The end must come. He knows this better than any living creature. He has lived many lifetimes, sustained by the lives of others. His blood lust has compelled him to do so many unspeakable things over the centuries. But, yes, it must finally come to an end. He must pay for his crimes, but maybe find some peace in embracing oblivion.
I Can't See The Sun by author Shaun Kilgore is free on this website for one week only. The story is also available in Kilgore's Five Stories #14 which is sold through various online retailers.
I Can’t See The Sun
By Shaun
Kilgore
Now, what warmth I might feel is
not my own. It belongs to another and the presence of it in this husk I call my
body is fleeting. I am sated for now. What I took was from the unwilling, the
helpless, the enfeebled. Their fear left me unmoved even as I snatched the
light of their lives from them, as I had from countless other before them. I
feel no pity and no remorse. Those emotions were stolen from me when I became
what I am, what I have been for so many long years.
*
* *
I had come upon them a scant few
hours earlier. They were band of Romany peddlers, outcasts of a sort even from
their fellow men, their covered wagons arranged around in a crude circle
beneath jagged oaks and maples with branches that seemed to be clawing at the
heavens. I skulked in the darkness just beyond the fitful flicker of the
campfires that burned to ward off the chill watching them move about, talking,
singing, dancing, doing anything in a effort to keep warm on a cold winter’s
night. I waited until their mirth waned and weariness pulled on their eyelids
and the pour creatures retreated to their blankets and to slumber. When all had
grown quiet and the sounds of their beating hearts were like the pounding of
drums in my head, I crept in among them. The horses whickered nervously but my
touch soothed them as were the hounds that were suppose to be their guardians.
A gift that used to calm both man and beast.
The hunger was fully upon me at
this point and I was ravenous. As I reached the nearest wagon, I could sense
the warmth of the blood flowing in the veins of those that slept within. The
rush of it filled my ears. I would not be denied. The next moments happened
quickly. My blood lust had taken over completely. What followed were their were
muffled cries of surprise, struggling attempts to fend against my terrible
strength. I tore through their flesh, letting the richness of their blood flood
into my mouth.
The experience of ecstasy was more
intoxicating than anything I had every experienced as a mortal man. All reason
was driven out of my fractured mind. The only thing that existed was the
hunger. A man then his withered in my hands as they gasped their last breaths
in this world. Their fitful moans were like the crooning of some strange song to
me. Finally, I found the small form of the child huddled beneath a patchwork
quilt. Her eyes were wide and fearful. I took her into my arms, cradling her
close to me. She looked up at me as I seized her tender neck with my mouth, her
gaze suddenly calm, accepting of her fate. She looked at me with the eyes older
than humanity. Something in me, something deep down, crumbled as her light
faded and her body went limp. Her blood burned like a blaze through my darkened
veins to my black heart.
*
* *
Still, I find that I mourn—not for
them—but for myself, for what I was once I mourn that other world, that other
life, however brief it may have been, wrapped by the shackles of mortality. But
such bonds were removed from me and I have roamed ever since. Unsettled and
alone so much of time, I lost what humanity I had piece by piece.
Now, what am? Just a sad and lonely
ghost.
In the distance, something disturbs
the stillness. I know what it is. The hounds are barking and the survivors are
shouting, rallying together with sticks and stones, and waving their torches
about to dispel the darkness as they hunted the thing that killed their kin.
They are coming for me. I don’t run. Why should I? I am weary beyond all
measure. I return my gaze to the moon and think of the past once more. I am
ready to die. Too long have a lived when I should have ceased to be. I am an
abomination before Almighty God, the very spawn of Satan.
They carry crucifixes and wooden
stakes, the implements the believe will be effective against one such as I.
These are but myths and legends really.
But I don’t really care. I can see the determined expressions on their
faces, the anger overwhelming their fear of me, in the light of the flames—yellow-gold
like the sun—and I welcome them to try their best to slay me. I have been the
servant of death for centuries, I can endure it no more. An agony wars inside
with the hunger of the demon that has driven me since I was infected by the one
I call my second father, the one that presided over my rebirth into damnation.
The mob of distraught souls closed
the distance between us. I waited out in the open beneath the moon, standing in
the middle of a perfect patch of powdery snow rather than fleeing into the sky
and to safety. The flames of their torches alight upon me. I flinch before that
steady blaze. The screams are likes those animals. Blinded by tears and anger,
they still see well enough to rain stones upon my flesh. There is no pain but I
slump to the ground to let them think as much. I give them no fight. For once,
I am the easy prey.
Through squinting eyes, I see one of them approach bearing his torch before him. The rich yellowish glow truly is so much like the sun, the sun I can no longer see with my own eyes. As the flames hungrily lick at my flesh, I pretend that the spreading heat of it is the warm light of the sun on a beautiful spring day. As I am consumed, I remember who I was and what life had meant. My screams are not those of pain but of joy and complete release. Finally, I know that it is over.
Cover art: copyright © Martinmark/Dreamstime.com
Published by Founders House Publishing, LLC
All Rights Reserved.
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