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Send to FriendA thickening fog blanketed the view in the black sky, so it could be seen only as an eerie specter of light as Wilson's eyes looked upward, hoping that the higher powers in the Heavens would someday be able to forgive his horrendous deeds. His eyes peered downward as he shivered from a cool autumn breeze that swept past him, and watched as his latest victim sank into the murky waters below.
She meant nothing to him; she was a stranger, just another poor innocent woman whom Olexanu had ordered dead. Olexanu's bloodlust rose every hundred years at the turn of the century, and he required twelve victims--alternating between male and female--to quench his thirst for blood. This woman had meant something to someone, somewhere. She was a daughter to a few, friends to others, no doubt, and perhaps someone's wife, mother, sister, or aunt.
Killing her had pained Wilson, as had the others, yet her sacrifice was for the greater good, for unless Olexanu had gotten the twelve victims he had ordered to die, the Swamp King would rise, creating mass genocide, an enraged juggernaut bathing in the blood of thousands, perhaps annihilating the entire human race. Wilson could only placate the beast by working with him. Wilson had caught glimpse of the results of disobedience, had seen the devastation that would ensue if he failed to act. Bodies lying everywhere, bodies lying on top of mangled bodies, leering corpses maimed and torn apart as the streets lie red with blood. As he had dreamed these horrible atrocities, the shrieks of the dying pierced his ears as they writhed their death throes, their screams tearing into his heart. Such carnage would become a reality if he failed to act and kill those the Swamp King had on his list; poor souls who would die anyway, should Olexanu's rage be unleashed, and die horribly from the onslaught, instead of a quick and painless snap of the neck, as Wilson had mercifully done to them.
Thickening green smoke rose from the swamp as the woman's body disappeared and the water rippled, shaking. Wilson had seen this scene play out a dozen times, and knew what had been going on. The Swamp King was thirsty of blood, and drained the body of all fluids. The body would rise, dip its horrid, ghoulish head above the water, its eyes now twin specters of bronze light, its gaunt face sallow, pallid, like decaying gray jelly, melting from the skull.
Just one more victim and it'll be over, Wilson told himself, sickened by all he had seen and all he had done this year. Their sacrifices would be for the greater good, yet he felt no less horrid for imposing it on them. Another month and he could slay his last victim for the Swamp King, and then he could seek means of penance to ease his conscience.
Then something happened that hadn't happened with the previous ten victims. The ground began to shake as the water quivered. A savage growl echoed from beneath as the creature--previously submerged--began to rise. A thick tendril of seaweed shot out from the rippling water and coiled around Wilson's neck. Wilson threw his hands to his neck, trying to tear the vines from his throat as he gagged, struggling to breathe. The Swamp King wrenched him into the waters, his grip around Wilson's neck loosened just enough that it would have allowed Wilson to breathe had he not now been dragged under water. He gasped, thrashing his hands and feet, struggling to free himself and swim to the surface. But as Olexandu dragged him deeper into the murky waters, which filled his lungs, Wilson realized--drowning during his final moments of life and reflection--that he would not kill a final person a month from now, and that in order to quench the Swamp King's thirst for blood for the next hundred years, that he would be Olexandu's twelfth victim.
The End
January 17, 2005