Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Halloween Wednesday Briefs - The Derkelyng

Welcome to the Wednesday Briefers flash group. The short stories have a maximum of a 1000 word count plus links at the bottom to the other flashers. The prompts for this week are:

"Did you really think that would scare me?"

or "Yo mama's so scary..."

or "Suck on that, big boy!"

or "This place made the Bates Motel look like Disneyland..."

or "I want my mummy!"

or "You got candy? I only got rocks!"

or feature a haunted house or a vampire or any Halloween creature

or have your character in costume

or use the Great Pumpkin

or "When did you get to be so smart?"

or have a character playing a video game

or have a potato sack race

or have a character watch NASCAR
 

*I’m using a picture prompt

 

~Okay, it’s Halloween and it’s my favorite season. I haven’t had a change to do much cause of the stroke, but by George, I can do this lol. So, I’m putting Nighttime Promises on hold for this week to do the Halloween prompts. Who knows, it may turn into something for later. *evil laugh* 
 

The Derkelyng

Chapter One
There were myths handed down over the years, stories of another time when there were no Derkelyng. Only humans ruled the land, and legend said these humans didn’t hide from the night. They lived and loved without fear. They had organized schools, governments, banks, a written word, and they owned businesses. They even kept time differently, it was said. Those from the past were not afraid to go out at night; they were not hunted as food… or pleasure.

They had no idea how lucky they were, if that was true. Things were not like that now. The world as known by those humans ended in 2010. That’s when the Derkelyng first showed themselves.  And soon after that, there was war.

The year now was 5PW, or Post War. There were two groups that existed on Earth now. The Derkelyng—the creatures that walked the night and lived off blood, and  the humans. The Derkelyng lived in the crumbling cities of the past. Humans lived away from the cities in whatever places they could find that offered safety. Very little could destroy those walking nightmares. Sunlight could. So could a stake to the heart, or cutting off their heads.

I was a human of the present world. In the times we now lived in, it was survival of the fittest. And I fully intended to survive. I was twenty years old and had been fighting for my life for as long as I could remember. The scars on my body and my face proved that. By the age of ten, I was proficient with a knife and could shoot a gun. By fifteen, my father had been killed, and I was on my own. I knew how to defend myself, thanks to my father. I only had to kill two of the older men in my clan before they left me alone. Over the next five years, I’d proved my usefulness to the clan and rose in its ranks. I would survive.

But the truth was, if one of the creatures took an interest in you, you were dead; either really dead, or dead as undead… one of those things that haunted the night. None of us knew for sure how the Derkelyng converted a human. There were rumors the creatures infected humans with their bite. Other rumors said it was from having sex with them. The Derkelyng certainly weren’t telling.

Humans were prey, plain and simple.

Being prey was one thing, but being stupid was another. And I had been incredibly stupid. Twilight was coming, and here I was still inside the city limits. Stupid didn’t even begin to explain what I was. No, actually, dead was probably what I was going to be.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

I found a burned-out shell of a house outside city limits that hadn’t been ransacked yet. Maybe being nothing but a hull had fooled others, but I still had to check it out. What I’d found had been amazing. There was a basement under all that trash and burnt wood. Once I cleared away the junk, broken furniture, and camouflage, I found a door in the floor. I broke the lock and made my way down a sturdy staircase.

Things were looking up.

But even I wasn’t prepared for what I found. There were guns, at least fifteen, and boxes and boxes of ammo to go with those weapons. There had been walls packed three feet deep with canned goods and paper products too. Excited by the bounty, I hadn’t really checked out the surroundings aboveground.

As I took inventory, a young man came out of the shadows, snarling obscenities and waving a knife. I tried to reason with him, talk him down—I mean, he had to see the rifle slung over my shoulder, right?—but when he threw the knife at me… well, that persuaded me otherwise. 

I shot him between the eyes.

Maybe later I’d feel bad, feel something for the life I’d taken. Maybe. First, I had to deal with a wailing young girl on a pallet in the back. She was sick, deadly sick, and covered in open, seeping sores. The smell was horrible. Or maybe that smell was the dead baby next to her. God.

Every-fucking-where I looked death stared at me. Knowing I was making a mistake, I stayed and did what I could for her. I tried to leave water near her, even tried to get her to drink, but I could tell she wasn’t long for this world. She sounded like she was breathing through water, and her eyes were glazed. Two hours later, she died.

I… I couldn’t help it; I had to bury all them. If only the guy would’ve let me talk to him, instead of attacking me. Once he threw that knife, he sealed his fate. And he had nicked me. Nothing bad, but bleeding and being out of doors…yeah, not a good combination. I found some bottled water and washed the cut. Then I cut a strip off my shirt and wrapped the wound.

With a sigh, I gathered the bodies and buried them. Once finished, I went back to the basement to take stock. I found a tunnel they used to get out of the basement, and I explored that. It was when I found the other end of the tunnel that I realized how much time had passed, and where the damn thing came out. Jesus Christ, I was fucked. I was back inside the city limits, night was coming, and I had a cut which was still seeping.

Blood would draw the Derkelyng to me like a moth to a flame.
 

TBC. Make sure to visit the other Briefers! Oh, the rest of this will post on Halloween. J It’s a short story I hope y’all enjoy.