When Night Came Calling (2 page)

  “This was four centuries before the great ships of my Viking brothers and sisters ever sailed, so our boats were crude. It was spring, just after the thaw. My father, he gave my brothers and I a place of honor amidships, told us we sailed for better lands and lives. My mother she stayed behind with my sisters and the young ones, but they were to come once we’d settled,” said the zombie matter-of-factly.

  “There were many who traveled with us that day. Many ships in our fleet. But the journey across the sea was treacherous. We fought storms from the outset and lost some few ships to rough seas. We survived only through our sails, our oars and our determination.

  “We came upon a great coastline many days into the journey. How many days I could not say. I had lost all track of time because by then only the oars and the sails mattered. I know there was great excitement though, for at long last we had reached the shores of East Anglia.

  “Our cheers and shouts of joy were short lived. Roman soldiers met us upon the shores and there was a great battle.

  “My father and brothers fought well. I, not so well. By the end, I could barely stand and could do little more than drag my iron sword upon the ground. I searched into the night through smoke and ruin for my father and brothers.

  “It was morning before I found my father, such was the chaos. He had taken seven of the Romans with him, but he had died alone in the end, impaled against a dirt wall.”

  The zombie frowned. “My brothers weren’t far off, but they too were lost to the battle. I found them on the road from the shore, impaled by the Romans and set upon pikes as warnings for all to see. It was then I knew I was alone. I felt orphaned, though I knew my mother and other siblings were across the sea. I vowed revenge on the Romans, vowed that I would make all pay for what had been done, and I took up my father’s sword, shield and armor to make certain that I could.”

  The girl abruptly sucked at the air, as if she’d just then remembered to breathe. “And did you get your revenge?”

  The zombie looked away to where the returning breeze was playing with the curtains. Then he said, “It was my folly.”

  “Folly?” the girl asked.

  “I vowed revenge on the Romans for what they had done. The Romans had others plans.”

  The girl said nothing. She waited for the zombie to continue, which he did after sipping his wine but his eyes remained fixed on the curtains.

4

“I scavenged what I could from what was left,” the zombie said. “There wasn’t much of use, for the Romans had burned what they hadn’t looted. I picked amongst the charred bodies and burned hulls for as long as I dared. Then I fled into the hills with what I had found and left behind everything I had ever known.

  “The wilds were a lonely place for a young boy. I sheltered out of sight and where I could while my supplies lasted. I hunted for what I could find. I drank from the nearby streams.

  “I lasted a few weeks in the wilds. It was hunger that brought me from my hiding. My fair skin and hair made it impossible for me to dream of trying to blend in with the Anglians and I wanted nothing of the Romans and their forts.

  “I knew enough that I dared not become a beggar, so I became a thief instead. Not that I was a good thief, but I’d always been quick and light on my feet. I’d steal into villages in the night and take what I could find. Bread, meat, drink.

  “I lasted through what remained of spring and summer. In the fall, I built a fine shelter against the coming cold in deep woods far from any village. It meant a run of several leagues each night to steal. I welcomed the long runs and the night started to become my friend.

  “I carried my father’s sword and shield, wore my father’s armor. I no longer feared the howls of creatures I could not see. I no longer feared the wrath of Romans or Anglians.

  “At times, I dared myself to get caught so that I could fight them at last but whenever a moment of such truth came I heard my father’s voice in my ears. ‘When sword and shield and arms are one, it will be time,’ he said and so I waited. I waited for the day when my father’s sword and shield were like my hands and the weight of them were as feathers to wind.

  “Living on my own, I became increasingly like a wild thing, though I, as yet, did not see this. I answered to no one and no one answered to me. Winter’s biting chill had no power over me. I ran through the cold dark nights, took what I needed from this village or that.

  “When the thaw came, I returned to shelters by the shore and started watching for the arrival of my kin. The first sails I recognized arrived some weeks later, but I wasn’t the only one to see the sails. Roman guards lit warnings fires, ensuring an army was there to greet my kin on the shores.

  “No matter, I waited and came to blows against Romans and Anglians alike as my kin came ashore. I battled until the last of us had fallen or been taken and only just managed my escape. I tried to spirit some few away, but even though I’d fought beside them they did not trust me.

  “Perhaps it was because I looked like such a wild thing by then. Perhaps… Or perhaps it was because I was no longer a man by then.”

  “No longer a man?” The girl said.

  “Not in the way you are thinking. It was the wildness. It was inside me, but I was still of flesh and blood. Perhaps, if I hadn’t been things would have been much different, but I was what I was then. A man, or at least as much of one as I could be at fourteen.

  “That spring, I fought beside kin two more times, never managing to spirit any away. I saw no sails that summer and moved back to my deep shelter well before the first snow. That winter I lost much of what remained of my humanity and became increasingly like the things that howled at the moon in the dark of the night.

  “I stole. I killed. It was the killing that nearly was my undoing. After villages set men and dogs against me, I was unable to return for there were guards everywhere. Soon only the wilds were left to me, and I lived off the meat of whatever I could find, take with sword or snare.

  “My fear of discovery was such that I stopped building fires and ate my kills much as I’d seen the wolves that also hounded me do. I wore the skins of my kills, becoming more animal, less man, and it was liberating.

  “Out in the deep woods one night under a full moon I encountered an alpha, the leader of the pack that stalked my steps. When he came at me, I threw down my sword and shield and fought him hands to paws. As he lunged, I held him and wrestled against his claws ripping into my back while I worked at the fur and flesh of his neck with my teeth.

  “I don’t recall what happened afterward. Waking with the dawn, I found I was not alone. The alpha was splayed across my body, frozen in death, with a dark red pool marking a great circle around me and the pack waiting at the edge of the trees.”

  The zombie stopped.

  The girl waited for him to continue. “But how?” she asked finally.

  “I’d ripped out the alpha’s throat with my teeth. Exhausted I must have collapsed on my back in the snow, for that’s where I was when the dawn came.”

  “The wolves?” the girl asked. “Why didn’t the pack attack you? Or did they?”

  “They didn’t attack. They watched as I retrieved my sword and shield, as I put the alpha’s carcass across my shoulders. They followed as I returned to my shelter. But they never attacked that day or any other.”

  The girl shifted in her seat. “The cold? You weren’t frozen?”

  “The cold held no sway over me. I was clothed in furs and the alpha covered me as though a great blanket.” The zombie stood and held a hand up above his head. “If a man, the wolf would have been that tall. Do you see?”

  The girl nodded and said yes, she did.

  The zombie walked to the window and look down to the street almost expectantly. “Outside my shelter, I skinned the alpha with a blade while the pack looked on, planning to collect the pelt to use as a winter coat. While I skinned the creature, the pack edged closer and closer. Their movement was subtle but I saw it out of the corners of my eyes as I separated fur from flesh.

  “I did not know if they were coming for me or what would happen next, but I held to my undertaking. Though the blade was sharp and exceptional, the mid-morning sun was breaking through the trees by the time I finished and looked up from this careful work. When I did, I found I was nearly encircled by the pack with several large males no more than an arm’s length away.”

  “What did you do?” the girl whispered, her voice scarcely audible. “Did the wolves attack?”

  The zombie stalked back across the room to the girl. “I bared my teeth and snarled as I’d seen the wolves do many times, my eyes fixed on the wolf who seemed to be claiming the alpha role. Then I donned the bloody pelt and got down on all fours as if I was one of them and indeed I became one of them, losing what remained of myself over the course of the winter.

  “When the thaw came, I was a beast, no longer a man, and did not even think of going to watch for the sails of my kin. I stayed with the pack, my new kin. They protected me and I protected them.”

  “All this really happened, didn’t it?” the girl asked. “I mean, what you’re telling me is something that’s true.”

  The zombie reached across the table and took away the girl’s glass. “It is, and I want to go on telling you.”

  The girl’s face was calm but her eyes were revealing more and more of the silent inner struggle taking place. “But why didn’t the wolves attack you and what do you mean you stayed with the pack? And if you stayed with the wolves and lost yourself and became what you are, how did it happen?”

  “I never said I became anything at that time. What I said was that I lost what remained of myself.” The zombie smiled, the faintest smile that stretched his lips thin across his cheeks. “I’d like to continue my story as it happened. I’d like to go on. I don’t know why the wolves didn’t attack or why I stayed with them. It is just what happened.”

  The zombie watched the girl with his cold blue eyes and waited until she said:

  “Yes, please, continue.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Asimov grew up with books. Libraries raised her. When she was ten, she discovered the writings of her grandfather and started dreaming of being a writer one day. She read every fantasy and science fiction book she could find.

  Somewhere along the way though she lost the writer’s dream. She never stopped writing, but the very idea of being a writer one day faded away. At least until, she found her voice again and was encouraged by others to share her writing with others.

  As a life-long fan of all things science fiction, her goal is to write and publish sci-fi adventures for all ages. The characters in her Star Chasers books explore the vast reaches of the galactic empire controlled by the Order of Eight.

  
Find Emily’s book at Amazon
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