Jack Kursed (5 page)

Victoria gave him a nod.
John had his issues, and they fought at times. But he was immortal
in the truest sense of the word. He had no weaknesses, felt no
pain. Even hot and cold was different for him. He was strong and
loyal. She couldn't ask for a better partner and friend.

"Be careful," he said.

She nearly returned the comment, but
there was no need. John watched as she ran down the alley out of
sight.

*****

John marveled at the chaos
around him. Terror was an amazing emotion. People trampled over
each other to get to their automobiles and horses. Guns were fired,
and not always with the best of aim. Men and women fell around him
as people shooting blindly missed their targets.

He supposed he couldn't
blame them. There were walking corpses trying to eat them, after
all.

An elderly woman screamed as a ghoul
attacked her. She fell in between two parked cars and held out her
handbag to defend herself.

He almost felt foolish as
he rushed to help her. She only had a few years left in life
anyway. But he promised Victoria he'd help.

He grabbed the ghoul by
the hair. A few clumps of skin and hair came out in John's hand as
he yanked the ghoul's head back, but he still had enough of a grip
to pull it off the elderly woman.

"Get off of her!"

He stomped the ghoul's
head until its face was barely recognizable. It was hard to believe
his eyes as he studied the ghoul. He knew what they were.
Reanimated corpses under the control of a witch. But to see one up
close sent a chill up his spine.

The ghoul was dressed in
expensive upper-class clothes, but they were filthy and torn in a
few places. Most of its skin was intact, but it had a greyish tone.
John had nearly destroyed the right side of its face, but the left
was in good shape. It revealed a sunken face and faded
eye.

John had seen many corpses over the
years, but to see them move was disturbing.

He'd nearly forgotten
about the old woman. Searching the road, he saw her moving as fast
as she could with a horde of people down the sidewalk. No thank
you, no checking on him to see if he was okay.

"You're quite welcome,
madam."

A moan at his feet caught his
attention. The ghoul was still alive.

"Can you understand me?" John
asked.

The ghoul made no
intelligent sound. It only wailed and rolled on its stomach,
crawling for John. He realized this night was very important.
Victoria and he had fought many creatures, but never walking
corpses. Any information gathered would be valuable.

But he also realized that
after a century of no rest the peace he sought was within his
grasp.

An automobile swerved on
the road ahead and crashed into a barber shop. John rolled his eyes
and sprinted for the vehicle. Pulling the driver from behind the
wheel, he helped steady him by his shoulders.

"Are you okay?"

The man only nodded, looking around
with panic in his eyes.

"Listen to me. Head for the movie
theater. Secure it, lock all the doors, whatever you have to do.
Get as many people in there as you can."

The man was still quiet.
For a moment John thought he was wasting his time. The man glanced
around him nervously, and John knew when a human was worried for
his life the last thing he thought about was other
people.

John raised an eyebrow in surprise
when the man agreed.

"That's a good
idea."

Victoria once told him humans liked to
hear their own voices.

"What's your name?"

"Charles."

"Okay, Charles. You can do this. Get
moving. I'll find more people and send them your way."

Charles grabbed John's shoulder and
nodded. He ran down the block, shouting to anyone that would listen
to follow him.

John jogged in the
opposite direction. He counted twenty-six ghouls when they left the
graveyard. He wasn't sure how many humans lived in town. Maybe a
little over one hundred. That's why Victoria and he picked
Monterrey. Fewer humans always made things easier.

The ghouls definitely had a chance at
destroying Monterrey.

He was halfway down the
road when he saw a horse lying on the ground. Three ghouls were
scattered along its body, on their knees. John winced at the sight,
the sound of feasting on raw flesh.

"Help me! Please!"

He looked up at the voice.
A woman was leaning out of a second-story window, firing a gun at
an unseen attacker behind her. She caught John's eye.

"Please!" she shouted to him. "Get me
out of here!"

It was Helen, the most
beautiful woman in town, with the exception of Victoria. He looked
at the ghouls still feasting on the horse, not twenty feet
away.

"Keep quiet, or you'll stir them
up."

"There are men outside the door!" she
said, lowering her voice.

"Men? Not monsters?"

"Men. George Tate and his
friends."

John shook his head.
He tried to stay out of social gossip. He tried to stay out
of
anything
social. But it was a small town. Everyone knew of George's
lust for Helen. Apparently George decided his lust was more
important than the corpses wandering through
town.

"Jump out the window."

Helen looked at John with wide eyes as
she fired once more.

"Are you crazy?"

"Just jump out the damn window. Jump
right at me."

Helen hesitated, but stuck
one leg out, and then the other. She took a deep breath before
pushing herself away from the window. John held out his arms,
knowing this wouldn't be fun. He caught her and fell backwards, his
body smacking the ground. She rolled off of him and tried to catch
her breath, holding her elbow. She looked up in shock when John
made it to his feet before her, and offered a hand to help
her.

"Are you alright?" Helen asked. "I
thought I crushed you."

"I'm fine. Go to the movie theater.
We'll wall in there."

"What are these things?"

"Maybe you'll find out
when one of them takes a bite out of your throat. Now, shut up and
get to the movie theater!"

Helen nodded and ran. She joined a
group of men moving together down the road.

"Helen! Where you going,
beautiful?"

John looked up at the new
voice. George Tate leaned out the window and stared after Helen.
His low-life friends Tom and Frank were on either side of
him.

"We just wanted to spend time with you
while the world goes to shit!"

John didn't know what the
final death tally would be at the end of the day. He did know that
George and his friends would be in those statistics.

The wind rushed out of
John's lungs as the three ghouls closed in on him, dragging him to
the ground. They had finished with the horse, and moved on to the
next closest thing. John flinched as one ghoul buried its teeth in
his cheek. The second ghoul clamped down on his arm, while the
third ripped at his shirt, trying to get at his stomach.

The pain lasted only a second, and
then faded away. The only thing that soiled John's mood was the
stench.

"You little bastards," he
hissed.

John's curse protected him from all
harm. Bullets, blades, fire, nothing affected him. But he was no
stronger than any other mortal. With one arm pinned it was
difficult to push away the ghoul latched on his face.

There were voices right behind
him.

"What are they, George?"
Tom asked.

"You think they're monsters?" Frank
asked.

George spit on the ground, narrowly
missing John's head.

"I don't know. But let's find Helen
while they're chewing on this idiot here."

They tried to walk past.
John lashed out with his free arm and grabbed a leg. He didn't
realize it was Tom until after he fell on the ground next to him.
With another long lunge, John managed to grab the back of Tom's
collar. He pulled Tom back and wrapped an arm around his
throat.

"Let go of him!" George
shouted.

The ghoul holding John's arm let go
and moved over to Tom. It sank its teeth into his arm as Tom
struggled to breathe. John got a better hold on Tom's neck and
squeezed as hard as he could. Tom thrashed with all his
strength.

George grabbed Tom’s hand
and pulled, but couldn’t break John’s grip. George felt for John's
throat and choked him. John breathed like everyone else, but he
didn't need to. He could hold his breath forever. He looked into
George's eyes and smiled as Tom slowly stopped
struggling.

Frank squatted next to George. He drew
his knife back and slammed it into John's head.

The blade only penetrated an inch,
drawing little blood. Frank backed away, not sure of what he should
be terrified of more.

"Thank you," John said,
grabbing the knife from his skull.

He reached out and sliced George's
throat. George let out one final gurgle before collapsing on top of
John.

John pushed George’s
lifeless body away and brushed his clothes off as he climbed to his
feet. Two ghouls were feasting on Tom while the third worked on
George. Frank stood there with his mouth hanging open.

John reached up and felt his head
where Frank tried to stab him. As always, no wound, no scar. Only a
bit of blood.

"Nice try."

He dove for Frank and
stabbed him in the chest. They went to the ground in a heap. He
withdrew the knife and stabbed again. And again. Frank managed to
get an arm up, but that only led to his hand being sliced between
the middle and index fingers.

John didn't stand up until
Frank stopped moving. He felt a brief flash of guilt. Victoria
wanted him to help people, not kill them.

The guilt never lasted
long.

It suddenly got eerily
quiet. The ghouls still feasted on George and Tom several feet
away. There were wails and gunshots from several roads
away.

John ran through the empty roads to
the movie theater, and was surprised at what he saw.

People were making their
way to the theater. Two men held the doors open and ushered people
inside. Fifteen ghouls gave chase from all directions. When a
little girl fell John lifted his eyebrows as Charles and Helen ran
out of the theater to pick her up and carry her.

John actually smiled. It was nice to
see humans were still capable of good deeds.

He stayed on the far side
of the road as he sprinted to the theater. Charles and Helen saw
the man who saved their lives and motioned to him. They closed the
doors after he ran into a group of people just inside the theater
lobby.

"What are we gonna do?" Helen
asked.

John shrugged. "We could
watch that Chaplin fellow. He's funny."

"What?" Charles said.

"I'm joking. We wall this place
up."

The crowd of people became
excited and started shouting. John turned to see the ghouls lining
up outside the theater, pressing themselves against the doors and
glass. Dirt, skin, and fingernails trailed against the glass as
they wailed and pounded.

The people cried behind him. Men and
women held each other and their children, some collapsing to the
floor.

"That's Walter! He just
died last week. My God, what happened to him?"

"Is that Rose?"

"Is the world ending?"

"Quiet down, you worthless cattle,"
John called.

"We're all gonna die."

John nodded. "You might,
if you don't do something besides stand there. Start blocking the
windows and doors. Use anything you can."

"And then what?"

"Then we wait for my friend
Victoria."

*****

Victoria pushed her way
through panicking people as she made her way down the road. Guilt
gnawed at her. John and she had hunted many creatures over the
century they'd known each other. Vampires without a conscience,
wild werewolves, other strange creatures that defied
classification. Mortals sometimes got hurt. But never like
this.

The witch they engaged
forty years ago was only a half-blood. She barely knew her way
around a cauldron. Victoria knew a witch's potential. John's curse
was proof of the powerful magic they controlled.

She never dreamed they were capable of
raising the dead.

Through the scent of
people and rotting flesh she could still pick up the distinct smell
of the witch. Annie was still nearby.

A man struggled against a ghoul on the
ground outside of a pool hall. Victoria almost kept moving. If she
stopped to help every single person she'd never get to
Annie.