Family, Part Two

Here's part two of my story. I feel like I should have gone over it a bit more to make it better, but I was satisfied enough with the conclusion. As of right now, I'm hard at work on my novel. 12k words in, with hopefully many more to follow. I'll try to keep you guys posted. The dead fell to his knees, silent as he should be. Rafael clenched his fist, feeling the hot blood surging up his arms and down his legs. It was the feeling of invincibility, the allure of the insurmontable. It was the downfall of initiates and veterans of the order. Rafael whispered a prayer as he pushed past the adrenaline. “... heartily sorry for…” murmured Rafael as he knelt beside the corpse. He reached into one jacket pocket, and then the next, searching for any clues as to the monster’s origin. He found nothing. Why would he? Any zoimanta who could craft such refined dead would take care of such basics. All Rafael had were the tracks torn into the winter earth. They would have to do. Rafael draped the jacket back over its owner, the little respect he could give the dead. The man once had a life and family, but here he was, far away from both. Whoever raised him would have much to answer for. Rafael pushed up and on, tracing the spotty trail. In some places it ended before beginning again dozens of yards away. Each step brought him closer to one of the lights in the distance. It had come from a home. His pace quickened, a trot that soon graduated to a dead run. The building was a squat, one-story affair, forged from local stone and little else. It was made by stubborn people who refused to submit to nature, and so tried their hand at mastering it. The thick front door was slightly ajar, and from it the footprints began. Warm light filtered out of the home and onto the yard, warmth in the cold night. There should have been laughter inside, the petty arguments typical of large families, anything but the dead silence that emanated. The structure beckoned to the exorcist, ready to share its secret with him. Rafael wasn’t ready. He had seen his share of horrors for a lifetime. The priest hesitated. His feet carried him forward. He pulled the door open and it groaned. Rafael almost followed suit. Inside sat the family. Their skin was ashen and their eyes dull, each arranged around the den. The children sat by the fire, ignoring their wooden toys and torn necks. The mother was in a chair to the side. She been knitting a red sweater, but her missing fingers suggested she would never add another thread. The father sat at the back of the room, and held a crumpled paper paper in his hands. The hollow sockets of his eyes bored through the print. They were a family, and now they were la fame morti, a mockery of what they had once been. “Where are you?” said Rafael as he pushed into the home. The family’s heads rose, faces flickering with interest. He paid them no heed, stalking through the den and into the kitchen. A man laid spread across the table, red ribs cracked open for the night’s supper. Rafael’s fists clenched as he screamed again. “Where are you?!” He was looking for their maker, for the monster at the center of the abomination. There was a creak to Rafael’s left. The mother approached the traveling priest with eager abandon, her arms outstretched for an embrace. Rafael rejected it with a punch to her jaw. She went flying back into the den as the rest of her family edged forward. There was one last door and the exorcist slammed through it. It was the family’s bedroom. Two small beds occupied the room, neatly made, along with a plain vanity. Most importantly, the man responsible was also there. He was a zoimanta, a perverter of flesh and raiser of the dead. He was a small man for such a large evil, barely above five feet tall. His blonde hair was slicked back, his large brown eyes narrowed. Perhaps his most important feature, however, was the iron in his hand. It was pointed straight at Rafael’s chest. The exorcist twisted to the side as the weapon went off, a rapid succession of gunfire splintering wood and shattering glass. Rafael dived to the floor, a quick tumble that brought him to the zoimanta’s feet. The sinner let out a yelp of surprise before the priest caught him in the gut with a swing. The iron clattered to the floor, followed shortly by its master. Rafael wasn’t done. As the man slumped, the exorcist’s hand was already at the back of his collar pulling him up. Rafael drove his knuckles into the man’s kidneys again and again, making him spasm and dance across the floor. The exorcist felt a thrill at the man’s suffering, a sense of sweet righteousness for every blow he delivered. Rafael’s mind screamed for his body to stop. It took every shred of his will to release the madman. He went tumbling across the floor, landing face first in front of the waiting family. They milled before him like confused children, growls and whimpers rising from their throats. “Why did you do it?” asked Rafael from across the room. “What did they ever do to you? Was their living so terrible? Was their happiness such an affront?” Silence was the only reply aside from the man’s trembling. Rafael felt the rage boil in his chest. “Answer me!” The little man quaked, but craned his neck. He didn’t look to Rafael though, but at the father, the mother, at each of his creations so docile and patient. The zoimanta’s voice was soft, as if he was afraid to break the silence. “It wasn’t because I hated it. Who would hate such a thing, exorcist? No, this…” His gaze was enraptured by those before him, his hands raised in awe. “...I wanted this so badly!” He stood slowly, his hand brushing the face of a little brown-haired boy. “They’re my family now, exorcist. They’re mine and neither you, nor the Papa, nor even God Himself can take that away from me.” A long silence passed through the room. The words reeked of such madness, how could the priest respond? He found his retort lying on the floor. The priest picked up the iron. “You are wrong about that, amico. They are not yours. They were never yours to begin with.” What that the gun roared to life. The father collapsed, a clean shot through a sightless socket. The mother fell next, her serene face marred by a bullet. One of the children followed. The little man gasped and spun, a scream on his lips while his hands waved in the air. “What are you doing?!” he asked, “What are you doing to my family?!” Rafael trained the barrel on the brown-haired boy’s face, the last of the abomination. “Granting them mercy,” he said simply. Before the exorcist could pull the trigger, the little man leapt across the room, slamming his shoulder into the priest’s stomach. The two toppled to the ground, the little man swinging with mad panic more than any real strength or skill. Rafael’s skin bruised and blood rolled from his freshly busted lip. It still wasn’t enough to stop him. With a swat of his hand, the little man hit the ground. Only to be replaced by the boy. He lunged forward, his tiny hands wrapping around Rafael’s throat. He couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve, but his grip was like a vice. The exorcist grabbed the ghoul by the head, slamming an elbow into it once, twice, but with no success. He might as well have been punching a wall. The monster was indefatigable while Rafael certainly wasn’t -- the spots swimming in front of his vision were proof enough of that. The exorcist again reached for his knife, hand fumbling for salvation. He found it as the cold steel reopened his palm. The tattoos pulsated, over his scalp and along his cheeks. Power surged through the exorcist’s arms as his hands clapped on either side of the boy’s head. The room filled with red. The fingers loosened and the body fell, leaving Rafael gasping on the floor. His chest burned and the room swam. The exorcist barely had time to process the black barrel pointed at him. “You killed them all!” shrieked the zoimanta. He had to have grabbed the weapon in the scuffle, the man forgotten in lieu of something far more dangerous. Now here Rafael was, back against the floor while the hysterical man had the advantage. “Put down the gun or you’re next--” The zoimanta didn’t wait for Rafael to finish. His finger tugged the trigger. The exorcist flinched for a bullet that never came. The chamber was empty. The little man stared at the gun in horror, pulling the trigger again and again. All he received for his efforts was the repeated click of an empty cartridge. Rafael stood, beginning his slow approach toward the beast, a greater monster than any roving dead or whispering devil. “Stay away from me!” howled the little man, but Rafael was deaf to his words. Rafael was a man of his word. The warrior raised his hand a final time. Flames licked at the wooden interior of the stone house. The fire was slow to start, but was ravenous once begun. What had really happened at that home was best left a mystery. The madman of local legend had arrived at the house, murdered its occupants, and set flame to the evidence. As he escaped, he met a fateful end in a field not far from his crime. There was no undead, no zoimanta or deformed corpses. There was nothing but a simple narrative that would stick. In the end, people always went with the simple solution. It would be easier for the sanity of everyone involved. It was a lie Rafael wished he could believe. The priest knelt in the field as he watched flames lick the sky. Lanterns danced on the horizon as neighbors rushed to combat a threat that was already finished. Rafael closed his eyes, drawing out his prayer medallion. Christ might be omnipotent, omniscient, but He was certainly not omnipresent. There had been none of God’s love in that home, none of His authority but what the exorcist could feebly introduce. There had only been blood and madness, the former he carried on his coat, the latter in his soul. He could still see the boy’s hungry eyes just before he died. Hopefully Saint Drogo would intercede on his behalf once more. if God was even there.