The Seeker
She woke up to a steady 'thump thump
thump' against the door. She rubbed her eyes, peering at the door in
the dim pre-dawn light, as the steady thumping continued. Slipping
out of bed, the young horse slipped into the outfit she kept by her
bedside table - bright blue shirt, loose-fitting shorts - before
turning to face the door. The relentless beating had not stopped.
"Okay, already, come in!" she called out. The pounding
increased in speed and force, but the iron doorknob was untouched.
She walked towards the door slowly. "I said, come in!" Her voice
was shrill, in the cold gray light - but there was no answer, only
the sound of fists hitting the door. She reached out and took the
knob in one hand, but an odd, prickling sensation on the back of her
neck made her stop. Dark-skinned nostrils flared as she sampled the
air - and caught the sickly-sweet scent of rot, combined with the
scent of mud and spoiled meat.The hinges gave way, crashing
inwards. She leaped backwards, grabbing for the stout club she kept
beside her bed. Bringing it up, she swung it at the figure that
shambled into the room, catching them a stout blow alongside the head
before she even recognized it. "G-geoff??" She stared in horror
at the prone figure of her bother. His left arm had been chewed to
the bone, but he was supporting his weight on it like the pain meant
nothing - and his eyes were milky-white, reflecting the light from
the window by her bed as the sun slowly rose. He scrabbled, his movements clumsy and
unnatural, and climbed to his feet. "Geoff, what's wrong? Why were
you pounding on my door?" Her brother's mouth opened, and he let
out a long, numbing groaning wail, both of his arms reaching for her.
The dark-nailed fingers opened and closed, and his long, equine jaw
began to open and shut hungrily as he shambled towards her. She swung
the club again, and felt one of his legs snap under the blow. Moving
past him swiftly, she reached the door - then felt the cold, hard
hand grip around her ankle, and saw the floor rush up to greet her. The world swam as she struck the
hardwood floor, but she managed to bring her eyes back into focus as
she felt her brother's other arm come up to grab her leg, pulling her
back towards him. Her eyes rolling, her breath coming in hysterical
sobs as she struggled to make some sense of this - Geoff, the
gentle brother, trying to grab her like this - she lashed out in
ancient equine instinct. Her leg muscles flexed and released, though
she didn't even notice until the hand had let go of her and she'd
jumped to her feet, and run, sobbing, down the hallway, that she was
trailing red footsteps, and that the long wail her brother had been
letting out had ceased. She paused, then, outside the master
bedroom. Two bodies lay there, their heads shattered and a scattering
of holes in the wall beside them - wounds that she recognized as
the effect of her father's shotgun and his favored grapeshot, which
she'd only ever seen used on the assorted natural predators of the
area. She couldn't identify the two fallen individuals, and didn't
want to. Taking a deep breath, and ready to shout in case her father
mistook her for another of those behaving oddly, she opened the door
- and let out a shrill scream at what she saw. Kneeling on the bed, above her
father's open stomach, was her mother, hungrily scooping out viscera
and biting into it with what seemed like an almost vicious glee. At
the scream, however, the mare stopped her feast and fixed her
daughter with a piercing glare. A wail escaped her, not unlike the
one her brother had made earlier, and she lunged. The creature that
had been her mother was much faster than her brother hand been, but
she managed to get the club up in time to smash aside the creature's
first charge. Her mother was faster to recover her balance, however,
and charged her again, and again, forcing her out into the hallway. Eventually, however, she simply
sidestepped one of her mother's charges - sending the mare
careening down the long hallway, while she ran into the room, and
started digging under the bed. She felt the long, round barrel of the
stock under her fingers - and then she was being pulled backwards,
out from under the bed. Swinging the gun around, she felt flat,
herbivore teeth sink powered by her mother's powerful jaw sink into
her ankle. Bringing the barrel into line, she fired, just as her
father had taught her - gave the trigger a squeeze, and felt the
roar of the gun, the kick against her budding breasts - and watched
as her mother's head disappeared into a bloody haze, leaving only her
long nose and lips. Fleeing the ruins of her mother, she
fled up onto the bed, shaking her father. "Please, please, please,
Daddy, wake up, please, don't leave me, don't be dead, please.."
she babbled incoherently, shaking his body. He was cold, and still -
and she felt the bite on her ankle throbbing, the room swimming
around her. She tried to stay upright, kneeling on the bed, but
eventually the spinning got to be too much for her, and for the
second time that morning, the floor rushed up to meet her. When she woke up, she was alone in
darkness. She was sitting on something - could feel a hard, cold
floor below her - but she couldn't see it, or anything else. Then,
abruptly, there was a white rat, clad in flowing silver-white robes,
standing in front of her. "Who are you?" she demanded. The
bite on her ankle was gone, as was the wet sensation of her brother's
blood on her foot, and she was -angry- as she faced the silent figure
of the rat. "Who the hell
are you?" The rat looked at her. "Is this it?" The voice
was soft, and it took her a moment to realize that the rat's lips
hadn't moved. "What?
What do you mean, 'is this it?'" Her voice grew shrill again, as it
often did when she was stressed.An image of her struggle with
her mother appeared in the air beside the rat, as though being
watched. She saw herself get pulled out from under the bed, saw the
gun swing around, and saw her mother's head disappear into a crimson
haze. "This happened. You are dying, becoming like her.""What
happened? Why did they become like this?" She found herself on her
feet. Even at her age - barely thirteen years old - she stood
taller than the rat, who was really quite short. "An
old curse. A virus. The random cruelty of fate. However it happened,
girl, it is happening, and it is happening to you." A sleeve rose,
and from it a single hairless claw pointed to her chest. "But is
this it? Is this how it ends for you?" "Do..." She paused.
"Do I get a choice?" The
rat nodded. "Yes. I am dead - my power is gone. It can only
belong to one who lives." The rat reached into their chest, and
pulled out something dark, and angry, and cold. "If this is not the
end for you - if you would survive, and live, even though all the
world crumbles around you - then this is for you. If not, you have
only to walk away." The dry voice in her mind spoke smoothly, and
evenly. She
looked at the image again, then reached out, taking the dark thing
from the rat's hand. It flowed into her fingers, and she felt it flow
into her. Utter darkness, the cold between the stars, and the fury of
everything that could never be - and then she was sitting on the
floor beside the bed. She
could feel, like an
itch against the back of her neck, her father's body sit up, and
stare at her with the same empty hunger as her mother's had
possessed. Her hand moved on it's own, striking out against his
throat - and his head, still chewing and gnashing angrily, rolled
onto the floor. She picked it up, and sat it the chair beside his
desk, then sat and stared at it, leaning against the wall and trying
not to cry. She
lasted about five minutes at that, then broke down in nearly-silent,
terrified sobs while the head of her father gnawed and mouthed at
her. She was still sitting against that wall, staring at it, when her
oldest brother came home and found her sitting there.