He stood in front of me for a long time. I could smell his sweat through his thick old coat. I could hear his heart beating and see it pulsating in his throat. The rate quickened somewhat as he stood there but I felt no urgency, I felt no need to move, no need to relieve the pressure in the room. I could see the pores on his nose contracting and expanding as he breathed, and I watched a bead of sweat roll down the side of his neck.
“It would have been better for you if you had died,” he said. He spoke quietly but still with the sanctimonious tone he always used, though it was somewhat spoiled but his newfound need to carry a sidearm. “But that is not for mortal men and women to decide only the Lord above.” Here he paused almost imperceptibly. “The Lord determines all things; He has brought you down this path for the glory of Himself and the aid of his flock, though the path is mysterious.”
“The Lord has condemned me to an eternity of suffering and agonizing loneliness both here on earth and afterwards when I’m cast out into the lake of fire, but he has done it for some greater purpose? What? To turn those that he has also condemned?”
He shifted his weight. “Perhaps. But perhaps that Lord has a greater purpose in mind for you. Already you have worked good though I do not know how. Your brother has decided to proceed with his assault upon the General’s forces this winter.”
“He’s dumber than I thought then.”
The preacher grinned. “Oh, ye of little faith. He will not assault St. Louis. Oh no, but why not pick up some ripe new lands south of here where the growing season is longer and the winter’s not so harsh. You and that vampire of yours have convinced him that the north has been abandoned, that it is his for the taking and so he will. That is our opportunity and even more of an opportunity for you.”
“Why should I?”
“Are you already grown so cold towards your fellow man that you do not wish to seem them escape the clutches of the undead fiends or perhaps you’ve already changed your allegiances. If so you’re a paragon of self-interest, or a sadomasochist. You’ll have plenty of long years wandering the earth remembering your human life and the undead life that follows. You could ease your guilt and ease your suffering by helping them.”
“Would you be any better than my brother?” I asked.
“I think the evidence is undeniable?”
“What do you want me to do?” He smiled and leaned in close almost whispering in my ears as he laid out his plans.
When he’d left, I lay back down on the hard cot and stared at the dusty ceiling as I wondered what loyalties I had left and what considerations I should make before embarking upon the Preacher’s request. A cobweb hung in one corner abandoned in the face of the rising cold. It seemed likely that I may die in failure. That did not bother me as much as other implications. The skin across my entire body writhed as if it were a separate entity and wanted to escape me.
Eventually I got up and went to the door. There was no guard, so I stepped outside into a cloudy morning with a constant cold breeze blowing that froze me to the core. The ground was muddy and crisscrossed with all kinds of tracks. Large boot tracks were speckled with the imprints of birds, little bare feet tracks overlapped one another in a beautiful chaotic friendly. Dog tracks came and went as if the mutt had leapt from one place to the other. My stomach growled and I shivered. I was very hungry. The hunger manifested itself as a continual nagging in the back of my mind, like a very mild headache or a song one can’t get rid of as well as a deep-rooted pain in my stomach. I looked carefully up and down the lane but didn’t see anyone who looked like they were watching my hut. I looked longingly and carefully down the path towards the river but then I thought of my previous escape attempts and I began to walk up the path towards the center of the village. I walked as aimlessly and casually as I could, but the vampire body is not made for such strolls especially one as young as mine. It jerked quickly when commanded so that I must have looked like a machine to other vampires, herking and jerking up the lane, my head ticking around like an owl. The men and women who passed me along the path stared at me silently and I kept my eyes averted from their suspicious faces. When turning a corner into another lane I clipped the edge of a hut with a shoulder rattling the tin roof and nearly falling backwards. A child laughed but then dashed away as soon as my head turned towards him.
When I made it to the farmhouse a sudden desire to avoid my brother swept over me so I dashed around the house and into the side entrance to the kitchen startling several chickens into short-lived bursts of mad fluttering. They wobbled through the air like feathered bowling balls as I threw the door open and practically hurled myself into the warm room. A young girl screamed and dropped her dough to the floor. As I looked around the room, I realized that my heart had expected to find Mary there and I staggered, then clutched the table that they were working at to steady myself. Liza stood there as sternly as ever, her fierce visage in no
