A Case of Time-Travelling Shorts

Passing Time - II

II

Bastian lounged on the floor, the warmth of the woman's blood seeping through his veins. This was the satisfaction of a predator. Soon the sun would abandon the humans to his games. Soon. He swept his gaze around the room, savouring the black mould that crept up the walls.

There was at least another hour until the sun set. He glanced at the body sprawled next to him on the floor. An idea sprang to mind; he was staring at the perfect distraction for the night's activities.

"You're going to see the sky again," he told the corpse. "You can finally get even with the bastards who made you live down in this shithole."

Sitting up, he tore his fangs over his wrist. Black blood gurgled out, it had the consistency of Jello. Tilting the old woman's head back, he allowed his blood to drip down her throat in congealing clumps.

She'd been dead for too long to transform properly, which bought on a whole host of problems; anger issues, degraded nerves, brain damage. He hadn't made animated a corpse for nearly a century now.Satisfied she had enough of his blood to survive the night but no more, he pulled his wrist away. 

Bastian hauled the body back into his sack. It was cold now; a dead weight. He chuckled at the joke. He'd leave it awaken somewhere secluded, but still populated with trick or treaters. After all, what sort of Halloween wasn't rife of fright and bloodshed?

Without warning, light forced its way through his boarded up windows. Had his abduction rallied an angry mob? Mobs were delicious. Wiping his lips with a dirty sleeve, he crept up to the window, peeling back the rotten boarding to see who had dared to come this close to his abode.

Unable to believe the sight in front of his house, he hissed. Was he hallucinating? Had the old crone had narcotics in her bloodstream? Bastian screwed up his eyes, and squinted at the moving light. There was glow-in-the-dark frog levitating past his barbed-wire fence. He tried to rationalize it. The frog's armored suit was producing the light, a large 'B' was affixed to his front. Was he affiliated with London's resident superhero?

Bastian despised Big Brother. On his first day stalking the city's streets, the superhero had had the audacity to follow him down into Subterrania with his human prize. He'd made him pay for that; but the bastard's blood was sour, and the body had disintegrated when he'd snapped its neck, leaving only the suit and a pile of sand. Imagine his surprise when he encountered the superhero again not a week later. Big Brother was like a cockroach. He was everywhere, and seemingly impossible to kill.

His eyes adjusted to the light, and he realized the frog was not levitating as much as it was riding another creature, like knights used to ride stallions. The creature - a meerkat- Bastian noted, slunk close to the ground. It sniffed the air and faced his abode growling. The frog glanced at a glowing panel on his arm, and growled back.

The meerkat barked, and scurried towards the pylon, causing the frog's suit to send light sprawling in all directions. Bastian scented the air. It wasn't a hallucination. The duo had a peculiar smell; they smelt of the flooded subway tunnel, and something indistinguishable. How the obscure pair had ended up in the depths of Subterrania intrigued him. If they were spies of the superhero, they'd have to be dealt with.

They had heartbeats and heat signatures, so they weren't robots. But what living creatures would dare to pass his lair with light? Even bugs fled from his presence. With his sack against his back, Bastian left the house, and caught their scent. It stopped at the base of the pylon, and continued straight upwards. No normal meerkat would be able to climb that vertical face. The ladder and wires didn't appear until at least five meters from the ground. As he searched for the meerkat's silhouette, Bastian's ears picked up to the sound of air being rapidly displaced. He leapt backwards, as a sizable icicle impaled itself into the ground, directly between the footprints he'd been standing in only moments before. Cold pangs shot up his spine; nothing had got that close to staking him for centuries. He crushed the ice beneath his combat boot, vowing to do the same to them. They'd be much less intimidating when they were digesting in his gut.