A brief piece of original short fiction by yours truly

The Slayer

Karen finished her 400th chinup and dropped from the bar to the floor. Her toes hit first, and she flexed her calves, her heels touched the floor without a sound.

She looked in the mirror opposite and saw what many might consider a freak- a woman with cannonball biceps, the tendons in her legs like iron whipcords. She still looked good in jeans but men she had met were a little intimidated by her muscles. Not like she could help it much, the slightest exercise seemed to cause her to grow out of proportion, and she was more than normally athletic.

Since she was eight or nine, she had been different, somehow. She sensed things that nobody else sensed, saw things in the shadows that nobody else saw. She knew she had a calling, knew that she had a mission in her life and while she wasn’t quite sure what it was, she thought she had an idea.

Her parents had died within days of one another, both stricken by cancer that Karen felt could be traced specifically back to radiation exposure they sustained during the second world war, working on the Bomb. She had visited them in the hospital, sat by them as their bodies gradually failed, watched death come take them. And all the time, she could sense the evil that lurked there- the force that somehow took sustenance from the suffering of the cancer ridden patients in the rooms above.

A vampire.

No, not what you’d expect, she thought. She wondered if the legends spoke of these same things. If the fact that they lived off the pain and suffering of humans had been translated into “blood sucking” all those years ago, and the true meaning was just lost in the mist of time. She knew. She was sure the legends must have been handed down by people like her, through the ages. And that helped make her decision for her.

She stood at her dresser, wiped herself down with holy water obtained from a local church. She put around her neck amulets blessed by the ancient Popes, relics of the Knights Templar, she slid stakes and mallets and spray bottles of holy water into compartments in her suit. Her hair was short and needed no attention, her close fitting outfit offered no resistance so she could move with incredible freedom. She let the door click shut behind her on her way out.

She took a bus to the hospital- no need to arrive winded and tired, and her loose overcoat hid her equipment. She’d shed the coat when she arrived, and it would help to cover her as she left- if she left- she might need it.

Walking through the corridors brought back waves of grief, thinking of the painful battle her parents fought. Instead of letting it drain her or lessen her, she directed the grief to strengthen her resolve and firm her determination. She walked by a room where a bald child, a girl no more than twelve, was leaning off the bed retching onto the floor, and her grip on the stakes at her belt tightened. She threw the coat off and it dropped to the floor, and the door to the cellar stairs opened as if by her very thought.

It was actually the maintenance person, a sixtyish man with bushy white eyebrows and startling blue eyes. He looked at her and touched her arm- “stop” he said, softly, “you aren’t ready for what’s down there”. She shrugged him off and descended the stairs.

The basement of the cancer wing was ancient, the walls made not of concrete but huge rough limestone blocks, each of which must have taken dozens of men to drag into position. She walked noiselessly through the rooms, all dimly lit and filled with old hospital furniture, equipment, cleaning supplies stacked here and there.

In a room at almost the center of the wing she found it. She hadn’t been prepared for the hideousness- the stuff of her nightmares was like a cuddly plush toy next to this thing, she felt like she was looking at the twisted and hideous picture of Dorian Gray. It stood with it’s arms outstretched, and she could see it absorbing small green points of light, drifting down like dust motes from the ceiling- they were almost invisible until they came in proximity of his body, and then they began to glow as he absorbed them. Pain. He was feeding off the pain of the patients above. The revulsion hit her like a brick, and she screamed a battle cry that must have awoken people two wings away.

Alerted to her presence, the hideous beast turned its gaze to her and her knees almost buckled in fear. Her blood ran cold, and then she remembered the hours and hours of training she had forced upon herself and attacked.

She had no way of knowing it, of course, but she really was faster and stronger than other humans. The genetic mutation that her parents had passed to her through their radiation exposure had occurred before, randomly, but in her it was as if the dial had been turned up to 11, she moved with an adrenaline fueled speed that would have been frightening to behold, had anyone been there to see. The sheer fury and speed she rained down on the hapless creature would have been instantly fatal to a human- hell, it wouldn’t have been good for a car. And the creature withstood every blow, it countered every kick, it blocked every punch, as effortlessly as if it had been a machine. She found herself tiring, she began to falter. She fought for the better part of an hour, and the stress showed- her muscles burned in pain, the superhuman strength began to fail her, and she fell to the floor. A failure. She lie there in agony, watching the creature approach, and she could see the pain radiate from her body and nourish it. She watched the slavering, lecherous creature approach, and mouthed what she figured would be her last words.

“I’m sorry mom. I’m sorry dad. I failed.”

Then the creature began to weaken, to stagger as if being struck by unseen blows, and in seconds it fell to the floor beside her, the life draining from it’s eyes as she watched.

It took a long time, but she dragged her abused body up the stairs. Bloodied and sore, she draped her overcoat painfully over her shoulders, and used the wall to support herself as she slowly moved down the hall.

“Not what you expected?”

The words startled her and she turned to find their source. The maintenance man was in the room with the sick child. He had wiped the child’s face and hand, placed a cool washcloth on her head, and was on his hands and knees cleaning up the vomit.

“No. You knew about that? You see that thing?” she said.
“Yes. it’s why I’m here”
“Why you’re… what? What happened to it? I tried to fight but it was so strong….”
“I killed it”
“You? Here in this room? cleaning up puke?”
“Yes”
“but how? I have trained and trained and made myself so strong, and still I failed.”
“Muscles and stakes are weapons to be used against evil men. Evil itself must be fought a different way”
She chuckled. “By cleaning up puke?”
“Yes. By cleaning up puke. By being kind. By caring. By being there for people who need it. The enemy of love is not hate, it’s apathy. Not caring. Caring killed the creature you fought, your blows were nothing to it. Trouble is, it will be back tomorrow. Evil never dies.”
“So what can anyone do?”
“If you want to fight evil, if you want to save the world, it’s not about training and muscles. It’s about- well, sometimes it’s about cleaning up puke” They heard the sound of retching down the hall, and he looked at her, and in a flash she understood.

“Think you’re strong enough to carry that bucket?”
“I can try”

Copyright 2007 Og the Neanderpundit.