Tall Tale Tuesday: Carnival of Souls
hile the rest of us have been sitting on our asses doing a whole lot of not much for various reasons, Squatch has been carrying the show with an extremely interesting story over at the Carnival. Picking up from here, Squatch has added Part II and Part III. This story shows a lot of promise, in my humble opinion, and also spotlights a part of the Carnival we haven’t seen before — the regular Joes who work at the place. I can’t wait to see where he goes with it.
Meanwhile, I’ve been hammering my next Carnival entry into place, and hope to have it posted soon, so I can continue on with Alice’s trip to the Carnival. In the meantime, I’ve been working on this:
Samantha
Sam crept down the hallway, silent, Irish at her back, just as silent. He was doing that Ordo trick she’d noticed before. It was dark in the basement, and silent upstairs in the main house. He kept one hand lightly on her shoulder, relying on her superior dark vision. Sam had already noticed that he saw abnormally well in the dark, but nothing like she could.
“D’ye hear anything?” Irish asked softly.
Sam shook her head. She couldn’t hear a thing. Then again, if it was another vampire, she wouldn’t. “It’s early. They’re out. Hunting, killing.”
“Nae guards?”
She shrugged. “Nothing I can hear.” She couldn’t smell anything either – or rather, she could smell so much in the air that she couldn’t distinguish anything dangerous. The whole basement reeked of death and blood, the stink coating the walls and filling the air until she couldn’t determine a source. “This is their killing room.”
“Aye.”
The basement was large, and carved up into a little maze of rooms and hallways. They had come in through a small window – Irish nearly hadn’t fit. The windows were all boarded up securely, but Sam and her handy crowbar had sorted that out. They were walking down the hallway now, Sam first with her crowbar resting on her shoulder, and Irish next, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
“There’s light comin’ from somewhere.” Irish said, gesturing ahead.
“One of the rooms.” They turned a couple of corners and saw light peeking out from under a closed door. “I don’t like this.”
“Ye said it’d be a trap, lass.”
“Of course it is. Like we’d just fucking leave him with Randall.” She felt Irish move as he shrugged.
“May as well trip th’ damn thing, then.”
Sam put a hand on the door latch. It was locked. For a moment, she was frozen with indecision. If it was her, she’d have this door armed with explosives, or something worse. Of course, she’d already proved to be more devious than Randall in most cases, so odds were the door was just locked. She applied some pressure, and heard the lock give with a small metallic crunch. She nudged the door open a hair or two. The light inside was brilliant, painful. Sam had to squint. She peeked in.
For a moment, she was frozen with horror.
Irish felt her stiffen. “What is it?” He asked as she jerked back.
“Oh, Christ, don’t look. Just don’t look.”
“Is it him?”
“Just don’t fucking look.” Sam was profoundly grateful that vampires didn’t get nauseous. Her veins felt full of ice and her voice was nearly a moan.
Irish brushed her aside, gently, and looked, despite her warning. “Mary mother of God. Is he alive?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed by Irish and into the room. At first glance, she couldn’t see any wounds that would have actually killed him, but he didn’t move, either.
She shaded her eyes against the blinding light. Even Irish had to squint in the harsh glare, and he was still in the hall, staring in. Damien lay face down in a set up of straps and braces, leaving him to hang a few feet off the floor. He’d been eviscerated, loops of entrails hanging down to the floor. They’d whipped the skin off most of his back. Sam could see his spine in several places, as well as lash welts in his muscle. Blood was everywhere. There was a scream sitting heavy in her upper chest, stretching in her throat, and she ground her teeth to keep it in. Damien’s hadn’t moved or made a sound, yet. “Watch the door.” Her voice was hoarse.
It made sense, Sam thought, as she moved into the room towards Damien. Randall wouldn’t have time to lock Damien up and starve him into weakness, as he had in the past. It was easier to just burn the blood out of him by hurting him, with the added bonus of torturing him. How long had they whipped him? Sam wondered. Hours, at least — all night, through the day? Damien had hunted last night, so he was well-fed, and he would have healed the wounds automatically, at first. How long had they beat him to make this mess, before he just shut down, too weak to fight?
Sam glanced over. Irish had moved back into the hall, swinging the door most of the way shut to dim the light and clear his vision out in the darkness. She had some privacy, then, and that was good. Sam put up a good front, but she wasn’t any kind of comfortable with this vampire stuff, and even less so with the idea of what she was going to have to do for Damien.
She knelt by his head, setting her crowbar down, pulling out her jack knife. I don’t know if I have enough for this, she thought. Good thing she’d hunted first. I don’t even know if it works like this! No point in worrying about it. She flipped her knife open. She reached out, gently touching Damien’s face. “Hey, “ she whispered, “you there? Day? Anyone home?” Had he moved? Carefully, she lifted his head, her hand under his chin. His lip twitched, flashing fang, and his eyes opened. They were pitch black, from corner to corner, full of nothing human, only the pain of a trapped and dying animal. “We’re here.” She told him, feeling beyond stupid. In his state of extreme hunger, she didn’t even think he recognized her.
Nothing for it. She unzipped her wrist with the jack knife before she could think twice. She didn’t fool around about it, either – she couldn’t, or the wound would heal shut too fast. She carved deep into the meat, severing tendons, gasping with exquisite pain. There was no pressure behind the blood that welled up. Grinding her teeth and supporting Damien’s head with her free hand, she offered her wrist up to his mouth. He twitched all over, trying to move, but the straps held him. He had no strength. She held her wrist to his lips, wincing, and he battened to the wound like a leech to skin. He made a mewling sound in his throat, biting into her wrist. Sam tensed as he tore through flesh and meat to keep the wound open. It was all she could do not to jerk away.
It was something like when she fed. She could feel Damien’s mind, his emotions, a presence, and it was nothing but bestial hunger and vivid agony. It was more like when Randall had fed on her, though, horrible, and she slammed those memories down, away. Randall had certainly enjoyed it – Don’t think of that! — but there was no pleasure in this. It was like when he – she scrunched her eyes shut hard, jaw clenched, driving those thoughts back. It was like trying to hold back a flood with a piece of paper. She’d kept those memories locked up, and they were dying to get out, like demons clamoring to get loose.
Damien fed, and it was awful, draining. Sam fought with her new undead instincts. She could feel the strength bleeding out of her, and everything in her screamed to tear away, to attack, to flee. She pulled in a harsh breath and let it out slowly, deliberately, pulled in another. She was not her instincts, she was better than her instincts, she would bear this . . . Her own hunger was rising in response to Damien’s and his feeding. She fought with that too. She had to be in control, because Damien certainly wasn’t, but he was draining her dry, and . . .
Breathe. Center, she told herself forcefully. I’m in charge of this. She made herself open her eyes. Damien was healing. Already, the gut wound was sealed, a pile of soot beneath him where his vampire body had discarded the loops of intestine as unnecessary. His back was filling in, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching as he fought the straps. The metal braces clattered. His hunger was monumental, all consuming, completely out of his control.
He’s not going to stop himself, she thought dully, head spinning. A strap snapped, and he seized her wrist, teeth grinding into her flesh. She gasped. “Stop it!” She hissed, trying to pull away. She couldn’t break his iron-hard grip, built of desperate strength. “Stop!” He’s going to fucking drain me dry. Fear caused her own hunger to blaze and for a moment, she swam in it, lost.
Snap out of it, kiddo, she told herself, pulling in a hard, long, breath, buttressing her will with sheer, stubborn determination. She leaned into him, curling the fingers of her free hand into the hair at the nape of his neck and pulling. “I. Fucking. Said. Stop.” She bit each word out in a sharp, quiet command. For a wonder, he did, moaning as she pulled him away. “It’s me, goddammit.” She snarled.
His fingers curled around her wrist, tightly, but not painfully. “Sam,” his voice was a tortured gasp.
She could still feel him in her mind – strange, but she didn’t have time to worry about it now. She slapped her own hunger back into check with a savage effort of will. She started to stand, felt dizzy, and sank back down to her knees. Not good. He’d taken a lot – she felt weak. On your feet, soldier, she told herself, forcing herself up. “Get you out of there,” she muttered, struggling with the feel of him in her head, her weakness, her burgeoning blood lust.
“Samantha?”
It was Irish’s voice, coming from the hall, tense and quiet. “What?” She hissed.
“Hurry. We’ve got trouble.”
“Shit.” She reached, struggling with the strap buckles. “Gotta let me go, Day, I need both hands.” She pulled away from his hold, undoing buckles as fast as she could. He sagged to the floor. She scooped one of his arms over her shoulder, trying to stand him up. “C’mon, dude, you gotta help me out, here. Stand up, man.”
She could hear footsteps somewhere nearby. Fuck. They were quiet, padding, animal steps. Randall’s wargs. “Damn, damn, damn, damn.”
“Hurry!”
Yeah, ’cause I’m just screwing around in here. “I’m hurrying, already.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.Yes, yes, I know, I have a bad habit of cutting off in the middle of things when I’m writing. You’ll just have to deal with it.
