The Village of Edan
Dixon was hungry and bored. And Cold. And… fed up. Guard duty was just about the worst thing he could think of, so he thought of anything but. He let his mind wander and soon enough it found its way to Adella. Though the nights were still cold, the days were becoming warm and that morning he had seen Adella coming from the bathhouse, her spring gown clinging slightly to her still-damp skin. He pictured her now, what he’d seen and what he hadn’t, until he felt that warm, awkward feeling again. He knew that he wanted her, even if he didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to do if he got her.
‘Keep your eyes open, boy.’
And with those words he was back in the lookout. The sun had set an hour ago and with his thoughts interrupted there was nothing left to keep him warm. They weren’t allowed a fire. Instead of Adella for company he only had Harlowe.
‘We have watch until midnight. If you’re closing your eyes already…’ The old man apparently didn’t think it necessary to say the rest and instead just shook his head.
‘But what’s the point? Nobody interesting comes within fifty miles of Edan. Why would they? Next year I’ll be old enough to leave and trust me when I say I am never coming back.’
‘And until you do boy, you’ll do as you're told. As you well know it’s not people we’re watching for.’
Dixon rolled his eyes. There was no point arguing. It wasn’t that he thought they didn’t exist; he knew they did. But he’d never even seen one, and nothing and nobody had ever come to Edan at night on his or anyone else’s watch, not in his lifetime.
‘What do they even look like? I mean, how would we know it was one of them... and not one of us?’
‘It would never be just one of them, boy. That’s not how they move. They’re like a flock or birds or a swarm of bees. They all move together. Until they attack that is. Then they just rip and tear at anything that moves, including each other... they’d fight over you as they pulled you apart. If you were one of the lucky ones anyway.’
Now this was the part that Dixon just couldn’t believe. This was pure fairytale. The single bite, the horrible bloody kiss, and then you died but you didn’t die, or you came back somehow and then you were one of them: nonsense. At least that’s what Dixon told himself so he wouldn’t have to admit to suddenly feeling scared. He hated guard duty.
It was a clear night and the moon was close to full, so he could see a great deal more than he had the last time he was on watch. With nothing else to occupy his mind and feeling too on edge to try and conjure up the image of Adella again, Dixon turned his attention to the trees in the hope of seeing an owl or a bat or a nightjar, but this was just as pointless and fruitless as everything else about his watch; there wasn’t a single creature to be seen anywhere. Nothing in the trees, nothing scurrying along the forest floor, he couldn’t even hear the buzz or chirp of an insect. It suddenly struck him how odd this was. There was no breeze; the night air seemed frozen in place. He turned to his companion and saw that Harlowe too was frozen, his skin pale and sweaty.
‘They’re coming,’ he whispered gravely, eyes wide. ‘Dear God, they’re coming.’
Dixon heard them before he saw anything. They didn’t sound like a flock of birds, or a swarm of bees; they sounded like a herd of deer. Light of tread, moving at pace, grunting to each other. Harlowe suddenly sprang to his feet and began ringing the warning bell and yelling at the top of his voice. Dixon sprang towards him in panic.
‘Shut up you old fool! They’ll hear us,’ he hissed in Harlowe’s ear.
‘No… they can’t hear. They can barely see,’ the old man yelled over the clanging of the bell. ‘Just pray they don’t smell us.’
Dixon watched in horror as they streamed under and around the watchtower in their hundreds. They looked something like people, but the way they moved wasn’t like people at all. Their movements were jerky, sudden and awkward, almost puppet-like, and yet they moved across the ground with purpose and relentless energy. They moved as one, just as Harlowe had said, the shape of the herd changing as they flowed over the terrain. Their skin was pale and lifeless, and Dixon could see that many of them had terrible injuries - limbs that hung broken, wounds caked in greyish blood - but still they came, the injured and the whole, moving as if propelled by something other than their dreadful bodies. Dixon stared transfixed, unable or unwilling to believe his eyes, but the smell, the smell was indisputably real: rotting, putrid death.
As the last of the herd went past, Dixon breathed out for what seemed the first time in minutes. Already he could hear the shouts and screams coming from the village. What use was a warning bell against this? Who could possibly survive… this? He had no words for what he was seeing. They were only them. He had no other name for them. But whatever they were, they hadn’t seen him, or heard Harlowe. Surely no one in the village would survive - for a split second the image of Adella flitted across his mind, but he didn’t want to see, didn’t want to imagine what might already have become of her - but if he and Harlowe stayed in the watchtower, perhaps they really would be spared.
Then he saw them, a small band, broken off from the herd, slowing, then stopping, then turning. Six creatures, skeletally thin, quiet, still, then launching into unnatural motion towards them. Dixon’s heart beat three times noisily in his chest, then he pushed Harlowe down the ladder and flung himself over the other side of the watchtower. He landed badly, feeling his ankle twist and snap beneath him. He put all his weight on his good leg, dragging the other behind him. His teeth chattered. His face streamed with tears and snot. He grunted with the effort of moving, sounding something like the awful things behind him. Harlowe screamed then went quiet. In the next instant, Dixon felt something grab at his good leg and he spun, and he fell, and the breath was knocked out of him. He was on the ground. He lifted his head and opened his eyes, and he saw foul hands and ragged mouths, tearing at him, consuming him. And then nothing more.