Chapter 16 - The Search Party part 6

Seeing as how you have knowingly purchased the autobiography of a vampire, I am fairly certain you have already realized what sort of creatures were preying upon the Neanderthals. I would, in fact, be quite astounded if I had to spell it out any more explicitly. But for the moment, please indulge me this conceit. Although I am fairly certain there's no mystery here for you, the true nature of the creatures that were stalking the Fat Hands was an enigma for us.

We did not even have a word for vampire then. The Fat Hand word "demon" is probably the closest approximation, but even that word is not quite right, as their concept of a "demon" was that of a malevolent spiritual being and the creatures feeding on the Neanderthals were corporeal entities, just as real as you or I. They were definitely malevolent, however. Not, perhaps, the most malevolent nosferatu I have come across in thirty thousand years, but very near the top.

That night, the demons that hunted the Fat Hands came for us.

Night fell swiftly in the valley. As we were too far afield to finish the trek back home before darkness enveloped the land, we made camp on the high clearing in which we had "buried" Fodar. I say buried, but we did not actually dig a hole and place his body in it. What we did was build a sort of wooden scaffold on which his body was placed. I thought it strange to expose the remains of a loved one to the elements, but it was the Fat Hand way. After constructing the bier, we made a big fire and bedded down around it, appointing a night's watch to protect the men who took first sleep.

Dividing the night into two parts, we drew sticks to see who would take first and last watch. I drew a short stick and so I took first watch, as did my father.

We sat beside the fire with the other men who'd drawn first watch, listening to the hot coals pop and crackle as the insects chirped and the wind soughed through the boughs of the surrounding wilderness. I sat beside my father and conversed with him quietly as the rest of the men snored and farted and mumbled in their sleep. It was a chill night, but the chill could not penetrate the invisible globe of heat that encircled the fire. We spoke of the Fat Hands' plight and other more inconsequential things as the moon glided imperceptibly across the heavens.

My father began to nod as the night wore on. He was not a young man anymore and we had travelled many miles that day. Every so often his chin would fall to his chest and he would snort and jerk awake to continue with our conversation, as if he had not dozed off. He was like a child fighting to stay awake. I found it amusing. I have always found it both bitter and sweet that men become childlike in their old age.

My father was of the opinion that the Foul Ones were responsible for the disappearances of the Fat Hands. He believed that our cannibalistic neighbors had adopted new tactics, that they were picking off lone hunters now, rather than assaulting our villages directly.

"That is why they have not recovered the bodies of their missing people," Gan opined, chin to his chest. "The Foul Ones are eating them."

"And Fodar?" I said. "He was not eaten."

Father shrugged. "Something must have scared them away."

It was a good theory, but I was not entirely convinced. As I had said to Brulde earlier that day, I had a terrible foreboding.

I was tempted to tell my father about the dream I had had the previous night. I was curious what he would think of it. I believed the dream had meaning but I was not certain what that meaning might be, although I was afraid that it was bad, whatever it was.

But Gan had dozed off again, so I let the impulse pass.

I sat and watched the clouds scud across the sky, admiring the way the moonlight gilded their edges. When it was time to change the guard, I woke my father and told him to go lie down. He jerked up with a grunt, looking around in alarm, but quickly realized the camp was secure and made his way to his sleeping furs. He curled up in his bedding and was soon snoring again.

I woke up a couple of the Fast Feet who had drawn last watch. I made sure they were good and awake and then I walked over to my father and lay down beside him. I prodded him until he offered me some of his furs, then spooned up behind him to share his body heat, draping an arm across his broad shoulders.

As exhausted as I was, it was hard for me to relax. Every time I closed my eyes I recalled the nightmare I had had the night before and fear roused me back to wakefulness. The hiss of the wind in the trees became the soft slither of the hungry snake god. The murmurs of the late watch became the demon's malicious promises.

"I am the hungry maw of death. I am the grinding belly of eternity!"

We lay close enough to the fire for the heat to tighten my skin, but I did not complain. The cold had begun to torment my father. It was one of the reasons he'd moved into the Siede. He always kept a big fire in his hearth now, and bemoaned the aching of his bones on cold or rainy mornings. I would gladly sweat tonight to spare the man some pain.

The smell of my father's body was comforting, if a little sour. I was reminded of my childhood, sleeping secure in his protective embrace in the big wetus he shared with my mother, all my brothers sprawled around us, warm and safe in their sleeping furs. I was the youngest after Vooran was taken by the speartooth and father often pulled me into his arms to sleep when I was small, Mother beside us, her soft breaths feathering my cheek. My brothers teased me about it, calling me Little Baby Gon, but it was worth the harassment. I never slept so soundly as in my father's arms.

My father turned over, smacking his lips and muttering in his sleep. He resumed his snoring a moment later, hands folded on his protuberant belly, his features settled into their own flabby crenellations.

I lay there beside him, looking at his wizened face in the firelight with its big wild frizz of hair and beard, quietly loving him and dreading the day I would have him no longer. I watched him until my eyes closed in sleep.

I did not dream that night, not that I am aware of.

I came sharply awake after some indefinite time of dreamless slumber.

A blood-chilling shriek spiraled into the star-speckled sky.

It was like nothing I had heard in my lifetime. Alien and shrill, the scream drove a blade of ice into my heart. I sat bolt upright, eyes flashing wide in the dark, and fumbled for the handle of my knife. A cry of fear had leapt from my lips before I could catch it back.

There were Fat Hands and Fast Feet stumbling all around me, some of them mewling in terror, others bellowing for us to rise up, rise up and fight! Someone stumbled into the fire and sent bright orange sparks swirling into the night sky. Confusion in all quarters. We were under attack! But by whom? Or what?

"Yeeeeeee-aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!"

My father lurched to his feet, cursing profusely. I rose in a crouch beside him, staring vainly into the darkness that encircled our camp. The moon had passed beyond the mountains while I slept and the world around us was pitch dark and evil. I found my spear and put my knife in my teeth so that I could brandish the larger weapon with both hands.

"Aaaaiiiiieeeeeeeee!"

The shrill screech made my skin pebble into goosebumps. My balls had shriveled to a walnut.

"Father?"

"Steady," my father said to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Be calm, Gon."

"Demon!" a Fat Hand cried.

"There! There!"

I wheeled around and saw a human-like shape flit in and out of the firelight, just at the edge of its dim orange glow. It was too fast and too deep in the shadows to make out any detail but it was definitely man-shaped. I heard it bound through the grass, even over the tumult of our party. I followed its movement with my ears, heart pounding in my chest, mouth dry with fear. My muscles were twitching and jerking as if there were tiny earthquakes going off inside my body.

Our hunting party had encircled the campfire, facing outwards-- an instinctive formation. Our shadows capered across the ground like evil spirits as the flames leapt and twisted within our defensive circle.

Movement to my right.

A hiss.

"Yaaahhhhh!" Uelt bellowed down the line. His spear flew out, fast and deadly.

We heard it thunk impotently into the earth somewhere in the darkness.

We spat curses at the invisible demon that stalked our campsite. Some of the men taunted the monster, hoping to enrage it and draw it into the light.

A blur of movement in the darkness. The creature scurried past like a gust of wind blowing through the grass. I marveled at its speed. For a moment, I imagined I saw a man-like shape slithering on all fours, belly to the ground. No! Not an imagining! Its pale form contorted and it reared up, studying our defenses. Its eyes caught the light of the campfire and reflected it back, bright and red and glimmering. I felt stark terror, like a bolt of lightning arcing between my brain and my guts, at the sight of its dimly glowing eyes. Its reptilian movements were hideously unnatural. Then I arched back, gripping the shaft of my spear one-handed, and sent it flying at the creature with a grunt, my lips peeled back in a grimace of effort.

The spear shot toward my target, passing from light to darkness. I knew instinctively that my aim was true. My throw would pierce the creature through.

The demon-thing's eyes jerked wide. I watched it swat my weapon from the air-- moving so fast its arm was a blur-- and then it locked those burning coal eyes on me. For a moment, time seemed suspended, and I stared into the eyes of that predatory thing. It marked me, and I knew that it had marked me, and it knew that I knew, and then its lips split open in a contemptuous grin. Its ivory colored teeth were sharpened to points.

It made a man sound then.

A wicked laugh, low and scornful.

And then I imagined/saw it whip about, still on all fours, and dash rapidly away. Two more spears whistled after it but they too pierced only earth. The demon-thing was gone. I heard a distant, frustrated yowl from further down the slope, where the pine trees dotted the hillside before thickening into lusher woodland. But that was it. Whatever the foul thing was, it had gone. We were safe.