Ancil“Woooohooooo!!!” I shouted. I was enjoying it way too much.
“So what’s your name?” The Fairymaid asked while I was running.
“Jed.”
“Nice to meet you Jed. You can call me Selena.”
“Nice to meet you Selena.”
We arrived at the village and the bodies were still on the ground but they were barely recognizable beyond their half-eaten faces and chewed corpses. The corbeaux clearly had a feast. These bodies were not infected by the symbiote so they withered away and became food for the corbeaux. The air was filled with the smell of rotting flesh, one that seemed to have consumed the entire nation. My sense of smell was enhanced, just as much as my sense of sight and hearing. My nose felt like it was ready to fall off. I held my nose as I followed Selena who was walking around, looking at each of the bodies. She didn’t even flinch from the smell.
“I checked the bodies already. She’s not here.”
“If she were here I would have sensed her by now. But I sense fresh blood. Fresh human blood. A living human was here within the past hour.”
“How could you tell?”
“There are a million different smells here. Among them is the smell of fresh blood, pumping from a living heart. You can smell it too, if you focus.”
My hands were over my nose so I couldn’t smell anything.
I followed her into a house. She was looking for something, but I didn’t know what.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“The human was in here. The human is in here,” Selena said.
“Well I don’t see anybody.”
“The human is directly below us.” She paused for a while then continued. “It is quite genius actually. Underground is always the best place to hide.” She then rose her left leg and stamped it into the floor, crushing it into pieces exposing the room below. She really did have quite the kick.
As the hole opened I saw someone scurry away below and Selena quickly dropped down and grabbed the man who attempted to flee before he could have escaped.
I went in after her and besides noticing the man that Selena grasped I also noticed a woman embracing two children in the corner. They looked upon me with fear.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, walking closer to them. The closer I got the tighter she grasped her children and the more afraid she looked.
“Stay away from my family you MURDERER!!” The man shouted.
“You don’t need to worry,” I said.
“You murdered all the people in this village. You’re not going to get my family too.” He spoke bravely even though he was completely helpless in Selena’s grasp. If I wanted to kill them I could have without effort.
“If our intentions were to kill you, you would have already been dead. All we require is your cooperation and we’ll be on our way,” Selena said.
“What allyuh want?” The man asked.
“There were some visitors who passed through here about three weeks ago. Six of them,” I said. “Where did they go?”
“We get visitors all the time. I don’t know,” The man said.
“There were three children with them?” The woman who was embracing her children in the corner asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“They come here about three weeks ago but they didn’t stay too long. Probably about two days. They just come to borrow some fuel for their helicopter. They was saying something about going Mas Camp.”
“Mas Camp!” Selena gasped. “My mother should know better than that. The coast is protected at every corner. They wouldn’t have been able to reach Mas Camp without alerting the Coast Guards.”
“Heading to Tobago is a suicide mission,” the man said.
“We tried to convince them to stay but they insisted that they needed to get to Mas Camp,” the woman said.
Selena looked at me and said, “We need to get to Mas Camp.”
