose my footing and slip on a patch of ice. A momentary lapse and a small mistake – my second of the day – but in this world there’s little difference between “momentary” and “small” and “prolonged” and “large”. I fall forward and hit the ship, getting my hands up to soften the blow just before impact. It saves me from hurting myself, but a hollow metal trilling sound reverberates through the silent afternoon. It would’ve been enough to hear anywhere in the ship.

If there are still skraelings inside, I’ll be dead within ten minutes.

Unless I can get in, grab anything I can get my hands on and get out in five.

Abandoning caution in favour of haste, I sprint the rest of the way around the ship. Just before I reach the location where I began, a bright spot in the ice catches my eye and I stop, turn around, drop to my knees and peer down below the surface. There’s something buried in the ice.

It’s roughly 4” by 7”. It’s covered in writing. And other than food or medicine or weapons, it’s the most valuable item I could’ve hoped to find.

It’s a book.

-----

Part of the title is obscured due to the angle the book is frozen in the ice, but I can read

–lso Rises

and, below that,

–
mingway
.

My heart races – it’s English.

Nothing else matters at the moment.

All I care about is getting the book.

I pull the micro dagger free from my glove and grip it tight. Without hesitation, I slam the tip down on the ice. It deflects off the surface and I barely hang on to the hilt, but a tiny fleck of ice chips away.

I raise the knife and strike the ice again. A similar result.

Again and again and again, chipping away at the ice. Soon I’ve created a tiny divot, just enough to fit the very end of my pinky finger. I’m covered in sweat. So little progress for so much effort.

It’s a terrible risk. I look around. I’m still alone. As far as I can tell.

A blur of motion out of my peripheral vision. I have my crossbow in my hands and fire an arrow before I know where or what I’m shooting at. The loosed arrow ricochets off the ground to my left, flips through the air and skitters away like a cockroach fleeing danger.

That’s when I realize that I shot at the ice below my feet.

That’s when I realize there’s a living skraeling trapped beneath the surface.

-----