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76 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
76 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta name="generator" content=
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"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 14 February 2006), see www.w3.org" />
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<title>1</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
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<link rel="stylesheet" type=
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"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
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"page-template.xpgt" />
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="text">
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<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
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<h2>33</h2>
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<p>Down in Barloan Harbour, Old Mrs Cosgrove, peering through her
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thick lenses, had not recognised her when she came knocking on the
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door, keeping her face to the shadows. It was no surprise that the
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old woman who offered rooms for bed and breakfast did not know her.
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She had changed.</p>
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<p>The nights had been filled with strange dreams and the days
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filed with strange hungers. Her ears buzzed and crackled and her
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sense of smell was changing too. She needed hot meat, flesh and
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blood. Sweet tastes nauseated her and made her retch violently. She
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had pains deep in her belly, wrenching, swelling pains, but they
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did not distress her.</p>
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<p>She sat in the dark now, most of the time, keeping away from the
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light, huddled in the swirl of blankets.</p>
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<p>It had been right to move, to get away. There was danger in
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staying where she was known, danger not just to herself. Instinct
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had had driven her on, tugging her wordlessly, pushing her to
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somewhere safe, somewhere she could hide and wait.</p>
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<p>The time was almost on her. The pressure in her belly was
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intense. The skin was stretched until she felt it might rip
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asunder. Inside she could feel the small movements and the hot
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pains and the glow spread through her. It had not taken long and
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the waiting would soon be over.</p>
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<p>In the night, something stirred and she awoke with a ripple of
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alarm, but she saw it was the other one turning in her sleep, the
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one she had known from that distant time before. Her name was May,
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she recalled. Something like May. The name of a month. The name
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mattered nothing at all now. No name did. Her sister, her brood
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sister, was stirring awake. The moonlight streamed through the
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narrow window, fuzzed by the condensation on the glass from the
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heat of their bodies and the warmth of their breath.</p>
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<p>A third one was already awake and her eyes were gleaming in the
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light. The fourth and fifth were starting to move. She did not know
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their names. They had no names. She had almost forgotten her own.
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Identity too, meant nothing now yet they all recognised her and the
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difference inside her.</p>
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<p>She moved too, careful of the weight in her depths, careful of
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her precious burden.</p>
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<p>She hunkered down, ignoring the small and distant pain as her
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knee pressed on the bent frame of old Mrs Cosgrove’s glasses.
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Eyes glittered impassively in the dark. Without a pause at all, she
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joined the others in the moonlight and they moved slowly, giving
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her preference, as was her natural right. She bent and used her
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teeth to strip the plump, rich flesh from a cold, spread-eagled
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thigh. She gulped it down without chewing and the blood trickled
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down her chin and over the swelling curve of her breasts. The
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others watched her as she fed, naked in the dark. Over the smell of
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the meat, she could sense their own imminent birthings. They would
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produce only males.</p>
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<p>She was different. The vessel that had been Helen Lamont
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nurtured a special burden. No man would ever resist her offspring.
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It would live forever.</p>
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<p>A drop of milk leaked out to merge with the blood and the birth
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pains began to pulse deep inside.</p>
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<p><strong>THE END</strong></p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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