Authors: Tim Marquitz
I fell like a stone, dropping to the dirt, a
broken sack of grain, limp and weak. Gratefully numb, I barely noticed. I
gasped to draw a breath. My lungs resisted the air, and I wondered if this was
how it felt to die.
Unable to explain what happened, I cracked
my eyes and saw the young boy standing over me. A crooked smile twisted his
lips. He was unhurt. I hurriedly looked about, but I could see nothing beyond
the wreckage of the warehouse and a body charred beyond all recognition. It
appeared as though a bomb had struck it dead center. The vampire was gone.
“Are you well?”
My gaze went back to the boy when he spoke.
He held a small, calloused hand out to me. I resisted a moment, expecting the
darkness to whisk me away, but I remained; just me and the boy. I thought him
an angel. No air circled through my lungs, the
thump
of my heart still in my chest, yet there he stood. I could
hear none of the distant bombs or the shouts of dying men. There was no more
pain. This could only be death.
He waggled his fingers in my face, calling
me up. “Come, Katon, he is waiting.”
My name sounded in my ears.
The boy knew me
. It was the proof I’d
dreaded. I
was
dead.
The realization hit home like a raindrop in
the ocean. I expected to be sad, to break down and cry, but there was nothing.
No tears clouded my eyes, and no sorrow weighed upon my silent heart. There was
simply
nothing
.
“Come,” he repeated, an impatient wiggle
shaking his hand.
I gave in to the phantom child and reached
out. A blackened hand grasped his in place of mine. My vision wavered at the
sight, but yet I could feel his thin fingers against my palm. I followed the
strange arm down its length, spying the ebony shoulder that sat beside my head.
Another dark hand kneaded the leathern flesh there. It stopped at my behest.
The sense of it made my head spin.
“What—“
My panicked question was interrupted by a
gentle voice beside me. “I’ll explain everything, but we must go, Katon. We
have little time before the Germans resume their shelling.”
I looked past the dark flesh of the strange
shoulder to see a young Mexican man. His hair was full and dark and wild above
the thick glasses he wore. Bright green eyes appraised me through the lenses.
Wiry beneath his nondescript outfit, he slipped his hand under the dark arm and
lifted. I rose along with it, feeling a strange sense of dislocation.
“Lead the way, Rahim,” the man said.
The boy nodded and jogged off. I was tugged
along behind. My feet were leaden and stepped out of time, but I feared looking
down at them. Shadows flickered in my peripheral vision as I let the man cart me
off.
“It will all be clear soon,” he said. “I
promise.”
About
the Author:
Raised on a diet of Heavy Metal and bad intentions, Tim
Marquitz writes a mix of the dark perverse, the horrific, and the
tragic, tinged with sarcasm and biting humor. He looks to leave a gaping
wound in the minds of his readers like his inspirations: Clive Barker, Jim
Butcher, and Stephen King.
A former grave digger, bouncer, and dedicated
metalhead
,
Tim is a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts and fighting in general.
He lives in Texas with his beautiful wife and daughter.
www.tmarquitz.com
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