Lament of a Sin

The Hierophant

The smell of rotten meat and pus filled the air, the smell drawing my attention like a beacon. I stared at the mutilated corpse at my feet my scythe dripping with the putrid blood of the thing at my feet, a small grin split my face. After what felt like ages the sound of more corpses roused my senses again. Turning on my heel I faced the two shambling husks. I could feel my grin grow to new widths. Taking a few steps forward I charged into a sprint my weapon held over head. With a single swing I felt my blade meets it's target the sound of bone and brains being rend sounded like music. Pulling my scythe from it's skull I spin on my heel, my scythe flying long and cleaving the head clean from the second aggressor.

I stared with glee as the headless body fell to the ground blood poured from it's open wound. With morbid curiosity I dealt one more blow to the body's spine, then another and another giggling like mad I began to hack the corpses to nothing but chunks. By the end of it all my whole body was bathed in red, I looked over my work once more proud of it.

"Silas! Where are ya boy!?" A voice pierced through the quiet. I felt my smile turn to the source of the noise, a few moments later a tall tan skinned man stood in the door to the room I had made a slaughter house. He looked at the blood covering everything and my cloths new dye job.

"Ugh, did you remember to take your shots?" He asked, with a quick motion I withdrew and empty syringe from my pocket.

The man let out a sigh of relief. "Good I don't need you losin' it out here." He walked over and pat my shoulder.

"We've been doin' this a while now dad, I know how things work." I said, my father Vaughn Clayton always worried I would let my urges take over. Sometimes they would go a bit over board by normal standards... but I never really care for standards anyway.

The next moment I found myself following my dad through the rows of empty shelves of what had once been a supermarket now an almost empty shell. I could feel the familiar weight of canned goods and water in my backpack, we had just finished our scavenge and were heading back to to our tent village in the mountains. I let my eyes flow over the shelves making sure I had picked them clean for what could be used.

"Find anything good today?" Dad asked striking up conversation.

"Mostly food, and this." With a dramatic flourish I drew out an old .44 magnum revolver, the metal of the gun was still clean as if preserved. Dad smiled and pat my shoulder again, I couldn't help but examine the weapon revolvers being a personal favorite even a .357.

As we left the store I caught the darkened for that is my reflection in a broken mirror. My midnight black trench coat hung to the tops of my feet the sleeves cut at the shoulder showing my two well toned arms. A pair of black boots adorned my feet they were coated in the red stains of corpse blood. A white face mask covered my grim features from any onlookers. And last a short wide brimmed black hat covered my head the shadow keeping my eyes hidden from the world. My cloths were slightly torn at the edges but other wise still intact.

Outside the air was cold and the wind scratched at my face, the once nice town of whatever the hell it' called now lay a ghost town. Buildings covered in graffiti, windows busted out, corpses lining the streets, and cars lay abandoned and rusting. To most people this would be a sad image one of mourning and grief, to me, to me it looked liked an infinite opportunity to express my inner being. As well as the inner beings of others.

I climbed into the back of an old Dodge Ram my father climbing into the drivers side. I slide the window open and handed him the food we had collected, but kept the gun at my side.

"It should take us a few hours to get back to camp, go ahead and get some rest for now 'kay boy." Dad said from inside, I nodded and settled down against the side of the truck bed still twirling the gun on my finger. Soon I felt my mind settling down and not a minute later, fell into the wonderful land of dreams.

I could see images, memories of people, they we smiling and walking in what looked like a park the location was unfamiliar to me. With and empty gaze I watched as the family walked the path. The mother held the sons hand they were talking but their words fell on deaf ears. The father held a video camera, I knew these people the man was my father back when he was younger ad hearty, I was the small child smiling without a care in the world. The women... she was my mother I can't remember her, at all, nothing even pops into my mind as if she had been erased from my mind.

Everything went blurred and the scene changed. The next instant I was looking at a crime scene, my father sat next to me a blanket draped over me. Two stretchers carried two body bags into an ambulance, I looked at my own expression. I was the same one I had now, empty. The memory went out of focus again then it went black.

"Silas wake up." Dad was shaking my awake, opening my eyes I saw the concerned look on his face. "We got raiders." He said motioning to something on the other side of the cabin. Peaking over the truck I saw a camp a ways down the road.

I could all ready feel my scythe cleaving them apart. Leaving the truck behind I flanked to the left of camp dad went right. I must have slept for some time as the moonless sky gave us the perfect shroud. As we came closer to the camp we could see men sharpening crude knives and pounding nails through wooden bats and boards. I looked across the camp to see dad taking point in the top of a tree his hunting rifle trained on one of the raiders. By this point we knew how to take care of guys like this.

With tempered skill I silently walked up behind one of the men a rail spike in hand., he was looking over a skull still covered in blood. I felt no sympathy for anyone, but raiders just give me an excuse to kill them. I cupped my hand over his mouth and before he could struggle I rammed the spike through his throat blood flowed down his chest. Silently I withdrew my weapon and laid him on the ground. I heard the small pump of dad's rifle and heard a body fall a short ways to my left. Looking around from behind cover I saw we had yet to be noticed. I moved away from the light of the many camp fires and circled around.

As I a got to the other end of the camp I saw a cage, inside were dogs infected ones, the fur was missing and bits of flesh had been scrapped off. They were barking and bouncing inside their cages creating plenty of noise, taking advantage of this I got closer to the men. I could see their leader sitting on a throne made from junk and topped with skulls, your classic raider asshole. In total 8 men sat around the bonfire, all of them were armed with automatic weapons and blades. It was gonna be a fun night.

Keeping to the shadows I stalked to the nearest raider stopping a few feet behind him, and like his friends he was drinking beer and laughing at bad jokes. He was in sight of everyone if I killed him the others would notice in an instant. Thinking a bit I flipped the spike so the sharp end was in my finger. I took a deep breath and measured the distance between me the raider and the leader. Cocking my arm back I let the spike fly high, I went out of sight for a moment.

I could hear the sound of the leaders skull caving in, the sound silenced the raiders. They watched as the corpse of their boss slid off his chair and into the fire the spike still in the very crown of his head. Again I heard dad's rifle and the raider opposite of me fell, once they looked towards their fallen ally I silenced mine by grabbing his jaw and turning his head in a complete 180. Taking refuge in the darkness once again the remaining five raiders went back to back guns shifting looking for their assailants. I was now behind the throne looking through a hole at the group fear present on their faces.

Taking a moment to think I knew 2 things, dad couldn't shoot unless he gave his position away and that I had to make the first move. I drew another spike from my coat, as quickly as I could move I let it fly. A second later I hear one of them scream in pain but not of death. I rolled from the chair and behind a tree the throne now being riddled in bullet holes. Again dad fire taking down another raider, leaving 2 standing and one wounded badly. I sprinted around them again making little noise. Taking out my last spike I threw it at the men, with dead eye accuracy it punctured ones head leaving only one man standing. Quickly dad took him down leaving the last on the ground struggling to breath my stake having punctured his lung.

Leaving the shadows I walked up to him, he tried to raise him gun, I kicked it out of his hands and away. He looked dead into my masked eyes, I pulled my scythe from its holster and raised it above my head.

"We all gotta go sometime, you're going now." I said, and swung.

---[Error Location Not Found]---

"You sure we should send this one?" ??? spoke up, the four other beings watched as the human finished cleaning the blood from his scythe.

"Of course, he's still breathing, he's evil enough to kill but good enough to kill the right things." One said looking down at the teen with increasing satisfaction.

"I agree he's simply precious. He's so strong and brave, and just look at his nice long blade." Said the third figure, with a different manner of satisfaction.

"I think I'm gonna need another drink after this." A the fourth said tossing a large mug into an increasing pile. "I agree he's capable but how do we know his mind won't break if we tear him from this reality and chunk him into another?" The being said pulling another flask from no where.

"We'll just have to make do, he is the only one immune to our little plague meaning he is the only one able to be sent through realities an not be torn apart." The first said, the others went silent and continued to look as the boy sped down a street in the back of an old truck.

---Earth, 5 miles from Rocky Mountains: Camp 1, Midnight---

I smiled with grim satisfaction as I looked at the rewards from me and dads job, I had 5 different guns inside my duffle bag another bag filled with ammo. We had scavenged everything useful from the raider camp and the pay was very much worth the effort. Me and dad took almost half and hour sorting out the weapons and food we had gotten, I was still giddy from the fight the loot was just icing on the cake.

Now I sat in the truck bed once more, this time surrounded with a good days pay. I heard a tap on the window, opening it I looked inside. "Yeah dad?" I asked.

"We're gonna have to stop for tonight the truck ain't soundin' too good." Dad responded, this wasn't good. If we passed a horse they surely would have heard us. If the truck broke down before we could fine shelter or get back to camp we're as good as dead. Feel the adrenalin pump into my veins I looked around us, we were still moving but dad was right the truck was making a bad rattling sound.

Not taking chances I checked my .44 magnum then slung a m16 from the bag across my back. I like guns they were good for keeping the walkers away, but I had nothing against getting up close with my scythe it was just that much more of a challenge.

I felt the truck slow down, dad turned a corner and parked in front of an abandoned gas station. He jumped out of the truck his bags in tow. "Grab your things we need to get higher." He ordered, with no word I grabbed my weapons and food. We ran across the parking lot to the back of the station, seeing the latter I jumped up and pulled it down. I motioned dad up keeping cover below him.

Looking over the wooded area around us I saw motion and could easily hear the sound of both infected and walkers. As soon as dad was up I jumped on the ladder and hurried to the top, as soon as I was up I raised the lower part again making sure infected wouldn't climb up after us. Finally safe I slumped against an old A/C unit steadying my breaths. I felt a soft blanket fall over me, looking up I saw dad's smiling face he took a spot next to me pulling up his own blanket.

"Get some sleep we got a few miles to cover tomorrow before we get back to camp." With that dad rested his head on his jacket and was out. I took a moment to look over the tree line and the night sky almost missing the moonlight. With a tried sigh I crossed my arms under my head and quickly succumbed to sleep once more.