In the Blood by Sam Sisavath

Author:Sam Sisavath [Sisavath, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-26T13:00:00+00:00

13

The father was dead and they were going to kill the mother next. In all likelihood, they would take the boy and bleed him for sustenance. Or, if he was very unlucky, turn him. But then who was he to decide what qualified as “lucky” or “unlucky?” He was a man without an identity, trapped between two factions that, given the right circumstances, would end him without hesitation.

Of course Keo didn’t let that stop him as he moved through the night, clearing the yard that surrounded the lone cabin so quickly that only two of the four ghouls standing guard outside were able to see him coming in time.

It didn’t help them one bit.

He snapped a neck and detached two legs, then used those same legs to beat the other two into submission. When they no longer proved a threat, he entered the lodging through the wide-open door. The creatures had torn the thick wooden slab off its hinges, including the outer metal security gate. From what he could see, neither measures had slowed them down.

He was in time to save the woman’s life, snatching the creature on top of her and slamming it into the ceiling. Two others, hidden in the corners, converged, hissing, “Traitor!” as they did so.

The boy screamed “Mom” as he rushed over to her. The woman was just screaming incoherently.

Keo broke the spine of one ghoul, then decapitated the other. The one he’d thrown into the ceiling fell back down and jumped to its feet, just in time for Keo to punch his fist through its chest, then fling it through the window, destroying what was left of the protective iron bars that the creatures had displaced in order to climb through earlier in the night.

The cabin’s owners were well-prepared to brave ghoul attacks, covering their vulnerable windows and doors with defenses that were designed for the new world. Against a black-eyed ghoul they would have been effective. And these were Black Eyes…except they weren’t.

The same, but not the same.

His nostrils flared at the vivid presence of blood. It was everywhere, drowning every inch of the small cabin. Even with the crisp night air filling the place from every gaping orifice, he couldn’t avoid it. The hunger returned in a rush, reminding him that each day he went without blood he was getting weaker.

And still the hunger grew.

Always the hunger.

The father lay bleeding in a corner, half in and half out of the shadows. They’d taken his heart first then went for the jugular to drink. All Keo had to do was drink some of his life force to quench himself. But the woman and the boy would see.

So?

No. He couldn’t. Not now. Not here.

But the hunger. It was there, filling his senses.

So much hunger.

The ghouls outside had vanished into the woods. The ones that could still move under their own power, anyway. The ones that couldn’t, crawled. The two he’d crippled lay on the floor in a pool of their own black liquids. They gaped up at him, mouth opening and closing, dripping saliva from crooked caverns of fangs.

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