Alex in an orange hoodie and shorts holding a machete [https://64.media.tumblr.com/2876c1aa4856808c7faaf3dbd08866b2/e5283c1be210e5a5-d9/s640x960/02903651978c5753a19e8ec617e1e8b07c034822.webp]
Sanctuary. Flanders, Belgium.
Noah came to them early the next evening. They had eaten a hasty meal, quietly crowded around the table and leaning against counters.
“This way,” he said, motioning them to follow. Michael, bandaged and silent, sat at the guard's post by the door, holding a shotgun in tight fists. Hannah could sense his numb fear.
They followed Noah to a deep closet, the door hanging open. It had its own dim red bulb lighting up a stockpile of weapons. There were firearms, large and small, and a variety of long knives, from chunky combat blades to what looked like full length swords, and an overwhelming majority of machetes. Some of them were soot-blackened, like they had been scavenged from burned down buildings. Hanging from a series of nails on one wall were dark tangles of holster straps.
“You're coming out with us tonight. We've got to get you properly armed.”
“We don't even know how to fight them yet!” Alex’s voice was full of panic and a little shrill.
Noah’s was calm and easy. “That’s what we’re doing now.” He reached for a long single-sided blade. It was gritty with dark specks and he shook it, testing the weight. “Guns are good as a last resort and for running into human trouble. For the beasts, a well-aimed shot can buy you a few seconds if you get into tight quarters. Slow them down, if you’re lucky. Mostly, it just pisses them off. This,” he held up the knife, “is going to be your main killer.” He gave the blade another shake, his mouth a flat line. “But not this one. This one’s shite.” He tossed it to the back of the pile and picked up a heavy looking curved blade and nodded at it, his brow low.
“The key is to sever the spine at the neck. That’ll kill them temporarily.”
“We have to behead them?” Reeve coughed, but Hannah broke in over him.
“Temporarily?”
Noah huffed through his nose. “Yes, their ability to heal is, well, better than you can imagine.”
Hannah felt her eyes darting, bouncing between objects and faces, restless. She tried to keep them still, keep them a little less wide, but settled for trying to ignore their stinging. Gareth was too far in shadow to see clearly. His familiar silhouette was unearthly still and she looked away. Noah was talking.
“If you can get their heads off, you’ve got a moment,” he continued, gesticulating with his hands. “The body can’t move without the head and the head can’t act without the heart. But they’re going to seek each other.”
“What does that mean?” Reeve asked. His voice was steady and controlled. Too controlled. Beside him, Alex shifted uncomfortably, watching Alyosha out of the corner of his eye.
“It means if you hack a dog’s head off and leave it in the street, you might think it’s dead, and it will look dead, but only until the pieces pull back together and heal. So they’ve got to be destroyed separately.” Noah pivoted, and took a sharp breath to say more before swallowing it. He handed the knife he’d been holding to Alex, locking eyes with him. “Grab two each, and whatever guns you feel like hauling.”
They shifted to make room for him and Noah stepped back away from the closet. Hannah touched his arm and asked, “Should I bother? I’m normally more help when I’m invisible.”
Noah shook his head. “No point in going glass for dogs. They can hear your heart and feel the heat of your body. No sneaking up on them. Grab some blades—something nose-heavy.”
When she turned back to the closet, Gareth was looking at her. She knew the look and she hated it. He was looking at her like she was small and fragile. She’d deal with him later. For the moment, she focused on carefully sifting through the pile of long knives and picked up a couple of battered machetes like the ones she’d seen Noah carry. Gareth was hovering and muttering to Alex about which knives he should be holding. Alex was white-knuckle gripping the knife Noah had given him, and his face was set and blank, mouth a grave line, not rolling his eyes or snarking over Gareth’s quiet instruction like Hannah would expect him to. She looked at Reeve and saw he was watching them too. She waited for him to turn and catch her eye and thought, Now what? to him. He didn’t respond, only turned and followed Noah out into the sitting area. When she entered with Alyosha, Hannah saw that Warren was there too, sitting hunched over on the edge of an armchair, eyes closed and face tense.
Noah wasn’t the only one rockin’ a whole body full of ink. Even stuffy Warren, who looked like the type of old man who would have given her a dirty look at the hardware store, didn’t have an inch of visible untattooed skin on his thick arms. She must have stopped short, seeing him, because Noah said softly, “It’s fine. He’s scanning the minds in the area looking for dogs.”
“Why do you call them dogs?” Alyosha asked, pulling on a holster.
Warren answered without opening his eyes. “Revelation Twenty-two Fifteen, ‘Outside are the dogs;’ the wild unholy who devoured the dead.”
Noah drew one of his machetes and tested its weight. “Psalms Fifty-nine Six. ‘They return each evening, suffer the hunger of dogs, and prowl the streets.’”
Hannah blinked at the hardwood floor and cracked her knuckles. Gareth and Alex walked into the room carrying their blades and Noah nodded at them.
“Good,” Noah said. “They should all be sharpened already, but we’ll make sure before we leave.” He bounced the knife in his hand. “Now, I think they train you Sol types to precision and speed, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but this work is all power. More like chopping wood. I’ve seen some Children use axes, but I don’t recommend it. I’m guessing I don’t need to show you how to throw a swing that needs a lot behind it.”
Hannah, Alex, and Alyosha shook their heads. Reeve was distracted, tracing lines that had been whittled into the handle of one of his long knives.
“Don’t get too attached to these,” Noah said, placing his flat on the coffee table and sitting down. “You’re going to lose them.”
Hannah furrowed her brow, but before she could speak, Warren sat up straight. “We have to go. Now.”
“What?” Gareth snapped, shifting his weight.
Warren stood and slung his harness around his shoulders. “She’ll probably be dead by the time we get there, but if we run we might catch it before it moves on.”
For a long moment, Warren and Noah were the only ones moving an inch. Noah slung his machete back into the holster and grabbed a can of gasoline from an open closet, the movement was automatic and swift. “We’re going.”
---
They pounded down the dark streets in a loose group and Alex pumped his legs to stay solidly in the middle of the pack. People in cars and on the sidewalks turned their heads to watch as they jogged past. They had all been given oversized coats from a pile by the door to cover their weapons, but nothing would cover the two bright red jerrycans Noah and Warren were carrying. Alex’s two machetes banged against his sides as he ran, making him wonder how he could have ever thought his pistol was heavy. The muscles of his thighs shook with the exertion and his belly shook with fear. He had no idea where they were going or what exactly was the plan for when they got there. They blindly followed Warren as he led them off the main drag and through a maze of dark alleys. Every sweat-drenched inch of Alex’s body was yelling at him to stop, turn around, to shout to the others to go back. He kept running.
The sudden sensation of strange telepathy nearly made him trip. Here we go, Warren’s voice rang through his mind. The blunt intrusion after Reeve’s familiar presence made his face ache. Alex came to a sudden, staggering halt at the mouth of a lightless one-way street when Gareth stretched an arm out to stop him from moving any closer. From what he could see, it was mostly the back-end of buildings and barely wider than an alley. Most of them came to a shuffling stop beside him, but Noah and Warren only slowed long enough to drop their gas cans and draw their knives. Ahead of them, a middle-aged man stood up from a crouch. He was shirtless and his hands and chin were bloody. His expression at the two armed Children running at him was one of annoyance. Alex was too far away to see what the heap on the ground in front of the Phage was, but with a memory that shivered down his shinbones, he could guess.
With one hand, the dog ripped the metal ladder off the fire escape and threw it at Noah and Warren, who ducked and scattered to either side of the empty street. It came skidding to a halt in front of Alex, but his legs were cemented to the cobblestones. The Phage gave his hands a quick shake, spattering black on the pile of white trash bags in the dim light. He grabbed and quickly threw on the t-shirt that he’d hung on a doorknob.
With a rough scraping sound, Hannah pulled out her machete. Shaking, Alex followed suit with the others.
“The neck,” Alyosha said without turning back. All at once, everyone was running, them forward and the bloody man in the too-clean t-shirt toward them. It was a tangle of confusion—too many limbs and far too dark. Noah was batted into the wall like you’d kick a rock off to the side of the road. Then it was close, marching stubbornly forward, heedless of the group of people in front of him. Gareth moved to the front but with one swift kick, the Phage threw him back, taking Reeve and Alyosha down with him. Alex’s chest hiccupped, trying to breathe. The sound of gunfire shocked through his chest, concussive and deep, as Hannah emptied her mag into its chest and throat. They blew holes through the t-shirt, but faster than his eyes could register, the bullet wounds closed. Behind them, the sound set off a chain of shouts from people on the main street and Warren loudly cursed.
The Phage barely missed a step. Alex held his long blade out in front of him, backing up, trying to angle to get between it and Hannah as she struggled to reload. Behind it, Alyosha stayed on the ground cradling the shoulder that was still healing a gunshot wound, but the others pulled themselves up from the ground and came at a run. Reeve got there first and with a rushed swing, sank his knife inches deep into the side of the thing’s neck. Alex was close enough to see the dark red edges of the wound split for a flash before they zipped back up, sealing around the blade. It wheeled on Reeve, who stumbled, still gripping the knife, stuck fast. Regaining his balance and with wide eyes, Reeve gave the blade a violent yank, but neither the weapon nor the attached Phage budged. Alex heart pounded and he felt sick. Everything was moving too fast and he was trying to hold the Story back. The Phage reached a hand out and took Reeve's shoulder in a vise grip just as Noah appeared, holding the wooden cross he wore up in front of him like a brand. The Phage winced, dropping Reeve, and backed away, taking the knife with him.
“If your blade sticks,” Noah shouted, “drop it.”
Walking slowly to the side of the street, it took a moment to yank the knife out its neck, taking a chunk of the surrounding flesh with it and leaving a gap like a shark bite, which filled in and healed as rapidly as it was made.
Warren ran by them, heading back to the main street. “I have to manage the crowd,” he called. “Put it down.”
The Phage was watching them, standing too still. It gave the machete one swift swing and embedded it inches deep into the brick wall.
“Surround it,” Noah said calmly. “Give it nowhere to run.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“It,” the Phage spat, “is so sick of this shit.”
Alex’s blood went cold, hearing it talk just like a normal person. It moved toward Noah, and the rest fanned out as they were told. Alex could see Alyosha still on the ground, having dragged himself to lean against a concrete wall. Noah gave a backhanded swing as he moved backward in step. His knife thudded into its forearm as the dog blocked and with one fluid motion, Noah let go of the machete, dropped, and hooked his free arm around the foot the Phage had lifted midstep. It toppled hard, sounding much heavier than it should have. Alex took a step forward and brought his machete down in a two-handed swing at its neck, but it came down hard against the cobblestones inches from Gareth’s blade. He had taken the same shot. The impact reverberated up his arms and set his teeth on edge.
It dodged, rolling into Alex’s legs and he went down. The pain in his shins was electric, and the weight as it bowled him over was more like being slammed by a steel beam than a body. Before he could get on his feet, he saw the Phage run past, throwing Hannah against the wall with one swipe before bolting down the street. Alex ducked as Hannah’s gun was knocked from her hand and flew past his head.
“Fuel,” was all Noah said before he was up and after it like a shot. A hand grabbed Alex’s shoulder and he flinched, wheeling.
Easy. Reeve’s voice in his head was soft, but his face wasn’t. He hauled him up and they set off running with the others before Alex could even grab his dropped machete. They weren’t that far behind Noah but the Phage was far ahead of them. It was moving fast. Not as fast as a knacked speedster, but faster than it should be. They weren’t gaining on it. In the quiet late-night streets, all Alex could hear was the pounding of their feet and the sloshing of the gas in the can Gareth had grabbed.
Noah shouted back to them over his shoulder. “If you’ve got firepower, slow him down!”
Panting, Alex wrestled his pistol out of his jacket and tried to line up a shot, but it was too dark and they were all moving too fast. Noah and Gareth were bobbing in and out of his line of fire and he couldn't take the shot. Beside him, he heard two rounds go off as Reeve fired, but it had no effect. Alex watched as the dog turned left down an alley and they sped to catch up.
“Aim low,” Noah yelled.
“Hannah!” Reeve called. He put on a burst of speed and handed up his weapon to her. She grabbed it without stopping and the moment she took to aim seemed like a lifetime, but then she took three evenly spaced shots that made the dog’s foot turn and stumble. It kept running, but slower now, and they got closer. On its heels, Alex saw the Phage break into the light as they left the alley and spilled out into the street. The lamps flashed, blinding him, and he squinted hard to follow the others.
It crossed into the intersection. As they sprinted down the sidewalk, movement beside him made Alex skid and slow. Reeve had nearly come to a stop and had his eyes closed like he was concentrating. Before he could call out, the building roar of an engine brought Alex’s attention to a car barreling down the street. It crossed the center line and swerved, accelerating to hit the Phage straight on. The collision brought the vehicle to a violent halt. The Phage was thrown up on the crumpled hood and collapsed the windshield. Next to him, Reeve was running again and dragging Alex with him. The car door opened and a woman clamored out, screaming as the thing on her roof rolled onto the pavement, limping on legs that crooked at odd angles.
They followed it into an alley and found the Phage had stopped to face them. Noah reached him first, but was launched backward with a punch that landed with a crack. Alex didn't stop running until he was practically on top of it, worried that if he stopped moving forward he wouldn't be able to start again. With his momentum, he slashed at its throat, but too slowly, and the blade caught and slipped straight out of his hand as he followed through. Both machetes gone. Gareth came up on the other side and swung to hack into the back of its neck with a yell. It turned and caught his arm with one hand and struck the underside of Gareth’s elbow with his other palm. The snap was wet and Alex could see a shard of bone where his arm was bent in the complete wrong direction, sticking up like an old, weathered post. Alex scrambled backward, swallowing. Gareth yanked his arm away and retreated, holding it steady, his teeth bared in a grimace. It struck Alex that while his lungs and sides burned and he was panting hard from running, the Phage’s chest didn’t move at all. It’s not that he had disbelieved Noah, but seeing it was a different thing entirely.
He’d lost sight of Hannah and Reeve, unwilling to turn enough to let the Phage out of his eyeline. Noah was slowly standing up, his eye bloody with a knot high on one cheekbone. The Phage headed toward Noah with long strides and Alex fired on it with whatever was left in his gun. Its only reaction was to ask Noah, “How’s the lesson going, monk?”
Reeve slit the back of the Phage’s knees with his knife—fast, fast enough to keep from getting stuck. The dog crumpled with a deep throated yell. Reeve drew his blade back, holding it like a baseball bat but the thing stood up, slow and inexorable. It picked Reeve up with both hands and lifted him. The movement was almost too fast at first to see what had happened and then a dizzying, pulsing pressure threatened to collapse Alex’s skull as Reeve’s connection with his mind overran its banks like a flash flood. The strangled wail that filled Alex’s ears didn’t sound like Reeve, but as he looked around, dazed, he could see no one else was yelling. There was blood running down Reeve’s shirt and he was blindly clawing at the spot where the dog’s mouth was latched onto his side. Alex opened his mouth but made no sound as he clicked fruitlessly through his empty magazine.
Noah, on his feet, shouted, “Ears!” and drew a deep, whooping breath. Alex nearly understood too late and dropped the empty gun to crouch and clamp his hands tight over his ears.
The high-frequency sound that came out of Noah’s wide-stretched mouth wasn’t human, to put it simply. To be more exact, it sounded like something that would leave the throat of some fifty-foot, dark-spined sea-creature that lived too deep in the ocean to ever see daylight. The hypersonic note ricocheted through the bones of Alex’s hands and froze his lungs in place, holding him pinned long enough to feel his body begin to throb for breath. When it stopped, Alex realized he’d closed his eyes and, opening them, he saw the Phage had bent doubled-over, clutching its head. Reeve was a limp form on the ground, unmoving.
Alex’s mind rang and sung like running a finger along the rim of a wineglass and he stumbled onto his feet. Gareth was already up, with the long, thin knife Reeve had dropped in his hand. In one sharp movement, he drove the blade inches deep into the top of the dog’s skull and then clamped both arms down on the handle hard, muscles straining. Noah ran forward as it bucked, lifting Gareth’s whole body with it. Still Gareth managed to keep the stunned Phage mostly bent. One two-handed lop and Noah had ended it. The body dropped and Gareth was slammed down onto the stones by his own force.
“Reeve!” Hannah called, limping toward them with a bloody lip.
“Grab the body.” Noah’s voice was blunt and muffled beneath the ringing. He was struggling to shake himself out of his long coat.
Alex walked forward. “Reeve?”
“Grab the goddamned body!”
Alex met Hannah’s eyes and swallowed, slowly approaching the two bodies slumped over onto the ground. There was something seeping from the ragged end of the dog’s neck, a thick sludge, darker than blood without being black. Concentrated. He knelt down. Reeve was breathing, but unconscious. There was a small rivulet of blood running from one of his ears. Gareth fell back on his haunches, deflated and clutching his barely healed elbow. Noah wrapped the head up in his jacket, knife and all, and held it like a sack. Hannah tentatively took a fistful of the dead thing’s shirt.
“Reeve,” Alex said again. He leaned over the Phage to shake him, when the headless body moved.
“Christ in heaven!” Noah growled, backing away, holding the bundle above his head. The dog’s body slid across the floor on its belly, arms unmoving by its sides. As if some invisible rope was tied to its collar and was hauling it off. “Hold it!”
Alex leaned on the Phage’s back with his knee, pinning it, and Hannah latched onto its shoulders. He could feel it tugging, though the muscles in its back were limp. Alex could sense the Story emanating from it like steam and he gritted his teeth against it.
“This isn’t done yet,” Noah barked. “Here’s what’s going to happen: Alex, you’re with me. Hannah, take care of Reeve. Just stop the bleeding, I’m sure he’s fine. Probably has a perf’ed eardrum, though. Gareth, you just sit on that damn thing until Warren gets here to burn it. Don’t let it follow us.”
“No.” Alex wasn’t sure if he’d actually voiced his thought out loud, but it was Gareth.
“Now.” Noah’s voice rasped at the edges, straying into hypersonic.
Shaking, Alex stood up as Gareth waited to take his spot. Gareth looked like he was about to run, but he didn't. Noah retrieved the gas can from the side of the alley and nodded to him to follow.
Alex cleared his throat. “What's going to happen to Reeve?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
“He'll be fine,” Noah said quietly as they walked to the end of the alley and turned to walk down the street. He had the dark bundle held tight under one arm. “Killing this thing for good will help him.”
“How?” Alex’s feet and hands felt numb. His pistol was empty and the machetes were gone. He was unarmed and he felt it.
“It’s not easy to become like them. A dog has to really want to change you; it doesn’t happen by accident. Reeve’d have to be bitten by the same dog on three separate nights. By killing this thing, we remove that possibility altogether. So when...if you get bit, your mission has to be to kill that one.”
“Three nights in a row? Can’t you just hide out a night and break the cycle?”
“No. Doesn’t matter how far apart the nights are. The only thing that can interrupt the cycle is being bitten by a different one. That resets the counter.” He grunted and adjusted the wrapped up coat. “Here,” he said, stopping and turning to Alex, “you ought to feel this.” He carefully gathered the corners of the coat closed, working around the hilt of the knife still in it, and held it out to him. It hung at an odd angle, tilted slightly off to the right, counter to gravity in a way that turned Alex’s stomach. Alex rubbed the palms of his hands on his jeans.
“Tight grip,” Noah said. “It’s not something you want to drop.”
Alex nodded silently and wrapped his fingers around the knot of cloth at the top of the bundle. The story rushed in and he tried to maintain his focus here-and-now. When Noah released his grip, the head in the bag yanked Alex’s arm to the right. He fought to keep it still, flexing his arm, eyes wide. The pull was constant and steady, but it grounded his knack.
“There, see?” Noah’s voice was tense. Alex shifted his body. The bag didn’t swing like it should with his movement and the pull was always in the same direction, straight back where they had come from.
Alex nodded again. “It’s like a magnet.”
“Yeah. Devilish thing. Let’s go.”
They walked a couple more blocks down the dark, empty street before ducking into a dead-end alleyway. Alex’s arm was tired and strained from pulling the bag along, like dragging a concrete block behind him.
Noah took the bag from him and squatted on the ground, motioning to Alex. “Now, there’s a lot of ways to do this wrong. Grab the petrol.”
Noah pulled a long hunting knife strapped to his calf and began to carefully unwrap the contents. “The head needs to be pinned down while it burns or else it can slide away, so you’re gonna want either dirt or cobblestones like this—something a knife can dig into. Everyone has their own preferred weak spot for entry into the skull.” Using the tip of the blade, Noah illustrated different angles of approach. “Eyes, temple, ears, nose. Use whatever works for you, but do not use the mouth. Never touch the teeth. I’m gonna show you and next time you’re gonna do it.”
He peeled back the last flap of fabric and set his left hand firmly on top of its hair. The head was lying on its side, expression slack and there was very little blood or whatever it was that came out of the neck. Noah rotated the knife in his hand and quickly stabbed it hard through the temple and sank it deep to the hilt.
“Now this is the scariest part of the disposal. You’ve got to get a good grip on something without really holding it to test the anchor. It helps when they’ve got long hair, but when they don’t, like this one, you have to get creative.”
Noah grabbed the shell of the dog’s ear in a pincer-like grip. “This is probably as good as you’re gonna get normally, but thanks to your friend, we’ve got this skewer planted in it to grab onto.” He let go of the ear and got a firm grip on Gareth’s knife before slowly lifting the hand that was pinning the head down. It immediately shifted, trying to rotate on the blade through its temple, the stump of the neck homing to the body, but it was stuck fast. “There, good. If the blade’s not set and the thing shoots off, you want to be already grabbing something to keep it from sliding.” He stood up and Alex followed. The head looked uncanny sitting on the cobblestones. Out of place. Fake, almost.
“Now the gas?” Alex asked, trying to keep his breathing steady.
“Just a splash or two, you don’t need to soak it. It’s gonna burn.”
Alex unscrewed the cap and sloshed some of the gasoline onto the head. It splashed across the blank, open eyes and fell into the slack mouth. Alex set the can down and coughed bile, trying to keep himself upright. It just looked like a man. Brown eyes and a pale scar on his chin that he must have gotten as a kid. Noah clapped him on the back and he gulped.
“Always matches,” Noah said, handing him a folded and creased book. “No lighters. You could lose your hand.” Alex took the matches and Noah, with a hand on his shoulder, guided Alex back a few paces. “Go ahead.”
It took him a few strikes to get the match to take and when it finally flared up, he tossed it on the head but nothing caught.
“Go again,” Noah shrugged. “It’s not the best ignition source, but you don’t want to get much closer than this.”
Alex dropped another match, a little more carefully this time, and the gasoline vapor lit up blue with a whoosh. Then the head caught with a flash that made Alex turn away and shield his eyes. When he could look back again, the head looked like nothing but a large ember and had lost all definition of features. It was black and mottled with glowing orange and white, flickering and flashing in bright flecks. The smell hit Alex and his entire body felt cold. It was a sulphurous shit stench, a distinct scent that made Alex think of breezes at night that would make the others groan and say that they must be near a waste treatment station. Within a minute, the head had turned grey and white with ash and collapsed under its own weight, flattening into a shallow mound of flaky soot.
Noah walked forward and kicked it, sliding his shoe back and forth, raising a cloud. Alex buried his nose and mouth in the crook of his elbow. “Scatter the ashes,” Noah said, unfazed. “Don’t leave them in a pile.” With the toe of his boot, Noah flicked the two knives away from the dark smudge on the cobblestones. They were charred and blackened. He wrapped his hand in the fabric of his coat and picked them up. “That’s it,” Noah muttered, encasing the weapons in the cloth. “They do that to the other half and it’s done.” Noah turned to look at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to say something or ask a question. Alex couldn’t move. Noah sighed. “Okay, let’s go check on your friends.”
***