Xeno Sapiens (55 page)

He felt strong, the bundle over his shoulder
light as a feather, more precious than gold. It was his offering
for his new life. He had been picked to bring the sacrifice. He
remembered the woman clawing at him ineffectually, pathetically
slashing at him with a pitiful little hatchet that found only thin
air when he had snatched Jeremy from her.

Monster, give me my child!

Perhaps he
was
a monster. The moon
filled him with a vitality and sureness he had never felt, probing
its unearthly light into the darkest corners of his soul, freeing
pockets of mindless, dark malevolence.

His mouth was splashed with crimson and his
eyes glowed like Venus in full phase. He mounted the steps to
Kathy's door and dropped the bundle. It hit the boards with a dead
thump. A small, pale hand flopped out of the top of the bag, its
tiny fingers curled. The door cracked open and Tommy walked in,
dragging the bag with him.

The wind freshened and whistled through the
night, whipping the trees into writhing titans tilting against the
night.

William Davis awoke with a deadly chill
clinging to his bones. His heart raced and his limbs trembled. The
screams still echoed in his head. The memory of a nightmare as
vivid and lurid as any he had ever had still pealed its dread toll
in his brain.

He sat up in his bed, his head in his hands.
He glanced fearfully at the dark rectangle of his window. Moonlight
streamed through the bars, turning them half- light, half-dark,
like the terminator across the face of the moon. He thought of
witches racing through the skies on brooms, their brittle hair
streaming out; of monsters hiding greedily in the dark shadows of
roadways, waiting to pounce; of vampires promising a world of
glamor and allure, then draining the blood and the soul from their
victims.

He pulled his covers close to his chest and
sat there the rest of the night, his eyes wide, wary and scared. He
waited for the first rays of the sun to seal the nightmare away in
a burial vault it could not escape before moon rise.

The light in Frank Table's house was still
burning when he came around two hours later. His head thundered and
his stomach was queasy with the beginnings of a grand mal hangover.
His swollen mouth and tongue were as dry as talc. He squinted in
the harsh light, shading his eyes with one hand.

He hefted his upper body from the floor and
rolled sideways, still not willing to try to stand. He supported
himself with his arms, his palms flat on the floor. The phone lay
on the floor, the blue, plastic receiver off its cradle. The cord
curled and looped like a snake. An empty Popov vodka bottle lay
between his hands.

His greasy black hair had fallen over his
forehead and stuck there, feeling like a crust attached to his
skull. He looked up. His wife stood above him. The shotgun with
which he had threatened her was held in her hands, both barrels
carelessly pointed toward the bridge of his nose. She wore the same
loose fitting, black dress she had been wearing when he had decked
her. He could have sworn he had broken her nose, but it was
unswollen and straight. Her dark hair shone like ink in the naked
light. She looked like a dark angel let loose on the earth to
strike down the iniquitous. She stared at him with eyes that were
black gashes, as coldly unemotional as those of a space alien. Her
skin was pale as a dream. He opened his mouth to speak, his eyes
blinking, his brain still not focused enough to understand.

“
Carolyn, I...”

He never got the chance to finish. The
shotgun roared, flames belching from both barrels. Its voice was a
shout, its words a hail of lead pellets. Frank's body rolled off
his arms and flopped on the floor with a headless clump. Bright red
dots and slivers of gray brain matter peppered the wall behind
him.

Carolyn dropped the gun on the floor,
gliding toward the door with somnambulant, bridal-march steps. She
appeared to drift down the porch steps and into the front yard.

He awaited her, looming mighty and
omnipotent. His eyes burned radiant in a face that was a study in
cold dispassion. She came to him, a child enraptured by the
strength of a father. She fell on her knees, staring up
worshipfully. He had given her the strength to do what she should
have done years ago.

“
All I have,” she
whispered in telling, adoring tones. “All I have is
yours.”

He took her hand and they became as one, a
spinning, phantasmagoric whirl in the face of the helpless night
that screamed uselessly against a force it could not contain.

Marilyn had lain awake most of the night,
afraid to open her eyes for fear of seeing the man who had come for
her last night. She had been able to drift off for brief periods,
but the little rest she got was fraught with frail dreams in which
soft footsteps tripped lightly outside her window, and voices that
were no more than whispers plotted just on the other side of the
thin pane of glass. She thought she recognized Tommy's voice.

And beneath it all, like the portentous
rumblings of earthquakes and magma pits that boil unfettered in the
bowels of the earth, another voice overriding all. It was only
hinted at, never arrant or shrilling, but full of soporific power.
It was as if the man she had seen had taken the world as his own,
glowering over it possessively like the Roman gods of old. The moon
was a blazing jewel in his forehead, the stars his all-seeing eyes.
The clouds that boiled across the night sky were his facial
expressions, showing one time black humor, another time rage as
ominous as a runaway asteroid.

The murmuring voices outside were insidious,
hypnotic.

Choose, Marilyn,
they whispered.
Choose the night. Choose a life of
freewheeling abandon where every lust is sated, every dream of
power fulfilled, every hunger satisfied. A life where the gala runs
all night, breaking off at cock's crow. Be one with us. Immortal,
invincible. A queen in a world where those who have spurned you
dare not tread. Vow your vengeance on those who cannot fulfill
Shylock's bargain. Their hands are stained where they have torn out
your bleeding soul. Our hands are clean. Choose a world where
vengeance will be yours. Be forever young and beautiful. Come,
Marilyn. Come learn of the night.

She opened her eyes and looked at her
window. A face, pale as snow, with wide, burning eyes, was pressed
against it. Tommy grinned in at her with teeth like tusks curled
inside the scarlet blush of his lips.
Who
, Marilyn wondered,
c
ould be so mad as to choose that life?

You could, Marilyn
, her mind taunted
her.
You could choose it easily.

With the last of her tattered will she
rolled away, closing her eyes and shivering beneath her covers.
There was an angry rattling at her windowpane and the voices
continued like unhappy winter winds. They whined and pleaded and
moaned for what seemed like an eternity, but finally faded
away…

**********

Youth is innocence, remembered in bloody
cuts, scars, and insensitive barbs, but, still, the uncomplicated,
wide-eyed time of your life. Sharon Hurley has weathered the storms
of her troubled past and emerged into the sunny, lee waters. But
life is not static, and life is not fair, and some have a cross to
bear. She doesn't know why, but before Sharon can find true peace,
she must pit her life -her very soul- and stand against the dark,
demimondaine, Katerina Cheplik…

Available at
www.wandilland.com