A Soldier's Due

"The little brat woke him, not me. I couldn't pull my blade out of the ground to finish him so I let my aura put him back to sleep...or I thought I did." How was it still talking? I craned my head, bringing on a new round of pain, to see the man. His cloak had opened when he spun around, giving me a clean view of his torso. Like his head, it was dotted with sores and puss filled abscesses that let a steady stream of waste flow out. The bullet wounds looked like they should with the slight puckering of the skin and the holes clean cut, but instead of blood a vile black liquid poured out instead. I watched it harden at the source until it looked no different than the sores on the rest of his body.

"If he had landed the head shot, I wouldn't be forced to speak with you anymore. I could also just drink her dry somewhere where I wouldn't have to smell you either." My nose picked up this smell he had been talking about and I retched almost immediately. It was like someone had dropped dead bodies into a sewer, let it bake in the sun for a day and then funneled it all into my nose. The Spaniard laughed. "Even as they die they can't stand your stench."

I was having trouble breathing form both the impact with the wall and the vomit in my throat. It was getting harder to stay conscious with every moment. I kept forgetting why I was there or why I was in pain. The image of my murdered baby came to bear in my mind. The black spots in my vision were soon accompanied by red creeping into sight. I looked up at Jennifer, ignoring the pain, and planted one arm on the ground. I started rising, shaking off the nausea and the fatigue. I started thinking where I was in the kitchen. Jennifer was on the other side of the sink from me. I was next to the cutting boards so the knives should be right above me on the counter. I'd have to move fast.

The cloaked man had thrown back his head and started dry heaving. The vampire backed up to his side of the room and looked away in disgust.

"It is about time that we got this over with Garb. I wish to feast on the man soon."

I was moving as fast as I could, but I still wasn't getting up fast enough. It would take at least a minute to get on my feet at this rate. I raised my head slowly to make sure he was still looking away. His head was still thrown back and the black liquid was running down the side of his face. IT seemed to be getting thicker until it was a slow crawl from his mouth. I kept my eyes locked on the base of his skull as I rose.

That calm came back. The pain that was flaring up seemed to fade under the cool flood of this focus. I no longer staggered and stopped as I stood. The pain and the rage fell away and were instead replaced with an extreme clarity. I couldn't think faster or do the extraordinary, but I knew exactly what I was capable of and how to do it. My vision sharpened until it was just me and him. I took note where the Spaniard was and which way the body would fall when I finished.

I relished in this control. I wasn't going to try my best to kill him, it had already happened and reality was just about to catch up. Every muscle in my body relaxed save for my arm and shoulder-all that I needed. My right hand grabbed a knife without having to look. I could feel where they were. The metal singing against the wood range in the silence that had come. I stood to my full height behind him and just watched as he shook in his convulsions. I saw him lean forward ready to vomit. I had his life in the palm of my hand. I chose whether he lived or died. It was then that I made the greatest mistake of my entire life. I waited.

I was so intoxicated by this control that I had forgotten all about Jennifer and why I was here to begin with. My emotions had fallen to a lesser priority when this calm took its place. A very powerful sort of apathy came with the knowledge that he would never leave this room alive. I watched him cave forward and saw the torrent of pitch fly from his mouth onto Jennifer's stomach. His hand came off her mouth as he hugged himself as he vomited. Where his hand had been, streaks of the same black substance remained. Much of her lower jaw ad been eaten away and her toungue was a small stub of what it used to be. Her cheeks were completely gone and blood flowed freely from the back of her mouth.

Her scream when she finally breathed in snapped me out of it. The calm rushed away and my humanity came back with a burden of guilt. MY hands started shaking and I felt the pain all over my body again. Before it robbed me of control I swung the knife high and brought it down on the base of his skull. There was no doubt this hurt him. The retching stopped as his legs gave out beneath him. I didn't have to pull the blade out as his blood had disintegrated everything below the grip.

I heard a chair fall behind me, presumably the Spaniard getting up to take me out. I had a few seconds before he could cross the kitchen. I rushed to Jennifer, kicking aside Garb's body, and propped her head up. She was still breathing, but she seemed to pass out from the pain. Everything below her nose was mangled and dissolving. The vomit had begun to eat into her stomach, but something seemed to be moving in there. I went to look closer at what was wriggling in the muck when I felt a rush of wind behind me. It hadn't been two seconds since I killed the guy. There was no way the Spaniard crossed the length of the room without me hearing him running. I spun around and stared at the Spaniard, barely two inches from my face, smiling down at me.

"Thank you for killing Garb for me. Now I don't have to split the pay. As a reward, I won't kill you." His icy breath washed over me as he spoke. It carried the heavy scent of iron with it. His lips parted as his malicious smile widened. His canines were far too long. The word entered my mind before I could stop it. Vampire. I didn't believe it, but I knew that it made sense for what I had heard.

I stepped as far back as I could and raised my fists. He wasn't going to get Jennifer as long as I was still breathing. I swung at his head, a quick jab, enough to make him flinch or dodge into my follow-up swing. He leaned one way slower than he would need to dodge. I thought I had him until he swung right. He was a blur as he threw his weight with his lean as momentum. When the blur stopped he had landed a ridiculously hard swing on my right side and a solid uppercut to my exposed head. The black spots returned to my vision as I backed up and tried to get a bead on him.

He sprinted towards me faster than I could get my arms up and swept my legs. I landed hard on my back followed by the crack of my fractured ribs giving way. I gasped as the pain stabbed into my lungs and spine. I turned my head to look at him as he stood over me completely composed. He wasn't even breathing heavy.

"Your wife will be dead when you wake up and your child lays as a pincushion in the bedroom. I wonder if you will enjoy this gift of living that I have given you." He threw back his head in laughter when he saw the anguish in my face. I was completely fucking helpless as my wife died in front of me and my baby boy died next to me. He walked out of my line of sight before coming back with my pistol. "In case you want to take the express way out." It's like he read my mind. He dropped it next to my head and held his leg back to kick me. Jennifer woke up and started screaming again. She called out my name, hoping I would save her from what was happening. I started to weep as his foot connected and the darkness consumed me.

I woke up cold. Freezing. I lay there waiting for my senses to come back and then I waited some more wishing they hadn't ever been there. My leg was fractured, ribs broken, jaw dislocated, right hand numb, and sore in every place in between. It hurt to breathe and hurt more when I tried to not breathe. I tried rolling on my side before my ribs stabbed me for my trouble. I waited for the pain to go back to bearable for a few minutes. It didn't do me that kindness. I would give everything I owned to lay like that. To not remember why I was lying on the floor broken and cold.

The human brain is curious. It doesn't like for things to go missing, and when something happens it searches for the why. I began to question and venture to the back of my mind in search of the memories. When I found them it was like a bomb going off. All the emotions I had suppressed to find my wife and to fight for her were suppressed no longer. Somehow it hurt more than the physically broken parts. I ignored my body's protest and staggered to my feet. I limped over to the counter with my eyes closed. The smell was like a body that had been in the sun for a month.

I bumped into her arm first. I touched her hand, felt the ring on her finger. Her palm was so smooth, yet so cold. I pressed my finger to her wrist to satisfy that part of my mind that was still hoping. The stillness shut it up quick. I opened my eyes and couldn't see too well through the tears. I screamed when I saw her corpse. Her mouth had decayed back to her spine with her neck barely in one piece. Her eyes had rolled back into her eyes and the blood trail out of her mouth meant she had torn her esophagus open from screaming. Something else broke near her eyes because her tears were all blood red. Her torso was normal down until the bottom of her ribs.

In a v shape down to the middle of her legs, everything was dissolved down to the skin on her back. Her womb and intestines were the only things still recognizable and they looked to be torn open from the inside. I was already gagging and having trouble breathing form al the tears, but I had to know exactly what happened. Something in me NEEDED to know. I looked closer holding breath so I didn't smell anything. I saw the edges of the flesh in the womb and the sides of her torso. I couldn't stop myself anymore. I fell to my knees and puked out everything in my stomach. Something had fucking EATEN her from the inside of her womb out.

Whatever he had vomited had burrowed into her womb and eaten its fucking way out. My vision blurred as I heaved from the aftershocks of vomiting. I took a deep breath, ignoring the stabbing pain from ribs. I inhaled everything my lungs would hold. My son's mangled body and my wife's half eaten and decayed corpse were the only thing I saw. When my lungs felt like they would burst, I screamed. I screamed and howled and roared. I told the night of my anger, regret, weakness, grief, and my pure and simple declaration of defeat. This world had nothing more for me.

I don't remember carrying my child's body to rest next to his mother. I don't remember taking every bullet but one from my gun. I don't remember calling the police and leaving the line open so that they would receive a proper burial. The only thing that I remember after I yelled was the cold metal of the barrel against the side of my head, and pain in my broken hand when I pulled the trigger.

I couldn't defend my wife or my child. I couldn't fight to any extent against the vampire. They died because I just couldn't do anything. The only thing I want, is to kill everyone who makes others feel like this and for the vampire to die after everything he loves is murdered in front of him. But I'll settle for the silence and the darkness that the little ball of metal hurtling through my skull gives.

For a moment, I saw them lying in the bed with each other. The moonlight made them glow when I turned the light off. Good night Jennifer and Zeke. I love you.