Hold The Dark: A Markhat story by Frank Tuttle Page B

before my dropped candle flicked out I caught sight of the thing that we’d raised. It leaped toward me, a thing of loose and rotted flesh, slapping Evis casually aside when he grasped its right arm. There was no face upon that head, which was itself only a dark, swollen mass that sent sprays of thick black fluid flying with every movement. It had no eyes, no ears, no lower jaw—but it saw me, somehow, and it raced toward me, arms outstretched, ruined belly burst open and trailing shriveled entrails as it came.
    The candle went dark. I scrambled up, and I ran. Behind me, I heard a thud and a gurgle as Sara rose and grappled with the dead thing. Evis shouted again and a pair of crossbows threw, thunk-whee, thunk-whee .
    I charged across the cobbles. I couldn’t see the door. I couldn’t see the wall. I couldn’t see the thing behind me, but I could hear it, hear Evis and his halfdead as they grappled, leaped and struck.
    The ruined thing screamed again, so close I smelled its foul exhalation, felt cold spittle on my back.
    I slammed face-first into a wall that might have needed new plaster and new paint but hadn’t suffered much loss in the way of structural integrity. The room spun. Blood spewed out of my nose.
    It shrieked at the scent, maybe a dozen steps behind. I put the wall on my left and charged, arms groping for a door, any door.
    More crossbows threw. A bolt buried itself in the wall a hand’s breadth from my head. I ducked and kept moving—had I turned the wrong way? Was the door behind me now?
    Something hissed. Something cold and wet laid itself on the back of my neck. I bellowed for Evis, lashed out with a back kick that sank into something soft. The smell hit me anew. I whirled and kicked again and it screamed, wet and triumphant, nearly in my bloodied face.
    I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see at all, but I felt the air rush past me, heard the pair of grunts and thuds as a pair of vampires dived into the creature and pinned it to the wall. A thick, foul spray of fluid caught me square in the face when the halfdead hit, and I retched and stumbled away, pawing and spitting.
    A cold hand gripped my shoulder. “This way,” said Evis, shoving me forward. “Go. Find the carriage. Tell Bertram and Floyd to wait with you.”
    Behind me, I heard shrieks and blows—short wet shrieks punctuated with fast, hard blows. I assumed they had the dead thing pinned and when Evis let go, I moved.
    I wasn’t followed. The gurgling shrieks behind me grew fainter and shorter. I heard the faint sound of steel slicing the air and, suddenly, all was silent.
    I found the ruined door, cut my hand on the splintered doorframe, darted through it and was down the hall at a run. My footfalls were loud in the dark, and all the way out to the street my mind played tricks on me, hearing the sounds of pursuit behind me, hearing a faint growl that crept from a bloated, gurgling throat.
    But I made it. I stumbled whole into the street, mopped blood from my nose, tried to pick out my rights and my lefts from the shadows and the warehouse fronts. That way, I decided. Right. Right for Evis’s carriage. Left to just skirt the whole mess and head for the country and raise a crop of sheep or do whatever it is they do out there.
    I’d taken a single step that way when hands—gentle hands—fell on my shoulder. “That way,” said a voice, and I was turned around, and a clean white linen handkerchief was placed in my hand. “The carriage awaits.”
    I mopped blood and blinked.
    The street was full of halfdead.
    Ten or more glided past, quiet as ghosts. My giver of handkerchiefs joined them, gliding toward the warehouse like a black-clad puff of wind.
    I shuddered, but I held the cloth tight to my nose and marched toward the carriage. More halfdead popped out of the shadows. Each and all ignored me, though I tottered and stank and dripped their favorite beverage liberally out onto the street.
    There’s a metaphor there, somewhere. Something