Part VII: Time Has Told Me

Submitted by SpartanAltego on Tue, 05/22/2018 - 05:45

Let the Long Night End
Part VII
Time Has Told Me

Time has told me; You came with the dawn
A soul with no footprint; A rose with no thorn
Your tears they tell me, there’s really no way
Of ending your troubles
With things you can say

“But when he clearly recognized the pilot,
He cried: “Make haste, make haste to bow the knee!
Behold the Angel of God!” – The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto II

MILTON
September 3rd
Waynesboro, West Virginia

Milton awoke to the familiar smell of breakfast being prepared, an enticing aroma of berries and roasted nuts that took him by the nose and lifted him from bed. Putting on his slippers, he paid a brief visit to the toilet and then moved on downstairs. The sounds of chattering voices and dusty radio music brought him to the dining room, where his two boys were already busying themselves with their own portions.

“What, no waiting up for me this morning?”

“You slept in,” Oskar replies through a mouthful of yogurt. “It’s a little past ten.”

A quick look at the clock confirms his words. Milton scratches his head, chuckling lightly. “Huh. So I did. You two ought to have woke me up.”

Levi hums disapprovingly, idly scratching the surface of his palm and flaking dead skin onto the table. His nails had been shaved down the night before but were already peeking past the tips of his fingers once again. “You needed the rest. Besides, we had it covered.”

“You know, I was thinking…” Milton begins, setting his own plate down and sitting. He doesn’t bother with grace. “We’re closing in on fall. Your friend should be waking soon, right?”

Oskar nods. “Maybe this month. But definitely by next month.”

“Did either of you have a plan about how to deal with that?”

The boy, who looked oddly like a short-haired duplicate of Eli now that Milton thought about it, shrugs. “We talked about it some, but that was before all this. When Eli wakes up she’s very weak, like she’s a kid again. She’ll need blood to get better and she might not remember everything for a little while. My plan was…”

Oskar hesitates.

“What was your plan, Oskar?”

He sighs. “I was going to…lure someone out. To her.”

Levi turns to stare incredulously at his faux-cousin. “You’re serious.”

Oskar nods, not at all proud of himself. “It has to be human blood and it needs to be fresh. Otherwise it won’t do anything for her.”

“Have you…gotten blood for her before,” Milton watches his ward carefully and is relieved when he receives a reply in the negative. “Okay. Well, I can tell you right now that none of us will be doing any ‘luring’ of anybody in this town. Maybe that’s how she survived before but it’s not how we will do things. We’ll find another way.”

The boy doesn’t seem as reassured by that proclamation as Milton would’ve hoped. But he does not argue the point. Milton swishes his glass of milk contemplatively, wondering. “How much would she need?”

“At least a liter. Maybe more to be safe.”

“Well, we can handle that. A pint apiece from the three of us should be more than enough to get her on her feet.”

Oskar still looks discomfited. Milton frowns. “Right?”

The boy sighs. “It would be enough…for about a week.”

“Oh.”

Milton could rapidly see his options disappearing before his eyes. They could certainly each spare a pint between the lot of them for one week, two weeks if they absolutely needed to. But anything further than that would risk serious health complications for all them – Oskar was still very young and had little blood to spare. Milton himself was getting up there in years, and as for Levi…who knew if his blood would even serve, given his own condition?

They needed some method of obtaining blood consistently, keeping it fresh, and getting it to the ‘girl’ without anybody dying. It would be impossible to safely feed the kid without a significant source of blood – and it couldn’t all be from the same person or even a small group of people. Blood volume replenished quickly, but red blood cell count and other important parts of the blood took between a month to two months, something he had learned when he was still in the service.

The only alternative was giving enough blood for Oskar’s friend to be well enough to travel, and then letting them leave town to prey somewhere else. The thought unsettled the priest. It’d be murder either way, whether I helped or did nothing.

“Well,” he tries to inject some cheer. “Let’s not sweat it for now. We can feed her for sure when she wakes, and maybe once Eli is up and about we can see if she has any ideas. If we all put our heads together I’m sure we can manage.”

“It’ll work out, Oskar,” Levi murmurs, nudging his ‘cousin’ with his foot. Oskar smiles gently at him and Milton is struck with the suspicion that he is missing something.

He clears his throat. “What’s new with you two? Levi, I thought you’d be gone already.”

His nephew shrugs. “I wanted to stay a while longer. The itch isn’t too terrible yet and I spent all of last night running.”

“And you, Oskar?”

The boy smiles mischievously. “I might’ve been out running, too. Levi showed me around town. Then we went to the theater.”

They actually snuck out of the house on me. Milton realizes with some wonder. Like…normal kids their age.

The warmth that blooms in his heart in that moment is something he knows he will cherish for the rest of his days. Maybe I was wrong, Carmen. Maybe there’s hope for him after all.

“Well, I’m happy you two have been having fun. What’s next on your agendas?”

They grow quiet, looking between one another searchingly. Levi speaks up: “Tonight, I wanted…for us to go to the well. All three of us.”

There is a sharp clattering as Milton’s fork slips from his fingers to tumble across the ground.

“You want us to…see it?”

“I want Oskar to see,” Levi exhales softly. “It’s time.”

“Us being there could be…dangerous. If you get riled up enough to try climbing out – “

“You’ll just have to make sure I don’t make any headway.”

Milton folds his hands, bringing them to his lips. “Oskar, is this what you want?”

The boy nods. “Yes. I want to see it. If I see it, then Levi says I can help you both.”

“Why now?”

“Because I trust him. And because it’s not fair to you that you do this alone,” Levi’s words are even and firm. “If he sees it and he still wants to help, then I say he can. If he doesn’t, then that’s that.”

Milton swallows. He doesn’t want to deny his nephew’s request, not after watching him rot from within in loneliness and pain for over two years. In truth, Milton would gladly welcome help. But there is something Levi doesn’t know. Something that he would never admit.

He was afraid to see the beast again.

In the two years that they had managed Levi’s condition – his curse – Milton had only once seen the complete cycle of transformation that the boy underwent every full moon. That very first night, so long ago…

But he cannot refuse the plea in the boys’ eyes, both of them so...young, in their ways.

So he closes his eyes, summons his courage, and says: “Okay. We’ll have to prepare some things.”

- - - - - - -

Milton would’ve preferred to have taken his Remington as his contingency in case of unfortunate setbacks, but with its shattered frame currently bound in a trash bag on course to a landfill he was forced to instead rely on one of his handguns. Caliber and round count were most important – if things went wrong he needed to be able to quickly fire off successive shots that had more kick than that of a light breeze. A nine-millimeter or .357 wouldn’t so much as break Levi’s stride if he managed to drag himself out of the well.

Pulling out a small, dark case, Milton walks to his bed and places it softly on the sheets. Flicking the combination to one-hundred-and-eight, he flips the lid. A Ruger Super Redhawk revolver shines, oiled and gleaming against the white interior of its container. Milton was well acquainted with this particular firearm, and its history. It had passed from their wayward father down to Jacob, and then to Milton himself. Someday it would pass to Levi.

But tonight, it would rest in his hands.

He takes his time disassembling, cleaning, and re-assembling the revolver. The work is routine for him at this point – he practices with all of his firearms once a month and refurbishes them soon after. Although his arms were no longer quite the bundles of muscle they had once been, his Army-trained steadiness of hand was a trait he had refused to abandon. When the work is done, he retrieves a box of .454 Casull cartridges and slides six rounds into the Redhawk’s cylinder with the care of a mortician embalming the dead.

Six shots. If he needed more than that, then he would probably die regardless – and Oskar soon after.

He takes twelve more rounds.

- - - - - - -

During the drive to Shenandoah, Milton does his best to prepare Oskar for what was to come. “Levi is going to…shed out of his skin. It’s going to be gruesome. He’ll scream. He’ll cry. You absolutely cannot try to give him a way out of the well or go in to help him, no matter what you see or hear. I have a revolver – after tonight I’ll take you out to practice shooting. Have you ever shot a gun before?”

Oskar shakes his head.

“Okay. We’ll definitely have to get you some practice. If anything goes wrong, you run. I’ll leave the truck running, you get back to it and drive. You know how to drive?”

Oskar nods hesitantly. “My father let me drive with him a few times.”

“Good. Drive and don’t stop until you get back to town. Don’t wait up for me if I lag behind.”

“I…”

“Promise me.”

“Okay. I promise.”

“Good,” Milton glances in his rear-view. Levi sits, sweat-coated and twitching, his eyes fixed to the floor. “Good.”

They reach the well, with a full hour to go before the moon’s projected rise. They step down out of Milton’s Honcho and bypass the fence between them and Shenandoah’s interior. The well was half the length of a football field from the fence; if Levi managed to get out of the well while he or Oskar were still crossing, they would doubtlessly be overtaken quickly.

What’s the saying? When outrunning a bear, the key is not to run faster than the animal but to run faster than the person with you. Milton resolved that if the time came to run, he would be the one to lag behind.

The two witnesses to this exhibition of horror watch wordlessly as Levi strips down before them, lithe and gleaming in the windy field. Bare chested, the black fur beneath his skin is more easily visible, pressing against the thin sheen of human flesh that had been stretched to near the breaking point. He slides the seal easily from the well’s surface, the slab of stone thumping as it crushes the ground beneath its weight.

Levi exhales, shoulders trembling as he turns to regard his two onlookers. He meets Oskar’s eyes and manages a twitchy smile. “See you on the other side.” He crosses himself and climbs down the chain into the dark of the well.

When he hears the sound of sloshing water, Milton pulls the chain up and lets it unfurl onto the grass. They wait, watching the surface of the well’s lid and occasionally throwing looks to the rising form of the moon as darkness falls around them.

“How long,” Oskar asks, eyes glued to the mouth of the well.

“Soon.”

A low moan rises from the depths, low and guttural like the growl of a bear. Milton sees how Oskar stiffens at the sound and tightens his grip on the Redhawk. It would only worsen from here. The screams grow in frequency, then in pitch, until Levi is howling to all the heavens in high sobs and yelps, and the cacophony of sound rising from the well gives the impression that the earth itself is screaming up at them, dozens of damned souls begging for release.

Milton keeps his eye trained on Oskar, whose mouth is open and eyes wide in silent fear. He feels a bead of sweat trailing down his neck and wipes at it quickly.

Levi’s screams persist for three-hundred and twenty-two seconds.

Then the howls transform, becoming sharper and more keening than anything a human throat could possibly produce. Milton’s stomach churns as the sounds of wet, ripping flesh and blood splashing into water echoes up at them, howls gargled by mouthfuls of dark blood vomited into the well water. Blood and other unmentionables that Milton had cleaned over two dozen times in his life on similar days.

Silence.

Milton prods Oskar, startling the frozen boy. “Take out one of the glow sticks. Toss it into the well.”

Oskar nods and begins to step forward, provoking Milton to whip a hand forth and clench him tightly by the arm.

“From here.”

Oskar swallows, cracking the stick and shaking it to spread the chemicals within. Face cast in a deep blue glow, he takes aim and throws the light in an arc, gravity carrying it perfectly down into the depths. There is a faint splash, then silence reigns once more.

“Stay here. If something happens to me, do not try to come help. Understand?”

“…Ja. Yes.”

Milton creeps as lightly as he can closer to the mouth of the well, Redhawk trained forward, gripped with both hands. He leans over the well’s mouth…

Teeth shine in the dark, racing toward him with startling speed. Milton cries out and fires twice, feeling the recoil of the revolver’s immense cartridges race through his wrists and forearms all the way up to his shoulders. The demon does not yelp like a canine but instead gurgles, falling in a heap back to the bottom of the well with a splash. Lit in blue light, it appears as a mass of living shadow, composed of infinite dark threads that shifted and stood despite the weight of water against them.

The tattered remains of Levi’s living flesh float at its ankles. The demon hisses and raises its snout to glare venomously up at the pastor, a chill going down his spine as he sees the illumination of its eyes.

Unable to pace in the confines of the well, which was narrow enough so as to restrict its movements somewhat, the demon instead gurgles and drags its claws restlessly against the stone of the well. Milton cannot see the two points where the Redhawk struck, and suspects that the pain of the shots were more to thank than the injuries themselves for the beast’s reluctance to attempt another lunge.

Milton shoots it a third time to be certain.

He waits for an eternity after, the beast hissing and gurgling from its pit below. It looked mangier than any wolf or dog Milton had ever laid eyes on, the wildness of its shadow-like fur broken only by bare patches on its forearms and hind legs, and its snout. Dozens of crooked yellow razors more suited to a shark than the curved fangs of a canine broke through the gums in bloody red spurts, dripping pink saliva into the water.

The beast tenses as if preparing to make another leap and Milton raises his revolver. It pauses, then spreads its lips wide in a curve, smiling at him with a mouth of arrowhead-shaped teeth.

The sight of it chills Milton to his soul, fingers growing numb as he wrestles with his body’s overpowering urge to flee from the monstrosity looking up at him. The werewolf was only a flesh wrapping; a parody of God made creatures, masking a black heart of slugs and tar. It could never be mistaken for a thing that belonged to this world – even the very shadows it cast seemed malignant and moved ever so slightly independent of their source.

But it showed no sign of preparing for a repeat escape attempt. Milton calls Oskar, never letting his eyes leave the beast in the water.

“It’s down there,” he whispers, ears still ringing from the crack of the Redhawk’s reports. “Stand straight. Don’t lean over.”

Oskar obeys. And when he glimpses what lurked beneath, Milton can see a reflection of his own terror mirrored in the deadness of Oskar’s eyes as he beholds a monster beyond the making of God.

A beast named Levi.

ABBY
September 4th
Waynesboro, West Virginia
1 a.m.

Abigail wandered the empty dark streets of Waynesboro, clad in a dark hooded sweater and short grey trunks. Shoes covered her feet for a change, at Abraham’s word that they were not to draw undue attention while lingering near the small community. She was under strict orders not to feed from any of the townsfolk, and to only travel alongside him when she wished to go out. She had decided shortly thereafter to break the final rule, if only out of spite. There was little he could do to her as punishment.

This place was unlike their usual haunts, big cities like New York or Detroit or Baltimore – quieter in almost every respect. The air was cleaner, not that it mattered when she had no need to breathe. But when she looked up, she could trail the paths of stars and familiar constellations as easily as reading a map, and for that she decided she liked the small town. It was a dark place, which made the stars shine all the brighter.

Bright enough to touch the darkness she carried within her, just a little. It reminded her of Oregon, and of happier memories that seemed more and more like a fondly distant dream.

Corvus, the raven constellation, was the first she had ever learned to recognize and the one to which she felt the most affinity. Over the decades she had learned and unlearned many patterns in astronomy, as days stretched into months into years into decades and the light that travelled across the infinite space finally blinked out. They were a more real indicator of time’s passing than anything else she could conceive. Over a century and a scattered handful of decades she had been so many stars reach their belated end.

And countless more lives.

A northern wind blew Abby’s drifting body toward the direction of a local gas station, the smell of rain heavy in the air. Tapping on the door, she attracted the attention of the dark-skinned clerk, who stepped out beyond the counter to greet her, opening the transparent door welcomingly.

“Hello,” she said. “May I come in?”

The clerk nods, clearly bemused but smiling politely – a tag on her shirt read ‘Carmen.’ “Of course.”

Abby bites her lip and throws a glance at the schedule posted on the door, which indicated a closing time about thirty minutes from now. As good an excuse as any. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Carmen waves a hand airily. “Come on in.”

With permission given, Abby crosses the threshold into the establishment and proceeds to walk its interior, occasionally pausing to examine a particular piece of candy or flavored drink. She absently listens to the radio broadcast from the stereo behind the cashier’s post, which whistled mellow musical tunes to the high voice of a man singing a barbershop tune.

“If I didn't care, would it be the same? Would my every prayer begin and end with just your name?“

When she has had enough of pawing at items she cannot have and does not need, Abby gives a polite nod to the attendant and goes for the door.

“Wait a sec,” the girl speaks up, halting Abby in her tracks. Walking over, ‘Carmen’ puts her hands on her hips, frowning a little. “Are you sure you don’t want anything? You look a little hungry.”

Abby blinks, recalling that she had indeed not eaten in three nights, and wondering how this stranger could possibly tell until she realizes they had been referring to ‘food’ food. Not human blood. She shrugs and puts her hands in the pockets of her sweater. “I don’t have any money.”

‘Carmen’ hums to herself. “Tell you what, it’s on me. Pick out anything you like.”

“Could I have a pint?”

“Anything except alcohol or tobacco.”

Abby finds herself smiling, taken with the idea that she was somehow too young to consume products like Jägermeister or a cigarette. She’d had her first drink three months after her twelfth birthday, when her brother had himself reached fifteen. But, of course, ‘Carmen’ couldn’t know that. “Okay.”

She browses for a minute, then selects a handful of promisingly titled ‘Now and Laters’, showing them to the attendant. “Are these okay?”

“Sure, but shouldn’t you get something a little more filling to go with it?”

Abby tries to answer, another grim humor overtaking her, but she is surprised when the girl opens a small white box and offers her a sandwich wrapped in clear material, an assortment of meat, lettuce, and cheese squeezed between two toasted buns. “Here, take it.”

“I…don’t need it,” Abby murmurs, trying to be polite.

“It’s really no trouble. You can have it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means yes.”

“Okay.”

Abby accepts the sandwich, her throat oddly tight. She feels a strong desire to say something. “Thank you.”

Carmen shrugs, smiling. Abby decides she likes that look. “Don’t mention it. Just be sure to eat it first. No spoiling your appetite on candy, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’m Carmen, by the way,” the girl gestures at her name-tag to underscore her point. “Nice to meet you, miss…?”

A note of hesitation. “…Abby.”

“Abby. Are you new in town? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“Visiting, with my uncle. We just arrived today.”

“Oh,” Carmen tilts her head, a gesture that Abby finds reminiscent of a curious pup. “Do you have family here? I might know them.”

Abby nods slowly. “Yes. I’ve never met them before, though. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“That sounds exciting. Not every day you get to meet a whole new part of your family tree,” she pauses, and Abby realizes her wariness must be plain to see. A small, curious frown graces Carmen’s features. “You don’t seem very enthused, though. Is there something wrong?”

Abby shakes her head quickly. “No. I’m just…tired.”

The excuse is so half-hearted that the forever young girl is certain her social partner doesn’t buy it, but Carmen mercifully does not press further. Instead she throws a glance at a wall-mounted clock, then looks back.

“Hey, are you staying close by here?”

“Near the edge of town. We have an apartment.”

The girl’s eyes widen, scandalized. “You walked all the way from there by yourself? Isn’t that a little dangerous?” She chooses not to allow Abby time to respond, instead walking to her cashier station and reaching over to pluck some keys from beneath the desk. Returning to Abby, she says: “I’ll walk you home.”

Abby’s eyes widen, alarm surging through her. “N-no. It’s fine, really. I’ll be alright.”

“Haven’t you heard? There’s some kind of crazy person running around, killer who only attacks at night. It’s not safe to be out by yourself this late.”

“I – “

“Just go along with it. It’ll set my mind at ease,” Carmen heads her off. “Please?”

Abby forces a sigh. “Okay.”

It would be fine. So long as they parted ways before they entered the complex. So long as Abraham didn’t see her. It would be fine. But if they were seen, Abby held very little faith that Abraham would be inclined to follow his own rules.

It was Carmen’s choice – and her funeral.

- - - - - - -

“So where are you from?”

“Oregon, near Salem.”

“Oh, you’re some ways from home then. Is it nice there?”

“It was,” Abby smiles wistfully, Carmen’s tokens of generosity in a plastic bag held in one fist. “My family owned a farm. Small plot of land, but it was ours.”

“Was?”

“It’s gone now.”

“Oh…I see. What happened to it?”

They walk in silence for a time. Abby finds it more comfortable than their current line of discussion, but she can feel the other girl’s curiosity burning a hole in the back of her skull. So she admits the truth: “It was burned down. All of it.”

“And that’s why you came here.”

In a way, it was true. She had no home to go to – not anymore. And the paths she had walked since then had led Abby to this place in time, this moment among moments. It made her feel like less of a liar when she nodded affirmingly.

Regret blossomed immediately when she saw the sympathy in Carmen’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She sounded like she really meant it, too. Abby wasn’t sure what to do with that, so she shrugs. “It’s just the way it is.”

They walk some more, passing by a group of boys who looked to be around Abby’s age – her apparent age – on their way out from the cinema. They glance at the two girls curiously, all gangly limbs and too much oil in their pores. Puberty – another thing Abby would never experience for herself.

“Have you lived here your whole life?”

Carmen nods. “Um-hmm, born and raised. My parents lived in Wyoming for a while, then moved here a few months before I was born. We’ve been here ever since.”

“Do you like it here?”

Carmen seems to decide it’s her own turn to be hesitant. “It’s…it’s home. It hasn’t really changed,” she lowers her voice, speaking to herself. “Just the people in it.”

Abby stays silent. Eventually, they reach the apartment complex, most of the lights out, one window sealed shut with cardboard and fabric lining. It reminded her painfully of Thomas’ habitual precautions, and she wondered how he was and if he were still waiting for her. He had changed, too.

“I can go from here. Thank you for walking me home.”

“It’s no trouble. Truth be told I was just looking for an excuse to talk to someone for a while. Stretch my legs.”

“Oh.”

Carmen gets a worried look. “Not that I don’t want to…maybe…see you again sometime?”

Warily, Abby looks Carmen over. “Why?”

“Because you’re interesting. And you like to listen. Most people prefer to just talk,” Carmen scoffs a little, self-deprecating. “I’m guilty, too, I guess. What do you say? I could show you around town since you’ll be staying a while.”

“I…” Abby knows she must refuse. She had tempted Abraham’s wrath once already, with her escapade. If he discovered she was out with a town's member – or anyone at all – there would be…consequences. She wasn’t allowed to have anything. Anything that wasn’t him. In a way, he and Thomas were alike in that regard.

No. She thinks.

“Alright,” she says. “We’ll be busy for a few days. Can we meet next week?”

“Sure thing!” Carmen beams at her, and Abby feels a slight warmth inside that has nothing to do with the temperature of her body.

This would probably end badly. But until then, Abby was resolved to enjoying what she could from the moments she was graced with, Abraham be damned.

It was the only way she knew to live.

The Child
September 4th
The Matthews Home

Just After Midnight…

A child floats in a womb of darkness, blank and silent and complete. The darkness is soft and comforts the child, and they do not wish to leave it for they know that the light is the Enemy. The light would destroy them, and yet they craved it all the same, in their most secret heart.

In darkness too complete for human eyes to perceive anything, the child sees everything. They lay wrapped in a soft blanket, knees at their chest. A faint aroma of alcohol and the slight dampness of the air tells them they are below ground and likely in a root cellar. They grasp drowsily at memories that might tell them where they are, but their own thoughts slip between their fingers like a ball of greased glass and bounce against the cool darkness of their skull. It hurts to think too much.

They remember…. blood. They needed blood. It was only in this instant that they became aware of just how ravenously, overwhelmingly hungry they were. Their stomach, shrunken and quiet for months of sleep, was suddenly bellowing at them with snarls of want and need, chewing at them from the inside with daggers of discomfort. They try to move but find themselves too tightly confined, and despite their efforts they are too weak to force themselves from their containment.

‘It’ seethes from its place on their heart, and the child feels sour, acidic fluid being poured into their veins, eating at the fatigue until they can clench one fist and smash it through the wood entrapping them. With both hands they widen the hole, arms so thin they may as well be bone and little else, and awkwardly slither onto the cool stone floor. They are weak, so very weak. But they are free and freedom invigorates them to crawl their way up the daunting stairs into the main floor of the house they’ve found themselves in.

There is a scent in the air, a musk to which they sense ought to be intimately familiar. But although they recognize the smell, the entity to which it is associated remains a mystery, their mind smothered by the hissing thundercloud of hunger that carried them into an unsteady standing position.

Someone lived here – more than one someone, judging by the smells. One was intimately familiar, and a second was vaguely recognizable but without even a blur of a face to attach it to.

But ‘It’ has had enough of their thinking, and pulses threads of desire that puppeteer the child’s body into stretching their fingers forward to grasp the door knob – a knob, not a handle? – and pull the entrance open. ‘It’ would not wait to be fed by whomever was responsible for the child’s feeding. ‘It’ would be fed – now.

The outside air was cool and clean, and although the child had no use for lungs anymore an ancient reflex prompted them to inhale deeply and sigh with relief. With perfect night vision they can see that they are in a neighborhood of a clearly rural town, sometime near the end of summer. The streets are empty and many windows of the neighboring houses are dark…save one.

The child lumbers to the western neighboring home, their summer dress fluttering in the light breeze and barely remaining draped over their inhumanly skinny body. They can feel their heart pumping against the tight flesh of their breast. They raise a single bony knuckle and knock thrice.

Footsteps approaching. The child takes three steps backward and allows gravity to pull them to a crumpled heap on the porch. The door opens, light illuminating their sickly form, and a bearded man with round spectacles gasps as he sees what can only be a child’s corpse on his doorstep.

Yet…corpses cannot knock on doors. The child lets out a weak, rattling breath. “Ssssss….”

The man looks back into his home, indecisive. He swallows and takes a step forward. Then another. His feet pass the threshold.

He reaches out a hand, fingers softly brushing the child’s cheek. “Dear God…are you oka-“

His last words are cut off by a gargled scream as clawed fingers puncture his jugular, spreading the would to allow hot warm blood to fountain forth into the child’s open mouth. It is only with this deed, with this rush of blood that wipes their thoughts clean and clears the cobwebs from their skull, that the child realizes they have a name.

Eli, he thinks, jaw muscles working as he sinks his teeth into the dying man’s throat and gulps his fill greedily, growling with contentment as he drags the body to the ground. The world around him ceases to matter. My name is Eli.

When it is done, the child named Eli grips his gurgling meal by the chin and scalp, then twists until the vertebrae are disconnected with a series of sharp cracks. This was not It’s will – but his own. The most important rule: what is dead must remain dead.

It was not his rule. But he obeyed nonetheless.

His clothes were sticky now, and blood covered him from head to toe. Eli strips off his soaked dress and drapes it over the body of the man as a shroud, standing nude in the moonlight. With his flesh stained by blood, he appeared strikingly black – yet pale where he remained untouched. The light breeze felt neither warm nor cool against his skin; it felt like nothing at all.

He steps off the porch and stands for a moment in the lawn, a light creeping into his dusky skin as new blood mingles inside with his own. Spreading his arms, a thin membrane stretches from his waist to his fingertips, arms extending into long fused stretches of flesh and bone. With a single flap of his wings, he launches himself into the clouds, circling above the site of his crime as though he were a carrion vulture.

Heady with the freedom of flight, Eli flaps his wings and lets them carry his light frame as high as it can stand, where the air is thin and frigid and condensation gathers across his skin. He flies through a single grey cloud, smelling the rainwater carried within its berth, and feels the blood on his skin drizzle off in red rivulets that fall with the rain to the earth below. He is cleansed – baptized.

Flattening his arms by his sides, the child of night plummets to the earth, wings waiting to be spread as he falls among a shower of red rain.