New Fiction #9

This one is supposed to have an element of horror to it and is unfinished and un cared for. The name Jen is pronounced "yen".


Jen allowed a shudder to escape, showing how much he felt uncomfortable outside at night, traversing the dark woods just outside of LaFayette Town.  Martha would only criticize his cowardice but he knew it was out of love.  "We shouldn't be out at night, Marth, they're monsters out, you heard the newscasts."  He shivered now from the cold air, what a foolish thing it was to be outside at night without a Talisman.  
"You don't really believe that do you?  It's all propaganda, its how the pricks in LFTown keeps us under their thumb, or leaving."  She spewed her disgust with a heavy sigh, letting him know for the thousandth time just how she felt about all the rumors and false news reports on the mysterious monsters preying on whoever ventured outside of the secure, sheltered towns.  
The human refuges were everywhere but only the desperate would find them, some say, it was some kind of old legend, Jen couldn't remember as he tried to focus on the cold to keep his mind away from the thought of being ripped apart by some vicious creature.
Marth walked in front of him at lightening speed causing him to partly wonder why she wasn't tired yet.  They had been up since five that morning and had no rest since then, he was personally fatigued.  He was also dreadfully aware due to the cold that whipped at his senses, he supposed he would need them if a monster did show up at some point.
Martha extended her arms as if expecting a hug as she turned to him, a large smile on her face, "see Jen, we've been out  an hour past sun down and been walking for four hours now, there's no monsters-"  As she was facing Jen who rolled his eyes at the prospect of being wrong, neither of them saw the silent killer waiting for them.
It was a stalker looking for its next meal and a couple of kids was a tasty snack provided the delight of fear and hopelessness emanating from their bodies they would bring to the table.  The mix of those emotions was an intoxicating elixir for the beast that it could never pass up.  
Jen kept walking, tolerating his friend's gloating until he thought he saw something shift in the darkness, he thought the space just behind Martha had suddenly gotten darker but it was dark everywhere.  He slowed his pace, unsure of continuing, he moved his head to either side of Martha's figure, trying to figure out what was there.  He could feel the hairs on his neck come to a stand as an eerie feeling broke out in bumps all over his body.  
Martha stopped her joyous rant as she began to notice her companion's strange behavior but it was a little too late.  Jen screamed in horror, his feet shuffling backwards from where he came as a large monster's mouth chomped down on Martha's head.  Its slimy teeth as large as  tusks suddenly oozed with blood as it pulled away at the tough skin.  Jen kept screaming, his eyes beholding his worst fear, there it was in front of him! 
Instinctively raising his hands to his eyes to block out the sight, he forced them down with his will, what was he doing trying to cover his eyes?  The damage was already done, sight has been seen, what he needed to do was run now and run fast.  
He turned on his heel, his sneakers skidding amazingly on a dirt road, "I'm sorry!"  He yelled back, "but I was right after all!"  
The monster slowly tilted its misshapen head as it watched his next morsel run away, raising a long, slender appendage similar to a hand, it ticked it from side to side as if to say no or comment on his foolishness.  One jump moved it five feet ahead of where it had been previously standing, it began to zip through the trees to give the boy a false sense of security.  The monster could easily catch unarmed, innocent children but where was the fun in wasting the moment to truly savor the chase?
Jen forced himself to look at the forest that lined the pathway which connected LFTown to the next trading a post, a small fort like establishment most often frequented by postal service, merchants and brigands.
He would never make it there, he had run in the wrong direction but the fort wasn't his objection, the gates of LFTown was.  He would get on his knees apologizing, grovel, even suck the cock of his Lord to be allowed back in.  
He kept running until he heard an unnatural sound sprang from behind him, knowing that the monster was right behind him, he shut his eyes preparing for death.  
A more familiar sound rang out in the hollow quiet, he opened his eyes to see a caravan parked in front of him, a man stood on the coach's steps, a Baker rifle in his grasp.  He was blowing holes into the monster's misformed cranium.  Jen reach the caravan, hiding just behind the stairs as his horror became amazement at how easily the man had taken it down.
The creature let out a shrill yell of pain as the lead ball blew its head, the creature then tumbled to the ground, red blood flowing from the fatal wound.  When it finally stopped seizing, Jens looked up to the man holding the weapon, "that was fucking amazing!  How'd you do that?"
"Stand still, pull the trigger."  Had been the adult's gruff response as he casually strolled over to the dead obscenity. From his belt, he pulled a cutlass blade and began whacking its head off.  He would need proof if he ever was going to collect the reward for his kill.  He could use the money to add to their treasury so he could take care of his people.  
"It's unsafe to travel alone out here.  Get in."  He said sternly as he climbed onto the driver's seat, taking the horses reigns who had grown used to the monster hunting to be afraid of the action of it anymore.  
Without arguing, Jen complied, obviously it was safer to drive with the man. 
With a command, the horses began to trot forward.  Jen had seated himself inside the wagon where warmth kissed his skin in a heated greeting, not that he would complain, he had wanted to get somewhere warm for hours now but sadly, not even that could cheer his mood.
He just witness the death of his friend.  
He told the man this, the adult graciously offered to bury her for him.  Jen didn't want to trouble him but he only had a good natured response.  Jen could only burst into tears when the full realization came to him when they reached Martha's body.  Her head had been bitten off, her life gone in an instant and for what?  These monstrosities were not higher up on the food chain, were they?  
The man prayed so that the Gods may receive her young soul with a comforting embrace as well as placed one coin on each eyelid.  
Jen didn't do anything, he didn't help dig the grave or lay her body in it, it was all the man with the gun and his compatriots who left their own caravans to help.  Jen sniffled, wiping tears and no doubt blood off his face with the back of his sweater sleeve.  "Get back in the wagon."  The kind gun toting man spoke softly, gently, understanding of the boy's pain.  
Jen sat close to the door, watching the men all taking up their reigns once more  venturing forth.  His arms were wrapped around his legs, his eyes listing upon the corner in front of him, no longer curious of what was causing the heat inside the small mobile home.  In his mourning he hadn't noticed the man's family sitting away from him in front of the fireplace.  
The woman with her two children looked upon the stranger with curiosity and a bit of suspicion but the man would not have let him in if he was a threat, he wasn't that kind nor naive.  Shaking her head full of black ringlets, she got up to ensnare the boy in a tight hug, "you look like you've seen a terrible fate and are cold and hungry."  She said in a language not his own, one unheard of in these parts.  He hadn't looked upward at the source of the sudden contact but now she had his attention, her voice was the most gentle and womanly he had ever heard.
He saw a foreigner staring back at him with compassion in her watery green eyes.  Not comprehending the amount of misery he was feeling, he turned in her arms, pushing his head against her shoulder letting go of his sorrow that he had been keeping silent.
The next few moments were a blur, before he knew it, he was lying on something soft with his clothes replaced by fresh ones, all he wanted to do was keep looking at the fire, how alive it looked as it moved and danced, his head was filled with theories of living fire that had a will of its own.  His theory consumed him until he was unable to hear the adults talking to each other in that strange language until his heavy eyelids finally closed on him.

He awoke inside the caravan that had been on the road for two hours after leaving the trader's fort.  The people who worked there and occasionally stopped by, never looked at his kind too gently but they had the heads of monsters and pelts to trade for food and money, no one complained about the functionality of their small group comprised of their 5 wagons.  
He sat up finding no one in company but the woman, she immediately began to speak to him but he couldn't understand.  He shrugged in his confusion as she ushered him once more into clothes not his own, then sat him down to eat breakfast.  When she was content to allow him out, he opened the door to find the spot beside the driver was already taken by another boy.  This boy was around his age but kept his conversation with the man.  
"Good morning, we say when one just wakes up," the man chastised Jen.
Jen blinked, trying to get his eyes adjusted the bright sunlight.  "Oh, good morning."
"This here, is Oliver, he doesn't speak your speech but he's a good kid."  The man clamped his large hand on top Oliver's head, rubbing his black mane.  
"Neither does the woman in there," Jen mumbled to himself.
"My wife, a lot of us don't but a few of us do."
People who could barely speak the language of the country they were cutting through, wheeled wagon homes and bartered clothes, putting those clues together, his mouth erupted with the answers, "you people are gypsies!"  
Jen leaned forward, tapping the man's shoulder, "hey, what's your name?"
"Most people call me Dgin."
Jen frowned, what did he mean, most people?  He knew it was just a normal phrase but he wasn't sure of its lax meaning with it coming from the mouth of a gypsy.  "What does your wife call you?"  
"Férj, drágám, szerelmem." Dgin shrugged hoping that would suffice the boy's question for now.