Tandem of Terror (25 page)

"
I will," the words came
slowly. "I promise. As soon as my comrade regains his strength we
will get you to safety and destroy them all."

"
Can you get them
all?"

"
We will. It is our
mission."

I turned to Mat and our eyes met. A
half-smile crossed his lips. It was strange to see one of my kind
given real form and substance but somehow his body fit him. The
energy I sensed inside his shell felt as if it belonged there. It
wasn't just stuffed into something that could wield a weapon or
deal out death to the criminals of our race.

Slowly, I made my way back to Mat and knelt
at his side. I used the sword to perch as I took up the wet rags
the humans used and wiped Mat's face.

We looked into each other's eyes for the
longest time.

"
What?" he asked.

"
Nothing." That was a lie
but now was not the time. We had so much to do. So many to vanquish
and send back.

"
It's wearing on
you."

"
What?"

"
The mission. How can we
possibly send them all back? That's what you're thinking. They've
grown to impossible numbers. It's okay. We all think it but we
can't give up. We'll beat them."

"
Will we? Maybe we shouldn't
win."

"
What?"

"
Who are we to say?" I moved
my hand to his face and felt his skin, the texture of it, the
creases, the blemishes. The warmth of him. "Perhaps we're
wrong."

"
Lily, do you hear yourself?
We're not wrong. They're criminals. They're defilers.
Abominations."

"
The vessels they use no
longer have any use. They're empty."

"
Lily, they don't just stop
with the dead. They murder these mortals to get more bodies. Strong
bodies, long lasting bodies not decayed ones that rot away so
easily. Why do you think they're out there. They want these people
for more vessels."

"
I understand why. Don't you
feel it?"

"
What are you talking
about?"

"
This...us..." I placed my
fingers between his and the warmth was unquestionable. If not for
this body I would have never felt such splendor, such feelings.
"There is nothing like this in our existence."

"
Because it isn't our
existence. It's theirs."

"
But it's ours too. We would
not be able to possess them if it wasn't. I understand this now." I
bent and kissed him, soft lips against mine, a sweet taste...I've
never tasted it before. "Don't you feel it?"

"
What?"

"
That, the touch, the
physical way we can connect and interact. We've never done that
before. Not ever. Not in all of our millennia."

"
Lily no," he moved me off
him gently. "It is not who we are."

"
Why not?" Why was he
arguing with me? Why wouldn't Mat just listen to what I was saying?
Couldn't he see this new life before him? If one body ended we just
move into another. A lifetime of new experiences and new
existences.

"
Because these people need
us. They're counting on us. They're being murdered by our own kind.
We can stop it."

"
I'm tired of fighting for
them." I stood and looked back at the boarded windows, the shadows
wriggled there. The Wights. Perhaps they knew better. "I'm tired of
being in pain when there is so much more to feel. All of this anger
and rage around me when it could be joy, peace, rest, pleasure and
much more."

"
Lily..."

"
Stop calling me that. It
isn't my name. It isn't,
it isn't
!" My grip tightened on the
sword. I scanned the room. All of their eyes were on me. Whispers
rose among them. Whispers about me. Red filled my sight. "You
should have called me death."

I could see the way they looked at me. They
wanted me out of the church. Out of this body. But I didn't want to
leave. Not yet. I hadn't even begun to feel yet. It was all still
too new. I wasn't ready....no not yet.

Mat used the last of his strength to get to
his feet. He crept up behind me as if I couldn't hear him. As if I
wasn't the best at what we do. There was no way Mat would disarm me
of my new weapon. I spun around with a flash and swung the sword in
a wide arc.

I watched his head soar across the room with
a volley of screams and gasps. The crowds of humans scattered. A
white misty form left Mat's host and hovered in the air. "Farewell
comrade." I waved with a gnarled, spindly hand. I watched as both
of my arms elongated and my hands clawed, my body stretched, the
bones of my shell cracked as my belly went hollow and the ribcage
bulged.

All of my white hair fell out while I was
lifted slowly off the ground. Screams of terror filled the church
and I answered with a ghastly moan of my own, almost music to my
ears. Quickly, I glided to the front of the church, ripped the
locks and boards away and opened the doors. I could not wait to
greet my new brethren.

The Freak
Squad

Eric S. Brown

Wolf lay on his stomach in the grass, a pair
of binoculars held up to his mismatched eyes. One was green, one
was brown, but he didn't remember where he'd gotten either. The
army had patched him up so many times it was hard to keep track of
which parts came from where. Below him, the Germans were on the
move. Two panzers led the soldiers streaming out of the ruins of
the town. He counted at least sixty men flanking the tanks as they
headed down the road. Wolf rolled off the hilltop and headed to
where the rest of his squad waited.

Sergeant Logan watched Wolf's massive eight
foot form coming towards him. Wolf got his name from the pelts he
wore instead of a uniform. They stunk to high heavens but Logan had
never been able to convince the dead man to get rid of them. No one
in his squad wore standard uniforms anyway. Logan scratched at the
clay mask covering his face. The heat was making it itch again. He
looked into Wolf's eyes and saw that the news was not good.

"
There's more of them than
even we can handle sir, even without considering the tanks," Wolf
said in a hollow voice that sounded like a dying man's last
gasp.

"
Tanks?" Slythe said from
where he sat in the tree above them. He slithered down to stand
beside Eyes and Logan. "What tanks?" He asked as his forked tongue
darted in and out his mouth tasting the air around them.

"
There's two panzers leading
them," Wolf explained.

Eyes blinked closing forty pairs of lids and
opening them as he wrung his four hands nervously in front of him.
"You're not still thinking of trying to take them out are you
Logan?"

Logan gritted his teeth behind his mask.
Orders were orders. If these Germans reinforced the front the
allied troops were heading towards, things could go very badly.
Logan hadn't asked for this command but he wasn't allowed to serve
with the "normal" troops. His disfigurements were too disturbing,
forget the fact that he'd gotten them shoving the same jerk of a
general who'd stuck him here out of the way of a Nazi flamethrower
to take the blast himself.

"
We don't have a choice
folks," Logan answered. "You know the only reason you're all alive
is that brass thought you could do some good here or they'd have
taken you all out and put an end to you long ago. Yeah, I know.
Frag'em but we're still Americans and somebody needs to stop that
Nazi trash over the hill even if it means we ain't going
home."

Slythe and Eyes nodded. Wolf grunted his
approval. It wasn't as if any of them had a home to go to
anyway.

"
Alright then, let's follow
them and make sure we're ahead of them by nightfall. We'll take the
bastards out then."

When night fell, the Germans didn't stop
moving but Logan wasn't concerned. In fact, he'd counted on it. He
and his squad were in position to make their move and the crap was
about to hit the fan.

The lead panzer was the first to roll into
their trap. It struck the transparent web Eyes had spun across the
roadway and grinded to a halt against it, its motor wailing. As the
German infantry made their way around to see what the problem was,
Eyes stepped out of the darkness onto the road in front of them
with a submachine gun in each of his four hands and opened fire.
Germans screamed and crumpled to the ground like weeds caught in
the blade of a scythe.

Wolf came bounding out from the trees and
headed straight towards the second tank. Bullets ripped into his
gray flesh but he didn't seem to feel them. Tossing soldiers out of
his way as if they were dolls, he reached the tank and grabbed it.
Yelling at the top of his lungs, he lifted the tank and flipped it
onto its side tearing off one of his arms in the process.

Slythe hit the Germans in the rear. He danced
into them, his scales sparkling in the starlight as the blades of
his swords drew German blood.

Logan watched from the trees grinning behind
his mask. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and put a bullet
through a soldier's face.

Wolf was still taking the bulk of the enemy
fire. His flesh was a wreck and his wolf pelts were riddled with
holes and covered in blood not his own. He lifted a German with his
remaining hand and smashed the man into the ground like a club
shattering the soldier's bones. A grenade landed at Wolf's feet. He
barely had time realize what had happened before the explosion
turned his massive body into pulp.

The element of surprise was wearing off and
Logan knew they were all going to pay for it. Eyes turned to run
for cover as an enemy machine gun sent a volley of rounds into his
back. Yellow blood sprayed into the air as Eyes toppled rolling
across the road and laid still.

Slythe hissed and picked up the pace of his
violence. He sidestepped bullets aimed at him and twisted his body
around to impale a German on one his blades. He left it in the
falling corpse as he spun like a top, deeper into the German ranks
slicing off the heads of two more and shoved his remaining blade
through a third's heart. Unfortunately the SS officer in command of
the enemy unit managed to flank him. Slythe never saw the Luger
round which blew his reptilian brains out onto the dirt.

Logan estimated his men had taken out half or
more of the Germans but it wasn't enough. He flicked open the valve
of the twin gas canisters he wore on his back and ran towards the
remains of the German unit. "Hey, you freaks!" He yelled as he
charged into them. "You forgot one of us!" With that said, he
flicked his lighter and the roadway lit up into a ball of fire
burning in the night.

Immortal

Eric S. Brown and John Grover

Gary didn't know why he'd come back. There
was nothing here for him now. Only the burnt out wreckage of his
old home lay before him. The embers had grown cold long ago and
countless rains had washed away the ash. Had it really been so
long? It seemed like only yesterday. He remembered clearly the
horrors of that night. The thunder of the weapon in his hand, the
howls, the screams of pain and violation, and the blood. The blood
would never by washed away.

The world was different now, as he was
himself. He turned from the remnants of the house and stared out
into the fields of green. Tall grass moved like waves at the touch
of the gentle breeze which was stirring about him. The sun looked
down, uncaring, from the blue sky above as Gary fell to his knees
and wept.

At last, Gary got to his feet. He walked down
to the end of the overgrown drive through the weeds and climbed
into his truck. The gas gauge read that the tank was still half
full. He flipped it violently, once, twice, and the needle sank to
reveal the truth. He had another 20 miles left in the tank at best.
Hoping he could find an abandoned station that still had some
reserves left, he fired up the engine and backed out of the drive,
heading towards town.

He missed Shan with all his heart. The way
her long blond hair would drape over his bare shoulders as she
nestled in his arms at night, the feel of her breath against his
neck, but most of all, he missed her smile. The same virus that had
changed the world had taken her from him.

Back then, he'd been wealthy and on the fast
track to becoming a part of history, the brightest young mind
employed by the Department of Defense. A highly respected scientist
with no idea that he would be the man who murdered history itself.
There was no one left to keep history alive now. His work had seen
to that. Only the virus's children would live on forever. He hadn't
designed it that way, but nature or God or some force beyond him
had seen to that.

His virus was supposed to be the ultimate
bio-weapon with a mortality rate of near 99.2%, killing those
exposed to it in mere seconds. In that respect, it had worked
better than he'd ever dreamed it would, but it was that last .8%
that made the accident in the lab so much worse. That last .8% of
humanity had a natural immunity to the virus's fatal effect, but
not to the virus completely. It lived on in their blood streams,
changing, mutating, becoming something alien. In these hosts, the
virus worked in the opposite of what the DOD had intended. It gave
them immortality and regenerative abilities beyond the scope of all
reason. Yet it cursed them too. As the virus fought for dominance
inside them, it destroyed their minds, turning them into
aggressive, animal like creatures, no longer human. Gary had seen
these creatures the night the virus got loose. He'd been at home
preparing for a lecture to the board of national security when he
heard of what had happened. The TV was filled with reports of
uncountable deaths from an unknown cause. Even as he watched, the
stations began to flicker out one by one, either fading to static
or leaving the image of a reporter dead at their desk on the
screen.