XL - Strangers in the Night

  The gentle summer sea breeze felt pleasant against her skin. It reminded her of times long ago, back before the Plague had reached her coastal home. Feeling it now, as it lazily skirted through the nighttime city streets of Bravana, she might have even been able to convince herself that the horrible blight was still so very far away.

  She walked along that empty flagstone street on her way back to her home. Flanking her on her left side was the long row of shops and businesses which earned such lucrative incomes there in the harbor district of Bravana; on her right rested the bay in which vessels of all sorts came and went, carrying cargo and travelers alike. A spattering of ships, abandoned by their crews for the night, bobbed gently atop the water’s surface. The bright crescent moon, uninhibited by a cloudless night sky, beamed down upon the water and created a silver reflection in the gently tossing surf.

  The woman did not mind walking home alone at night. She actually preferred her solitude these days; with so many people becoming sick with Plague, it just felt more safe to avoid being in the same space as strangers whenever possible. Even people she called her friends were no longer safe to be around. Folks who the woman had known for years and who had always been as healthy as oxen suddenly fell ill and collapsed beneath the influence of the blight. The Plague acted differently depending on who it infected; some people developed symptoms slowly, while others, like her healthiest of loved ones, fell at startling speeds, with their ailment seemingly forming out of nowhere. These were the sort of people who would get her sick if she was not careful; these were the sort she needed to avoid more than anybody else. And since she did not know who these people were until it was far too late, she merely did the safest thing she could possibly think to: she avoided everybody. If she never came into contact with other people, then she would never come into contact with the Plague. This solution just made far too much sense for her not to commit to it entirely. There was too much at stake for her to do anything else.

  And why should she not spend her days in solitude? Her husband had perished from Plague four months prior. Most anybody else that she cared about in the city had either followed him to the grave or had beaten him there; she had no reason or incentive to form new relationships now. Once the Plague had died down a bit, she would consider leaving Bravana and going somewhere new to start her life over, but as it stood, she was just fine with her current way of things. She didn’t mind going on her lovely walks in the dead of night, where the only people she saw was the occasional sentry or an inebriated tavern-goer stumbling their way home. Very few of these people made their way to the harbor district at that hour; she often chose this particular route for her nighttime strolls because she knew that to do so would allow her a spell of relaxed, undisturbed isolation, away from any curious onlookers or vessels for disease that she might have encountered during the day.

  Which is why it startled her so terribly when she saw the figure step out from the shadows of a nearby alley.

  The woman stopped in her tracks. She felt a terrible chill run all along her body that fought to overpower the pleasant sensation of the warm summer breeze. The figure—little more than a midnight-dark silhouette in the nighttime gloom—looked to be staring directly at her. It was as if the figure had noticed her immediately, or had otherwise been anticipating her arrival. The woman wanted so terribly to turn around and walk away, but she found that her numb body had completely forgotten how to move.

  The figure stepped toward her. Walking ever-so-slowly, it moved with an almost mirage-like quality through the constantly shifting darkness. The woman didn’t feel herself breathe for the entire duration of the figure’s approach.

  “Lovely night, isn’t it?” the figure said as it came into view. Stepping out of the veil of night, it revealed itself to be a young boy likely not any more than ten years old. The sight of him immediately set the woman at ease; she felt her anxiety melt away as her body embraced the warmth of the summer night.

  The woman nodded. “Yes. Quite lovely.” She paused. “I must say that you weren’t what I was expecting when I first saw you step out of the alleyway over there. What is a boy your age doing out here all by yourself?”

  “The night was so wonderful that I thought I’d go for a walk after my parents went to sleep,” he said. “I was just on my way home now.”

  “Ah,” the woman said. “Well, be safe getting home. You never know who might be out and about at this hour.”

  The boy frowned at this. He glanced around quickly, his face now shifted by worry. “What do you mean? Do you suppose there is somebody near that would want to do me harm?”

  The woman resisted the urge to share in the boy’s frown. She certainly had not intended to frighten him with her careless words. “No, not necessarily. I just mean that you never know who is out at night, and it’s best to be cautious when walking after dark.”

  The boy continued to glance around nervously. “Suddenly my home feels so terribly far away.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you like this.” She paused, considering her next words before she put them out into the world. “I could walk you back home if that would help you feel better.”

  The boy seemed to light up at this. He smiled. “Are you certain? I’d hate to trouble you, or to distract you from wherever it is that you are going.”

  The woman was, in fact, not certain—she disliked the notion of being so close to anybody who could be a carrier of Plague, even a seemingly healthy young boy, but she couldn’t very well send the poor youth off on his own after startling him the way that she had. “Absolutely. I’m just out on a walk, same as you, and so I have no schedule to keep.”

  “Well, alright.” The boy faced in the direction of what the woman presumed to be his home. “It’s right this way, then. I shall try to get us there with haste.”

  The two of them continued to walk side-by-side along that abandoned street. A sudden, inexplicable sense of dread began creeping up from the woman’s stomach and making its way toward her throat as they went. Perhaps, she thought, she had frightened herself with her own warning just as much as she had frightened the boy. The woman did her best to distract herself with the sound of the bay’s gently tossing tide; she was thankful for its presence, as she knew that without it, the total silence of the night would only exacerbate her rapidly growing fear.

  “Do you suppose I could hold your hand?” The woman looked down at the boy. She had not expected the sudden question. When she hesitated in her response, he spoke again. “It might sound foolish, and maybe I have grown too old for this, but my mother will often hold my hand when we go on walks together. It comforts me.”

  The woman especially disliked the thought of coming into physical contact with the boy—to do so only further risked her contracting Plague—but once again her guilt encouraged her to act against her better judgment, and thus she relented with a warm smile. “Of course you can. No trouble at all.”

  The boy took the woman’s hand into his own without another word. The woman was immediately surprised by how cold the youth’s skin felt to the touch, and she had to prevent herself from recoiling from the unexpected sensation. Beyond this, the boy’s grip was exceptionally strong; he looked to be barely holding onto the woman’s hand, but he grasped her so tightly that the woman almost felt the need to wince. She silently hoped that their journey would come to a swift end so she could do away with the boy’s icy, painful touch.

  They walked on for a few more minutes. The woman oddly felt as though she were in some sort of dream; it was as if the sound of the moving tides had lulled her into a state of semi-consciousness that was slowly taking over her entire mind. Then the sound of the bay began to grow more faint, and she was quickly ripped away from her pleasant stupor.

  The woman realized that the boy was leading her toward an alleyway. The world beyond the alley’s mouth was drenched in shadow; she could tell even from a distance that within that tight, secluded space existed a realm where darkness certainly reigned supreme.

  She brought their walk to a sudden halt, an action that felt surprisingly difficult. When their momentum had ceased, the boy looked at her and frowned. “What’s wrong?” He almost sounded irked by the unexpected disruption.

  “Are you certain we should go that way?” the woman said. “Because that’s exactly the kind of place that I’d expect to find some of those unsavory characters that we talked about earlier.”

  “It’s the fastest way for me to get home,” the boy said. “Don’t you wish for us to arrive there quickly?”

  “Can we not take the longer route?” the woman asked, her mounting dread suddenly piling on in greater force. She felt compelled to take a cowering step backwards, but something prevented her from doing so. “It’s such a pleasant night, after all, and it couldn’t hurt to enjoy the walk.”

  “I’d much rather get home,” the boy said. “The longer we linger out here, the more likely we are to run into those unsavory characters of yours.”

  The woman considered this for a moment before finally relenting once more. “Very well. But let us walk fast, then. I dislike the thought of being in this alleyway for very long.”

  With the decision made, the two of them continued on their journey. They stepped through the inviting threshold of the alley, and into the unknown that waited beyond.

  The woman immediately felt her body erupt with chills. It felt as if she had just entered an icy lake in the middle of winter, or had buried herself up to her ears in snow. As she walked, she could not help but feel as though the source of her sudden frigidity was her physical connection to the boy, and she wished so terribly that she could release her grip on her companion’s hand. Heavy darkness swirled in the air all around them like ink in a glass of water, suffocating all light and making the cold feel that much worse.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to turn back?” the woman asked, her voice quaking with more than just her new chill.

  “We’re almost to the other side,” the boy said.

  In truth, it looked to the woman as if they had not made any progress through the alleyway at all, so dense was the umbra that consumed every fiber of her essence. She was so eager to get away from that dreaded place that she was tempted to drop her companion’s hand and sprint back for the harbor should she have been able to wrestle herself free of the boy’s iron grip.

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  But then the sight of another figure standing in the alley ahead of them halted her in her tracks once more. She felt a sudden and intense need to stand entirely still; her plans to abandon the alleyway were temporarily forgotten.

  The boy, seemingly growing more annoyed, tugged on the woman’s arm. “Come! I already told you that we’re almost to the other side.”

  Using her free hand, the woman raised a shaking finger to the silhouette that was only a short handful of meters ahead of them. “There is somebody there—a stranger—and I very much dislike the look of them. We need to turn back now.”

  The boy giggled; the sound strangely reminded the woman of her worst childhood nightmares. “That’s no stranger. That’s my father.”

  The woman looked down at him now. “What?” Her voice sounded cold, scratchy. “How can you tell who it is in the darkness? And beyond that, I thought you said your parents were asleep.”

  “I suppose they woke up and came looking for me.”

  The silhouette, as if in response to its supposed son’s words, began walking toward them.

  “That cannot be your father,” the woman said. Her desire to stand still melted away as an overwhelming need to flee immediately filled its place. “We must away now, before he can reach us!”

  “But it is my father!” the boy said. “I know it is! You’ll see.”

  The woman, not listening, turned and tried to rush in the opposite direction, back the way that they had come. The boy remained planted in his spot, refusing to budge. The woman thought she would have been able to at least drag him along behind her, but she was startled to find that she was incapable of moving him. It was as if he were a substantial boulder, more heavy and more imposing than any other like it in the world.

  Panic swirled all around her distressed mind; fear slid over her body like a threadbare blanket that did little to block out the cold which she so desperately wanted to escape from. Any motherly instincts that she felt for the boy seemed to vanish in an instant, and in an act that elicited a slight pang of shame, she attempted to release her hold on his hand so that she could flee on her own. The boy’s unbreakable grip refused to release her.

  “Alright sweetheart, you can let go now,” the woman said, doing all that she could to sound as calm as possible. Her hand began to throb with the force of the boy’s impossibly strong clutch. “We found your father, which means I can leave you with him. So please let me go.”

  “But I want you to meet him,” the boy said cheerfully. “And I want my father to meet the woman who helped me!”

  “I’ll come find your house in the morning,” the woman said, “but you have to let me go right now!”

  The figure was so terribly close now. As he closed those last few strides between them, the woman watched his eyes suddenly come to life with a soft, ethereal glow. “So you helped my son, did you?” he said, his voice feeling like an icicle plunged right into her chest. “How selfless of you. Certainly I must thank our kind hero with some sort of reward.”

  For several long, terrible moments, the woman found herself completely unable to speak. When she finally did, her voice came in the form of a pitiful croak. “No thanks are necessary. Please just tell your son to let go of my hand so that I can be on my way.”

  “Oh, but we can’t have that, now can we?” the figure said. He stepped into a rogue beam of crescent moonlight, and it was only then that the woman saw his sinister smirk, which was complete with a pair of long, slender, deadly fangs. “The night is still young, and we’ve a mountain of fun ahead of us yet.”

  The woman could not even find the strength with which to scream. She tried so desperately to break away from the boy’s unbeatable clamp, flailing her arm and wrist wildly to no avail. “Let me go!” she cried. “Please, just let me g—”

  Her words were cut off by the heaving scream that she finally managed to conjure when the boy suddenly crushed her hand in his grip. She felt her fingers pop and break and dislocate as the boy only continued to squeeze tighter and tighter. Her mind quickly grew hazy, and she knew that at any moment she would be forced to fall to her knees. She doubted if she would ever be able to stand back up.

  But then, suddenly, the pressure on her hand was released.

  The woman did not stop to question why the boy had let her go. She turned and sprinted back through the alleyway, toward the relative safety of the harbor. With any luck, she would find a sentry or somebody else—anybody else—who would come to her aid, and who would save her from the impossibly strong son and the father with the sinister grin.

  She ran through that alleyway for what felt like an entire lifetime as her mind swirled with the overwhelming cold and panic that assaulted her from all sides. She must have been incorrect about the boy’s touch being the source of the chill; that, or they had held hands for so long that his malicious frigidity had manifested itself within her, and now acted as a festering rot which would slowly freeze her from the inside out. She fought so hard to escape from that horrible alley, all while hoping and praying to the Mother that making it back out into the summer heat of the harbor would free her from the cold that threatened to rob her of her very soul.

  The woman thought the end of her flight would never come, when at last she burst out of that overwhelming darkness and arrived back in the harbor. Glancing all around, she found that the street was barren—as abandoned as it had been the moment she had left it so long, long ago. Not knowing what to do, and not daring to look back at her pursuers who were certainly right behind her in the alley, the woman did the only thing that her frantic mind could come up with: she continued running along the empty harbor street.

  “Help me!” she yelled to nobody as she rushed along the street, her voice lost on the breeze like a freshly departed ghost. “Somebody please help me!”

  The woman’s body burned with equal parts terror and exertion as she sprinted her way through the harbor. She knew she could not keep going for much longer, but she dreaded the thought of slowing down and getting caught by her pursuers. Utilizing her fresh adrenaline to bolster her courage, the woman allowed a cautious glance behind her as she continued to run. The space was just as deserted as the way ahead was; the father and son were nowhere to be seen. The woman, knowing that her tormentors could very well be anywhere, refused to stop her flight, but she could feel her exhausted body becoming slower. She continued to search the space behind and all around her, and yet she could not find another living soul.

  She did not notice the silhouette watching her from one of the shop rooftops until barely a moment before she slammed into the thing that stood in front of her.

  The woman fell to the flagstone ground with a violent crash. Her head shook as her world spun with the sudden impact. She sat sprawled upon the ground for several seconds while her mind continued to swim. Shaking away some of her daze, the woman looked up at the object that she had just run into expecting to see a sturdy wall or a large tree. She was surprised to find another woman, perhaps only a handful of years her senior, staring down at her.

  “Are you alright?” the stranger asked. She offered a hand to the younger woman, who accepted it with such eagerness that she hardly noticed the familiar chill that came with this new grip. The stranger pulled the woman to her feet with such great strength that the woman staggered slightly while trying to regain her balance.

  “You must help me,” the woman begged as frantic tears escaped from her eyes. “They’re coming for me!”

  The stranger wore her confusion plainly upon her face. “Who is coming for you?”

  “I do not know!” the woman said. “But they’re around here somewhere! We must flee while we still can!”

  The woman attempted to stumble away from her new companion, hoping that the stranger would follow after her. Only when her progress came to a sudden halt did she realize that the stranger still held a tight, cold grip upon her hand. The woman ventured a glance at the stranger, and she immediately felt any remaining warmth vacate her body when she saw those bright, glowing eyes staring back at her. They were accompanied by that familiar grin, which was complete with a pair of long, terrible, dangerous fangs.

  The stranger chuckled now. The nightmarish sound reverberated off of the nearby buildings like the blast from an explosion and rippled along the gentle surface of the bay. “Why would you wish to flee when you’ve yet to receive your reward for aiding my poor, defenseless son?”

  The woman thought she had understood terror. She thought she had experienced the most agonizing fear that she ever possibly could have just a few short minutes earlier. But nothing could have compared to the debilitating despair she felt as she struggled to escape from the grasp of the stranger who seemed so horribly unbothered by her futile efforts. Nothing ever could have come close to the horror that she felt as she watched the stranger lower her mouth to the woman’s captured arm and sink her slender, almost dainty fangs directly into the accepting flesh.

  The woman tried to scream as her vitality fled from her through the twin openings in her skin, but her voice refused to come. Years seemed to pass as the stranger continued to drain her of her precious life force. The longer the effort went on, the less able to resist her attacker the woman became. Eventually she felt the stranger’s unbreakable grip finally come loose as she pulled her mouth away from the woman’s arm. The woman fell to her knees, her body having become far too heavy for her exhausted legs to support it.

  She felt so weak, so tired, so very far away, but she undertook the gargantuan task of looking up at the stranger standing over her. Her attacker’s face was smeared with the same sanguine scarlet that continued to escape from the woman’s arm in two distinct streams. The stranger licked some of the red away from her lips and fangs with a long, slender, dexterous tongue and smirked down at her disorientated victim.

  “Delicious,” the tormentor said, her voice barely distinguishable from the whispering breeze. “What a travesty that I must share you with the others. I would have loved to have kept you all to myself.”

  The woman vaguely noticed the father and son approaching from behind the stranger—from behind the mother—but she was too completely drained of her energy and essence to even react to their presence. Soon they would do the same thing to her as the mother had; the two of them would take turns sinking their fangs into her—or perhaps they would do it at the same time—and they would eagerly finish what the mother started.

  They would not stop until they had drunk her completely dry.

  The mother leaned down so that their faces were almost touching. She seemed to stoop at an impossible angle, her back curved in an unnatural, unholy way. Her despicable smirk persisted from behind the layer of wet, smeared crimson.

  “It is a terrible shame that you caught us on a night such as this, without the Master present,” she said. “Were He here, He might have taken an interest in you. He may have even made you one of us.” Her smirk widened. “But it is far too late for that now.”

  The woman heard the distinct whistle of something thin and nimble flying through the air. A moment later, the mother’s chest erupted with the glistening head of a deadly crossbow quarrel. Dark, dead blood splashed across the woman’s face as the mother’s glowing eyes went wide, their shine quickly vanishing. Her body collapsed beneath the weight of its ruined heart and fell to the ground as a messy heap.

  “Mother?!” the boy hissed. He opened his mouth wide with surprise, revealing his own set of fangs therein.

  The father and son both turned in the direction from which the quarrel had soared; the woman followed their gaze with her own. Standing several meters away were two figures, both of their faces hidden behind beaked masks. The smaller of the two held a crossbow; the taller used their right hand to grip a longsword which glistened in the moonlight. Both of their expressionless masked faces stared at the father and son now, their dark eyes devoid of any emotion that may have lurked beneath the surface.

  “You!” the father growled. “What have you done?!”

  “Worry not, cursed nosferatu,” the taller figure said, his voice rugged with age. “You shall not have to live long in this world without that unholy companion of yours.” He took his sword into both of his hands and raised it with deadly intent. “For tonight every one of you shall be set free.”