written by David Critchfield 10/11/07
this story originally appeared as an email post to ERBList on 01/03/08
it was published in ERBAPA #101, Spring of 2009
all rights reserved
He
looked back at the other as they moved silently, wraith-like through the somber
forest. Although one of their party had been lost, their mission had been
successful; between them, their hands bound, stumbled two gilak shes.
His
red eyes again peered forward in the dim diffused light of the melancholy Forest
of Death. Keeping the slave-line taut and the shes moving, did not distract him
from his vigilance. A young, but extremely dangerous zarith had moved into this
area of the forest. The Gorbuses called this cold calculating engine of
destruction, The Ripper. A name that he had come up with, a name that perhaps
had meant something to him in that other place. The Ripper could be
distinguished from other zariths by his empty left-eye socket. Perhaps that
didn’t matter as all zariths were deadly even a young one, but The Ripper
seemed particularly cunning and attacked with little or no warning.
He
continued in the lead, dragging the slave-line, while Torg followed, keeping
rear watch. He hated Torg as much as the rest. Torg boasted often of the ten
children he had killed in that other place. Sometimes the number was twelve.
Unlike Torg, he didn’t talk of his murders. He felt them to be private and
personal memories for him to enjoy only. He didn’t want to share them. He
wished he could remember them clearly.
He
liked it in the forest. The dense overhead foliage formed an almost unbroken
roof, creating a perpetual twilight, so different from the eternal sun.
Sometimes he could remember night, a time he enjoyed; this was like it, almost.
His
red eyes blurred slightly and it seemed to be night. It was 1888 and he was
starring into the face of his fifth victim, like the others, a prostitute. Each
of his kills had been successively more savage. He slit her throat. His eyes
blurred slightly. From the back of the line, Torg called out, “Jak!”
The one-eyed zarith closed his jaws on the Gorbus. As blackness consumed him,
and his borrowed life was about to end, he did not feel fear, but a vague
curiosity, “where now?”
Death, memories, and pastiches for that matter, like life, are brief, fragile,
and even impermanent. The author hesitated then ripped up the story.