she was fury, she was wrath, she was vengeance
She was nothing but a thought, nothing but a whisper in her mother’s womb and a twinkle in her father’s eyes. But already she was loved, fiercely loved, irrationally loved, fully wanted. Eona felt the sureness of that in her bones. She felt the rightness of it in her soul. She was powerful, she was wild, she was perfect. And she could do anything, would do anything she wanted. The world owed it to her. Through all the pain, and suffering and heartache, the world owed greatness, glory and honor to this one, beloved little girl. That too, she felt in her bones.
Safe within her mother’s womb, Eona turned and smiled. She was dreaming of a meadow, and then she was dreaming of two doors. She felt them in her mind, a perfect picture, though she had never seen a door, never even opened her eyes. The girl turned again, and the dream fell away, leaving her with nothing but human hands, feet and eyes. Eona stretched those fingers, and again she smiled. With these fingers she could open the doors, she could pick which ever one she wanted. The excitement of this thrummed in her veins. Not for a moment did she consider turning away from the doors. Not for a single heartbeat did she long for the safety of her mother’s womb. She felt adventure calling, tugging at her heartstrings. With a vicious, practiced, lethal lunge she sprang at the black door, faintly glowing and ominous.
The world Eona stepped into was one that was falling apart. On the other side, the ruins of a post apocalyptic city loomed. Tall, once mighty, skyscrapers had been felled by disaster and neglect. They tumbled to the cracked streets like kicked and trampled lego towers. Cars littered the abandoned roads, their doors thrown open, keys left carelessly in the ignition.
Warm, noon day sun hit Eona’s nearly ebony skin. She felt a bead of sweat start at her brow, and run down her nose and pool on her upper lip. Her arms were bare, her torso wrapped in a tank top, long, lithe legs in dirty jeans. Her boots were combat, thick black affairs used primarily to kick ass. Boots she used to walk over slaughter without getting her feet wet. Eona bit her full bottom lip, first in confusion and then in surprise, when a roar from just down the street startled her.
“EONA!” Came her father’s roar, answered by the screeching, keening, wailing sound of the undead. The girl spun around, and saw her father, Fennick, hurtling towards her. His skin was torn and bleeding, his eyes wild, both with fright (for her she realized) and with blood lust. Already he had that glow about him. That wild glow that spoke of adrenaline fueled exhilaration and tightly reined and checked terror. It was the type of bound terror that caused cities to fall at the conquer’s feet, that pushed men to complete, to succeed, at the impossible. At his heels a vicious brown and black dog snapped and snarled. The dog had a hand in her mouth, a rotting gray hand that she devoured even as she ran.
There was no terror in Bertha’s dog eyes. Just the feral joy of the hunt, and the rightness of running at her master’s side.
Eona stiffened when she saw what chased her father and dog. It was the owner of the rotting hand, and 50 of his closest buddies. They were two, maybe three blocks away, not yet gaining, but setting a punishing pace. Her father hurtled down the street, vaulting up and over the hood of a car in one powerful leap. Bertha followed, dropping the hand as she did to release a long, chilling howl that rose over the zombie’s keening wails.
Before Eona knew what she was doing, before she stopped to wonder if she should, she ran to join them. She ran away from the glowing door, away from the safety of her mother’s womb, and to certain death and destruction at the father’s side. She loved it. She breathed it in, letting her terror loose of a second, giving it its head before tightly reining it back, before binding it and using it to speed her steps.
“Give me a knife.” She said, quietly, viciously, for she ran close enough to Fennick to feel his warm shoulder brush against hers, to hear the heaving of his breath louder than her own. Her father looked at her coldly, his eyes glinting dangerously.
“You should be with your mother, Eona, you should be safe.” He and Bertha had been running a long time, but his words managed to be hard, even if they came in short gasps. Bertha whimpered at their heels, sad to be ignored, and licked Eona’s pumping arm on the downswing. The girl just snorted, and cast him a look that twinkled and gleamed.
“And yet I am by you side, and always will be.” Fennick grunted in response, but Eona could hear the pride in it. She could feel the love washing off him and onto her, like waves against the shore. After another moment, Fennick handed her the knife from his belt, a wicked hunting knife used for gutting animals, slightly curved at the tip and serrated. Another moment, and he had freed the scimitar sheathed at his back. Eona grinned widely. The scimitar had always been her favorite of her father’s blades. She could use it too. She wielded it like the claws on a mountain cat, or the talons on a hawk. It was her claw, her talon. Bertha leapt towards her again, frantically licking at the hand that held the knife. The dog was growing bored, bored of their fleeing. But, she knew what that knife meant. She wanted a new hand a chew, and new throat to rip open, and soon she would get it. Eona agreed whole heartedly. Even if they could outrun the horde forever, she wouldn’t want to. She wanted to wet the side of her blades, she wanted to feel them plunge in and out of flesh, to saw through bone.
Fennick could their impatience. He felt his daughter’s bloodlust like you could feel a pot boiling in another room. It was a low, bubbling hiss that grew louder until it sloshed over the side and screamed against the burner. It might have bothered other men, to have a daughter such as this. It did not bother him. She was elegant and feminine and utterly wild, a piece of nature ripped from its home in the dark, untamed places of the world. He knew that. He had always known that, deep in his bones, his daughter was not like him. She was the best of him, all wrapped up in a killing calm. So it was with a bit of fear for her, but a great deal more inevitability, that he said,
“Sweep around the side. Take Bertha, kill them off.” Fennick, long and lean and leggy, could run until his heart exploded. He would run to his death if it meant his daughter would live. But, there was one thing she didn’t need to know. She didn’t need to know about the bite on his side. She didn’t need to know that they were running to an escape he could never take. He would get her free, but then she would need to free him.
For now, he would let her think that this was a game. They could not hide from the horde, and they could not outrun them indefinitely. Not even Fennick could outrun them forever, the curse would take him right before his heart gave out. But Eona, didn’t feel that, she didn’t feel the sickness leaking from her father. She felt nothing but a singing elation as she broke away from him and swept back toward the side of the horde. Bertha, like the shadow of an avenging angel, followed her.
And so it went. First the stragglers met the sharp side of her blades. Sometimes they died up close with the knife, like a bitter lover’s embrace. Sometimes they died from far away, felled with her scimitar like a god sending death from on high. Next, the zombies on the edge met their end. Bertha, immune to the illness in their bite, leapt at them, happy to maul and eat and tear. When their target was distracted or down, Eona would strike. She cleanly severed its head, neat and efficient, like a schoolmarm teaching class. The zombies hardly saw her, even as she delivered their death they hardly noticed her. She was a shadow, an inhuman thing that floated easily among them. Their dead, soulless eyes saw nothing but her father, or Bertha. They glowed with life so Eona could be shadowed in death. They were the perfect distraction so the real fear could take hold. Fennick, running in front, was their beacon. His love, his unbridled life, soon to be ended, was like the sweetest wine.
Eona, Bertha and Fennick left a trail of carnage behind them.
They had fully halved the horde by the time it started gaining. Eona had excepted this, she had prepared for the moment they would have to stand and fight. Her father, for all his feet had wings, was not invincible. She stopped her reckless killing and caught up to him. It was easier than she had expected it to be, and it spoke to how little time they had.
He was staggering when she caught him. He was staggering forward, hardly running at all, but determined to put a little more space between them and the horde. Eona moved to run to him. For the first time she was scared, scared of his palor. But, before she could reach him, Bertha dove between them. She snarled and snapped at the man she loved. Eona sucked in a breath, and her blood went cold. Never, not in the four years had they been together, had Bertha failed to greet Fennick with warm liquid eyes and an unwarranted outpouring of dogish love and devotion. The three of them ground to a halt, thought they had only moments to spare.
He was turning, more than anything else, Eona knew that. Her father was turning.
“Dad.” Eona sobbed, and still she tried to move closer. Fennick raised a hand, and his feverish eyes glinted dangerous.
“Don’t Eona. Not another step.” Eona shook with fear, but did as she was told. Fennick took a took a deep shuddering breath, and it was obvious that it pained him. Soon he would not need to breathe, and already his body was casting off the function of it. Bertha whimpered, a mournful and tragic sound. The dog sat heavily on the ground, one meaty haunch on Eona’s foot. Bertha whined again, and pawed at the air between them and Fennick. The man saw the motion and spared the dog a smile. Another gasp, and he forced words from his throat.
“There is a door, Eona, just over there.” Eona looked where he was pointing, and sure enough, there was a brown, wooded door. It was plain, and hanging oddly in the middle of the street. Fennick viciously ripped a skeleton keep from a cord around his neck, and handed it to her.
“Take the door, take Bertha, and stay safe. Whatever you do, Eona, stay safe, and know that your father loved you.” Eona was holding back sobs. Shakily, but without fear, the snatched the key that was dangling from his fingers. His out stretched hand was shaking, and as Eona got closer his mouth opened and closed, snapping without his permission. His mouth gaped, an ancient reflex realized, a need to feed. Eona let the sob she had been holding back escape.
Without hesitating, with nothing but sorrow in her eyes, she raised her scimitar and slashed. Her father’s head came easily from his body, as if it had been waiting for its chance to spring free. This was the first corpse, the first pile of meat Bertha did not try to eat. The dog just tilted her silky and gore covered head back. For a second they just stood there, the dog singing the howling dirge Eona felt in her heart. With barely a moment left, Eona and Bertha turned away, opened the door and tumbled into the unknown.
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