Tandem of Terror (24 page)

I jumped onto my feet, shaking off the new
pains that coursed through me and bolted at the Wights. The first
lunged for me but I scaled him like a wall. Twisting around its
shoulders, I locked my legs around its bulbous neck and crushed
it.

We went down in a heap. Its arms thrashed
beneath me as I reached for a jagged rock on the shore. With both
hands I struck the beast again and again until severing the head
from its neck. A vaporous white slithered out of the head and
whisked over lake.

The other creature wailed at me, its hatred
running deep. I pulled myself up and locked eyes with it. Black
spittle drooled from its mouth as it screeched again. The rock was
still in my hands. We charged and it was then I pushed my new body
into uncharted territory. I flipped into the air with my legs aimed
right for its chest and the rock held high above my head. A scream
escaped me, the first sound I had ever made.

After dispatching the criminal, who would
undoubtedly seek another body, I headed towards the hill in the
distance. The memories still trapped in this woman told me that her
family was over that hill and across a field of lilies. My body
needed repair. If I was to be able to engage in combat and not be
flung into the next world with ease, I needed to stay in prime
condition.

The family would of course help me. They
thought they'd never see their daughter again, thought that the
lake had claimed her forever. For months they searched its waters
to no avail. I'll never forget the looks on their faces when I
walked through the door.

The wound on my shoulder finally stopped
bleeding, luckily blood still ran through the body. I came upon it
in pristine condition, the waters having preserved it in a delicate
state and my essence was able to restart the heart and pump the
blood throughout. I passed a sign for Sotherton on the road miles
back and was just about to enter the outskirts when I took notice
of the burning homes that lined both sides of the street.

Smoldering remains marked a besieged land
where the nightmare had begun. Hollow houses were fossils of a once
thriving community; debris crumbled at my approach, amber flames
licked away the last vestiges of life.

A sound caught my ears. Not the remains of
houses crumbling but movement...a stirring. A pile of debris erupted
and I shrank out of sight, my head bowed. I crept along the side of
the road and headed into a burning two-story house.

A pair of elongated arms reached from a pile
of scorched remains...slowly a charred body lifted from the pile. As
its head came into view I stepped out of the shadows and slashed my
sickle.

The head bounced across the cracked
foundation, and struck what was left of a brick chimney. The
mist-like form seeped into the air and immediately searched the
other broken and destroyed homes for bodies.

"
Be gone!" I cried at it. "I
will hunt you all until there are no more corpses for you to
defile. I will hunt you until you return home and face
judgment."

I stormed across the road, chasing it from
the home, chasing clouds and fog, and... dreams. A wayward memory
from my host distracted me. I paused to collect myself. The mist
wandered away from me. "I said be gone. There are no more bodies
here. Go home!"

It floated off into the horizon while I
continued my journey to Murk Woods.

All of the trees were black and withered,
Murk was nothing more than a shadow of what it once was. All life
had been squelched from it. The once perpetual mist that crowned
the treetops was no longer perpetual.

I placed both my hands on a tree closest to
me. Its bark was brittle and begged to transform to dust; to blow
away with the wind but it could not. It, like the others, stood
stoically, eternally trapped in its blight.

The past hit me in waves. I saw the town's
oldest and most knowledgeable mortician die alone and suddenly. The
town fought off the infestation again and again, but it could hold
out no more. The mortician was their last and best weapon. With the
taking of the old man's body the Wights finally gained a foothold
and the scourge took off. The Murk died and the infestation spread
like wildfire.

One human after another was murdered so that
more bodies would become ripe for the taking, home to the vilest of
parasites.

My head ached and suddenly I felt dizzy.
Letting go of the tree, I fell to my knees. The memories and
sensations threatened to overwhelm me. I felt cold as I noticed
gooseflesh rise on my arms. Cold. I had never felt that before.
Never experienced any sort of temperature hot or cold. I did not
know what those concepts meant until now.

The reaction of skin was an interesting and
fascinating sensation to me, but the mission beckoned and I pushed
on. The Murk showed me a church, life was there, some of the last
in town and I was drawn to it.

The old church across town stood silent in
the dark, speckled by firelight but mostly unscathed by the
rampage. All of its walls were riddled with scratches. Some of the
stained glass windows, blood-red blotches and outlined in deep
purple hues, were broken but boarded up from the inside. The white
of the paint faded to more gray and sooty and the colorless grass
grew up around it like fungus.

More than a dozen Wights surrounded the
church. Like me they sensed the life inside, just as I sensed the
old couple still held up in their farmhouse when I first
resurrected their daughter. The Wights wanted the bodies for more
of their brethren. Many more disembodied life forms searched for
carnal vessels.

It could not be allowed. I could feel the
humans in there, huddled, frightened, starving. I ran towards the
church at full speed.

The cool breeze rushed threw my hair as I
soared through the air and came down hard, colliding with two
abominations floating in front church windows.

The three of us toppled to the ground, I held
one down with the heel of my foot nailed to its monstrous face as I
decapitated the other with my trusty sickle.

Horrible cries filled the air. The others
screeched, low guttural howls escaped their throats. The alarm
brought all their attention to me. Beneath my foot the other
struggled, reaching with spindly claws. With both hands I raised
the sickle above my head and drove it down hard.

The rest of them closed in on me. I leapt to
my feet and kicked the one nearest me. Claws ran down my back,
splintering it with burning pain. With a convulsion I screamed and
rolled out of the way.

"
Another one with white
hair!" I heard a voice call from behind the church windows. "She's
here to help."

"
She's outnumbered. We
should open the door and let her in." A second voice
said.

"
No, what if one of those
things gets in?" A third one replied.

I struggled to my feet distracted by the
arguing voices and a claw smashed across my chin. My entire body
flew backwards and hit the church wall. My spine snapped and a
salty taste flooded my mouth. I had never really tasted anything
before.

A Wight rushed in to strike me but I lifted
both legs and kicked it hard. A baleful moan spilled out of it as
it hit the ground. Six more took its place and glared down at
me.

"
She'll never make it! We
need her before it's too late."

"
Go! Go now."

From the left corner of the church a creaking
clatter resounded and amber light spilled out into the night. A
disheveled man with a thin face curled his body around the side of
the building and held out his arm.

"
Over here, now! There's too
many of them."

A fuzzy feeling swept through my head and I
stared absently. I looked around for my sickle, it got lost in the
series of events. My fingers itched to hold it.
Itched.

Finally I realized what the poor soul was
yelling to me and hopped back onto my feet. The Wights descended
but I launched into the air and flipped over them, my speed no
match for them.

I rushed toward the man, ignored his
outstretched hand, raced through the open door and pulled him in
behind me. He toppled to the floor as I turned to see the Wights
gliding toward us. I immediately slammed the door, slide the boards
across it and locked it as the sounds of their moans rose just
behind it. They pounded on the door for a few moments before giving
up and stalking the ground again.

The inside of the church was crowded with
twenty or so humans I guessed. They used lanterns for light and had
cleared the floor of most of the pews. Bits of stained glass swept
to the corner of the room glinted in the light. The altar was
upturned and a couple of decapitated Wight bodies lay around
it.

Groups huddled here and there, some trembled,
some prayed. There was one particular group that watched over a
body, the women around it dipped bloodied rags into a scarce amount
of water within a bowl.

The man who fetched me groaned on the floor.
"Did you have to throw me so hard?"

"
I'm sorry," I extended my
hand and helped him to his feet. "They can move with the shadows
and surprise the unsuspecting."

"
Yeah we know. Over here. We
found one of your friends."

He led me over to the group with water and
they stepped aside to reveal a young man with white hair lying on
the ground. His right leg was wrapped tightly in bandages soaked
scarlet. There was a large gash on his forehead that still bled. I
immediately recognized one of my kind, the first to take a male's
body.

An excited charge ran through my body and I
rushed to his side instantly. For a moment we stared into each
other's eyes and said not a word. Then he smiled.

"
I am called Lily," I
said.

"
This body was called Mat,"
he answered. "He was a former resident here, a young mortician. He
returned to help when he learned the Wights had returned.
Unfortunately he failed but I was able to get inside him before
they did."

"
I am glad." I don't know
why but I reached down and took his hand. A strange tingling shot
up my arm, like nothing I'd ever experienced before. There was a
charge between us. My flesh and his flesh, touching, connecting,
strange and exhilarating at once. We never touched, not in our
existence, not in our world. None of us had ever joined in such a
way. It was... different.

"
We must stop them," Mat
coughed. "But I need time to heal. This body is badly hurt and I
tried valiantly to save these people but they ended up saving
me."

I looked around at them. Their eyes were
tired and red, some studied me with great interest.

"
It's okay," Mat said. "They
know we're not human but they know we're trying to
help."

Letting go of his hand I stood. "We need to
find more of our comrades first. There are so many more Wights than
we figured. They have spread so fast and far." My gaze followed the
shadows slipping by the boarded windows, winking in between the
boards. They waited outside for us. Waited patiently, knowing we
could not stay inside forever. It was only a matter of time. They
were all around us.

I turned back to Mat and watched the humans
wipe more blood from his head. "Have you seen anymore of us?"

"
Just one. They tore her
apart. I think they're getting stronger. Maybe the longer they
spend in their hosts..."

"
You may be
right."

"
There are more of us out
there. I can sense them."

"
I hope so."

Beside Mat was a sword coated with yellow
pus. "Your weapon of choice?" I smirked.

"
It got the job done. Don't
have much need for it right now, you can borrow it if you
want."

"
Borrow?"

"
Yes, I intend to heal up
and wield it again. Don't get too comfortable with it."

"
Okay," I chuckled, he had
good energy and I liked it. "I miss my sickle already." I slipped
the sword into my hand and cut the air with it. The looks I got
from the crowd were amusing. "But this will do for now."

Mat laughed through a cough as I went to the
nearest window and peeked through the boards. The weight of the
sword felt good in my hand, familiar somehow. It made the heart in
the body beat faster, the blood inside me warmed. I liked it.
Everything about it. Outside the Wights hovered in place, still,
effortlessly, their forms nothing more than silhouettes. Still they
waited.

"
You're going to get rid of
those things right?" the disheveled man asked me.

"
Yes, in time."

"
You're like him, strong,
fierce, able to take them out."

"
You could say
that."

"
When? We've been in here so
long."

"
He needs to heal and we are
outnumbered."

"
We could help you. We saved
both of you. If it wasn't for us--"

"
You'll get yourself killed.
It's not like before. They're getting stronger now. If just one
gets in here you could all..."

Rage-filled moans in unison resounded outside
and cut my words off cold. Murmurs swept through the church, crowds
clutched each other, their wide-eyed faces went pale.

"
Please help us." The
disheveled man rubbed his face and I reached for his hand. The
moment I touched his flesh another tingling feeling shot through
me. I was filled with fascination and rapture. The physical
sensation of it all was exhilarating.

For a moment it all went away, all the death,
all the fighting, the suffering. I was in a new realm of peace.
There was warmth and light, and I could feel, I could taste, I
could smell. It was wondrous and beautiful.