Goblin Bites: Scary Stories 9

Many eons ago, there was a small village. Life in the village was peaceful, until a horrific plague began sweeping througout the land. The villages and towns of that day and age were no stranger to plague, but this one - dubbed the Blood Plague - was the worse any had ever seen. In the span of a single day, the Blood Plague had been said to wipe out every member of a village completely; it wouldn't spare any soul, slaying the newborn and the ancient alike in its path of destruction.

The first sign was the fevers; horrible, raging fevers that would burn so hot so quick it was said to cause one's blood to boil in their veins. Eventually the victim's sweat would turn to blood as well, seeping out of every pore until there was practically none left in the body. The final stage was the worst: driven mad by fever and loss of blood, the victim would start to scream. If they had strength left they would run outside, attacking their neighbors with tooth and claw like a feral beast, until they fell dead in the middle of the street.

For the longest time, the village was spared the brunt of the Blood Plague, due to it being nestled high in the mountains. Word began to spread however that an odd fever had begun circulating through the village due South of them, which made the villagers fear the Blood Plague would strike their village next. In an effort to keep the Plague out, the villagers took to action; they barred the gates of the village, nailed up every door and window of every house, and isolated themselves within their homes. Despite their precautions, one of the village children cropped up a fever a few days later. His mother, a nurse in the village named Leah, insisted that it wasn't Blood Plague, but the village cast her and her son out of the village immediately for fear that it was.

It was very late in the year, getting close to the Winter Solstice. The mountain passes were harsh, bitterly cold and unforgiving. Leah had no choice but to wander them however, with her ailing young child in arms. Her husband had died in the war the same year her son, Rollo, was born, and ever since she'd depended on her husband's family to look after her. She had very little money to her name, and not much in the way of warm clothing. Her mother-in-law had been kind enough to give her a small loaf of bread and a warm blanket for Rollo, but they had been forced out of the village so quickly there wasn't time for Leah to gather any other tools or provisions to help them on their journey. She did know, however, that just on the other side of the mountain was another village, where they might take refuge. If only they could make it there before either of them succumbed to the elements.

After trudging through the ice and snow for half a day, Leah found a small, dry cave for them to bed down in for the night. She lit a small fire with whatever scraps of dry kindling she could find, then laid her little boy down beside it to warm up. Rollo's fever had worsened considerably since that morning, but Leah couldn't be sure if it was from exposure to wet and cold or if it was indeed Blood Plague. After checking over Rollo again, she was almost certain it wasn't, but the doubt lingered. She began to weep as she wrestled with indecision. If it was Blood Plague after all, she couldn't bear to witness her son go through the other two stages. The very thought broke her heart to pieces. She wished to spare him his suffering, but couldn't bring herself to take the life of her only child. Her only choice then, it seemed, was to wait.

As darkness fell over the mountain, Leah began to hear screams on the back of the wind. Horrible, haunting screams that sounded more animal than human. A wretched, pungent odor permeated the air from the South-East, the direction of their village. As a nurse, it was a reek Leah was well acquainted with: the foul stench of blood and death. Her frantic thoughts turned to Rollo again, whom she held cradled to her bosom as she did when he was a babe. Rollo's fever was still very high, and he had begun to sweat blood, bringing tears to her eyes once more. She begged and pleaded and prayed with all her might to the gods, asking for guidance and for them to spare her child from an accursed, painful death.

Suddenly a bright flash of light filled the cave, and the pitiful fire Leah had built was snuffed out. Mother and child were plunged into darkness, and Leah shook with fear. "The Child will live," a harsh, creaking voice whispered from the darkness, "All I ask in return is that you both serve me, for the rest of your days. Are we agreed?" Leah was filled with terror. She didn't like the sound of the menacing voice, nor did she trust it. The love for her child however canceled out all logic, so meekly she agreed to its terms. The moment she did so, the fire blazed back into existence once more. When her eyes adjusted, Leah was astonished to see an assortment of poltices, potions and herbs laid out neatly before her. She thanked the unseen voice profusely, believing it to have belonged to one of the gods, and immediately set to work healing her child. She worked long into the night, but by daybreak Rollo's fever had miraculously broken.

Once Rollo was out of danger, Leah finally laid down herself to rest. When she awoke, there was a kettle of hot broth on the fire, along with several fresh loaves of bread and cooked game set before her. She and Rollo ate their fill and packed up the rest to take with them, then continued on their journey through the mountain pass. By the end of the next day, they had reached the village on the other side of the mountain. The people there were just as wary of newcomers as her home village, but Leah assured them she and her son were untouched by the Blood Plague. Incredibly, the people of the village took her at her word, and admitted Leah and Rollo immediately after that without question. With the coins Leah found in her purse that morning, she purchased a room for them at the local tavern for the night, just until they could move in to more permanent housing later.

That night, Leah had a very strange dream. She saw herself flying over the village, looking down on it from above. A strong sense of hunger overwhelmed her as she spied a young man stumbling home from the tavern, a hunger she couldn't control. When she woke up the next day, whispers began circulating through the village about a young man who'd met his death the night before. Apparently he'd been found torn to shreds in the street, but there wasn't a drop of blood at the scene. Leah began to fear that her dream may not have simply been a dream, and hurried upstairs to get Rollo and leave the village before she was suspected. Upon reaching their room, a scream caught in her throat. She found Rollo squatting in the corner, devouring a rat fur, bones and all. Rollo looked up at her with an innocent little smile as he tossed the rest of the rat carcass away. "We must leave, Mother," he said, "Master said the Blood Plague is coming here tonight. Besides, we have much work ahead of us yet."