The Precipice

Now available in print in Flash of the Undead, a horror flash fiction collection from Wicked Shadow Press.

***

Atop the cliff, he found her.

The sun had risen weak and pale that morning, and the mists had refused to fade. Everywhere, the forest lay under the veil, and the shadows darkened beneath it.

Ezok knew in his bones that a day so devoid of the light could only mean battle.

He had followed the scent, frail and fickle at first, the lightest whiff of decay. But unlike the soggy leaves crumbling into soil on the forest floor, this odor contained an acrid element that stung the whitetail’s nostrils even so far away.

As he closed in, weaving his way through the scratching pine branches, the smell made his nostrils flare.

Other deer would have turned and fled. But Ezok felt his heartbeat slowing even as his skin rippled with the static charge that hung in the air.

Yet even he, the carrier of a hundred unseen scars from his war with the enemy, could not help but pause when the trees thinned away and the source of the odor came into view.

“Lorren,” he gasped before he could stop himself.

The enemy had dealt a cruel blow this day.

What looked back at him from the mist was not Lorren but a cruel imitation of what she had once been. Her hide was wreathed in rotting vines, a representation of the corruption that now held sway over her. Brown eyes had dimmed, and black splotches circled within them. Like trout lazily swimming in the brook.

Then, the vines and all else that Ezok knew to expect with one of the Taken receded, and the Lorren he knew so well stared into his eyes.

“Ezok,” she spoke, eyes wide as if seeing him for the first time. “What are you doing here?”

In all his battles, Ezok had never seen the enemy relinquish its hold. It’s trying to get you to lower your guard.

Despite all he knew of its tricks, he found himself taking a step closer, desperate to bring comfort to her alarmed face. A hundred memories flashed before his eyes: adventures in the water meadow, chases across the stony foothills, escapades in the moonlight.

There is no going back for one of the Taken. His instinct, honed through all his encounters, fought to regain control.

Instead, Ezok answered her. “I have come for you, Lorren.”

Lorren’s eyes narrowed. “Where were you before?”

Ezok cocked his head. “Before?”

His skin rippled as he watched the tendrils winding up her legs.

“Before this,” she said, her voice cracking into a rasp. “Where were you when I needed you?”

“I looked for you, I swear. I scoured every pace of the forest floor, but...” His voice trailed off as the rotting vines constricted around her ribs and started snaking across her throat.

“Why, Ezok?” Lorren’s voice was barely a whisper as the tendrils tightened. “Why didn’t you save me?”

Ezok’s reply caught in his throat.

There was no answer. No reason in the madness of the enemy. All he could do was contain its spread.

Yet it only took a curious fawn, a brash young buck, or any deer with hearing too acute to ignore the whispers coming from the shadows.

How Lorren had come into its clutches, he did not know.

All he knew was the awful price of leaving her to this fate. And the even worse price he would pay to free her.

“Save me,” she moaned. Her next words came out as a gurgle as the rotten vines crawled across her mouth. “Save... me...”

Ezok took another step forward on shaking hooves. But then he caught the gleeful glint in the now darkened eyes, and that momentary revelation of the enemy lurking beneath her terrified exterior pulled him back from the edge.

It wants me to close the gap. So it can leap from her to me.

For a moment, the calmer part of Ezok’s mind pondered whether that sacrifice might in turn free Lorren. He had never been inclined to find out before, but that was exactly why the enemy had crawled from the shadows to claim her.

Would it let her go if it could have me?

He shook his head. Even if the enemy spared her in that moment, it would not be a mercy. Instead, it would use his strength to carry the disease across the forest. Until one day Lorren found former friends or even family calling to her. And she would go to them, despite the strange ooze clinging to their hides.

After all, who could resist a cry for help from one they loved?

Ezok had shielded himself from this vulnerability by having no friends or family.

Until he had caught sight of Lorren on this clifftop.

“I will save you, Lorren,” Ezok finally spoke, his words now firm.

Instead of walking toward her, he lunged to the left. The enemy, sensing his intent, threw its tendrils out in an attempt to snare him. But Ezok had anticipated its move and rolled out of the way.

He felt one final tug at his heart, begging him to reconsider if this was the only way.

Ezok put all power into his legs before that weakness could take root.

His antlers struck Lorren’s flank, sending pieces of the enemy’s tendrils flying away as they squirted black ooze.

But more importantly, the concentrated blow sent her over the clifftop.

A screech echoed off the rockface as she tumbled out of sight. Ezok told himself it was not her. It was the enemy’s frustration that it had let him slip through its web.

But his words felt hollow, and he had to force himself to look over the edge.

Her still form lay in a crumpled heap. Around her, tendrils of black and gray slithered toward the shadows cast by the rock face, still hissing their anger.

Ezok exhaled. It’s done. The enemy retreats to the darkness to lick its wounds.

Only then did he allow himself to weep.

***

The story continues in “Whispers and Whisps”: