Bloodsuckers (Working title)
Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 7:53 pm
Hey guys! I'm still alive, or at least a reasonable equivalent, and still ham fistedly mashing my fingers over the keyboard and calling it writing. I haven't been working on A New Terror and I deeply apologize and offer up an actually completed story written by Sonofccn with a beginning, middle and end to it. Which I'm pretty sure is one of the signs of the end times. Anyway regardless if the stars are in alignment and if a certain sunken, cyclopean city rise up from the dank, dark depths of the stygian abyss please enjoy this rowdy, two-fisted pulp tale depicting G-men embattled against the undead.
“Ancient Martian death machines, radioactive Nazi Zombies, gibbering horrors from beyond the stars…in the end they’re just different stains I need to scrub off my boots.” Agent Smith waxing on the peculiarities of the job.
The rusty sign highlighted by the car’s high beams identified the town as Potter’s Quarry, just another of the shuttering, dead towns found lost off the way of the interstate. Crumbling, vacant Pre-War houses, barren storefronts boarded over with plywood, a long abandoned plant or mill. A forgotten, decaying husk of a once vibrant town staked out in the middle of nowhere. Unremarkable or truly exceptional if other than the car’s driver haven spent the better portion of the last three hours crisscrossing the intertwined ruts and footpaths they called roads this far out trying to find it.
And seeing it through the drizzle streaked windshield as he chugged through its barren, motionless streets he found it an under whelming waste. Spotting the local courthouse, a granite lion standing defiantly firm amidst the decay, he pulled into a parking spot in front of it across from a condemned movie palace. The tattered, mildewed poster for a Levasseur pirate picture still hanging in its shattered frame. The titular swashbuckler bestriding center stage with a leggy blonde draped in one arm and a blinding saber of steel in the other which he parried some hideous proto-human’s stone ax as the film’s title launched itself above their heads stretching out from seeming infinity.
“Levasseur conquers the Ape-Men.” The driver smiled nostalgically at the poster.” Maybe ’49 or ’50. Not the best but it wasn’t bad.”
Trip down memory lane finished he leaned into his seat and far rougher than he needed shoved the sleeping passenger waking him open before opening the glove compartment. Inside lay neatly folded a useless road map, the car’s rental agreement, an army issue forty-five pistol with two back up clips and a bottle of sour whiskey with maybe a finger’s worth left in it. The latter which, rooting around in the confined space, the driver pulled out and uncorked for a hard swig leaving the glove box open. The passenger, looking in disgust as the driver chugged the bottle’s contents, noticing this and eyeing the semi-automatic pistol reached in for it only to have the now empty bottle smash down against the top of his palm pining it.
“You don’t get a gun.” The driver belched releasing the passenger’s hand and tossing the bottle into his lap before slamming the glove box closed.” You’re here for that sodden mind the Bureau thinks you have, nothing else.”
“I see.” The other passenger, clearly an older gentleman, noted drolly as he held rubbing his injured hand.” And should something unexpected arise and I find myself faced with mortal danger?”
“Very loudly call my name.” Agent Smith joked peeling open his soiled looking long coat and reaching inside the lining pocket for his little black notebook.
Flipping through it to the last written page he ran the finger of a gloved hand down the mess of scribbled fragments as he reached back inside his coat for a cigarette then a match which he lit by striking against the worn underside of his wide brimmed hat.
“Potter’s Quarry. This should be it.” He remarked finding the circled name as he shook out the match.
“Your sure this time?” His passenger, a professor Blud, asked sneeringly.” Because I’ve heard that before.”
“Is it my fault there’s a half dozen quarries in these parts?” Smith growled opening his side and stepping out into the misting night.
The large man stretching working the kinks from his back as he watched a figure appear on the courthouse steps and walk towards them. The light from off the building reflecting off the bronze star pinned to his olive drab uniform shirt identifying him as the town’s constable. Older, portly, red faced with a drooping mustache and a pair of Western boots Sheriff Irons looked like an aging cowboy star squeezed into his old costume. The peacemaker strapped to his pudgy hip through looked certainly real enough, the grip and trigger slightly worn with the abrasion of frequent and steady use.
“Let’s try and do this quick, okay?” Smith, removing his smoke to exhale, implored Blud climbing out of the car.” I got a date back on the West coast that I mean to keep.”
“Your obligation. Not mine.” Blud snickered back walking around to join Smith as Irons walked up offering each man a surprisingly still strong grip of a handshake.
“Good to have you arrive. Folks are getting worried.” Irons drawled in a slow, thick as molasses voice.
Nodding his head to the deserted street and dark storefronts, those which hadn’t been abandoned, which were tightly drawn and locked against egress despite the relative early hour.
“Everyone’s just holing up?” Smith asked drawing a puff from his cigarette as he looked around.
“Nearly two dozen murders or disappearances in the last ten days…you can bet everyone staying locked up. Not that it makes a difference.” Irons shrugged, causing pooling rivulets of water on his shoulders to spill over, looking between the two newcomers.” Paul Crawford was found locked in his home, an emptied shotgun at his blood splattered feet. And Parker-Sue and her boys…Sweet Christ.”
“Well we’re here to put an end to it.” Smith assured taking his smoke and flicking it away into a puddle with a hiss.
Opening his battered long coat again revealing the twin revolvers slung in reverse grip underneath the charcoal vest of his suit he drew one of pointing it at the ground and rotating the barrel with the hammer half drawn to triple check it was still loaded.
“ I hope so, I really do son, but this ain’t no demented Asylum nut with a razor. This is something…dark.” Irons said with grim fortitude.” You sure you two will be able to handle it?”
“It isn’t my first rodeo. And as for him…” Smith, putting his revolver back in its holster, said gesturing at Blud who stood quietly with his serious, graven expression.”…he’s the Bureau’s leading expert on Night Terrors.”
“That right?” Irons asked with new appreciation for the Eastern European man standing before him.
“Among my many other disciplines.” Blud answered managing to commingle smug pride with a aristocratic detachedness.” Through we are wasting time with these trivialities. In your communiqué, Sheriff Irons, you stated you were preserving the bodies?”
Blinking as strands of water drizzled down over the brim of his hat to pool on the ground Irons seemed about to say something then thought better of it and instead nodded slinging droplets all around.
“Yeah, over at Doc Henry’s place. Him being the town mortician and all. Through frankly their piling up faster than we can get them in the ground regardless.” Irons said in his slow, precise way.” I can take you there if that’s where you want to start.”
“It’s the best place, along with a couple of strong, able-bodied men you trust.” Smith assured drawing and checking his second gun.” If we don’t want to be up to our armpits in Bloodsuckers we need those corpses beheaded and burned.”
“Brutish, primitive and quite frankly counter-productive.” Blud argued raising an eyebrow at his erstwhile colleague.” I want to see the bodies to exam them, not destroy.”
“ And what is that going to tell you Professor? That we have a nest of maybe three or four of the blood-freaks we need to clear out?” Smith challenged putting his revolver back as Irons looked unsteadily between his town’s would be saviors.
Scoffing Blud looked up at the other Agent’s brass beaten face and smiled wickedly. A sight which made Irons hand instinctively flinch towards the smooth grip of his gun and even Smith, well traveled in Earth’s more obscure and esoteric locations, to stiffen ever so slightly.
“An impeccable deduction except for a single, niggling detail.” Blud teased haughtily.” Nothing about this situation suggests Nosferatu activity.”
___________________________________*______________________________________
“…was the population which first alerted me. One hundred-eighty circa the last census.” Blud explained stepping in from outside past Irons holding open the door to the dark lit parlor filled with vacant coffins.” Simply too small for any Vampyric pack or entity’s needs.”
The room spacious and tidy with hard oak floors that creaked as you walked over them and windows covered by frilly drapes blotting out any light seeping in from outside. Black and white photographs of stern looking men in frock coats and hats and prim women in bonnets hung spaced around the subdued walls. In the corner a small table held a collection of women figurines that looked well cared for but untouched. But dominating the floor space were the glossy black obelisks laid out in neat rows, their lids propped open in order to showcase their pillowed comfort afforded the deceased but in the dark looking like a scene from a bad Gothic film.
“Cities, large and impersonal, where a murder or two fails to raise notice are far more desirable.” The Bureau expert said sliding off and folding his water slick coat as he looked back behind him over his shoulder.” In an emergency a migratory pack might take prey from a town like Potter’s Quarry but they wouldn’t remain risking discovery like your killer has done.”
“So what do you think it is, professor?” Smith asked hotly brushing past Irons into the room slipping a cigarette between his lips.” The victims all had their throats torn out and their blood siphoned. What else does that?”
“I have no idea. Intriguing isn’t it?” Blud said excitedly all but rubbing his hands with sadistic glee.” That someone or something wants us to suspect the Nosferatu.”
“ Not really.” Smith muttered striking a match against his hat’s brim again and cupping it against his smoke.” Just means more paperwork.”
Lighting it, drawing a much-needed puff, he shook out the flame and broke the fragile stick between his fingers as Irons followed him in closing the door and feeling for the light switch. The device clicking a moment later bathing the showroom in an eerie, diffused light which only served to embolden the macabre shadows and haunted atmosphere.
Taking off his own coat Irons hung it off on the hook by the door motioning to the others but with only Blud following his example. Smith keeping his long coat on, droplets of water running its swaying edges as the big man walked through the room’s center running a finger for dust along the side of one of the coffins. The black leather of his glove clean and immaculate when he held it up to look.
“Won’t find anything finer this side of the county line, I can assure you.” A gnome of a man in soiled work clothes reeking of formaldehyde cheerfully boasted stepping into the room from the back.” Now then, what can I do for you fine gentlemen?”
Barely five feet all with snow white hair receding over a bald dome, twinkling blue eyes and an infectious grin Smith quickly panned him over and relaxed the coiled muscles in his gun hand which hanged at his side as he reached with the other for his smoldering cigarette.
“I’m Agent Smith, this is my associate Doctor Blud.” Smith said exhaling an ashen cloud then returning the smoke to his lips to reach his hand out and shake the mortician’s.” And we’d like to take a look at the bodies you have on ice.”
“They’re the G-men I was telling you about, Henry.” Irons spoke walking up to them.
Blud trotting after offering the backwoods physician the barest and most perfunct amenity, his mind on the town’s clear misdirection and what it portended. Theories and hypothesis buzzing wildly behind his cool, composed exterior that ranged from the mundane cover for a specific murder to the fantastic such as the overly overt and stylized deaths were meant to obscure the true hunger being sated. Adrenal glands, bone marrow, or merely raw human cellular structure in his time with the Bureau, and his life before it, he’d seen countless aberrant monstrosities desperately consume each vainly attempting to stave off further degeneration.
“Well, I didn’t think they were tourists Charles.” The old man laughed releasing his surprisingly firm grip with Smith to extend it to Blud who limply returned the gesture. “ Name’s Henry Joseph but just call me “Doc”. And however I can help, just say it.”
“We really just need to view the remains of the attacked right now.” Blud insisted quickly letting go of the other man’s hand.” Afterwards, of course, I would enjoy comparing my findings with your notes and observations.”
His tone brush and dismissive to the wrinkled old man not that he seemed to notice, his vividly animated eyes widening almost imperceptibly as his infectious grin pulled even further at the corners of his mouth.
“So I’m not the only one with reservations that we’re dealing with some half mythical boogeyman.” The mortician said shooting a glance at Irons.” Mark my words Charles. What we’re dealing with is just some crazed drifter hiding behind the Nosferatu’s imagery.”
“The Bureau is open to all possibilities.” Smith spoke up noncommittally, voice laced with silky strands of ash gray smoke, following as Doc Henry turned spryly on his heels and ambled back out of the room leading them into the cellar where the bodies were stored.” Including non-terrestrial influence such as a Martian cult.”
The brain caste of that cyclopean, dying race, the end product of half a million years of faulty eugenics, survived almost exclusively on serum derived from oxygenated, nutrient rich blood and some of their human followers, brainwashed and driven mad by psionic contact, emulated the practice. Through even as he said it the veteran Agent felt doubt rise in him. The whole effort at masquerade simply didn’t have the touch of that enigmatic but brazen civilization.
Making up the rear with Sheriff Irons as they navigated around the unkempt empty crates and packaging which cluttered the back of the mortician’s house slash funeral parlor Blud raised an inquisitive eyebrow at his erstwhile partner as they descended down the creaking basement steps Doc Henry had vanished down looking at Smith with a marred air of surprise and amazement.
“An actually intriguing notion, perhaps the first you’ve had in the entirety of our relationship.” The creased Eastern European said before his tone turned mocking.” Through untenable in light of the present facts. A Dreamstone would produce noticeable side effects through out the population with widespread irrationality, paranoia, cases of insomnia or extremely lurid nightmares of otherworldly vistas. A pity through, I’d hate to discourage what may have been your first thought in ages.”
Craning his head walking down the shabby steps Smith was about to offer a retort, an observation concerning Blud’s maternal ancestor, when the first strong rancid whiff of the odor permeating the cellar pierced through his personal cloying miasma of stale cigarette smoke. A pungent, sickly sweet smell unfortunately familiar to the veteran Agent; the scent intimate even, almost an old acquaintance conjuring memories of muddy corpse strewn fields, fetid dens carpeted in rancid bones maggots squirming through the hunks of fetid meat hanging off and countless other dismal moments etched into his soul.
Blud, clearly recognizing the scent of death, raised an eyebrow more curious than concerned while Irons, clamping a red handkerchief over his mouth, offered an apologetic expression as the three stepped down into the grungy work area. Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, flickering intermittently as they warmed up, shining a pale, shallow light on nearly a dozen sheet covered bodies laid out on the steel tables arranged four deep and three long through the center of the room. A sink and counter running across one wall, some rust colored stains in its basin, murky bottles with faded labels lined on its shelving. The opposite wall carved into and excavated replaced with enclosed steel racks and trays normally used for refrigerating the deceased. Instead fine white, granular powder clung embedded to the body covering sheets or spilled drizzling into growing mounds from thick, canvas sacks piled up in the room’s corner.
Standing before them, liberally dabbing a mint cream over his upper lip, Doc Henry offered a sorry little smile and a shrug of his shoulders to the cloying pestilence.
“Refrigerator blew out a couple days before this mess started, and we just can’t seem to get the parts.” He explained offering his round tin of balm which Irons hurriedly accepted lathering a pudgy hand with the cream while both Smith and Blud shook their heads.” Its an old machine…in the mid-term we’ve taken to using rock salt but once rot sets in…”
“I suggested to burn the lot of them but Henry wouldn’t go for it.” Irons, slathering the mint-scented cream under his nose, spoke up as Blud walked gently past to the first body pulling away the salt encrusted sheet.
The white crystals diligent packed and pressed into the wrinkles and folds of the cadavers bloated, mottled skin further damaging the outer tissues already being broken down by ecosystem of unchecked bacteria running rampant through it.
“We can’t very well burn up our only evidence in these crimes, can we Charles?” Henry protested as Blud moved onto the next body and then the one after that pulling the sheet off of each.” Besides their families deserve to have something of their loved ones than just ash.
“Still think this is the work of a man?” Irons asked drawing his heavy bulk up as tall as he could as he snapped the lid closed on the tin and handed it back to the mortician.” That he would rip out another’s throat, suckle out the blood?”
“It is a hypothesis certainly not disproven yet.” Blud said leaning over satisfactorily fresh body, the widow Parker-Sue, running her hand across the discolored, ragged gash torn through her neck.
“ Look at the edges of the wound, thin but deep without any curve…suggestive of a bladed tool or weapon.” He said digging a finger into the salt packed wound.” Certainly the flesh has been gnawed upon but, judging from the surrounding tissue, likely post-mortem in attempt to disguise the actual cause of death.”
“And while we’ll have to have a plaster caste made to be sure the bite wound appears consistent with human rather than Nosferatu.” Blud finished looking up from the corpse to the other men.” No sign of the increased incisors.”
Taking a swab of the wound and growing the resultant cultures would also have been useful, more definitive. Rather than the mere animated corpses of popular legend “Immortals” were living organisms and their saliva teamed with sympathetic and congenial microbes unique to their specific biology. The regrettable condition and preservation of the bodies precluded any hope of that through.
“Are you certain?” Irons asked uneasily as Smith, already bored, checked at his watch.
An ashy haze of nicotine swirling around his face, cutting against the room’s dreadful stench, as he looked back up impatiently at his partner hurrying him on. The fingers of Smith’s hand clenching spasmicly straining the black leather of the glove then releasing itching to be out in the night hunting this murderer down.
“Fairly, Sheriff, through the conditions of the bodies leaves something to be desired.” Blud answered the nail of his probing finger piercing the back of the caked salt through a soft membrane causing a foul smelling, viscous brown fluid to seep into the wound.
Raising his eyebrow again as he held his finger up running the gelatinous pus between it and his thumb the creased Hungarian’s eyes stared in puzzlement then lit up with the excitement of discovery. His free hand reaching into his suit’s person for his cloth wrapped personal surgical kit, kept for whenever opportunity presented, unwrapping and laying it out on the woman’s stiff, lifeless chest as he wiped his hand on her equally cold shoulder.
“Was any attempt at exploratory autopsy performed?” He asked wedging the frayed lips of the torn gash wider with forceps and digging a slender necked scalpel past the ruptured webbing into the mucus filled cavity.
“No. It’s a little beyond me, I’m afraid.” Henry said apologetically as he and Irons approached drawn yet repulsed at what the Agent had found.” Cause of death was plain enough. Some fiend with a butcher knife.”
“Perhaps, but he did so much more.” Blud murmured slicing away and peeling back the soft internal tissue away from the glistening, pink stained tip of Parker-Sue’s spine.
Peeling the wet, slimy flesh away from the pus covered, squirming grub latched tightly against her spine its slightly translucent, membranous covering undulating as Blud’s scalpel pressed experimentally into it. Causing first long, ivory hooked fingers to wedge themselves free from the embedded bone and nerves and then spread out unfurling the protective, leathery cocoon into wings that pushed and clawed at its surroundings widening comfortably the niche it had burrowed for itself. Powerful hind legs, thick with ropey muscles, ending in similar curved barbs twitched as each toe-claw pulled itself free then plunged into a new crevice or gap in the vertebra securing its purchase. It’s body hairless and amorphous, a shapeless pulsating bag, connecting to a tubular curved head and neck firmly pressing its underside against the rigid bone with a lamprey’s mouth. Long sinewy strands, dozens of them, extending from out of its gullet burrowing through the spine or vanishing up into the nape of the woman’s skull.
“What the hell is that?” Irons, sweating face suddenly pale, asked his red handkerchief making a reappearance as he attempted to hold back his gorge.
“Trouble.” Blud expertly diagnosed as the salt entombed eyelids of Parker-Sue slid from over her cloudy, milk-white eyes.
Eyes that turned mechanically, spilling more of the fine white powder grinding against the desiccated organs and its sockets, after the Agent as her shriveled, bloodless lips curled back from her rancid gums in a sneer and her gnarled hand, trembling with new found life, ripped up from the table in a white hail of salt to rake her nails across Blud’s face.
Stopped, with a meaty thunk, solely by Smith’s own hand as the other Agent smoothly sprung between catching the corpse’s limb in his iron grasp. The tendons in his arm dancing underneath the sleeve of his coat as he squeezed bursting open the dead woman’s bloated flesh and crushing the bone beneath while he reached for the handle of his revolver with the other.
“Undead. My specialty.” Smith said with almost a smile as he whipped his weapon out raising it preparing to brain the sitting up cadaver’s head in.
Only to feel the cold, clammy touch of shriveled, peeling fingers encircle and clasp his wrist jagged, broken spurs of nails and bone cutting painfully into him as the grip tightened. Panning his head to look, avoiding the other slashing hand of Parker-Sue, Smith saw the mummified body on the table behind him sitting up right, its sheet spooling down to the floor, and leaning after him. Streamers of salt pouring from its open, puckered mouth and emaciated, hollow eye sockets. A panning look back in front of him showed the rest of the eight Revenants rising from their slabs stumbling on rotted, unsteady legs or sweeping shriveled hands withered into bone-claws questingly through the air. Last, straining to free his gun arm from the Revenant, the stone-faced man looked to Blud, watching fascinated the resurrections, and the others cringing back in horror. A puff of ashen smoke billowing out of the Agent before he spoke.
“This might be more difficult than I thought.” He said over the sounds of tearing sinew as the Revenant behind him arm was wrenched from its decaying socket and Smith’s revolver continued forward shattering Parker-Sue’s putrid face.” You may want to get them out of here.”
Smiling that devious smile of his Blud nodded leaving him to his fate as he wheeled around grabbing a hold of the doughy Irons and far more lean Doc Henry shoving them both up out of the room. Gunshots echoing at his heels he forced them up the groaning steps and through the house towards the front entrance. From below the sounds of gunfire died away replaced with the melodious shuffling of feet, the reedy, shrill moans the Revenants and the sounds of scuffle as a body or bodies slammed against the tables and walls of the cellar. And within his breast Blud allowed a crimson hope to flare at the thought of the hare brained oath, outnumbered and surrounded, flailing with his meaty fists into the necrotic, unfeeling horde as they assailed from all around him raking their skeletal claws flaying bloody strips of flesh from his weakening form.
Savoring that delicious image, of that last moment before his head vanished underneath their grasping outstretched hands, until he ushered his charges into the front parlor and he suddenly had more pressing issues to face. From outside moonlight spilled through the mortician’s opened door silhouetting the three drenched, muddy Revenants which staggered drunkenly into the house on deteriorating legs. White, glistening maggots and worms falling from along with clumps of soggy mud as the three swerved unsteadily, their motions unsure, then narrowed singularly to the three beings in the room.
“Roy Thompson…” Irons, green, gagged the putrefying corpse bob towards him, rotting hands outstretched.” He was one of the first to be killed…”
“An impressive deduction.” Blud said genuinely looking at the shambling Revenant’s nearly fleshless skull-face then turning an eye to the cavalry pistol on the Sheriff’s hip.” But right now I think your skill with that iron is more important.”
Letting his handkerchief, now thoroughly soiled with mint smelling gel, fall from his fingers Irons turned his plump head following Blud’s gaze and stared flummoxed at the forgotten weapon holstered there. His thick brow furrowed as his terrified brain struggled to wrap itself around a world where people he knew, not some anonymous, nameless bloodsucker but people, good people he’d seen laid to rest clamored for his life. Then, his eyes hardening, Irons nodded his hand snatching at his weapon like a starving man as he took a step forward towards the shuffling corpses drawing a bead on the furthermost Roy Thompson.
And whatever else he was, an overweight middle age in a sweaty uniform too small for his heft Sheriff Irons was a marksman. The lead slug puncturing right through Thompson’s sunken chest where his heart would have been rocking the Revenant backwards slightly as dirt and crumpling flecks of dust like meat spilled through the filthy, tattered shirt’s most recent hole. Recovering Thompson mouth yawned open, the spindly tendons connecting his lower jaw fraying giving him an impossibly large bite, for a wheezing shriek that died to a fetid hacking midway through as what remained of his lung ruptured, slimy bits of the dissolving soft tissue vomiting up through his gaping jowls while other slithered out from beneath his soggy shirt.
“Merciful God…” Irons whimpered firing again and again into Roy tearing open his shirt to show his gray, insect eaten body and the protruding ribs poking through.”…just die!”
“The head.” Blud suggested in an academic voice watching the Revenant stagger indifferently through the fire.” Shoot it in the head.”
The corpse bearing down on the Sheriff its hands, soiled strips of flesh hanging from off the stained bones, brushing against his portly frame as, with a fear driven yelp, he followed the Agent’s dispassionate advice jerking his gun upwards into Roy’s decayed face and firing. The bullet snapping his head back, nearly ripping it from off its rotten moorings, and continued on through spewing a confetti of moldy brains and brittle bone fragments. Jerking at the destruction the Revenant buoyed for a moment on its rotten heels then went limp sagging at Irons’s feet only for Thompson to catch himself and rear his broken, hollow skull-face back up staring accusingly at Irons with his empty sockets as his hands sprung tearing at the Sheriff’s ample sides.
“Fascinating.” Blud whispered to himself as a screaming Irons shoved his revolver into Roy’s puckered, necrotic chest and fired hearing the splintering creak as he snapped apart his one time friend’s spine and a more meatier, muffled noise as he hit something else.
Something that swelled the upper back of Thompson pushing to escape even as his wretched body collapsed, a maggoty tumor which clawed tearing an opening for first one leathery, black wing than the other as it took flight from its crumbling host. Roy’s skull coming with it, connected by an oozing white bundle of tendrils, lifted and torn from the decomposing ligaments of its neck as the thing fluttered into the air launching itself at a backwards reeling Irons then veering away for his swiping arm as it gained more control and soared up towards the room’s rafters. Where, recovering, the Sheriff steadied himself against Blud and Doc Henry and drew a bead on the weaving abomination.
“Just die you son of a bitch!” He shouted up at it firing his sixth and final shot cleaving open one its membranous wings and causing the squawking thing to plummet against the side of one of the room’s coffins.
Leaving two remaining Revenants at arms length which Irons pushed the others away from, shielding them with portly bulk, as he grabbed for the loop of bullets on his belt only to have Henry grab his arm pulling him away and out of the room.
“The storeroom!” The Mortician said pointing a finger at a closed room.” It’s got a window, we can escape!”
Trailing after Blud followed eyeing their pursuing Revenants guide themselves along in uncoordinated jerks of their decomposing bodies but efficient nonetheless. Wanting little more than to get one under a laboratory setting, to deduce how they chose and tracked their prey with their atrophied if not dissolved senses.
“Remarkable.” He muttered, walking backwards through the door, as the two sidestepped around a crate in their path.” Simply remarkable.”
Then he was through and Doc Henry was slamming the door shut wedging his skeletal shoulder against it as he beckoned at Blud to help a moldy desk wedged along the wall to in front of the door. The two scraping it in place just as the Revenants began to scratch at the door pounding their reedy, emaciated fists against the soft, interior wood.
“That won’t hold them for long.” Irons said huffing turning towards the promised window raising his gun up and started emptying each of the chambers of empty casings.
“Come on, we can make a run for the station, grab some shotguns…maybe set this whole place on fire.” He said walking up and peering through the grime covered glass to the desolate outside world as he began to slip bullets free from his gunbelt.
“I’m afraid Charles, I wouldn’t like that.” Doc Henry said stepping up from off the moved desk to grab hold of the surprised Blud’s head bending it out of the way of the of the strait razor he slid sharply across.
Releasing it Blud’s body collapsed, the man clutching at his bubbling wound, as Henry, smiling oh so sinister, stepped towards the shocked Sheriff Irons. The officer, turning to see this unexpected and grisly sight, stumbling backwards his bullet slipping from his hand to clatter to the floor and roll to a stop against Henry.
“You…it was you?!” Irons said in disbelief as his friend advanced towards him.” All this time?”
“Who better, Charles? I could stay close to my children.” The Mortician said raising the razor up.” Take care of them.”
“And even paranoid Paul Crawford trusted good old Doc Henry. Let him get close until it was too late.” The thing shaped like a man giggled.” Of course I needed to dress the scene a little afterwards, keep you guessing and jumping after shadows.”
Taking another step the Mortician flicked his tongue out wetting his lips in anticipation expecting the Sheriff to turn screaming trying to bash open the window to escape or fumble trying to load his gun in terror. Instead Irons stared at the dripping razor blade which, following his frozen gaze, the thing wearing Henry saw coated with a black bile rather than blood. His brow knotting in confusion as the sound of creaking floor boards caused the Mortician to turn and see Blud standing back up. His neck wound knitting itself closed.
“That was uncalled for.” The Agent said angrily his retractable incisors softly popping out to their full length giving him the ever so slight lisp.
“No. You can’t be a…” The Henry shaped thing stuttered as Blud ran towards him.
Moving faster than a man of his apparent age had a right to he evaded the Mortician’s clumsily swung of the razor catching it at the wrist and brittlely breaking it as he swooped his other hand up through Henry’s throat and face digging his fingers into the soft, warm flesh as he reached up through it to grab the man’s jawbone.
“A bloodsucker?” He finished for the Mortician using Smith’s preferred derogatory.” As you said, who better?”
Then, Henry’s bloody and torn face wide in surprise and disbelief, in a titanic jerk of strength Blud ripped it upwards uprooting it from its base along with pulling knobby, slender link of bone of the spine up through the newly created hole. Attached to which was a pulsating, leathery sack with white bundles shooting out into the detached head and spine which Blud slung with a wet smack into the floor.
Letting the head drop along beside its labrously writhing form the Agent slung his hand getting rid of the worst of the coating blood, let out a long sigh as he recovered his temper and then reached up to adjust the collar of his stained suit.
“Sorry.” He said looking over at an ashen Irons.” But you wouldn’t believe how much it costs to get these suits cleaned.”
Offering a smile to the mute, awestruck officer as his fangs retracted when a heavy thud came from the cracking door. Followed by a second and third as it split apart against the crumbling skull Smith was slamming against it. Letting the earth stained cranium fall away he bent peering through the hole as he reached a hand through to push the desk out of the way silently taking stock of Blud, Irons and most importantly Doc Henry.
“Your alive.” Blud said with disappointment as Smith pulled himself back through the door to push it open.
“Yes.” He answered simply producing a cigarette from his person.” Got everything in the basement. Found a couple more up here, found them useful.”
Finding a match he struck it against the brim of his hat as he stepped over to Henry’s headless body and the wiggling, broken thing beside him. It’s continued, laborious efforts rewarded by unfolding one wing, its hollow bones broken and protruding through its skin, and flapping it weakly against the floor and wall. As Smith stood over it the thing’s sightless head lolled and meekly began to retract the ropy white strands embedded and entwined through Henry’s nervous system and brain recoiling it all somewhere within its soggy, misshapen body which Smith kicked with the toe of his boot purposely trying to goad some reaction.
“So what is it?” He asked taking a few short puffs as he shook out his match, broke it in two then tossed the fragments atop of the creature.
“Possibly an Atomic aberration.” Blud said wincing holding his hand up to his temple.” Some bat or other creature mutated by radiation.”
From where he stood by the window Irons cried out dropping his gun and clasping both hands against his head moments before Blud felt the red-hot corkscrew twist into him. The Immortal and the Sheriff dropping to their knees as something forced itself into their inner most minds. A hissing, bubbling voice whose inhuman words seemed to echo deafeningly inside their skulls.
“Not aberration, meat sack. The Future. We shall strip the flesh from your bones, suckle the marrow, devour until your world is dead-“ The thing challenged until Smith, unaffected, drew a revolver and shot into all six chambers silencing it.
Then, beginning the tedious process of reloading, he planted his foot down on it, making sure to grind the oozing, pus filled thing against the floorboards, and walked over to Irons offering him a hand up.
“That should take care of your immediate problem.” He, exhaling a cloud of smoke, said pulling the still slightly confused officer to his feet and thumbing closed the chamber guard on his gun which he then holstered.” Now are concern should be that by my take we got thirteen or fourteen Revenants leaving maybe six unaccounted for.”
“ Likely was a deliberate effort by the creature to scatter them in case the brood was discovered.“ He explained to the shell shocked Irons.“ They will have to be found and destroyed but we can enlist the surrounding authorities for that. Let them know what they’re looking for and dealing with.”
“Add that brainshots are ineffective, you have to kill the parasite creature.” Blud said grimacing as he pulled himself back up.
His head still painfully throbbing like it had been caught in a vise as well as feeling slightly nauseous from the thankfully brief psionic contact by the slain creature. He was less grateful for the brusque means Smith had employed to subdue the mangled, bullet riddled specimen Blud shooting the other Agent a loathsome glare as he moved closer and knelt over the creature inspecting to see what remained.
“What about-what about both of you?” Irons asked finding his voice with some difficulty.
Finding it hard to concentrate on what was happening, that Doc Henry was laying dead at his feet. That he’d been about to kill Irons. That he’d been a monster.
“We’ll perform a sweep of the town as well as preliminary inspection of its citizens to confirm lack of infestation.” Smith said between pausing to take a long drag from his cigarette.” You can also expect a more specialized and in-depth team to be sent once we file our reports to the Bureau.”
“Beyond that, I’m afraid, Potter’s Quarry is just the first in a long list of unexplained occurrences and disturbances calling for our attention and manpower.”
“Besides.” He said blowing a plume of smoke out as his brass beaten face cracked into a sophomoric grin.” I got a date on the East Coast that I’m not going to miss.”
“Ancient Martian death machines, radioactive Nazi Zombies, gibbering horrors from beyond the stars…in the end they’re just different stains I need to scrub off my boots.” Agent Smith waxing on the peculiarities of the job.
The rusty sign highlighted by the car’s high beams identified the town as Potter’s Quarry, just another of the shuttering, dead towns found lost off the way of the interstate. Crumbling, vacant Pre-War houses, barren storefronts boarded over with plywood, a long abandoned plant or mill. A forgotten, decaying husk of a once vibrant town staked out in the middle of nowhere. Unremarkable or truly exceptional if other than the car’s driver haven spent the better portion of the last three hours crisscrossing the intertwined ruts and footpaths they called roads this far out trying to find it.
And seeing it through the drizzle streaked windshield as he chugged through its barren, motionless streets he found it an under whelming waste. Spotting the local courthouse, a granite lion standing defiantly firm amidst the decay, he pulled into a parking spot in front of it across from a condemned movie palace. The tattered, mildewed poster for a Levasseur pirate picture still hanging in its shattered frame. The titular swashbuckler bestriding center stage with a leggy blonde draped in one arm and a blinding saber of steel in the other which he parried some hideous proto-human’s stone ax as the film’s title launched itself above their heads stretching out from seeming infinity.
“Levasseur conquers the Ape-Men.” The driver smiled nostalgically at the poster.” Maybe ’49 or ’50. Not the best but it wasn’t bad.”
Trip down memory lane finished he leaned into his seat and far rougher than he needed shoved the sleeping passenger waking him open before opening the glove compartment. Inside lay neatly folded a useless road map, the car’s rental agreement, an army issue forty-five pistol with two back up clips and a bottle of sour whiskey with maybe a finger’s worth left in it. The latter which, rooting around in the confined space, the driver pulled out and uncorked for a hard swig leaving the glove box open. The passenger, looking in disgust as the driver chugged the bottle’s contents, noticing this and eyeing the semi-automatic pistol reached in for it only to have the now empty bottle smash down against the top of his palm pining it.
“You don’t get a gun.” The driver belched releasing the passenger’s hand and tossing the bottle into his lap before slamming the glove box closed.” You’re here for that sodden mind the Bureau thinks you have, nothing else.”
“I see.” The other passenger, clearly an older gentleman, noted drolly as he held rubbing his injured hand.” And should something unexpected arise and I find myself faced with mortal danger?”
“Very loudly call my name.” Agent Smith joked peeling open his soiled looking long coat and reaching inside the lining pocket for his little black notebook.
Flipping through it to the last written page he ran the finger of a gloved hand down the mess of scribbled fragments as he reached back inside his coat for a cigarette then a match which he lit by striking against the worn underside of his wide brimmed hat.
“Potter’s Quarry. This should be it.” He remarked finding the circled name as he shook out the match.
“Your sure this time?” His passenger, a professor Blud, asked sneeringly.” Because I’ve heard that before.”
“Is it my fault there’s a half dozen quarries in these parts?” Smith growled opening his side and stepping out into the misting night.
The large man stretching working the kinks from his back as he watched a figure appear on the courthouse steps and walk towards them. The light from off the building reflecting off the bronze star pinned to his olive drab uniform shirt identifying him as the town’s constable. Older, portly, red faced with a drooping mustache and a pair of Western boots Sheriff Irons looked like an aging cowboy star squeezed into his old costume. The peacemaker strapped to his pudgy hip through looked certainly real enough, the grip and trigger slightly worn with the abrasion of frequent and steady use.
“Let’s try and do this quick, okay?” Smith, removing his smoke to exhale, implored Blud climbing out of the car.” I got a date back on the West coast that I mean to keep.”
“Your obligation. Not mine.” Blud snickered back walking around to join Smith as Irons walked up offering each man a surprisingly still strong grip of a handshake.
“Good to have you arrive. Folks are getting worried.” Irons drawled in a slow, thick as molasses voice.
Nodding his head to the deserted street and dark storefronts, those which hadn’t been abandoned, which were tightly drawn and locked against egress despite the relative early hour.
“Everyone’s just holing up?” Smith asked drawing a puff from his cigarette as he looked around.
“Nearly two dozen murders or disappearances in the last ten days…you can bet everyone staying locked up. Not that it makes a difference.” Irons shrugged, causing pooling rivulets of water on his shoulders to spill over, looking between the two newcomers.” Paul Crawford was found locked in his home, an emptied shotgun at his blood splattered feet. And Parker-Sue and her boys…Sweet Christ.”
“Well we’re here to put an end to it.” Smith assured taking his smoke and flicking it away into a puddle with a hiss.
Opening his battered long coat again revealing the twin revolvers slung in reverse grip underneath the charcoal vest of his suit he drew one of pointing it at the ground and rotating the barrel with the hammer half drawn to triple check it was still loaded.
“ I hope so, I really do son, but this ain’t no demented Asylum nut with a razor. This is something…dark.” Irons said with grim fortitude.” You sure you two will be able to handle it?”
“It isn’t my first rodeo. And as for him…” Smith, putting his revolver back in its holster, said gesturing at Blud who stood quietly with his serious, graven expression.”…he’s the Bureau’s leading expert on Night Terrors.”
“That right?” Irons asked with new appreciation for the Eastern European man standing before him.
“Among my many other disciplines.” Blud answered managing to commingle smug pride with a aristocratic detachedness.” Through we are wasting time with these trivialities. In your communiqué, Sheriff Irons, you stated you were preserving the bodies?”
Blinking as strands of water drizzled down over the brim of his hat to pool on the ground Irons seemed about to say something then thought better of it and instead nodded slinging droplets all around.
“Yeah, over at Doc Henry’s place. Him being the town mortician and all. Through frankly their piling up faster than we can get them in the ground regardless.” Irons said in his slow, precise way.” I can take you there if that’s where you want to start.”
“It’s the best place, along with a couple of strong, able-bodied men you trust.” Smith assured drawing and checking his second gun.” If we don’t want to be up to our armpits in Bloodsuckers we need those corpses beheaded and burned.”
“Brutish, primitive and quite frankly counter-productive.” Blud argued raising an eyebrow at his erstwhile colleague.” I want to see the bodies to exam them, not destroy.”
“ And what is that going to tell you Professor? That we have a nest of maybe three or four of the blood-freaks we need to clear out?” Smith challenged putting his revolver back as Irons looked unsteadily between his town’s would be saviors.
Scoffing Blud looked up at the other Agent’s brass beaten face and smiled wickedly. A sight which made Irons hand instinctively flinch towards the smooth grip of his gun and even Smith, well traveled in Earth’s more obscure and esoteric locations, to stiffen ever so slightly.
“An impeccable deduction except for a single, niggling detail.” Blud teased haughtily.” Nothing about this situation suggests Nosferatu activity.”
___________________________________*______________________________________
“…was the population which first alerted me. One hundred-eighty circa the last census.” Blud explained stepping in from outside past Irons holding open the door to the dark lit parlor filled with vacant coffins.” Simply too small for any Vampyric pack or entity’s needs.”
The room spacious and tidy with hard oak floors that creaked as you walked over them and windows covered by frilly drapes blotting out any light seeping in from outside. Black and white photographs of stern looking men in frock coats and hats and prim women in bonnets hung spaced around the subdued walls. In the corner a small table held a collection of women figurines that looked well cared for but untouched. But dominating the floor space were the glossy black obelisks laid out in neat rows, their lids propped open in order to showcase their pillowed comfort afforded the deceased but in the dark looking like a scene from a bad Gothic film.
“Cities, large and impersonal, where a murder or two fails to raise notice are far more desirable.” The Bureau expert said sliding off and folding his water slick coat as he looked back behind him over his shoulder.” In an emergency a migratory pack might take prey from a town like Potter’s Quarry but they wouldn’t remain risking discovery like your killer has done.”
“So what do you think it is, professor?” Smith asked hotly brushing past Irons into the room slipping a cigarette between his lips.” The victims all had their throats torn out and their blood siphoned. What else does that?”
“I have no idea. Intriguing isn’t it?” Blud said excitedly all but rubbing his hands with sadistic glee.” That someone or something wants us to suspect the Nosferatu.”
“ Not really.” Smith muttered striking a match against his hat’s brim again and cupping it against his smoke.” Just means more paperwork.”
Lighting it, drawing a much-needed puff, he shook out the flame and broke the fragile stick between his fingers as Irons followed him in closing the door and feeling for the light switch. The device clicking a moment later bathing the showroom in an eerie, diffused light which only served to embolden the macabre shadows and haunted atmosphere.
Taking off his own coat Irons hung it off on the hook by the door motioning to the others but with only Blud following his example. Smith keeping his long coat on, droplets of water running its swaying edges as the big man walked through the room’s center running a finger for dust along the side of one of the coffins. The black leather of his glove clean and immaculate when he held it up to look.
“Won’t find anything finer this side of the county line, I can assure you.” A gnome of a man in soiled work clothes reeking of formaldehyde cheerfully boasted stepping into the room from the back.” Now then, what can I do for you fine gentlemen?”
Barely five feet all with snow white hair receding over a bald dome, twinkling blue eyes and an infectious grin Smith quickly panned him over and relaxed the coiled muscles in his gun hand which hanged at his side as he reached with the other for his smoldering cigarette.
“I’m Agent Smith, this is my associate Doctor Blud.” Smith said exhaling an ashen cloud then returning the smoke to his lips to reach his hand out and shake the mortician’s.” And we’d like to take a look at the bodies you have on ice.”
“They’re the G-men I was telling you about, Henry.” Irons spoke walking up to them.
Blud trotting after offering the backwoods physician the barest and most perfunct amenity, his mind on the town’s clear misdirection and what it portended. Theories and hypothesis buzzing wildly behind his cool, composed exterior that ranged from the mundane cover for a specific murder to the fantastic such as the overly overt and stylized deaths were meant to obscure the true hunger being sated. Adrenal glands, bone marrow, or merely raw human cellular structure in his time with the Bureau, and his life before it, he’d seen countless aberrant monstrosities desperately consume each vainly attempting to stave off further degeneration.
“Well, I didn’t think they were tourists Charles.” The old man laughed releasing his surprisingly firm grip with Smith to extend it to Blud who limply returned the gesture. “ Name’s Henry Joseph but just call me “Doc”. And however I can help, just say it.”
“We really just need to view the remains of the attacked right now.” Blud insisted quickly letting go of the other man’s hand.” Afterwards, of course, I would enjoy comparing my findings with your notes and observations.”
His tone brush and dismissive to the wrinkled old man not that he seemed to notice, his vividly animated eyes widening almost imperceptibly as his infectious grin pulled even further at the corners of his mouth.
“So I’m not the only one with reservations that we’re dealing with some half mythical boogeyman.” The mortician said shooting a glance at Irons.” Mark my words Charles. What we’re dealing with is just some crazed drifter hiding behind the Nosferatu’s imagery.”
“The Bureau is open to all possibilities.” Smith spoke up noncommittally, voice laced with silky strands of ash gray smoke, following as Doc Henry turned spryly on his heels and ambled back out of the room leading them into the cellar where the bodies were stored.” Including non-terrestrial influence such as a Martian cult.”
The brain caste of that cyclopean, dying race, the end product of half a million years of faulty eugenics, survived almost exclusively on serum derived from oxygenated, nutrient rich blood and some of their human followers, brainwashed and driven mad by psionic contact, emulated the practice. Through even as he said it the veteran Agent felt doubt rise in him. The whole effort at masquerade simply didn’t have the touch of that enigmatic but brazen civilization.
Making up the rear with Sheriff Irons as they navigated around the unkempt empty crates and packaging which cluttered the back of the mortician’s house slash funeral parlor Blud raised an inquisitive eyebrow at his erstwhile partner as they descended down the creaking basement steps Doc Henry had vanished down looking at Smith with a marred air of surprise and amazement.
“An actually intriguing notion, perhaps the first you’ve had in the entirety of our relationship.” The creased Eastern European said before his tone turned mocking.” Through untenable in light of the present facts. A Dreamstone would produce noticeable side effects through out the population with widespread irrationality, paranoia, cases of insomnia or extremely lurid nightmares of otherworldly vistas. A pity through, I’d hate to discourage what may have been your first thought in ages.”
Craning his head walking down the shabby steps Smith was about to offer a retort, an observation concerning Blud’s maternal ancestor, when the first strong rancid whiff of the odor permeating the cellar pierced through his personal cloying miasma of stale cigarette smoke. A pungent, sickly sweet smell unfortunately familiar to the veteran Agent; the scent intimate even, almost an old acquaintance conjuring memories of muddy corpse strewn fields, fetid dens carpeted in rancid bones maggots squirming through the hunks of fetid meat hanging off and countless other dismal moments etched into his soul.
Blud, clearly recognizing the scent of death, raised an eyebrow more curious than concerned while Irons, clamping a red handkerchief over his mouth, offered an apologetic expression as the three stepped down into the grungy work area. Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, flickering intermittently as they warmed up, shining a pale, shallow light on nearly a dozen sheet covered bodies laid out on the steel tables arranged four deep and three long through the center of the room. A sink and counter running across one wall, some rust colored stains in its basin, murky bottles with faded labels lined on its shelving. The opposite wall carved into and excavated replaced with enclosed steel racks and trays normally used for refrigerating the deceased. Instead fine white, granular powder clung embedded to the body covering sheets or spilled drizzling into growing mounds from thick, canvas sacks piled up in the room’s corner.
Standing before them, liberally dabbing a mint cream over his upper lip, Doc Henry offered a sorry little smile and a shrug of his shoulders to the cloying pestilence.
“Refrigerator blew out a couple days before this mess started, and we just can’t seem to get the parts.” He explained offering his round tin of balm which Irons hurriedly accepted lathering a pudgy hand with the cream while both Smith and Blud shook their heads.” Its an old machine…in the mid-term we’ve taken to using rock salt but once rot sets in…”
“I suggested to burn the lot of them but Henry wouldn’t go for it.” Irons, slathering the mint-scented cream under his nose, spoke up as Blud walked gently past to the first body pulling away the salt encrusted sheet.
The white crystals diligent packed and pressed into the wrinkles and folds of the cadavers bloated, mottled skin further damaging the outer tissues already being broken down by ecosystem of unchecked bacteria running rampant through it.
“We can’t very well burn up our only evidence in these crimes, can we Charles?” Henry protested as Blud moved onto the next body and then the one after that pulling the sheet off of each.” Besides their families deserve to have something of their loved ones than just ash.
“Still think this is the work of a man?” Irons asked drawing his heavy bulk up as tall as he could as he snapped the lid closed on the tin and handed it back to the mortician.” That he would rip out another’s throat, suckle out the blood?”
“It is a hypothesis certainly not disproven yet.” Blud said leaning over satisfactorily fresh body, the widow Parker-Sue, running her hand across the discolored, ragged gash torn through her neck.
“ Look at the edges of the wound, thin but deep without any curve…suggestive of a bladed tool or weapon.” He said digging a finger into the salt packed wound.” Certainly the flesh has been gnawed upon but, judging from the surrounding tissue, likely post-mortem in attempt to disguise the actual cause of death.”
“And while we’ll have to have a plaster caste made to be sure the bite wound appears consistent with human rather than Nosferatu.” Blud finished looking up from the corpse to the other men.” No sign of the increased incisors.”
Taking a swab of the wound and growing the resultant cultures would also have been useful, more definitive. Rather than the mere animated corpses of popular legend “Immortals” were living organisms and their saliva teamed with sympathetic and congenial microbes unique to their specific biology. The regrettable condition and preservation of the bodies precluded any hope of that through.
“Are you certain?” Irons asked uneasily as Smith, already bored, checked at his watch.
An ashy haze of nicotine swirling around his face, cutting against the room’s dreadful stench, as he looked back up impatiently at his partner hurrying him on. The fingers of Smith’s hand clenching spasmicly straining the black leather of the glove then releasing itching to be out in the night hunting this murderer down.
“Fairly, Sheriff, through the conditions of the bodies leaves something to be desired.” Blud answered the nail of his probing finger piercing the back of the caked salt through a soft membrane causing a foul smelling, viscous brown fluid to seep into the wound.
Raising his eyebrow again as he held his finger up running the gelatinous pus between it and his thumb the creased Hungarian’s eyes stared in puzzlement then lit up with the excitement of discovery. His free hand reaching into his suit’s person for his cloth wrapped personal surgical kit, kept for whenever opportunity presented, unwrapping and laying it out on the woman’s stiff, lifeless chest as he wiped his hand on her equally cold shoulder.
“Was any attempt at exploratory autopsy performed?” He asked wedging the frayed lips of the torn gash wider with forceps and digging a slender necked scalpel past the ruptured webbing into the mucus filled cavity.
“No. It’s a little beyond me, I’m afraid.” Henry said apologetically as he and Irons approached drawn yet repulsed at what the Agent had found.” Cause of death was plain enough. Some fiend with a butcher knife.”
“Perhaps, but he did so much more.” Blud murmured slicing away and peeling back the soft internal tissue away from the glistening, pink stained tip of Parker-Sue’s spine.
Peeling the wet, slimy flesh away from the pus covered, squirming grub latched tightly against her spine its slightly translucent, membranous covering undulating as Blud’s scalpel pressed experimentally into it. Causing first long, ivory hooked fingers to wedge themselves free from the embedded bone and nerves and then spread out unfurling the protective, leathery cocoon into wings that pushed and clawed at its surroundings widening comfortably the niche it had burrowed for itself. Powerful hind legs, thick with ropey muscles, ending in similar curved barbs twitched as each toe-claw pulled itself free then plunged into a new crevice or gap in the vertebra securing its purchase. It’s body hairless and amorphous, a shapeless pulsating bag, connecting to a tubular curved head and neck firmly pressing its underside against the rigid bone with a lamprey’s mouth. Long sinewy strands, dozens of them, extending from out of its gullet burrowing through the spine or vanishing up into the nape of the woman’s skull.
“What the hell is that?” Irons, sweating face suddenly pale, asked his red handkerchief making a reappearance as he attempted to hold back his gorge.
“Trouble.” Blud expertly diagnosed as the salt entombed eyelids of Parker-Sue slid from over her cloudy, milk-white eyes.
Eyes that turned mechanically, spilling more of the fine white powder grinding against the desiccated organs and its sockets, after the Agent as her shriveled, bloodless lips curled back from her rancid gums in a sneer and her gnarled hand, trembling with new found life, ripped up from the table in a white hail of salt to rake her nails across Blud’s face.
Stopped, with a meaty thunk, solely by Smith’s own hand as the other Agent smoothly sprung between catching the corpse’s limb in his iron grasp. The tendons in his arm dancing underneath the sleeve of his coat as he squeezed bursting open the dead woman’s bloated flesh and crushing the bone beneath while he reached for the handle of his revolver with the other.
“Undead. My specialty.” Smith said with almost a smile as he whipped his weapon out raising it preparing to brain the sitting up cadaver’s head in.
Only to feel the cold, clammy touch of shriveled, peeling fingers encircle and clasp his wrist jagged, broken spurs of nails and bone cutting painfully into him as the grip tightened. Panning his head to look, avoiding the other slashing hand of Parker-Sue, Smith saw the mummified body on the table behind him sitting up right, its sheet spooling down to the floor, and leaning after him. Streamers of salt pouring from its open, puckered mouth and emaciated, hollow eye sockets. A panning look back in front of him showed the rest of the eight Revenants rising from their slabs stumbling on rotted, unsteady legs or sweeping shriveled hands withered into bone-claws questingly through the air. Last, straining to free his gun arm from the Revenant, the stone-faced man looked to Blud, watching fascinated the resurrections, and the others cringing back in horror. A puff of ashen smoke billowing out of the Agent before he spoke.
“This might be more difficult than I thought.” He said over the sounds of tearing sinew as the Revenant behind him arm was wrenched from its decaying socket and Smith’s revolver continued forward shattering Parker-Sue’s putrid face.” You may want to get them out of here.”
Smiling that devious smile of his Blud nodded leaving him to his fate as he wheeled around grabbing a hold of the doughy Irons and far more lean Doc Henry shoving them both up out of the room. Gunshots echoing at his heels he forced them up the groaning steps and through the house towards the front entrance. From below the sounds of gunfire died away replaced with the melodious shuffling of feet, the reedy, shrill moans the Revenants and the sounds of scuffle as a body or bodies slammed against the tables and walls of the cellar. And within his breast Blud allowed a crimson hope to flare at the thought of the hare brained oath, outnumbered and surrounded, flailing with his meaty fists into the necrotic, unfeeling horde as they assailed from all around him raking their skeletal claws flaying bloody strips of flesh from his weakening form.
Savoring that delicious image, of that last moment before his head vanished underneath their grasping outstretched hands, until he ushered his charges into the front parlor and he suddenly had more pressing issues to face. From outside moonlight spilled through the mortician’s opened door silhouetting the three drenched, muddy Revenants which staggered drunkenly into the house on deteriorating legs. White, glistening maggots and worms falling from along with clumps of soggy mud as the three swerved unsteadily, their motions unsure, then narrowed singularly to the three beings in the room.
“Roy Thompson…” Irons, green, gagged the putrefying corpse bob towards him, rotting hands outstretched.” He was one of the first to be killed…”
“An impressive deduction.” Blud said genuinely looking at the shambling Revenant’s nearly fleshless skull-face then turning an eye to the cavalry pistol on the Sheriff’s hip.” But right now I think your skill with that iron is more important.”
Letting his handkerchief, now thoroughly soiled with mint smelling gel, fall from his fingers Irons turned his plump head following Blud’s gaze and stared flummoxed at the forgotten weapon holstered there. His thick brow furrowed as his terrified brain struggled to wrap itself around a world where people he knew, not some anonymous, nameless bloodsucker but people, good people he’d seen laid to rest clamored for his life. Then, his eyes hardening, Irons nodded his hand snatching at his weapon like a starving man as he took a step forward towards the shuffling corpses drawing a bead on the furthermost Roy Thompson.
And whatever else he was, an overweight middle age in a sweaty uniform too small for his heft Sheriff Irons was a marksman. The lead slug puncturing right through Thompson’s sunken chest where his heart would have been rocking the Revenant backwards slightly as dirt and crumpling flecks of dust like meat spilled through the filthy, tattered shirt’s most recent hole. Recovering Thompson mouth yawned open, the spindly tendons connecting his lower jaw fraying giving him an impossibly large bite, for a wheezing shriek that died to a fetid hacking midway through as what remained of his lung ruptured, slimy bits of the dissolving soft tissue vomiting up through his gaping jowls while other slithered out from beneath his soggy shirt.
“Merciful God…” Irons whimpered firing again and again into Roy tearing open his shirt to show his gray, insect eaten body and the protruding ribs poking through.”…just die!”
“The head.” Blud suggested in an academic voice watching the Revenant stagger indifferently through the fire.” Shoot it in the head.”
The corpse bearing down on the Sheriff its hands, soiled strips of flesh hanging from off the stained bones, brushing against his portly frame as, with a fear driven yelp, he followed the Agent’s dispassionate advice jerking his gun upwards into Roy’s decayed face and firing. The bullet snapping his head back, nearly ripping it from off its rotten moorings, and continued on through spewing a confetti of moldy brains and brittle bone fragments. Jerking at the destruction the Revenant buoyed for a moment on its rotten heels then went limp sagging at Irons’s feet only for Thompson to catch himself and rear his broken, hollow skull-face back up staring accusingly at Irons with his empty sockets as his hands sprung tearing at the Sheriff’s ample sides.
“Fascinating.” Blud whispered to himself as a screaming Irons shoved his revolver into Roy’s puckered, necrotic chest and fired hearing the splintering creak as he snapped apart his one time friend’s spine and a more meatier, muffled noise as he hit something else.
Something that swelled the upper back of Thompson pushing to escape even as his wretched body collapsed, a maggoty tumor which clawed tearing an opening for first one leathery, black wing than the other as it took flight from its crumbling host. Roy’s skull coming with it, connected by an oozing white bundle of tendrils, lifted and torn from the decomposing ligaments of its neck as the thing fluttered into the air launching itself at a backwards reeling Irons then veering away for his swiping arm as it gained more control and soared up towards the room’s rafters. Where, recovering, the Sheriff steadied himself against Blud and Doc Henry and drew a bead on the weaving abomination.
“Just die you son of a bitch!” He shouted up at it firing his sixth and final shot cleaving open one its membranous wings and causing the squawking thing to plummet against the side of one of the room’s coffins.
Leaving two remaining Revenants at arms length which Irons pushed the others away from, shielding them with portly bulk, as he grabbed for the loop of bullets on his belt only to have Henry grab his arm pulling him away and out of the room.
“The storeroom!” The Mortician said pointing a finger at a closed room.” It’s got a window, we can escape!”
Trailing after Blud followed eyeing their pursuing Revenants guide themselves along in uncoordinated jerks of their decomposing bodies but efficient nonetheless. Wanting little more than to get one under a laboratory setting, to deduce how they chose and tracked their prey with their atrophied if not dissolved senses.
“Remarkable.” He muttered, walking backwards through the door, as the two sidestepped around a crate in their path.” Simply remarkable.”
Then he was through and Doc Henry was slamming the door shut wedging his skeletal shoulder against it as he beckoned at Blud to help a moldy desk wedged along the wall to in front of the door. The two scraping it in place just as the Revenants began to scratch at the door pounding their reedy, emaciated fists against the soft, interior wood.
“That won’t hold them for long.” Irons said huffing turning towards the promised window raising his gun up and started emptying each of the chambers of empty casings.
“Come on, we can make a run for the station, grab some shotguns…maybe set this whole place on fire.” He said walking up and peering through the grime covered glass to the desolate outside world as he began to slip bullets free from his gunbelt.
“I’m afraid Charles, I wouldn’t like that.” Doc Henry said stepping up from off the moved desk to grab hold of the surprised Blud’s head bending it out of the way of the of the strait razor he slid sharply across.
Releasing it Blud’s body collapsed, the man clutching at his bubbling wound, as Henry, smiling oh so sinister, stepped towards the shocked Sheriff Irons. The officer, turning to see this unexpected and grisly sight, stumbling backwards his bullet slipping from his hand to clatter to the floor and roll to a stop against Henry.
“You…it was you?!” Irons said in disbelief as his friend advanced towards him.” All this time?”
“Who better, Charles? I could stay close to my children.” The Mortician said raising the razor up.” Take care of them.”
“And even paranoid Paul Crawford trusted good old Doc Henry. Let him get close until it was too late.” The thing shaped like a man giggled.” Of course I needed to dress the scene a little afterwards, keep you guessing and jumping after shadows.”
Taking another step the Mortician flicked his tongue out wetting his lips in anticipation expecting the Sheriff to turn screaming trying to bash open the window to escape or fumble trying to load his gun in terror. Instead Irons stared at the dripping razor blade which, following his frozen gaze, the thing wearing Henry saw coated with a black bile rather than blood. His brow knotting in confusion as the sound of creaking floor boards caused the Mortician to turn and see Blud standing back up. His neck wound knitting itself closed.
“That was uncalled for.” The Agent said angrily his retractable incisors softly popping out to their full length giving him the ever so slight lisp.
“No. You can’t be a…” The Henry shaped thing stuttered as Blud ran towards him.
Moving faster than a man of his apparent age had a right to he evaded the Mortician’s clumsily swung of the razor catching it at the wrist and brittlely breaking it as he swooped his other hand up through Henry’s throat and face digging his fingers into the soft, warm flesh as he reached up through it to grab the man’s jawbone.
“A bloodsucker?” He finished for the Mortician using Smith’s preferred derogatory.” As you said, who better?”
Then, Henry’s bloody and torn face wide in surprise and disbelief, in a titanic jerk of strength Blud ripped it upwards uprooting it from its base along with pulling knobby, slender link of bone of the spine up through the newly created hole. Attached to which was a pulsating, leathery sack with white bundles shooting out into the detached head and spine which Blud slung with a wet smack into the floor.
Letting the head drop along beside its labrously writhing form the Agent slung his hand getting rid of the worst of the coating blood, let out a long sigh as he recovered his temper and then reached up to adjust the collar of his stained suit.
“Sorry.” He said looking over at an ashen Irons.” But you wouldn’t believe how much it costs to get these suits cleaned.”
Offering a smile to the mute, awestruck officer as his fangs retracted when a heavy thud came from the cracking door. Followed by a second and third as it split apart against the crumbling skull Smith was slamming against it. Letting the earth stained cranium fall away he bent peering through the hole as he reached a hand through to push the desk out of the way silently taking stock of Blud, Irons and most importantly Doc Henry.
“Your alive.” Blud said with disappointment as Smith pulled himself back through the door to push it open.
“Yes.” He answered simply producing a cigarette from his person.” Got everything in the basement. Found a couple more up here, found them useful.”
Finding a match he struck it against the brim of his hat as he stepped over to Henry’s headless body and the wiggling, broken thing beside him. It’s continued, laborious efforts rewarded by unfolding one wing, its hollow bones broken and protruding through its skin, and flapping it weakly against the floor and wall. As Smith stood over it the thing’s sightless head lolled and meekly began to retract the ropy white strands embedded and entwined through Henry’s nervous system and brain recoiling it all somewhere within its soggy, misshapen body which Smith kicked with the toe of his boot purposely trying to goad some reaction.
“So what is it?” He asked taking a few short puffs as he shook out his match, broke it in two then tossed the fragments atop of the creature.
“Possibly an Atomic aberration.” Blud said wincing holding his hand up to his temple.” Some bat or other creature mutated by radiation.”
From where he stood by the window Irons cried out dropping his gun and clasping both hands against his head moments before Blud felt the red-hot corkscrew twist into him. The Immortal and the Sheriff dropping to their knees as something forced itself into their inner most minds. A hissing, bubbling voice whose inhuman words seemed to echo deafeningly inside their skulls.
“Not aberration, meat sack. The Future. We shall strip the flesh from your bones, suckle the marrow, devour until your world is dead-“ The thing challenged until Smith, unaffected, drew a revolver and shot into all six chambers silencing it.
Then, beginning the tedious process of reloading, he planted his foot down on it, making sure to grind the oozing, pus filled thing against the floorboards, and walked over to Irons offering him a hand up.
“That should take care of your immediate problem.” He, exhaling a cloud of smoke, said pulling the still slightly confused officer to his feet and thumbing closed the chamber guard on his gun which he then holstered.” Now are concern should be that by my take we got thirteen or fourteen Revenants leaving maybe six unaccounted for.”
“ Likely was a deliberate effort by the creature to scatter them in case the brood was discovered.“ He explained to the shell shocked Irons.“ They will have to be found and destroyed but we can enlist the surrounding authorities for that. Let them know what they’re looking for and dealing with.”
“Add that brainshots are ineffective, you have to kill the parasite creature.” Blud said grimacing as he pulled himself back up.
His head still painfully throbbing like it had been caught in a vise as well as feeling slightly nauseous from the thankfully brief psionic contact by the slain creature. He was less grateful for the brusque means Smith had employed to subdue the mangled, bullet riddled specimen Blud shooting the other Agent a loathsome glare as he moved closer and knelt over the creature inspecting to see what remained.
“What about-what about both of you?” Irons asked finding his voice with some difficulty.
Finding it hard to concentrate on what was happening, that Doc Henry was laying dead at his feet. That he’d been about to kill Irons. That he’d been a monster.
“We’ll perform a sweep of the town as well as preliminary inspection of its citizens to confirm lack of infestation.” Smith said between pausing to take a long drag from his cigarette.” You can also expect a more specialized and in-depth team to be sent once we file our reports to the Bureau.”
“Beyond that, I’m afraid, Potter’s Quarry is just the first in a long list of unexplained occurrences and disturbances calling for our attention and manpower.”
“Besides.” He said blowing a plume of smoke out as his brass beaten face cracked into a sophomoric grin.” I got a date on the East Coast that I’m not going to miss.”