At Dusk

It Begins

"What do you want, son?" growled his father, finally pulling up behind him. Dern could have sworn he heard a slight hitch of breath second later.

"Isn't that...Old Man Jenkins?" A note of disbelief had crept into his voice, along with a touch of fear. Jeremy Josiah Jacobson Jeffry Jenkins, or Old Man Jenkins as everyone called him, had died about two months ago, and had been his father's closest neighbors and friends. Dern's family had been kindly given some of his land when they'd had to leave their home by the sea when the town was razed by pirates.

His father tensed up, grabbed a cudgel from beside the door, and headed out, tossing over his shoulder, "Grab the sword, be ready to use it. If anything happens to me, protect your mother and sister."

He swallowed nervously. His father had once been the best sword master in the whole kingdom, having retired from the king's army after sustaining a serious wound that nearly killed him during a siege on the castle had ended in failure. There was still a scar and pronounced limp when his father was tired.

"Jenkins!" his father called. The old man started and turned unsteadily towards the voice. "What are you doing here? We thought you were dead." The figure shambled ahead. "Jenkins?" Another step, and Dern thought he heard a low groan, a sound that sent a chill through him. "Jenkins?!" His father leapt back as the old man darted forward with more speed and dexterity than he'd seen in life. The cudgel descended hard and fast, striking the old man in the head with a nauseating squelch. 

"Father!" Selia yelped, running forward. Dern grabbed her and picked her up to keep her from joining their father. He turned and tossed his sister to their mother, shouting for her to run. Dern looked back at their father, who was now on the ground wrestling with the old man's corpse on top of him.

He ran through the house, grabbed the box of his father's old army equipment, the ornate scabbard, and the sword in its simple sheath before joining his mother and sister outside. They mounted up on his father's horse, Xavir, and took off towards town. Old Man Jenkins jerked upright, leaving his father on the ground as they passed by. His father sprang to his feet, in spite of his injuries, and hit the old man once more with the cudgel, dropping him again. He hobbled painfully towards the town. Dern pulled in the reins, stopping briefly so his father could catch up.

Somehow the horse managed to carry all of them, and they made it to the gates on the southern end of town. The wall surrounding it wasn't large, but they would be high enough to hold off a bear attack, and, he hoped, Old Man Jenkins.