Blue clashed with yellow in the sky. The winds blew through both, pushing the only cloud in the sky between them. The sun, however, kept pressing against the church.
And, of course, the two men sitting atop it.
Sven had his legs dangling over the edge of the tiled roof. His pants- longer than his legs to the point where they could cover his toes if not for his socks and shoes- kept the heat on him as if it were its job to. He'd take them off, but he had company. That was odd; most of the time, people tended to avoid him.
His "friend" was quite rudely smoking a cigarette that he held between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. Simon was wearing the same pants that Sven was required to wear. The fabric- cheap wool that Sven suspected had once belonged to a poor farmer- clung to Simon's skin by the sweat of his thighs and shins. His cigarette burned at the top with a heat that could never match the power of the sun above. Sven swore he could see waves of heat beating against the only cloud in the sky.
Simon brought the cigarette to his lips, compressing them together around the… whatever the small tube was made of. Sven had never liked smokers or smoking, and had made a point of learning as little as possible about it. The only thing he knew about it was that it could kill a man sure as a bullet could. Honestly, who would take poison to their lips anyway?
The flames of the small rod brightened and brimmed the end of the cigarette for a brief moment as Simon inhaled. Foul odors took visible form in the bright light as Simon suddenly coughed, dropping the cigarette onto the roof next to him. The fire dimmed. Simon hacked again, leaning forward over the edge of the roof. Sven didn't react beyond a raised eyebrow.
When the fit of coughing subsided, Simon sighed and sat back. He didn't pick up his cigarette. "Sorry," Simon apologized.
Sven grunted. He stared at the sizzling stick next to the other man's legs. They'd both be sizzling like that soon enough. Bollocks… the church might very well melt down beneath the heat.
Simon noticed him staring at the cigarette and groaned. He picked it up and brought it up to his lips again. He inhaled much slower this time, the flames growing bright again and staying that way for longer. The smoker removed the tube from his puckered lips and flicked the thing away. Sven watched it go.
It fell to the ground quickly, but he was able to follow it with his eyes the whole way. It wasn't a big enough fire to set fire to the grass down below. Since, of course, there was no grass down below. Just monsters.
The demons- as Sven's group called them- were few in number this morning. Only a couple, but it only took one to tear a man's throat out of his neck and turn him into one or them. Sven very clearly remembered his first experience with them. He had been walking.
Walking. Nowhere in particular. Just down a sidewalk on a back road some twenty miles away from any highway. Someone else had been walking through the center of the road at the time, stumbling over every pothole and rock it passed. Sven had merely assumed it to be a drunk man, and had told the wanker to get out of the road before someone else drove over him. But the thing's eyes…
Sven shuddered. The demon had had entirely white eyes. It shouldn't have been able to see him. But it did. Or… maybe it had just heard him and was able to smell his blood at the time. He wasn't quite sure, but follow him it did. Its snapping jaws and fierce groans had sent him running back down the other way.
The demons didn't have minds of their own, that Sven was sure of. Satan must have sent the hell-spawn up to cause destruction as mindless soldiers; at least, according to what he was told by his group. Nobody knew where they had risen up from, but that didn't change the fact that they were there. Wandering around.
Most of them had eyes that were closer to functional than the one he had first encountered, but the image still haunted him to this day.
Simon puffed out smoke from his mouth with an exaggerated exhalation. Sven hadn't even realized that Simon was still holding onto that last breath of death. The smoke formed a trail up towards the sky, seeming to disappear directly into the cloud above them.
Sven breathed out himself; no smoke came out of his mouth.
"I forget why I came up here," Simon finally said.
"Did you feel like jumping after one last smoke?" Sven asked.
Simon have him a flat stare. "I've got a few more still left in me."
"You better not. I know it's not healthy to put things inside you that don't belong there."
"And I know it's not healthy sleeping like you do," Simon said. "You can't be sleeping for five hours a day, Sven."
"Lack of sleep won't kill me," Sven replied dismissively. He didn't particularly have a problem with Simon, but he came up to the roof every morning before the clock struck six so that he could think to himself. Talking was not something he enjoyed, especially with someone who was a real person instead of an imaginary ghost beside him.
"You think cigarettes will?" Simon asked.
Sven looked at the cigarette down below them. The embers had died. One of the demons had been standing over it. "I swear to God I'm gonna outlive you."
Simon's nose crinkled. "Don't take the-"
"Don't take the name of the Lord in vain," Sven interrupted. "Yes, yes. I know your mother would kill me if she found out."
Simon slowly tuned his head away from Sven. "You still shouldn't."
Simon's mother, Katherine, probably wouldn't actually kill him if she found out that he'd been using God's name for no reason, but she would revoke his wine privileges. That would be tragic indeed. "I won't tell her if you won't."
"You'd better hope not," Simon said with a sly smile. "Those demons down there'd be more forgiving than her."
"Of course…" Sven trailed off.
The monsters down below had already taken too much. They were the ones who needed to be forgiven. But he never would.
Simon scratched this neck. "I wish we had some water to spare. It's damn hot out here."
Sven pointed ahead to a dark green patch of marshland nearby directly across from the church. That didn't make a lot of sense to Sven. Who builds a church next to a bloody swamp? "Plenty of water down there."
"Sven, enough with the bullshit. It's too hot for this."
"No one told you to come up here," Sven stated.
"What? You want me to leave?"
Sven said nothing. The demons down below were are looking towards the swamp for some reason.
Simon frowned. "What are you doing up here, anyway?"
Sven kept his mouth shut. What did it matter why he was outside the walls, fighting against the sun? He'd been doing this nearly everyday when the weather was agreeable enough. Nobody had ever asked about it. Simon's interest was purely to satiate his boredom.
Simon reached into his pants pocket. He had to squeeze and twist his hand to get it inside of his pocket, as the sweat of his thighs had stuck the inside of his pants to his leg. He pulled out a small, rectangular object with a flap on top. Simon opened the flap and revealed a trio of unused cigarettes. He pulled one out and put it to his lips as he put the remaining cigarettes in the box onto the roof beside him. "Got a light?"
Sven got to his feet quickly, noticing that the demons were all wandering towards the swamp.
Simon looked up at him with the cigarette still in his mouth. "Hey, I wasn't serious," he complained in a slurred voice. He removed the cigarette and put it next to the box, returning his voice to normal. "Just having some fun. You need to lighten-"
"Someone's out there," Sven said.
Simon looked toward the ground and scanned for anything other than the creatures below. "Where?"
"In the swamp!" Sven turned and rushed to the roof exit back into the church. He ignored Simon's calls and opened the door, rushing downstairs. The church was only three stories up, so he didn't have that far to run, but the heat from before had been very oppressive, smothering his body. He was panting for breath by the time that he reached ground floor.
Sven burst through the door, and paused. He was in the congregation room. There was someone else in the room with him. Odd; most of the time, they would be in the basement for the generator powered air conditioning or the chapel on the upper floor (the one he was in was normally used as a cafeteria of sorts). A woman was kneeling between two church pews, her eyes closed, fingers interlocked as her elbows rested on the wood of the bench in front of her. Her back was steadied by the pew behind her. Her red hair was braided down to her neck, kept short to avoid it getting caught on things like door hinges or the hands of the demons. What was her name again?
No time for that, Sven thought. He dashed down the aisle, his stride startling the red-headed woman. She turned warily as he passed by her and jumped for the door. He got a finger around the handle and pushed it down as he slammed into the door. The thick wood cracked beneath his weight. The door was built to be opened slowly, no forced open.
The sunlight had not faded when he'd left the rooftop in a haste. It momentarily stunned him as he raised his arm above his head to shield his eyes from the intense brightness. When he regained his vision, he saw that the demons were all looking at him.
Bollocks, Sven cursed mentally. Shouldn't have made that much noise.
Panic surged through him as he saw their faces. Even without the white eyes, they were still horrifying.
Sven didn't bother counting them- not because he didn't know how to count- because counting would waste time he could be using to kill them.
They only go down with a headshot, he reminded himself. Sven took a breath and let the fear wash away. The demons began walking towards him. Sven slipped a hand into his pocket for his side knife.
Then he checked his other one.
His eyes widened as he realized that he hadn't taken his knife when he'd woken up this morning. He'd just gone up to the roof without any thought of what he'd do in an emergency. He'd only gone up with his rifle and he'd left that on the roof.
Idiot! Sven looked back at the monsters moving towards him. He looked back between the swamp and church indecisively. Did he have time to go back and collect any weapons?
Someone screamed in the swamp. That made his decision for him.
Sven purposefully walked towards the oncoming host of the hell-spawn. He didn't have to kill them to get past them.
A single demon was very far ahead of the others, and it reached a single arm out for him. The other arm was just a jagged piece of exposed bone. There was dirt and grime all over its clothes. It munched on empty air like it was demonstrating how it would kill him. The only question was which part of him it would eat first.
Sven raised both of his arms and grabbed the demon by its shoulders. Leaning to the side, he twisted and shoved it over his outstretched leg, sending it sprawling to the earth.
Sven kept walking toward the other demons. Three of them were attacking in what was almost a semicircle. That would be tough to fight without a weapon, but he didn't have time to fight.
Sven paced around the edge of the pack to get around them. What the demons did next surprised him, since they weren't supposed to be able to coordinate and keep formations. The demon at the far end of the pack adjusted so that it wove itself between the other two, all still coming at him in a semicircle. They were relentless; slow, yet relentless. It might be best if-
A demon rounded the corner of the church directly in front of him. He hadn't even seen it from the roof since it hadn't been in front of him.
Bollocks. Sven turned around quickly and saw that the demon he'd tripped was standing again. No, not standing. Stumbling. Stumbling toward him.
He was surrounded.
Suddenly, a rough hand gripped the demon he'd tripped by the back of the neck and a sound of sheathing silenced its growls. The jaws of the cursed thing remained open as it fell to the earth, revealing a red-maned woman holding a red-maned knife.
Brooke, he realized. That's her name.
"Get back inside," Brooke ordered. To her credit, she actually looked like she had authority in her posture.
The swamp let out another scream.
Sven charged the single demon that had rounded the church to corner him. He pushed the thing by its chest to get it out of his way. He turned and continued toward the swampland. Behind him, Brooke stabbed one of the three demons below its chin as the other two chased after him.
More demons in front of him began to move to surround him again. Not quite in a semicircle, but in an overwhelming wave of monsters that growled in warning. Sven saw an opening between two demons and rammed through it, shoving both in opposite directions.
Once he was through, there was a pair of the bloody things attacking from his far right and near left, and a third one in a shift from his ten o'clock. He didn't have enough hands to push away all three, and he couldn't flank in either direction because of the cluster behind him. He had to run through the one on his left and hope he could-
A loud gunshot boomed against the skyline. The skull of the one at his ten o'clock busted open in a spray of dark red.
Bloody hell! Sven dared a look behind and saw Brooke with her knife still out. There was blood all over her killing arm. The sound that the gunshot had made was too loud to be anything but a rifle blast, and there was no way Brooke could have handle one with a single arm. A high caliber bullet from a rifle…
Sven looked up at the roof and saw a reflection of light from the sun against the rifle he had left up there in his haste to get downstairs. Simon lifted his head up from the scope of it and gave him a nod down below.
Sven saw his chance. He turned and faced the direction that the dead demon lay in. He heard another gunshot as he began running. Another gunshot rang out, and a demon- the one that had been on his right- fell in front of his path. It was still moving; Simon had only shot it in the knee.
He had no time to react. Stopping short would make him stop right within reach of it and he'd probably trip as well. Sven gave his best leap and jumped as high as he could. Unfortunately, the tightness of his pants made it impossible to lift his legs over the body.
One of its rotten hands caught his foot and made him tumble. Sven cursed as he hit the ground. The bloody demon kept its grip on his foot, even as all of his weight went from midair to hot earth.
Of course, there wasn't any grass outside of the church for him to grab a fistful of to claw himself away, so sticking his fingers into the dirt didn't help very much. Sven cursed himself for being so careless he saw the shadow of the other demon rapidly approaching him. In fact, it seemed to be moving very fast… too fast to be one of them.
Sven turned his head and caught sight of a glint of metal in the sunlight. Brooke stabbed the demon in the head with the red shimmer in her fist. The knife came out even redder than before.
What is Simon doing up there? Sven glanced up at the rooftop and saw a quick flash of light that shot out a booming bullet. It streaked down and cut through the air until it found its way through a head of a demon below. There weren't more than three still standing.
Sven saw a figure behind Simon forcefully pull him to his feet and drag him away from his side of the roof.
Something tackled Brooke from behind, and she cried out in shock. The demon on top of her fell over her instead of on top of her.
Right into Sven.
It hadn't occurred to him that he ought to have stood up, and now he paid for it as the demon flailed its arms for him. Somehow, it rolled right over his shoulder when the stomach- empty, he hoped- had met Sven's shoulder. It landed on its own shoulder, and immediately reached out for him.
Sven flipped his body over in the other direction and crawled as fast as he could. The growls and groans suddenly stopped with a squish. Sven didn't stand up until he felt he was far away enough to do so safely in case the things was still alive. He found Brooke with her foot planted in the back of its head.
Sven heard another scream from the swamp that got cut off abruptly. He turned around and ran through the brush, swatting at branches snapping against him. Sven hoped he wasn't too late. If a man died because of his foolishness in not taking his knife...
A few moments later, Sven placed his foot down and found only empty air beneath him. Sven flailed his arms out, trying to grab one of the branches. His left hand found one, and the wood swung him over that way. He landed on a large rock sticking out of a dirtied pond before involuntarily swinging back. The branch did not have the momentum to carry him all of the way, however, so when he tried to stick his legs out to get back to the dry land, his feet found nothing to set down on, and he was forced to hold on to the branch.
He swung back and forth, desperately clinging to the branch as the human pendulum found its way to a stop. The wood above him crackled. Sven looked up slowly. The smaller leaves had fallen from higher up, and one landed over his eyes.
The branch snapped.
Sven cried out for a brief moment before he felt the stinging heat of the water that drowned the sounds he was trying to make. Sven barely had enough time to shut his eyes before his entire body was underwater.
Mud and grime threatened to clog his nose and ears. Without opening his eyes, Sven picked a direction he hoped was up and swam for what he hoped was the surface. Something slick drakes his back. Please be the branch.
It didn't take him that long to find air to breathe, even if it wasn't fresh. He sucked in air once his head popped out of the swamp water. Sven opened his eyes and quickly searched for a way out of the murky pond. He found the rock his feet had skimmed before and waded over to it. The face was smooth and slick with water- not to mention his own wet body- but he was able to mount the stone in quick time.
He couldn't quite get his feet on top of it, so he was forced to kneel upon the inclined rock. Sven roved with his eyes for the source of the screams. He did hear any screams, but he did see a discolored section of the pond where something large enough to be a facedown body was making bubbles underwater.
Sven jumped back into the water- it wasn't deep enough to submerge him in the area he hit- and ran as fast as the slush would let him. It took him a few seconds to reach the bubbling area, but when he did, he grabbed the body by its clothes and hauled it back out of the water.
The body snarled as soon as its head came free of the water. Sven tossed it aside with a grunt and reached down toward a form still there. It wasn't making bubbles.
Sven found the collar of a shirt and pulled on it. A man's face came out of the water, nose and corners of his lips dripping water. His hair was matted down due to the slush weighing down the curls in the ends. Each of his eyes were closed, but the eyelids were blinking rapidly.
Alive! Sven grabbed his arm below the surface and pulled it out of the water and wrapped it over his shoulders. The man he was carrying was about Sven's weight, but he had no illusions of his own strength; he couldn't lift the man up.
Sven half-dragged, half-heaved the stranger back toward the large rock sticking out of the water. He could hear bubbles from strangles below the water from the demon he'd tossed. Once he got to the rock, he pinpointed the direction back to the church by following the slope back.
Brooke appeared at the edge of the pond. She knelt down and held out her hands for the man Sven was carrying. He shifted the man in front of him and handed him off as Brooke struggled to get him out of the water. Sven tried helping by raising the man's legs, and it appeared to help as she set him down on his back next to the tree that had lost its branch.
Sven pulled himself up by his hands and tried to get one foot up between his hands, but it kicked against the lip of the pond and caused him to fall. He didn't plunge underwater- he'd had enough time to right himself before hitting the water- but it still irritated him that his clothes would stick even longer more. He tried getting out again, placing his foot between his hands as he escaped the pond and standing up on it. He stepped over to the man and Brooke. She looked up at him and nodded. He was still alive.
Sven helped the woman to her feet before he went to help the man to his feet. His eyes were open, but he wasn't moving beyond his chest rising and falling. His fingers were scrunched, glued to his shirt. Sven sighed, bending over to grab one of his hands. He was unresponsive.
Sven grunted as he pulled the man's hand off of his shirt and used it to pull him up. The man sagged, so Sven was forced to wrap his own arm under the stranger's shoulders and walk him out of the swamp.
Sven looked down with satisfaction and saw that one of the man's legs was dragging behind him as he awkwardly hobbled forward on one. The leg that wasn't moving appeared to be swollen at the knee. A fracture, most likely.
Brooke walked ahead of them. Unlike when he had frantically charged through the shifty brush, she took care to avoid certain branches in her path by ducking beneath them. Sven swatted a few of them out of his way.
When he came out of the swamp, Brooke walked a little faster to deal with a stray demon on her right. She made no attempt to remain quiet, and the thing turned to face her upon hearing her footsteps on the dirt. It groaned and reached out a hand for her.
Brooke stepped up to it as Sven passed her. He didn't bother looking back at her killing it; he was content to just hear it. Surprisingly, there were two thunks that he heard.
Sven helped the man inside the church. He walked over to the nearest of the benches and sat him down on it, not caring that both of them were covered in swamp water. The stranger then turned and laid himself down on it. The doors closed behind him.
Sven turned to Brooke behind him. "Thank you," he said.
Her eyes were focused on the front of the area near the altar. Sven followed her gaze. There was a congregation of eight people all approaching. None of them looked pleased.
Sven sighed, standing up to face his group. At their head was Peter, a stout man with a very noticeable blister where his mustache should be. As required by Katherine, all of them were supposed to wear clothes that covered their skin whenever they went into view of others, but Peter was the only one who had ever really needed to wear those clothes. His stoutness probably would have given others nightmares if uncovered.
Micah walked immediately behind him, fists clenched. Micah was shorter than the rest of the group- basically a good foot below Sven at five-foot-ten (yes, he used the American measuring system)- so when he got angry, he could almost be seen as an American Napoleon. Of course, there was no way Napoleon would be as bald as Micah.
At the back of the group, the very recognizable Angus strode confidently in his seven-foot-two frame. The brute from Scotland had never shown any respect for Sven (likely because of their differing nationalities), but never outright hostility in public like what he was doing now. He wore a takama, since they'd been able to find no pants that would fit him. It covered his body down to his calves, and his front was connected by a strong tape. He didn't know where they'd found a takama, since they really hadn't been used since the gladiators had died out, but it appeared to be in relatively good condition. It was easy to clean, too, since it didn't require any soap, as such a thing would not have been found back then.
At the right edge was Marcus; a tall man in his own right. If the Scottish giant weren't there, Marcus would be the tallest. He was missing a few of his teeth on the right side of his mouth, though Sven didn't know why. On top of his skin covering clothes, he wore a vest. Katherine would approve of extra clothes as long as they did not provoke gluttony. He didn't get how a vest wouldn't count as wearing something unnecessarily, but Sven wasn't going to pick a fight with a man who literally looked down at him.
The left edge was covered by Abigail. She had blonde hair that was boyishly short. Sven had actually mistaken her for a man when they had first met. She didn't know, since they never talked. Sven normally didn't talk to anyone when he didn't have to; he only knew their names through repeated ceremonies in the church.
Seven people stopped in front of him. Peter moved past him to Brooke. Sven watched him whisper something to her, then turning around to look at him. Sven opened his mouth to speak, but Peter had no intention of letting him pick how to approach their situation.
"Mind telling us why you brought in a guy we've never met before without asking us first?"
He's trying to make it seem like I made a decision that put us all in danger. Not that far from the truth. "He would have died if I went to ask for permission."
"How is that our problem?" Peter argued.
"It's not. It's mine."
"You brought in a stranger!" Micah accused. "Of course it's our problem."
Sven turned to him harshly. "He would have died!"
"We don't know this guy," Peter shot back. "Maybe he should have died."
Sven circled around Peter so he wasn't surrounded by accusations, placing Brooke at his back. "I'm not just gonna let someone die when there's something I could have done."
Micah stepped forward. "We are not going to bring in everyone we meet. You wanna go save the world? The door's right there, idiot."
"You think this was a good idea?" Peter asked. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Those demons are gonna be coming this way because of you." He gestured at the man. He appeared to be unconscious. "That man is gonna bring death to us."
Sven glared at Peter. "I don't see you doing anything about it."
"Pretty sure you did nothing either."
"Sure about that?" Sven mocked. "Pretty sure I went outside when they were there."
"You got a death wish?" Marcus asked. "I can help with that."
"You don't do anything!" Sven shouted.
Abigail and Peter both started yelling at him, but it was Micah who stepped forward. He looked ready to fight, but Sven just let himself loom over the short man. That didn't stop Micah, as he got up in his face on his tiptoes. Micah pushed, but did not get enough strength behind it to even shake Sven. Sven pushed back by reflex, and Micah took a step backward. Brooke and Peter got between them, prying them off each other as each man tried to reach for the other.
"That's enough!" a voice commanded from above, booming over everyone on the floor.
Sven looked over the shoulders and heads of those before him and saw two people approaching from the altar. One was Simon, who kept his eyes downcast shamefully. The other was his mother, Katherine. She wore her skin covering clothes like she had mandated, but hers was a single dress that covered the entire body. She kept her hair in; tucked between her shoulder blades. Her eyes were a piercing gold, which contrasted lightly with the brown tint of her clothes and hair.
Sven felt a stab of panic and a sense of urgency to run, just as he always did when he saw her. She didn't know, did she?
Simon trailed after his mother as she stepped down the steps to the pedestal to meet the group. She didn't need to use caution over her flowing dress; it fit naturally to her.
"I am ashamed that such violence is prone to man in the house of God," she scolded.
Just speak normally, please. It was always a chore to try and sort through whatever the meaning of her words was when she was speaking to more than one person.
"We are meant to be above such actions of disgrace. We are the chosen few that shall take our own salvation to the grave. We are to send the demons to hell, not each other. Have you no shame?"
"She's right, lads," Angus said. Sven didn't know whether to agree or disagree. "You can talk instead of brawl, right?"
The others had the nerve to nod like they understood what Katherine had meant in the first place. Even Brooke nodded.
Katherine stopped in front of the group, the people in the back parting so she could see the troublemakers. Her eyes rested deplorably on Brooke. She looked down. Sven knew better than to make eye contact. Just as she turned to face him, Sven looked over at the stranger. Bollocks… he could feel her yellow eyes on his body. Eyes as yellow as the sun above.
The man was sound asleep. Despite all of the yelling that was going on a few feet away, he was sleeping. Damn. If he wasn't going to wake up from that, he wouldn't be able to defend himself. I guess the job falls to me.
"Someone tell me who this man is," Katherine demanded.
Sven understood that part. "He's a survivor," Sven stated.
"His name?"
"I don't know," Sven answered, finally peeling his eyes off of the man and returning it to Katherine. "He hasn't had the chance to talk."
"Well, where did he come from?"
"I don't know that either."
"What do you know about him?" Katherine asked.
"I found him in the swamp," Sven said.
"He was screaming pretty loud," Brooke murmured.
Katherine stepped back to address them all. "The Lord has given us the task of tending to each other and keeping faith alive. We help our own and we fight the demons. We do not, however, bring more in than our number of holiness."
Sven's eyes widened in confusion. "We cannot keep him here," Peter said. "We don't have the means to care for him."
Sven nodded. "That's ridiculous. We have more than enough food for us all. We can take care of him for a few days until we figure out what to do with him."
"No, we can't." Katherine moved in close again.
"Yes, we can." Sven looked her in the eyes for the first time. Yellow. Fiery. Heated.
Bollocks… does she know?
"No, we can't," Brooke said somberly.
Sven turned to her. She wasn't looking at either of them, instead choosing pleading her case to the floor. She was standing next to Peter, who kept a hand on her shoulder.
"Brooke," Sven prodded. She did not respond. "We can help him."
"No," Brooke said shakily. She turned to face him. "We can't." Her cheeks and temples were as red as her hair. "The demons got him."
"He'll be fine," Sven asserted.
"No!" Brooke denied with an edge of anxiety dipping into her voice. "They got him!"
"What does that mean?" Sven asked flatly.
"There!" Angus exclaimed. He pointed at the stranger. "He's got a mark on his arm. A bite! A bite!"
Sven turned on the unconscious man sharply. A bite? He hadn't seen one while carrying the man inside. He rushed over to the bench that the stranger was sleeping on and knelt down beside him. One of his arms was dangling beyond the bench and angled to the floor. Dribbles of crimson covered his wrist, slowly gliding to the ends of his middle and index fingers before they dropped to the floor. Sven followed the red up his arm to a wound above the forearm.
Three gashes adorned the flesh in an even pattern. Marked by what could be an upper jaw, a curved path of thin red as long as a hand bled out over the elbow. Two other smaller and more straight puncture points trailed brighter red beneath the longer opening. One was about as small as a stab wound that led in deeper than the others. The other cut through wrinkles from the edge of the longer cut to halfway through, rendering it as long as a thumb.
Sven ran a finger underneath both cuts and pressed in on the skin below. The blood poured out at a faster rate. He squeezed tighter until both of the smaller cuts were nearly invisible save for the red that flagged it.
Something was wrong. No demon had such well-preserved teeth that it would not leave as single jagged mark from either end of the cut. It was certainly as wide as a bite, but the length was too big.
"It's not a bite," Sven announced, looking back up at his group. He stood up, flinging the bleeding arm back onto the man's chest. He didn't wake up from that. He walked through the people that had gathered around the pew.
"What're you talking about, lad?" Angus questioned. "I see the bite on there."
"It's not a bite," Sven repeated. "Demons don't have such big jaws. It could have been a rock for all we know."
"Rocks don't bite people," Marcus stated.
Silence.
Brooke pinched her nose. "Yes, Marcus; rocks don't bite people."
Marcus pointed at Sven. "Ya see? It has to be a demon."
Sven was still in shock at the utter stupidity of the previous statement that he was very confused by Marcus's pointing. Sven shook his head quickly to work up a response.
"Look," Peter intervened. "It's a bite. It-"
"It could have been a rock!" Sven argued again, hoping that Marcus wouldn't speak up so that he wouldn't lose his train of thought. "Bites aren't that big, and they aren't as straight as that."
"Neither are rocks," Abigail said. "No cut is that thin from anything but a tooth."
"Okay, maybe it wasn't a rock," Sven allowed, "but it can't be a bite."
"Why not?" Micah mocked. "Looks like one to me."
"Bites aren't that big!" Sven shouted, reaching his limit. He calmed down a bit before continuing. "Brooke, you know that it's not a bite. Tell them."
Brooke didn't look at him. He looked to her for support and had only seen her back shudder.
"It has to be done," Katherine concluded. "We cannot have a demon in this church, and we cannot let this man become one. We would be no better ourselves." She looked directly at him. "No, we cannot save him. We can only keep him down." She turned to Angus and Marcus. "Put him on the platform."
The two large men nodded. They wordlessly moved over to the church bench and hefted the man up by his shoulders and ankles. Angus just made it look… effortless. It even looked like he was humming to himself. Sven doubted that Marcus would have been needed with Angus on the job.
"Katherine!" Sven challenged. "Stop this! I told you that-"
"How did you find him?" Katherine asked gruffly. "He was under attack, wasn't he? For all you know, it was a bite that a demon gave before he came into our swamp." Everyone else started following Angus toward the platform near the altar, including Brooke and Simon.
"I- what? What does that have to do with anything?"
"They are demons," she continued. "Demons cause pain and death, and not just with their teeth. Who is to say what they have done to this poor man? What happened is between God and this man; not for us to decide. It is his time, and we must help him how we can."
"But you don't even know what he wants."
"It is a task that must be done." She turned away from him. "I am sorry." Katherine began walking to the rest of the group beside the platform.
Angus had already put his charge down. That was fast.
Sven stood still. They had just decided a man's fate in a minute. They had all been against him from the start, not caring what angle he approached. Sven growled lowly and clenched his fists. He stepped toward the procession.
Then he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. It tightened.
"Just let them have their fun, man," a low voice said from behind him.
Sven froze.
He didn't have to turn around to know who was behind him. It was a man who was almost singlehandedly responsible for why Sven had stayed away from others in his group as often as possible. The man who was almost singlehandedly responsible for the way each member of the group had become so mistrustful of others and hateful to people outside of the church. He had only been with them for six months after arriving in a pickup truck with a busted headlight (Sven did not know its current location), but in that time, he had gradually corrupted the others into passionate believers in their own superiority.
Keeping his hand on Sven's shoulder, the man lethargically rounded him, clearly savoring the fear he was spreading. He had a blue denim jacket unzipped and unbuttoned to reveal a green sweatshirt that he wore despite the intense heat. He favored a stubble-ground chin with a dot below the lip of full hair. A blue cap covered his brown hair. The loose, filmy look of his face and leathery skin, coupled with his smile that no snake could match, made Sven flinch. Worst of all: the man had green eyes too round and too big for his head. Perpetually widened, always dangerous.
Those eyes… those eyes!
Nate's devilish grin somehow grew even wider than it had been before. "You know what? We don't have enough fun around here." Nate moved his head in closer and spoke again in a whisper. "I might be able to get some good stuff tonight. Real good stuff."
Sven didn't speak.
Katherine was standing over the stranger's head as everyone else surrounded his body. They each held one of their own wrists out of what Sven guessed was respect.
"Or, if, you know," Nate continued, "if you want to stay sober, we could always share a smoke. Whaddaya say, mate?" Nate pulled back, a somewhat ferocious look flashing in his eyes for a single second. "Wanna share old survivor stories over a few puffs?"
Katherine began reciting a prayer while the others bowed their heads. It was a prayer in which she was justifying the death of a stranger by citing him as beneath the rest of them while they needed to survive for the greater good. When she was performing specific prayers, she was slightly more understandable than when just making general declarations. Sven could see a sly smile on Angus's face, though he was not looking back at him.
"Or, as a matter of fact, why don't we do both? That could be fun." Spittle flew from Nate's mouth as he finished that sentence. Some landed on Sven's face, but he didn't dare move to wipe it away. Nate spitting like that with his dangerous look only displayed a fraction of his bloodthirsty lust.
At the foot of the altar, Katherine- without ceasing her prayers- extracted a long knife from within her robes. He recognized it very well as a ceremonial knife. It wasn't very useful when it came to cutting, but it could prick and stab like the devil himself. She cupped the hilt with both hands and raised it to her chest as her voice rose in anticipation.
Sven was still frozen in fright. WHY?! Why did this man have such EYES?
"Dude?" Nate asked with feigned concern. "Cat got your tongue?" He glanced over his shoulder at the occurrence in front of the altar. "Oh, that." He looked at Sven with a devious smirk.
"Blessed are we," Katherine recited, "who in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for we are truly their keeper and the finder of lost children." Sven knew that she was nearing the end of the prayer by how she was slowly raising the knife over her head.
Sven finally found his breath and inhaled.
"No turning back now, huh?" Nate whispered.
In a rush, Katherine slammed the knife down. Sven saw two people flinch- one of them was Brooke- but the rest remained stoic as the metal pierced the center of the sleeping man's chest and drove all the way down until the steel could no longer be seen. There was very little blood for the cleanness and swiftness of the knife thrust, but there was no doubt that the man had indeed died when his chest ceased all movement. His eyes were closed.
Sven exhaled.
Katherine removed the knife from the dead man, the shining luster now a shimmering red. She inspected the knife for something, then knelt down to place her palm on the dead man's forehead. She bowed her head as everyone else raised theirs. Katherine stood up somberly after a long breath. "Amen."
"Amen," echoed the others around the body.
Nate made a guttural groan beside him. "Amen," he moaned in an exaggerated voice.
Sven turned his head away from Nate's gnarly smirk. The people around the dead man began to disperse, though Sven had not heard a dismissal from Katherine. She herself turned away from the stranger and walked up the steps to the altar. She walked around it and bowed her head in reverence. Sven guessed that she was thanking someone for the strength to do it.
Sven did not know why someone would give her that strength.
"Well, whenever you're looking for a good time," Nate said in an obscenely sensual tone, "you know where to find me." Nate winked. He shoved his hands into his pockets and left, heading for the stairwell to the basement.
Sven sighed in relief. He shuddered visibly, thinking about how close he had come to being killed. Every time that man came near… every time he saw those eyes…
Katherine was no longer in the room. Sven walked to where the people were, but was stopped when someone grabbed his arm from the side.
Not again! No more!
Sven spun to face Nate, but found someone else instead. It was Simon, but he had a demeanor that seemed particularly off-putting. The way his eyes were not looking at him was a direct contrast to the way Nate had been eyeing him. Simon's hand on his arm was the only indication that he had something to say.
"Katherine wants to see you in the hole," Simon said simply. He let go of Sven without ever looking at him and walked over to Peter.
Did Simon just call his mother by her name? Sven thought.
Great. Katherine wanted to speak to him privately in her office, or "the hole", as the others called it. It had no religious meaning; it was just a joke they used. It was one of the few things he had learned from them that he related with them.
Sven sighed, walking over to the stairwell. Not the one Nate had used, in case he was waiting for him there, but the other one behind the altar. Nobody said anything to him as he passed; nobody cared enough to try.
Sven made it up the stairwell without running into Nate, thankfully, but he couldn't let himself forget that he was going to get an earful from Katherine.
Her office was located in the upper section of the third floor. Sven did not know why the church was built to have three floors with an accessible roof, nor did he know why it was built next to a swamp. The only thing he knew about it was its name and that Katherine had belonged to it before the outbreak.
Now that they were a year after the outbreak, the church belonged to Katherine.
He found the office easily enough; it was the door in a green hallway that had a marking on the door that read 'Reverend Katherine' in a silver plating. The other door was simply a restroom.
Sven didn't bother knocking. The door didn't have a lock, so he simply turned the handle and pushed. The room was quite spacious, though that was to be expected considering how large the church was.
What was not expected, however, was that Katherine was actually kneeling on the floor in front of a fireplace. In her hand, she held an iron fire poker that she used to tend the fire. It was barely lit, with just the rims of each log on fire. It couldn't have been lit more than thirty seconds before he'd entered.
It's ninety degrees outside, he thought irritably. If I wanted to be cooked, I'd go back up to the roof.
Finally, Katherine, pushed back the upper log just in the right position at the thinnest portion and the top log began to glisten upon the surface as it slowly grew in brightness. The backlight intensified as the rest of the top log became afire.
I'm gonna get grilled no matter what, I suppose. Sven cleared his throat loudly, announcing his presence. If Katherine was surprised, she didn't show it. She simply sat back on her knees and exhaled, setting down the fire poker against the wall. Mortar. During the winter, the fire couldn't be lit beneath a mortar surface, as the coldness of the walls of the chimney would contain the smoke for days. The fireplace had to have been installed years after the church was finished.
Sven didn't move. He just stood behind Katherine as she looked up and prayed to the Ceiling God. A lot of people were familiar with him, apparently. She wrapped her arms around her arms beneath the robes she wore.
Her skin- at least, the skin on the cheek that he could see- appeared to be fine, so Sven guessed that she was cold from something other than the temperature.
Despite himself, Sven actually felt sorry for her. She obviously regretted killing that man, but she'd believed that it had had to be done. Having someone else's blood on your hands wasn't like having your own blood on your hands. Your blood feels warm and light. Someone else's feels cold and sticky.
Katherine placed a palm on the ground to help herself rise. She stood up and walked toward the side of the room. Sven stepped in and watched her curiously. She was standing over a flimsy, plastic table with several mixes of cream and packets. There was a mug of coffee on the table that she added a packet of sugar to. She then took the mug and went back to the fireplace. The mug was then set down in front of the fire to heat up.
She then went back to the plastic table and retrieved a cup with a small handle that two fingers could slip through. Katherine picked it up and reached for a second. She glanced at Sven.
He shook his head. He didn't drink coffee.
Katherine left the second cup behind and returned to the fire. She nodded slowly to herself like she was counting how long she had to wait. Soon enough, she took the mug and swished it around in the mug before pouring out a decent amount into the teacup she held.
"Katherine?" Sven asked hesitantly. "Are you okay?"
"I am well, Sven," she answered tersely. She quieted down some. "Thank you for asking. Would you care to join me?"
Sven was already too close to the fire. "I'm fine."
She shrugged. "It's not often I use this," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. She didn't pucker her lips, so the temperature of the cup was good for her. "Today I find myself cold."
"I can imagine," Sven said softly.
Katherine eyed him. "What do you think happened?"
Sven hesitated. "You stabbed that man. You feel ashamed of it, and your body is taking a physical response to your feelings."
"Not about that," Katherine said quickly. "I mean why we had to do that."
"It wasn't my decision," Sven answered. "You guys got afraid and you acted on that fear."
"You believe we were too hasty," Katherine said. She put her cup down next to the fireplace.
"We never even learned his name, as you pointed out. Yeah, you guys were not giving him a chance."
Katherine looked away. "Why do you think a praying mantis eats her husband?"
Sven furrowed his brow. "What?"
"Why does the female mantis eat her mate?" Katherine asked again.
He shrugged. "Because she gets hungry during… reproduction," he finished, choosing his term for sex carefully.
She shook her head. "The female will decapitate her husband because it is her duty to bring his genes to their children. The eating comes when she needs to make sure that she can stay alive for her children."
"Okay." He was pretty sure he could grasp her meaning.
"It is the shepherd's duty to protect his flock from the wolf, but sometimes, it is not the wolf that is the danger. It is the shepherd, who fails to keep them from eating each other's food, who kills them when each tries to go off alone." She looked at him intently. "I don't want any of you to leave. I apologize if I allowed others to make your decision seem less.
"What you did was brave in giving strength to those who needed it. No matter what the others of the flock do, it is the individual who makes his choice. It was not your fault that he had to be killed, however. Please do not hate the female for keeping herself and children alive."
"A man still died in the church…"
Katherine picked up her teacup. "I must keep demons out, so I must not open the doors of God's house to them." She took a long sip. "You may bury him tomorrow, if you wish."
Sven nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Katherine."
She gave him a weak smile before hiding it with her teacup, but it was enough. He didn't wait for her to dismiss him; she clearly needed some time alone, anyway.
After going back to change his clothes and shoes, Sven spent the rest of the day sitting beside the platform, reflecting on what Katherine had said. He didn't sit on the church bench, choosing to sit on the steps to the altar instead. Simon had brought him a piece of bread, offering him some more if he would join him, but Sven had declined.
Could he forgive them? Yes. They hadn't murdered him out of a desire for blood (though Nate had held him back because he had wanted some), but out of fear for their own safety. Sure, they would probably resent him for being in their way and for causing the mess in the first place, but he was used to being by himself anyway. He was usually isolated from the rest of his group.
Even Katherine, who had tried hard to integrate him into their group properly, let him be on his own. That wasn't really her fault. It was his. If the group could kill a man to preserve themselves, then Sven could stay quiet to preserve himself, right?
The dead man's skin had grown quite pale in the hours since his death that morning. It was well into the night now, but Sven had yet to turn in. The demons had quieted down outside, but Katherine was not allowing anyone outside until Brooke could deal with them. The plan was for her, Angus and two others to take their weapons outside and kill any demon they could find. Sven hoped that he could join them on their excursion; the faster the demons were gone, the faster he could bury the stranger.
Sven sighed, rubbing his eyes. Why wasn't he turning in? He wasn't doing anything other than sitting down on the floor in his skin-covering clothes. He needed to be well-rested for when he would go and fight the demons. Why couldn't he just go down to the basement and sleep?
Was it something that Katherine had said? Or was it his own worry that the group would hate him now? Sven had indeed fought against them for the man's life when they had all wanted him out, which would not make him any more popular than he was now.
Praying mantises had women who are husbands. Humans had people who would kill to protect. It seemed such a paradox; killing to protect. Hurting one to favor another. Had he really saved the man by bringing him into the church to be killed? Would he have killed him by saving himself and ignoring the screams from the swamp in the first place?
Sven's eyes gradually closed. He saw images that came unbidden. Rocks that had dusted over long ago, now unsettled by feet that could not miss them. Demons that could end a man's life with the smallest bite.
He saw how one was slowly opening its own eyes. They were white entirely; it looked like this demon had no eyes, just fragments of its own rotten skull visible through its eye sockets. The fingers on its hands curled and twitched, and it took its first breaths of its half-life. Now living only with the insatiable need for blood, it groaned a pleading cry for any living creature to feed it.
Sven imagined that he could understand the thing. It couldn't help itself as it didn't have the capacity to feel anything. Satan had sent it back because he could not care for it, so it fed on anything that moved. It felt betrayed. The damnation it had suffered had not been enough.
The whiteness of the thing's eyes found his own eyes, or at least he thought it was looking into his eyes. Its nostrils flared as its groans became growls. With uncontrolled finger movements, it raised a limp hand. The slow, cold hand wrapped around Sven's wrist and tugged slowly.
Sven started with a jolt. This wasn't a dream. This was real!
He let out a cry of pain as the demon pulled. He fell over in the other direction from the demon. Sven broke free from the hand quite easily. The demon's throat made a snarl that rose to its mashing jaws. Sven edged backwards, crawling away from the monster.
His head and shoulders reached an obstacle, preventing him from crawling back further. The demon put one hand on the ground and stood up on wobbly legs. It seemed to adapt quickly, as it walked with its arms extended for him.
Sven gritted his teeth and got to his own feet. He reached into his belt and reached for the knife that he should have had in the morning. It was there this time, and he tightened his grip on it. Sven whipped it own and grabbed it in two hands. He raised it high above his head, both of his thumbs brushing against the wall, ready to plunge the blade through the top of its skull.
It limped forward, basically dragging one leg behind it. The knee was fractured, indicated by the swelling in front of the knee.
The demon's eyes were on him again. Bollocks!
Sven's own eyes widened in fear. Those eyes were not natural! How? Why?
Sven was too transfixed on the whiteness of its eyes to do anything as it drew closer. Both of its hands found his shoulders before he thought to do anything about it. The knife fell out of numb fingers and clattered against the ground with a clang. Sven did not look at it; moving his eyes was too difficult.
His hands were outstretched before him instantly, trying to push away the demon. Sven was quite surprised to see that his shove had sent it tumbling over; the leg had given it such a weak base that any force put onto it could send it down.
Its eyes were no longer on him, and he found himself freed. Jumping into action, Sven reached down and picked up his knife. He slid down on his knees beside the demon and raised his knife.
Whiteness. There was nothing there!
The eyes once again held him frozen. His mind screamed at him to finish it off already, but his hand was not functioning right.
Shaking, a grey hand reached up from the ground. Cold, firm fingers wrapped around Sven's throat. Its hand pulled him closer as he desperately tried to keep his knife in his own hand. His head shook, and a strangled cry escaped from his lips.
There was a flash, and suddenly, the fingers around his throat slackened. The arm of the demon fell down beside him. Blood was pooling around the head that was no longer moving.
Sven saw a hole that ran through both temples of the demon's face. One of its eyes- the one next to the pool of blood- was red due to the hole leaking into the eye. The other was dull.
Sven looked to his right and saw Brooke with a gun in her hands, silencer covering the barrel. She seemed extremely frightened before she shut her eyes in a regretful posture and tucked the gun away. It wasn't until Brooke looked at him that he began moving himself.
He lowered his hand holding the knife, feeling ashamed that he had needed help dealing with a single demon. He hadn't felt so inadequate since the early days.
Sven stood up. "Sorry, Brooke," he said, though he wasn't sure why.
She didn't answer him. She was still looking at the corpse. Brooke's feet scraped across the floor as she moved toward him.
Sven looked away from her. He glanced at the head of the demon. His hand reached out to close its eyelids, but his hand fumbled across its face each time he tried. He finally settled on turning its head so that its cheek was flat against the ground.
"I don't understand," Sven mumbled. "I thought that wasn't a bite…"
"It wasn't…"
Sven looked back at her sharply. "But, earlier… when you said…"
"He wasn't bitten," Brooke said in an eerily quiet voice. "But he still came back."
Sven knelt down and inspected what was left of the demon. The leg was broken, but there was no torn fabric there that would suggest he had been bitten there. Sven lifted both pant legs just to be certain, but still found nothing. The wound on the now dead-again man's arm was the only part of him that had been bleeding before he'd been killed by Katherine. Sven took a hold of that arm and raised it, checking the wound again. It hadn't festered or blackened when the man had died, so the wound was only superficial. Definitely not a bite.
"Maybe he swallowed some infected water?" Sven suggested. "That pond out there wasn't exactly clean."
Brooke didn't look convinced. Sven thought about his theory and saw something that he should have seen before. If a demon bit a person, they died. Bites were caused by teeth, obviously, as Marcus had pointed out during the argument over the wound. If demons were carrying infection everywhere on their bodies, then they were basically walking death. There was nothing special about their teeth, then. Any contact with their skin to a live host's blood would infect them.
But why did only humans become demons when infected? Sven had seen several animals skewered and devoured- squirrels and rabbits, mostly- by demons, but the infection that the demons carried would spread to the animals then. So why did they stay dead when that happened?
Sven came to a conclusion that made sense. Cruel sense, but it could be looked at as logical, as it suited a lot of people's deaths. There was no way so many people as there were demons could have been killed by the demons; humans would have eventually learned how to avoid or stop them after a while. So what about all those who weren't bitten but still stood back up after death?
Sven shut his eyes. What if… what if everyone in the world was already infected? They were just prisons that kept demons caged until they died, and then the demon would escape and take over.
He felt like crying. He'd become a demon no matter how long he lived. Why not just get it over with now?
No, he thought. Don't give up. This doesn't change anything. Just keep on living. I don't plan on dying anytime soon. When the time comes… oh, God…
He opened his eyes, forcing his welling tears to stay where they were behind his eyes. Brooke had no idea that he'd just pondered killing himself. Her face was passive, despite how her hands spasmed.
Did she know this was going to happen? "Brooke," he began with a dry voice. "What happened?"
Her face scrunched in alarm. That was all the indication he needed. He stood up again and stepped towards her, accusing. "You knew we were all infected! How could you not say anything?" She had seen that Katherine hadn't stabbed him in the head, right? Was that why she was down here with her gun? To finish the dead man off?
Brooke looked at him with an expression of befuddlement. "What? No!" she denied. "What are you talking about?"
Sven searched her face for any clues, but he found nothing. He decided to press forward. "This man wasn't bitten; you said so yourself. So why did a dead man who wasn't bitten try to eat me?"
"How should I know?" Brooke demanded. "Maybe he'd had enough of your attitude and decided to do something about it."
Sven opened his mouth to make a retort, but he stopped himself, realizing that Brooke truly had no idea what he was saying. "Never mind. You just said he wasn't bitten. Why did you say that he was?"
"Because you wouldn't stop arguing with everyone and making the saying the same thing over and over and fucking over again!" She clenched her fists. "Dammit, Sven. You were gonna get yourself killed with him. Is that what you want? How about you show some gratitude to someone who's saved you a dozen times today?"
"Is he bitten," Sven breathed, "or not?"
Her face softened before crumpling in sorrow. "No."
"Then what happened?"
"I cut his arm," Brooke said.
Sven started. "What?"
"I cut his arm while you and Peter were yelling at each other," she explained quietly. "I needed to get you guys to stop fighting and just let him leave. I thought we would just kick him out of the church, not kill him."
The wells of tears behind Sven's eyes were starting to overflow.
"Brooke… why?" he asked pleadingly. This was a lie. It had to be.
"I didn't want anyone to die, but we couldn't have taken care of him," she explained, on the verge of tears herself. "He couldn't even walk. I just wanted him gone." Brooke put her hand over her eyes, turned around and rushed away.
"Brooke…" Sven said, reaching out for her, but she was out the door already. He didn't have the strength to follow her. His legs gave out underneath him, and he fell to his knees. The tears that he had resisted now began streaming out steadily.
The knife that he had in his belt seemed so much more heavy now.
Disclaimer: The characters and base concept of this story are from "Walking Dead: Season Three", a completed fanfiction developed by Drexbann15 and TWDGamerKenny'sBro. Likenesses, traits, and background of characters other than Angus, Brooke, Katherine and Sven are created by me, with the exception of Nate, who is a Telltale Games character. Be sure to check out the ending of this tale on Drexbann15's profile.