The Search

James crawled his way through the old metal tube, and stopped at the metal grill that looked down into the dark room below him. From the smell that rose up he was sure he was in the right place. The rank smell of rotting flesh and drying blood. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he could make out two shapes moving below him. As he lay there, watching, he ran over his plan again. Drop out of the vent, kill one of them, and fight the other one until he had incapacitated it, and then force the thing to tell him what he wanted to know. It wasn’t a through plan, as plans went, but it was better than the last attempt. That had involved him ripping down the boards on the windows, and then kicking open the door. The kicking open the door had been a bit redundant, because the sunlight streaming in through the windows had turned everything inside to so much ash. This one would work better. He crouched, and timed his moment. Taking a last breath of fresh air, he kicked open the grill, and landed on one of the things. A hiss broke out between it’s teeth, which was quickly mirrored by the hiss of it’s companion. James drived the wood into it’s chest, and watched as it froze. He then jumped forward as the companion made a grab for him. James grabbed at wood over the window, and pulled it back. Light spilled into the room, lighting the corner that James stood in. The thing stalked the darkness around him.
“Time will run out tasty mortal. I eat when darktime comes”
James fished out a mirror from his pocket, and shone a beam of light at the thing. It screached, and backed away.
“Morsal got magic wepon”
James looked at the thing. “Answer my questions, or I will use the … uh.. magic wepon on you”
“I don’t answer to food”
James flashed the mirror onto it, and it screached again. “Tell me how I undo the curse you have”
“Food want to save me?” the thing laughed, a cruel and corse laugh.
“No. ” James flashed the mirror again. “I want to save someone else”.
“A cure would mean that this was disease, bad thing. This is not bad thing. This is great”.
James let the mirror direct light onto the thing for a few seconds.
“When dark come I find you, I get you, I eat you”
“Tell me what I want to know”.
“No.”
The light beam set the flesh on it’s hand alight. “Tell me!”
“I not know! I now know!”
James turned the light off. “Why don’t you know?”
“I only new. I only little. I been in darkday for maybe one moon. I not have the pure blood.”
“Pardon?” James said.
“My blood, it new.” The mirror glinted, and the thing began babbling. “The blood it like magic. New blood mean you not think like those of old-blood. It mean you got to fight the thing, and be all clever and survive. You gotta fight the noise. You gotta fight it, so you don’t slip and become animal. I not so good at fighting it.” The thing looked down, then apparently became aware of the body parts around it’s feet. It slowly sank down to them, and picked up an arm. It held the fingers to it’s face, and ran them along it’s cheek, then hugged the arm. “Sometime the thing inside, it cry so loud. It cry so loud.” The thing looked up at James, with tears in it’s eyes. It proffered the hand to James. “I never meant to. She was the only one who ever think I was worth something.” James watched, taken aback. He had always thought of them purely as animals, here was one showing emotion. It stood up, and looked at James. He stared at the thing, and it looked back. James tried to regain control of the situation.
“Tell me what I want to know”. The thing shook it’s head. James let the mirror glint again. “Tell me!”.
The thing crouched. “To tell would be worse than the cry inside.” It launched itself at James, and caught fire in the light. The burning body hit the surprised James, and he rolled it off him, stripping off his now burning jacket, and frantically patting out the flames. He stood there, looking at the burning body for a long time, then he turned, and flung open the door. James headed back to the van, leaving the other body caught light in the sunlight.

~BX