The Shadow People
By Vatilla
1647 words
The campfire crackled around me. The little girl, so, so much younger than I, stared at me with huge, round eyes. “Tell me,” she whispered. The child, teenager, really, was fifteen, but oh so much younger than I. Being what I am made no difference to her. She wanted me to tell her about why I killed. How I became what I am, even though she knew I must kill her or turn her to be able to tell her.
“I like you,” I told the child. Her already wide eyes widened. “But you must understand. If I tell you what makes me kill, I must either turn you or kill you. I am hundreds of years old, child. To live my life is one that will nearly kill you if I don’t in the first place. Tell me, do you want death, or a life of seeing all you love die?”
“I want to live forever, and leave my life behind. I want to travel with no worries about family ties,” she said, her soft voice firm. I shook my head, and began my tale.
“It was long ago. 1500 to be exact. I was with my son at the market, getting medicines for his ill mother. She was due to deliver our child in a few days, but something was wrong. The Healer for our village told me to take my boy and go to the market, fetching the few things she put on a list. I cannot remember the list, as my human memories are muddled. My son, his name was Thesius, I told him to wait by the toy cart while I fetched the medicines. The old woman gave me what I asked, and I went to fetch Thesius. He was so handsome, even at five. He had a childish grin that seemed to reach his ears, and his skin looked as if it had never been touched by sunlight. His bouncing blond curls masked his gorgeous brown eyes, and those eyes seemed to sparkle every time I saw him. I set the medicines down and scooped him up, placing him on my shoulders and grabbing the medicines again. He laughed, and the sound of his laughter always rings in my ears... He remained on my shoulders the entire walk home.
“When we arrived, the moans of pain were eminent. I could hear them even through our door. I took Thesius off my shoulders and sent him to the neighbour’s house before entering my own. When I opened the door, I quickly walked into the bedroom my wife, Ida, and I shared. What I saw, though fuzzy in memory, remains clear in soul. She was lying in a ball, her arms over her bloated stomach, her hair matted to her forehead. Her once beautiful face, with Thesius’s brown eyes and soft skin, was contorted with pain. Her light brown hair wasn’t just on her forehead, but on her pillow too. She was screaming and moaning, and the Healer was in the corner, looking nervous. I approached her and presented the medicines. She waved them away. ‘Nothing but a miracle can save her now. She will deliver in a matter of hours, and there is nothing I can do to keep her from dying along with the child she carries.’ Those words... They took the ground out from under me. The medicines crashed to the floor, myself with it, head in my knees, breathing ragged. I felt a sharp sting and looked to see a piece of glass lodged in my hand, blood gushing from the wound. I ripped the glass out along with fragments of flesh, and stared at the blood turned to deep red and continued to flow. The Healer quickly bandaged my hand, and I roughly shove her away after a knot was tied, sending her into a side table. I heard a squishing sound when her side hit the table, and a gasp from her.
“I shook my head as if to chide her, and exited the house, my bloody hand on the back of my neck, smearing the blood. ‘Quite a predicament,’ I heard a voice say, and saw a man leaning against a tree a stone’s throw away from me. He had jet black hair and was wearing a black suit, one of the ones from the king’s palace.
“‘Who are you?’ I asked the man, stepping towards him warily. He had laughed, throwing his head back in the process.
“‘It is not who I am, but who you are. Or, who you should be. Don’t speak. I can save your wife, and your baby. All you have to do is swear oath to me. But, I must warn you. You will never see your family again, and your curse will be to watch them live without you and get on life without you. You shall live forever. You have but a few moments before that child is born, and your choice must be made before then,’ he said, and disappeared. It took me a split second to choose.
“‘Yes!’ I shouted. ‘I swear to do whatever it takes to save them, please!’ That was when the blood flowed. I felt the slice in my neck, my hand immediately flying to the incision and covering it. I tried to yell, but all that came out was a gurgle as I collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from my mouth, my neck, my ears, my eyes. I retched on the ground, feeling as if about to be sick. I felt the blood flowing as I convulsed on the ground, and vomited all over the walk. What I saw was gruesome. It was my innards, my intestines, my stomach; everything was all coming from my mouth in a bloody heap, black, red, even white. I continued retching and puking the blood and guts from me until I saw black spots covering my eyes. I felt my lungs, my heart, everything just stop, and then begin to work again. I screamed, but it was cut off by the blackness that choked my throat. I felt it pouring into every opening I had, the black smoke, thick and vengeful. I looked through my blackening eyes to see the man, picking something red and bloody from his teeth, smiling down at me. His smile seemed to twist and turn until it became a thousand cuts, a thousand bugs pouring into a smile. That was when I screamed.
“I eventually managed to stop, and when I did, I was black as the night’s sky. I turned and looked at my whole body, rubbing my hands over myself, trying to be rid of the black. But it stuck to me. The man was nowhere to be seen. But when I looked down, all of my blood, everything that had happened, seemed to have disappeared. I looked up to find myself in my yard. I heard a scream, and ran through the door. That stopped me dead. I had physically run through the door, right through the wood. It chilled me to my very bones, not that I was sure I even had any left. I entered Ida and mine’s chamber to see her, alive and tired, on the bed, smiling at the Healer, who held a baby. I ran forward, my arms outstretched. They passed right through the Healer, right though the little baby. I don’t know where the rage, the overwhelming and incapacitating rage, came from, but it was there. I felt it boil inside me. I don’t know how, but my hands became solid, and I felt them rip through the Healer, sending blood everywhere, splattering the wall. I felt her blood and flesh on my new-found hands, and I heard the thud and wails as my baby fell to the floor. But when I dropped the body of the dead and mutilated Healer, I bent to pick up my baby but could not. I saw my wife, in the bed, eyes wide. She was covered in blood. It was then that her screams came, shrill and terrified. The baby remained silent, though, which puzzled me. I looked at the child, and it seemed to actually be able to see me. I heard a bang as my neighbours burst into the room, but they did not see me. They did see the broken and battered body of the Healer, though. Her blood was still warm, and her face ripped off, brains leaking on the carpet. I gave one final look to my baby and wife, and left, never seeing my son again. Nor the rest of my family.
“You see, child, whenever I feel any type of rage, I must kill. I have tried to control it. When I try, I can kill hundreds rather than just one. And my wrath is brutal. The murders are ruthless and unkind, just like all of the other murders committed by my kind,” I told her. I looked right at her, my black body hidden in shadows. “We are the Shadow People. We are your nightmares, we are ruthless murderers that only few can see, and none forget. I have thought about you, and you would not make it as one of us.” Before she could utter a single word, I was on her, ripping out the flesh of her throat with my teeth, feeling the warmth of her blood and the soft texture her flesh had. I sat up, staring at the bloodied body missing the right half of its neck. I smiled, and pushed a piece of her curly blond hair behind her ear. I stared at her, my granddaughter with many greats between, and closed her open eyes.
I rose from my seat beside the fire, and left, never once looking back at the gruesome murder, one of many, that I had committed.
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