Mission 06: Romanticide
Their plan unfolded naturally, the red soul and his companions for the time being making the most of their sullen situation. The widow gulped to herself. Night time was dreadful, more for the fact that it limited vision too much and played tricks upon the mind. She often found herself wondering what was out there, hiding from her in the shadows, the soul of it stripped by the sheer concept of darkness. The world was so different in the day time. Colors illuminated everything, leaving no possible corner untouched with its glistening sunshine. Yet here, at night, it all became sinister, blinding people to the true form of this world. She took a step forward down the blackened street, determined to find this woman no matter what it took. A few feet behind were Dante and the scarred mercenary, watching her carefully. Dutifully, weapons drawn, they kept vigilant eyes on her and the surroundings.
Sweat beaded on the side of the widow's forehead.
The hunter remained calm, assured.
Deep inside, he felt a cold shift.
"So, do you think she'll show?" the lady muttered.
"I honestly don't know," Dante sighed. "I hope so, I wanna get a look at this thing."
In the half-light of the alley, the widow could feel something strange, a pulsing in the very fabric of the air. The temperature dropped without warning, and a shiver jolted through her back. She could see her own breath, the fog raising up to the sky as the chill kept her isolated, feeling a predator would soon strike. Her ability to ponder this made sure she was on borrowed time. A trash can rattled behind her, the lid rolling out into the alleyway, spinning and spinning and spinning without a seeming loss of momentum, until it finally stopped in place. Then, it just fell down. The piercing clang unnerved her, its metallic crash scolding better judgement. This was a dumb idea, her skin was covered in a potentially lethal substance, and it was now freezing.
A crow cawed in the distance, its wings fluttering away.
Despite the city's association, it was a misnomer, there usually wasn't a crow to be found anywhere near the place, at least not during this season.
She stumbled back, looking all around for the killer, but she couldn't see anything. Only the moon illuminated small portions of the street, glistening off the greasy blacktop. She tried to make her way to the street, not daring to turn her head for fear of the woman emerging just out of the corner of her eye. A noise of something scaly croaked out at her, its wet texture oozing sickening slops over and over.
She slowly came to a halt as she realized it came from behind her.
She could hear fizzles, like a soft drink crackling away in a plastic cup at a restaurant, the noise close to her ears. It was coming from the ground, hollowing out the tar as it ate away. An embalming wave of hot air hit the back of her head, its release accompanied by a horse-like sigh and chuckle. The warmness kept surging back and forth . . . just like breathing. She slowly turned, knowing within this was be the moment something finally happened, the licking woman had come for her.
Cold, lifeless eyes met her gaze, mechanically fixated on the girl's face. The eyes lacked pupils and irises, and red veins were pumping blood to the center of the sclera.
A grotesque organ hung from the maw, the swollen, convulsing movements juxtaposed to the stillness of its master. The tongue was as morbidly massive as the stories said. The woman stood there, her vessel frigid, swaying rickety from side to side after human eyes finally took notice. It was something that just shouldn't exist, the disgusting size and wagging glee. Of the many reasons a person wasn't supposed to roam the darkness, one couldn't help but feel this was a primordial reason, birthed from genetic memory of an altogether different time.
A tongue so giant it would not know proper etiquette beyond stain removal.
Worst of all, it made the strange woman look as though she were smiling back at the widow. Jaw mangled and broken into a crooked grin, it was all the permanent to swallow her whole.
Air filled the widow's lungs.
"Aaah!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, the sight so horridly without understanding she didn't even comprehend what she was looking at.
The woman raised her bony hands, black ratty hair flowing in the chill as she came after her, almost hovering on air. She glided towards the widow, arms outstretched to greet her.
She made so many noises, muffled by the soaking muscle.
She turned back, darting towards her allies, but she couldn't see much further than an arm's length. The darkness was engulfing her, slowly but surely. Still, the girl pushed through, forcing herself onward from this waking nightmare. The licking woman remained pursuant, seeking flesh to gorge on and the girl's exposed arms, her cheeks and eyes, her forehead, the nape of her neck. In the midst of it all, an overwhelming sense of sorrow and hatred grew into a festering plant, weed-like fissures of tendrils wrapping around her and slowing her down, like someone had begun dumping a thick honey down on her
Her movements slowed, the physical black of night choking her in the woman's grasp.
She heard laughter nearby, and the licking woman sauntered toward her as it somehow bound her in place, left unable to even move.
She became trapped, like all others, in the bitch's oily clutch. What was this? It felt like a haze of fear had come over her, paralyzing her, choking her. Slowly, she felt the woman's tongue wash her over, the eyes so controlling yet empty, lacking humanity of any degree. The surface felt rough, yet greasy like a homeless dog's, marinating her skin. The tongue twisted in a spiral, slathering each of her arms before moving to her cheeks. It closed around her face for but a moment, swirling like a squid's greedy suckers. The licking woman relished the taste, sweet as candy, until—
Abruptly, it weaved back from her, clutching at its own throat.
The darkness broke like glass, shattering around her to the old lanthorne still lighting her way. Free now, she felt her skin start to become sticky, growing sallow in color from the chemical reaction.
Its saliva burned against the cyanide, leaving her skin brown but relatively unharmed. It clasped its hands around its neck, the cream burning off layer's of the tongue as the licking woman screamed.
The shriek pierced eardrums in a colorless spectacle.
The duo rushed to her side, bewildered at the change. From their perspective, time only slowed, Lizzy appearing to stand still for several moments on end before the illusion shattered. The shift tore reality to the surface again, and there, they saw the disgusting mess of the licker-wench, nearly collapsing as her flesh smoldered into black scraps. And meanwhile, the widow was tanned, collapsed backward onto the ground out of fright. The evil maiden's mechanism involved distortion of space.
He'd like to know how that worked . . .
Lady fired her black Uzi trained on the licking woman's body.
It wailed and jerked about as the bullets tore through.
Not dead yet.
Dante fired a bullet; hit it square in the eye. Blood meekly flowed. He swung forward Rebellion and hacked at its side. The woman's stomach split.
She crashed to the ground like a sack of manure.
As it turned stock-still, the flesh on her throat seared away to reveal scorched innards. Its jaw was so distorted, looking crushed and warped out of proportion, it was positively bizarre. Lady had never seen anything like it before, its creeping tongue grown beyond recognition. This witch had been able to avoid so many a gun barrel, she'd slipped through every conceivable grasp. Yet, there she lay, now dead, motionless, still as a corpse.
Lizzy yelped as she looked at her steaming skin.
Dante took another vial of Ambrosia, this time splotches of red glowing within the bizarre green liquid, as he force-fed the drink to the frightened woman.
She downed the unholy substance reluctantly. Its taste was bizarrely sweet, her panic preventing legitimate consumption of a rather enjoyable substance. It was cut with a bitter dark chocolate-type taste, and something else she couldn't quite define exactly. What was in this stuff? It made no sense to her sense of taste. She felt her terror vacate, the Devil's potion repairing any maladies, both old and new, despite the fact her skin was only slightly burnt from its synthetic backlash.
Any leftovers evaporated in the green radiance, a swirl of health washing over her numb skin.
Her own eyes wouldn't explain what happened, neither would her experience last she saw it. Her eyes bolted around, exclaiming a resurgence to the skies as she then looked to her styled savior.
"Th-thank you!" she hurriedly told him. "Is it over!?"
Her question was hushed but urgent. She looked around, and the woman laid still away from them.
He nodded, "Looks like the cyanide did the trick. Gave you some Ambrosia cut with saffron, penicillin, and, uh . . . maybe some methamphetamine."
He looked around shadily at the omission.
He drew some minor scorn from the scarred woman. She kept the weapon pointed at the carcass, but huffed a graveled sigh. Dante stood, picking the client up from the cracked pavement.
"It's just an experiment, looks like it worked. You should be safe from any lingering poison," he commented.
"Yeah . . . yeah," the woman replied, staring down at the corpse.
She felt haunted by that face as it rested against the ground, those lifeless eyes staring into the wall.
"I wasn't feeling any pain," she said.
"Gotta admit, you were right, the plan worked," he said, lost in thought for a moment. "Well, we shouldn't linger here. I'll go call the chief."
He strolled over to the scarred girl, her stern face keeping guard over the misery-maker. The marks on her face were light, but they ran deep certainly, she didn't trust that she was truly gone. That was a good thing, some demon's like to lurk, playing possum in a manner of speaking. Still though, the matron lay dead, like a human being. This disproved his demonic theories outright. So, a witches curse? Most likely, either that or a creature from some other dimension, trying to puppet itself as though it were one of them, one of every ordinary person. He still had unanswered questions.
The widow slowly approached the corpse, looking down gloomily.
She pondered what to do with herself now.
Part of her wished her death to come through the licking woman's demise.
She couldn't see herself going on without Brian, or Buddy. They meant too much to her.
As she kept staring, Dante walked with the scarred lady, the moonlight's reflection in the puddles of the street throwing back a desperately empty city. He started dialing the proper authorities. Best not to languish in refuse, lest they begin to smell similar. Cracking new ground was not a task for tonight, merely a seek and destroy deal. Still, she stayed right there, plastered in place. She hadn't even realized they were gone, time seeming to freeze where she stood. The deceased woman's face was so disgusting, especially after death, the shape of it looking excessively malformed when exposed this way, so much so that she couldn't truly call it human.
Her company was leaving her, assuming the woman was right behind them. She wasn't.
Something started to move. Amongst the blood, a fizzle began as it foamed at the mouth.
Slowly, a puddle formed, eating away at the ground.
Her eyes widened as the tongue began to twitch on its own again, floundering around its mutilated home.
"What the—?!"
The eyes opened.
The cadaver began to breathe heavily, sclera shading a solid vermillion as though suffocating and tired, blood filling in white. Her arms jerked around, forcing the rest of her off the ground as she wobbled on both feet, having returned from the gallows. Sucking darkest clear, she licked her lips, that warbling parlance slurping all across her fissured lips. Her movements were contorted, hands curled inward, disturbed and seizing. The licking woman had risen, sniffing the air as her throat closed itself, and the organ wagged about.
What kind of ritual misery was this? The hag had risen once more, exhibiting a special kind of pain-monopoly unlike any other nightcrawler.
The widow's lungs ceased healthy operation, her heart almost punching itself through her chest as she watched her most hated foe rise, reborn with insufferable vigor.
Shadows shrouded her, and once more, she was made to bear the woman's supra cosmic hold. She felt to scream, needing to do so before it was too late. Though restricting her every moment just as before, she knew there was some time before her voice would give out under the crushing hold, it's tonality blunted. Each step, the licking woman came closer to her, pulling forward to inevitable destiny, spitting little croaks and gurgles as her spindly black fingers drew near.
Marred with grime, her all-consuming ebony hair flowed about, magnificently ghastly.
And Lizzy screamed, her desperate plea echoing out into the sable void.
But no one came.
She was left to the woman's approach, her damaged frame hobbling ever nearer, and her maniacal face turning more distorted with rage in each step.
It hissed at her. The maimed thing dripped corrosion from its salival facets, almost touching now. She'd pay for that little cyanide trick, depriving her of food.
Stupid bitch stayed around too long, a perfect idiot.
The widow felt her life flash before her, but still she believed someone would come, if not her new allies, someone had to help her. Infantile and sad, but hopeful nonetheless. She saw on the woman's face something shocking. There was a look of sadness in the siren's eyes. Its pained, ghostly reluctance somehow reaching for her season, for passion, becoming so oddly sullen.
It rolled closer, the worm pulsating, marching undeterred.
Lizzy shrieked, so distressed as blistered death came inches away.
. . .
That very instant, a claymore sword gleamed in the cool moonlight, distracting both. It crashed down on the woman's tongue, the blade embedding itself through fetid tissue.
To their surprise, her flesh was thick, armored against this method, despite the cyanide's great effectivity.
"Hey there babe," Dante said with a smirk, "Sorry for cutting in. Ya scared? Thought you were followin' us, it ain't good to stick around little bugs like this."
The licking woman lurched back, agonized by the new divot inside her. Blood spewed around as she staggered back, her skeletal frame belying a sturdy strength.
And that was when things went wrong.
With a dirging howl, all the tendons across her body tightened and swelled, growing more muscular as she began to alter. The form distorted, and the woman turned bestial, eyes burning to embers. Her arms elongated further, her fingers now wiry, scraping the floor. The nails fell off as the bed to support them thinned into obscurity, a design of circles appeared over her skin, non-euclidian. The tongue swelled the wounds shut as it grew even larger still drubbing waves of curls and reaching ever farther. Her gut bubbled into a pregnant cyst, hanging below her sagging breasts as the dull, red dress she had worn ripped slowly. The garment's worsened state remained applied but damaged, it fused into the decaying blubber, like a surgical modification. The burning orbs in her skull that passed for eyes grew greater than her head could house, and burst out into flaming antenna stalks, the face behind them warping out more and more.
So much for 'humanoid.'
Heavy steps accompanied those clawed feet, fish hips supporting its sprawling gut. The gap between those constrictor thighs had become a mass gap.
Enraged by pain, it trampled carelessly through shallow puddles.
A bullet rocked its head back, halting the hideous beast in its tracks as Dante stared it down, hate in his eyes. It staggered forward, recovered, as he swiped upward with Rebellion. It hit one of the stalks, sheering off an eye as he brought the blade back down at its belly, gauging rightward steel menace. A meaty forearm stopped his metal, its pale grey flesh splattering puss from the rancid circular boils. Sores grew from the wound along its arm as it bashed him backwards across the face, rushing after him.
He brought his free arm up as it closed it's arms around in a bear-hug, lifting him off his feet as it tried crushing his back in, that gargantuan tongue dragging against his face.
The slayer grunted to himself. Phlegm drenched his rugged features. He felt the beginnings of a tingling form on his mug, a warmness almost fizzling, stinging his supernatural body.
It was like his face went numb, pins pressing steadily into his cheeks. He didn't know what it'd do to him.
He jammed the barrel of ebony through the loose eye socket to horrid wails.
Punching the trigger, out surged an electric shot, a bright blue pulse emerging as its head whipped around, the ghoul relinquishing its hold. Though he landed feet-first, he instantly staggered. He grasped his head as the beast's warm toxin swiftly turned to a blaze. Smoke rose for the sky, his countenance scalding. He clutched hard and stumbled into an almost-decrepit crouch.
"Aah!" he roared, impossibly tortured.
This thing, for all its foreign qualities, would not be felled by a bullet to the head. It barged forward power, smashing his frame into a wall with its uninjured arm.
The hunter dropped his blade, clutching his face with both hands as he fought bitterly against the pain. Seemed he was far more sensitive than the average human.
Grizzled, the licking woman stopped and stared at the girl, so starless as she backed away. Then it smiled. It was the single-most incomprehensible thing she'd ever seen, it's already-twisted face becoming unforgettable, yet somehow indistinguishable, uninhabitable, broadly impossible to the hemispheres of her mind. It reached out a hand for her with its sinewy limbs, extending suffering her way. An explosion ripped through intention. Its back split open, melting as a detonation of shrapnel and fire engulfed the flesh. It toppled over, face fissuring the floor. The distorted entity crashed before the widow, her feet mere centimeters apart from that corrosive lingua.
She fell on her back, scrambling to get away till she was next to a dumpster in search of safety.
The scarred girl prepared another assault, locking and loading a second missile. It took time as she lined up another shot, the thing picking itself back up.
It crawled to its disparate knees, dragging its unwieldy head back up to look at the woman as it scrounged its abnormal arms around, chaotically rigid like tree trunks with tumors.
The lone retina remained a pure flame, it gazed back at the woman, vowing to scour her black fringe as it lunged off its feet. That second wind was fleeting, as the lady pulled the trigger.
Machinery screeched and the missile flew.
The unknown met molten steel.
From the shell burst forth magnesium and TNT, penthrite cut with the mixture for an added kick. A massive inferno engulfed the aberrant monster, chomping its jaws around the mutant form. The flames engulfed her entirely without prejudice. Smoke and cinders blistered flesh. The widow held on tight as she tried to push through the heat, her mercenary aid funneling the fire out through the alley into the abandoned street. From the smoke came the licker, its body soaring 'cross the night street. The blackened thing crashed into a concrete wall, charred yet moving slowly. The tongue was mostly shielded by its own thick saliva, emerging unscathed somehow as the creature climbed back to its feet, still animate.
It let out a low rumble, growling vicious as a rabid boar. Parts of the rotting skin singed themselves away, revealing a maggot-infested husk beneath, malformed into an anorexic gorilla's frenzy.
The thing raised its only enduring hand, the pointed fingers fully-sharpening to talons, and that absurd macabre-grin returned. It stomped toward them.
Only a fraction of its left arm remained. She could see a fury in its antenna, the one glowing bright like a crimson star. She couldn't prepare another shot in time, so she resorted to old faithful, drawing out her Uzi-9-millimeter automatic. She held steady and shot straight. Lead showered it, gun shouting minimal in slowing the creature's progress, boring at her full-throttle and resilient, resembling a decaying bull that had its left horn sawn off.
Preparations to crush, lacerate, soak and swallow were made extra-special for this here brunette bitch.
A brilliant crimson bolt broke the beast's face, hauled through the air defiantly. The top half of its crown vaporized clean off, nothing left behind. In its place rose newborn tentacles, slime-ridden and primordial. They whisked around the air as Dante came to stand before it, sword drawn, hungry to brawl for the road. His face was gone, replaced by a smoldering white skull, smiling wrath back out. He'd left his face sizzling on the ground, wasting away into tumorous ash. Pragmatically, removing what bothered him was the best move, and so he had, tearing it away like a scab. He was rendered a lich with silver hair, grimly facing off to protect both his companions. This thing would be erased from existence if he had a say.
He wouldn't make the same mistake again.
Wriggling poles flicked around through the air, the licker's brain gone, but its body still moving somehow. So, consciousness was driven by a different body part.
"Come get some," he said.
And the beasts went to war.
They slashed one another brutally as it spat globs of diseased mucus, body continuing to mutate as he mutilated. Demented and a Hydra, it grew back different demonic limbs every time he cut back a humanoid one. Always chaotic, never symmetrical. She left the ground lunging, tongue ready to wrap around as he struck his brand downward. Black blood sprayed, covering the streets with a substance indiscernible from oil. He put a gash into the side of the thing, the host reacting vividly as it shrieked backward. He sailed backwards, spine hitting a car door. The hunter pulled himself free, sword in hand. He turned 'round and hauled off another powered shell from ebony's black mouth, puncturing a hole through its stomach. Out discharged a suppurated liquid, carrying tides of filth. He saw an opportunity and thrusted Rebellion forward— the stinger— a crimson scourge powering through the steel as he plunged it onward into the licker's belly. The blade gored its side, propelled by his fist in a blur. Feet dragged the ground, evil torn from steady stance. He left the road behind. So many feet traveled, hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging.
His eyes went red, transfused with plutonian might. The long tussle was difficult, like a bad flu. Death strung its flesh up like a puppet, consisting of a government of worms.
Agonized claws clenched his skull, trying to push him back as he struggled to fight against the licking creature's surprising brawn, trying to crush with cursed power his undying spirit.
Claws dug into his right shoulder, scraping bone and rotator cuff. The head-tendrils flung downward, forcing themselves through the devil's skin and veins, pumping sickly, like robust augers. He snarled, pain overbearing and its cheap tactics vexing. A smoldering rage built inside him, gushing up to the surface till it spilled berserk and plenty.
He ground his fingers into his hands, his knuckles snapping, cracking, then tightening like an old whip. His loosening grip constricted, compressing as his irises flared.
He glistered scarlet, enflamed, and grasped the hilt with both hands, strength revealing itself.
With all his might, he cleaved the blade through its side, severing the top half from the lower.
Propelled by sheer torque, the beast spiraled through air into the ground. It struck its neck, flipping over onto its back from the momentum that remained. Once so threatening, the creature laid roiling upon the ground now, bare like a newborn. A really disgusting newborn. Dante tore what it left behind from his veins, stomping on rancid flesh into nothing. The creature's tentacles still wiggled around, lashing out for anything nearby. With a scaled shout, Dante brought the blade down, hacking off what unnatural feelers from brain stem it retained.
That wasn't enough.
So, the man cut through the stem itself.
Still, he saw the body twitch. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
He took both his pistols and unleashed a torrent of gunfire, blitzing shell after shell into its miserable heart. Ebony did his job, Ivory added insult to compliment, together facilitating another supernatural execution. He didn't stop till it laid dead at his feet, and after awhile, it stopped moving again. One more for good measure. He pulled the trigger and the hammer spat out one more cartridge, its chest breaking apart in black lysergic chunks.
He paused, resting the firearm at his hip.
Another bullet pierced the corpse.
He wouldn't take a chance this time.
For a moment, he relaxed.
The body, so thoroughly damaged, it sprang to life trying to crawl, run out of mutations. Shocked, he staggered after it.
"Jesus christ, doesn't this thing ever die!?" he yelled.
Stamping his boot down on its left shoulder blade, Dante raised Rebellion and plunged the tip down into the remains of its cranium.
Out came the sword through its mouth, spiked through the curling tongue, that same inhuman shrieking bellowing as he ripped out the weapon. The corpse twitched around, wriggling as it truly died this time, unable to escape. Ruthless, his eye's remained as scarlet as an open wound while he glared down, watching. The body ceased to live altogether, and then . . . it began to melt. Limbs dissolved away, turning to black refuse all lacking any bones. Bubbling up against the avenue's pebbly surfaces, the remains slid away into the sewers, lifeless. He felt no more evil, nor more cause for concern.
Except in one place.
The tongue.
It kept moving, arching itself and pulling along the road in a manner reminiscent of a snail.
He took a step back, bewildered.
His flesh had regrown around his deathly expression, human once more. His scarred ally looked on, unsure what to be more shocked by.
This entire time, they'd assumed it was the licking woman herself at the center of this chaos, but no.
The tongue.
It was always the tongue.
"She was cursed," muttered the devil hunter.
"That was . . ." she began. "That was amazing, quite frankly," the scarred girl spoke as she approached, never baring witness to a more grisly series of events, besides her father's crimes.
The widow came out from hiding, looking at the two with frightened eyes. She didn't speak, instead only clutching her burns and scuff marks. At least it was finally over. She sighed in relief, her nightmare over, and approached only slowly, left reeling from that thing.
Her mouth opened to say something.
As soon as she did, the wounded mongrel bounced forth lightning fast, weaseling away from Dante's reach as it thrust itself into the girl's mouth. Latching to her lips, the overgrown tongue attempted to force its way down her esophagus, connecting their tissue together weaving the government of worms through her flesh. It wriggled like a slimy eel, trying to pry apart an entryway into her soft throat, warping face, cracking bone, making room; the next host. The previous woman had been a poor victim just as this, that sad look in her eyes a warning, not a plea for death.
She gave a muffled scream as she struggled to force it back.
The scarred lady lined up her pistol, but it wouldn't do any good. Lizzy's proximity would mean shooting through her.
"Damn it!" the lady yelled, gritting her teeth as she began to panic, not knowing what to do.
More muffled screams, the tongue was wriggling further down, she could see it move down into her throat.
Further and further it squirmed, searching for a new home, trying to tear her jaw apart.
Icy fingers dug into the tongue's protruding half, tearing into its insistent flesh. Dante ripped that damn thing out of the widow's mouth. He slammed it into the ground and drove a heel through its core, cracking the pavement. Black blood, its true blood, spattered in a small puddle, and it squealed as he beat it to death. Each stomp turned the thing to mush, like a maroon slushy. He crushed every inch, left no part of it moving, and then . . . only then was it truly dead. It stirred no more.
The widow lay on her back crying, blood pouring from her mouth as she convulsed.
Too late.
The damage it did to her throat was enough, he'd already used up the last of his Ambrosial stash.
She was slipping away. She rested there, twitching, staring up at the scarred girl, her face pained emotionally to see it end this way. Dante came to her side, kneeling down. Her eye's glassy, she looked over to him, unable to speak, coughing, no words coming. His looks restored, she saw his depressed empathy for her, the way he cared. She didn't think anyone would care like that again, not since he had gone away.
Everything had grown cold. She lifted her wounded hand, her body still convulsing. For her dying wish, he acquiesced, and held her's in his own.
He held on till it went limp.
And she was gone.
It started to rain, the darkness spreading over the light as clouds formed suddenly, blocking the moon's gaze. Dante and the lady looked at one another, unsure what either should do now. Fear ran through her veins, and he didn't know how to handle the woman's death. He failed, again. No words to say, no final thoughts, just the end. There weren't anymore questions, it was just over. They took her body, and buried it together, seeking an open field. The only one was out of town, truly isolated from the big city.
First he'd fought, and so now he dug. He dug at the ground alone, preferring his companion not to bother. He was the only one with the stamina for this job. The drive over was on a motorcycle. He rode behind her. She parked under a tree. The leaves were packed enough to keep her mostly dry, though she was still wet from the rain before. The tree was massive, sitting lonely in that empty plain. The lack of moonlight made things dreary, her beams of luster blotted out from the world at large, at least for now. The way it had eroded, no one came out here, not anyone who was from the city. This was where solitude could be found, and if one wasn't careful, an unknown death. It was like an ocean basin, drained of crushing water, then left out to grow.
Dante kept digging, he needed to get her as far down as possible, lest someone sees a leg pop out when they drive by. It felt truly wrong that he was here doing this, thinking these things right now. He dug ten feet deep, his bare hands regenerating as he concentrated. After a time, it didn't hurt so bad. The rain washed away whatever that stuck to him, and punctually, he finished her burial.
". . ." the lady exhaled slowly, but calmly as she leaned against the tree.
"What to say at times like these?" he remarked, holding his hands together for the deceased.
They stayed silent, staring at one another.
"Best to be respectful . . ." she replied, finally.
"Yes, of course," he said, preparing a sort of final eulogy for her. He bowed his head, "Rest easy, you kind soul. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
At least she was free from this, a life without her husband, or their surrogate puppy-dog-son-thing. He knew this would happen. Let them talk him into it anyway.
They gave her another long moment of silence, mourning this stranger with respect and guilt, rather than true grief, though grief did punctuate the service. He chose to speak a few more kind words for her, but kept it minimalist, at an arms length, as a way to send off a stranger. A stranger, but who's pain was quite familiar. She was pivotal to his job. Without her, this cursed woman might not ever have been caught.
"So, it turns out the whole 'licking woman' thing was some sort of curse. I wish we knew where it started, and how," the scarred girl whispered to herself.
Dante gazed back at her through the night air.
"'We' let it kill an innocent woman."
"'We' broke it," she corrected. "Before giving it a chance to infect another person."
He shook his head and looked at the sky. He supposed she was right.
The hunter wondered aloud, "I'm thinkin' now. How long has something like that been going around?"
She shrugged. Didn't know the answer. At that question, Dante looked straight ahead, staring out into the barren grass-lands. The old countryside was a hard place to get around. An odd tree dotted the landscape every once in awhile, filling the area with some kind of scenery, though it remained a flat, sopping wet field. And it was this widow's resting place, her name not known to either one of them.
Dante sighed and lowered his head, "Let's go. There's nothing more to do."
And they left.
Hours went by. The dirt unphased.
Under the surface of the unsettled soil, something stirred.
The widow awakened, against her wishes.
She felt dirt choke her, and something else. Inside her body, a worm-like entity squirmed inside her stomach. Her eyes widened, a forceful surge of bile coming to the surface of her throat, burning her flesh as she felt all human feelings flee her mind, and her control vanished out from under her. Returned to life, a new being burst from the ground, clung to the silt and soil while the rain fell so hard. She swayed from side to side, wandering about as her hair came undone, and grew ratty.
From the old shell of Lizzy came this new life form, one who possessed dead eyes and an oversized tongue. It was so large that it forced itself to hang down an entire foot over her contorted jawline.
The drool fizzed against mother earth, its origin wandering aimlessly across empty plains.
With a twisted sadness and a longing for the touch of another, the new licking woman waddled out into the night, searching for the next victim . . .
To Be Continued