Ben Wake
There are now three others in the woods around me. I suspect one of them is the thrope that spends time with the woman I now know is named Ivy. The other is most certainly the Negre hunter I saw on the highway. I know the way their hunters move through the woods, having once been one myself. The third in the trees is a complete mystery to me. Something I have certainly never encountered before.
If it were only the thrope and the hunter, it would be troubling enough. I have no idea how to get them away from each other before they run into each other while stalking me. If the Truce is not broken in the next hour, it’ll be a miracle.
That third entity can’t possibly make things any better. If it’s warm, it’s in the middle of a world of danger it can’t imagine. If it’s another vampire, the thrope is probably finished. If it’s another thrope, the vampire is done – which brings me some temporary respite. Either way, though, we’re back at war.
I put my head in my hands and try to squeeze a solution to the situation from my jumbled thoughts. Finally, some voice inside of me says a single word, which seems to be the only way out.
Sacrifice.
I’m a little over a hundred years old. I was turned at seventeen, and can truly say I have not been happy in all of that time for more than a few days at a time. All vampires eventually grow weary of immortality. But for me, turned the day before I shipped over to France to fight in World War One, and then caught up in the clan wars and the Great War with the thropes since then, I think I’ve been weary for a very long time.
So if I can draw the attention of the hunter, and get her onto my trail and both of us away from the thrope. Well, maybe I live, maybe she does. But if we can completely lose the thrope before we go at each other, the Truce lasts for one more night.
I stand up, and am about to cough loud enough for the hunter to hear me, but hopefully not the thrope stalking her. Just before I get it out, I hear the thrope start running away from the hunter and me. She stops moving. In the wake of the fleeing thrope, everything in that direction is silent and still. Even the light breeze seems to have stopped. I strain my eyes, trying to see anything in that direction, but there are just enough trees between me and the hunter to obscure my view.
The silence is finally broken by a meaty thud and grunt, as if somebody had just taken a tremendous punch or kick. I hear a body fall to the ground and roll a few feet. I shift a little bit, trying to find an angle where I can see what’s happening.
A strange cry, terribly loud, but at a pitch way outside of what the warm can hear, shatters the forest. Birds and small creatures all burst into panicked activity, running and flying this way and that, chirping and chattering in fear. It takes everything I have to carefully back away from the sound instead of running as fast as my legs can take me…to be continued!
2021