The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Autumn

By Alloria Dark

(note: Don't ask me why but the main character ended up being a devout Christian, that's just the way it goes sometimes. You don't create a character so much as you discover them, and are forced to write their story, their way. LOL)





He lay silently contemplating the past few months of his existence. He had gone from a sane Middle American family man to this empty husk so quickly. When he was bitten he of course knew it was all over for himself so he had gone into the cellar and made his loving family barricade him in. He had waited in the darkness listening as his son Garret and his wife Loraine as little Cathy cried for them not to be so mean to her daddy hammered every nail home. Benjamin Avery waited in the dark for the inevitable through the increasing pain praying for God to give him the strength not to use the gun in his lap to end his pitiful life. He couldn't take his own life, nor could he ask any of his loved ones to do it even to end this excruciating suffering and prevent his imminent resurrection. Loraine had left it there, though she knew it was wrong she couldn't stand the thought of his suffering. God could not forgive a suicide, and he wouldn't put a murder on the souls of his family, so that left him there in the dark.

Garret softly recited passages from the Bible to him through the door but they gave him no comfort. His mind could not concentrate on the love of his Savior when the blinding pain of this plague ran its course. First it started with the fever, and the chills. His body burned and sweat pored from him but he felt like he was freezing to death. Then the headache began, it started as a low throbbing but soon eclipsed even the worst migraine he had dealt with so often in law school. He soon started to convulse sporadically and soiled himself. After that his temperature dropped and the sweat dried on his brow, he felt cold and the headache remained but he felt calm. Every muscle in his body felt tense, and his joints were stiffening fast.

He hoped it would soon be over and tried to prepare himself for the end. Benjamin couldn't help but remember the time he spent at his uncle's farm when he was a boy. Every year in the fall they would burn leaves in a big steel barrel behind the barn and how his little cousin Barry would catch mice and toss them in when Uncle Craig wasn't looking. That boy was always weird; he always had the strangest look in his eye when he did it. Benjamin had never told on his cousin but he could never bring himself to ask the child why he did it. The Smell of burning leaves lingered in his senses even now. He also thought about his father's disappointment in him for not following in his footsteps and preaching the good word. How angry he had been when Benjamin had shown him his acceptance letter from the University. All he ever wanted was to be a lawyer and to be able to provide a good life for his future family, not the life of a poor country preacher, with no opportunities and too many sacrifices.

He remembered the day he had met Loraine. Again it was fall in his mind and along with the acrid smell of autumn leaves he smelled the first snows of late November on the wind and it's sting on his cheeks. He could still see her long red hair blowing madly in the breeze as she raced across the quad not watching where she was going. She had plowed right into him and they were instant friends, inseparable and close beyond anyone's comprehension. She had a big strapping moose of a football-playing boyfriend and he was dating some girl from his Lit class but everyone else slowly faded out eventually, and marriage made sense to them both.

Soon came success and prosperity, everything that he had dreamed of long ago in that little parish house in Virginia seemed to fall right into place for the young family. He thought they had made it, money, a good home, two beautiful children, prominence in the community, they had the American dream until all this chaos had begun.

He snapped from his reverie and felt the damp of the floor and smelled the dank smell of basement mildew. God is this how it ends? You see your past and happiest moments only to have it obliterated by horror. He wept not from the pain in his body but from the pain in the very core of his soul. He couldn't die now, not when they still needed him so much. There had to be something he could do, some way to cheat his way out of this mess.

Garret's voice still came in a steady monotone through the door at the top of the steps and faintly he could hear Loraine comforting their daughter somewhere else in the house.

"Garret!" He screamed in his mind but only a low moan issued from his lips. "Help me!" again only the moan. Why couldn't he speak? He wanted to speak! Then he smelled something, something sweet and tantalizing. He couldn't place the smell, but it seemed to call to him. Not by his bidding his body sat straight up. Pain hot and searing swept through him and he tried with all his will to lay back down, to quiet his screaming muscles but he couldn't. His body moved slowly and with jerks and tremors but it worked against him. He rose to his feet only to stagger forward a few steps and fall back to the floor. He willed himself to lie still, to accept his fate and die with the least amount of suffering possible but again he rose to his feet. It was that smell, that irresistible smell driving him, forcing his weak form to find the source, to satisfy some base instinct. He watched his hands groping before him in the dim cellar as he lurched ever forward. His legs kicked through boxes in his path spilling the contents to the floor.

Upstairs Garret had stopped reading and was calling to him. He heard his son's voice asking if he was all right but he couldn't answer. He could barely think, that scent was driving him mad, he had to quell his body's uncontrollable desire to find this thing so he could think again. Benjamin quit struggling with himself and discovered that when he didn't fight the pain lessened. It didn't dissipate completely but he could think a bit more clearly. His legs propelled his body up the basement stairs feebly but efficiently and soon he reached the door. This sickness had really done a number on him; he was seemingly delirious yet a strange calm had started settling into his mind.

His hands fumbled with the doorknob but couldn't quite manage it so they began to claw at the door. Scratching relentlessly until he saw bloody streaks marking his fingers' path. The smell was so strong now, surely his wife must be cooking something in the kitchen, a roast perhaps. Garret was still calling to him, but sounded frantic.

If only he could speak, he thought he must concentrate. He concentrated all his will but again only a low moan. "Please God, help me speak, I'm so hungry, I need food. Maybe then I can function properly; I can gather my wits. Please?" His mind was racing but he summoned his will together one last time.

"Open the door." His voice was raspy and low but he was sure Garret had heard him because he had stopped calling to him. The pain in his body had begun to worsen but he felt he might be able to survive. Benjamin had known several bite victims and none of them had lasted this long, none had ever laid down to die and managed to get back to their feet. He must somehow have been blessed with an antibody that allowed him to endure the final stages of the plague. He could be the walking cure.

"Dad! Hang on! I'm going to help you. Just stay there and I'll have the boards down in a few minutes." His son's voice was filled with panic and urgency. Benjamin heard the whining sound of the nails being wrenched one by one from the doorframe as the scent on the other side of the barricade grew stronger still.

He was going to be all right, he figured the loss of coordination in his limbs and the partial vocal paralysis would only be temporary side effects from the disease. He could recuperate here at home with his family and when he was well enough he and Garret would make an attempt to reach a government research facility. He felt utterly Euphoric, the world could conceivably be back to normal in a few months if Scientists worked quickly. His children could go back to school and everything would be just fine again. The dream could continue.

He wished his son would hurry, he felt positively ravenous, he hadn't eaten in days, and he couldn't stomach anything after the attack. With an appetite like this, he'd be in top condition in a week.

With these happy thoughts in his mind to fortify him he could almost ignore his aching body. He just kept thinking of his family and the life they would soon have again.

These thoughts were still racing through his head when he heard the last board drop to the floor and the basement door swung open to reveal his son standing a few feet away from him. The boy dropped his hammer and rushed forward to embrace his father.

"Garret!" He tried to say his son's name but a rumbling moan slipped from his gaping mouth as that sweet cloying odor overcame him and his mind reeled as he fell upon his son, his teeth tearing open Garret's vulnerable throat. He drank draught after draught of hot liquid fire and gnashed at the soft succulent flesh. He was the hunger and he gave in to it but still in the back of his tortured mind he screamed for his son to run from him. He wasn't the new savior of mankind he was the beast and he couldn't control the thing that his body had become. He no longer could see or hear, but he could taste, and wasn't it better not to see what he was doing, better not to hear the last of his son's gurgling screams.

What was he thinking? No! Fight! He wanted to stop all this. He wanted to die, he wanted to pull the trigger, any devil or hell would be better than this. To be locked inside this murdering shell unable to stop eating his own living son, he would gladly take eternal damnation over this.

It seemed like his body had feasted forever on the carcass beneath him when it began to stir and the scent that drove him to feed left it completely. Vision and sound returned to him and he struggled to his feet once more. Benjamin saw what remained of Garret before him. Most of the flesh covering the boy's face, throat, and chest was gone as well as his left eye. The Garret thing stood and he wondered if his son was feeling as he did, if buried in his body he still thought and felt? He wondered if his son hated him.

Then he smelled that sweet smell again. It was human smell, he knew that now. Benjamin also realized it must be either his wife or daughter.

"Run!" His mind screamed and his dead moan filled the room. He began to turn around when a thundering boom resonated through the living room of his once happy home and the Garret thing dropped to the floor at his feet. His body turned faster only to face down the barrel of a gun, and behind that Loraine's beautiful face streaked with tears.

In his mind he said a prayer that she would be strong and not feel guilt for doing what must be done. He said a prayer for Garret that he be happy where ever he might be now, then for little Cathy that she live past this Holocaust and still be as innocent as she was before this all began.

"I love you." She whispered as she pulled the trigger and then came the darkness.

He felt no pain just odd relief and comfort. The leaves were beginning to change and just as he finished raking the last of the fallen leaves into a neat pile in the front yard Garret jumped down from the low branch of the Maple and landed in the middle of them all sending them in a thousand directions.

"You've had it young man!" He growled but laughed despite himself and jumped in with the boy, allowing him to be pinned. Loraine held their baby girl in her arms and watched from the dining room window as her men wrestled around making an even bigger mess than was there before. Benjamin stood and dusted off the leaves then brushed them from his son's caramel hair and waved to his girls. He felt more alive in autumn than any other time. He would always remember these times; this was when everything felt worthwhile.

- THE END -