Lost Worlds (my sci-fi short collection)

Black Death (Part 2)

Hal woke in the morning to the sound of moaning. And it wasn't him, despite his pounding head. It was coming from somewhere outside his cottage. He flung on some clothes and seized his bow, then cautiously looked out of his door. After the horror of yesterday he was quite prepared for the worst.

The first thing he saw was Bert Taylor nailing a beam over his neighbour's door. Bert turned a white face towards him, his eyes staring wildly, "Have the demons got ye, Hal?" he demanded.

"What the deuce are ye talking about?"

He saw Bert relax a fraction. "Ye sound yerself, praise be." The other man swallowed convulsively. "In the night, they came in the night." He hammered a final nail into the door and turned to face Hal. "Demons got Dick and his wife," he nodded towards the cottage he had just barricaded. "Turned them black, black with rot." A faint moaning sound came from inside and Bert shuddered convulsively.

"How do ye know it's demons?" asked Hal, unconvinced.

"They should be dead, anyone like that should be dead, but they're still walking, as if they're possessed by something else. Nothing we can do stops them. I know ye're not a believer, but what else could it be?"

Despite himself, Hal felt a superstitious shiver. All rational people knew that there were no such things as demons, few people believed in the old religions since humanity had gone out into space. Avalon might be a medieval planet but that was by choice, not ignorance.

"What does Squire Templeton say? Has anyone sent for him yet?"

"Not yet, there hasn't been time." Bert rubbed an unsteady hand across his eyes. "Dick and May aren't the only ones. Old Sam, who we buried three days ago, he was walking down High Street, going back to the smithy it looked like, but as soon as he saw young Jim, standing there with his mouth open, staring, he grabbed him ..." Bert broke off as if the horror was too great to continue.

"He grabbed him?" prompted Hal.

"Grabbed him and tore half his face off. Jim's dead, Hal. George and I got him laid out in the church, ready for burial."

"What happened to Sam?"

"He's still in the forge, I pushed the workbench over on him, pinned him to the ground. Then I cut his head off with an axe," confessed Bert. "It was all I could think of."

"Did that stop him?" asked Hal, realising that if he hadn't witnessed his own mother walking last night, he would have been totally incredulous by now.

Bert stared at him. "Of course it did. What do ye mean?"

"Let's go and have a look, make sure," Hal insisted, remembering uneasily that the monster that had been his mother had not 'died' until he shot it between the eyes. He was probably worrying for nothing, surely decapitation would have the same effect?

When they got to the forge, there was Sam's body, still on the ground, pinned underneath the work bench and Hal breathed a sigh of relief.

"So where's his head?" he asked, looking around.

"It must be here somewhere!" declared Bert, not wanting to believe his own eyes. But they couldn't find it.

"I think it's time we roused the village, let people know what's happening," decided Hal. "And someone should go for the Squire."

Bert nodded. "I'll ring the church bell."

Moments later, the bell tolled out across the village, summoning everyone to a meeting in the church.

The first to arrive was George Miller, white faced and agitated. "There ye are Bert, I've been looking all over for ye! It's Meg Forrester, her that died nigh on a month ago. She got into her cottage with Tom and the young'uns before I realised what was happening. We've got to go and board them up."