Chapter 10
In Destruction's Wake
CONTENT WARNING:
This content contains mature situations, violence,
and what some may consider gore and inappropriate for children.
Discretion is STRONGLY advised.
In her perilous run Geertrudia is a banshee wailing with a grief that haunts the soul as she goes to Jacop. The fires rage and the light rises and falls as she slides across the ground. She pours of sorrowful tears before Jacop. The face of his torso is splayed open where its torn of flesh and muscle. His bare heart still in tact beats rapidly but what consciousness there may be in Jacop has given way to shock.
"Jacop," She cries. "Jacop, no." Her voice now speaking with softer words. Geertrudia stares in his eyes with denial on her heart and draws a caress along his face, "My love. My Jacop." all the while Victoria has come to stand behind her. They see his heart beat slower. Eventually coming to a stop. Mourning consumes them both. Giving her arm a tug, Victoria gently and slowly implies their time to depart. They must get up. They must go. They need to go. Her implications become more forceful where Geertrudia is unmoving over Jacob's dead body. They need to go now. "Geertrudia," Victoria says through tears, "We need to run."
Finally she is able to pull Geertrudia away though she is in a crippling devastation. She gets her to her feet and they walk together up through the streets of the village while staying weary of the fires. Geertrudia wallows to the point of retching. Victoria can barely catch her breath between crying and coughing as the cold night air dries out her throat.
They reach Victoria's house where a cart was left out front. It was used to gather red mammoth beats earlier in the day and was surely abandoned in order to join the efforts to search for the girls. Once inside, Geertrudia stands at the window keeping watch for the monster anticipating its approach. The lightning storms glimmer passes over the village preceding the vivid details of Rhode Heuvals return to darkness. The fires are spreading and their light shines a dim shimmer in through the windows.
Just then the hammering of heavy rain drops can be heard coming from the roof. Victoria is at her desk where she retrieves her red leather journal. She opens it to see the glowing vial beaming of light. It is alive with activity. She closes up the journal once again. When she turns around she can see Geertrudia at the window. Geertrudia's tears glittering like starlight as they fall. Her eyes riddled with fear are wide as they appear to be clawing their way out of the sockets. In a world of dark-orange and red she stands in the coming fires snare. The light is animated with raindrops distorting the window pane. Looking over her from the dark side of the room Victoria wants to call out to her.
Raising her hand she goes to speak but not air nor words come up. Taking a breath she tries again but she can not conceive a thought. There are no words of comfort. There is nothing. The words are gone. Victoria can only be silent while enduring the empathy she has. She knows how it feels to lose the love of your life. She knows how it feels to lose a child. But their experiences will never compare no matter how close in similarity they are. Even harsher is the reality that Victoria certainly couldn't know how it feels to lose her whole world in one night. For all her academic knowledge and all her skills she sees her impact on the world reflected in Geertrudia's life. What can she do for now she has nothing. She has no new knowledge to dispense. No words that could sow the wounds. Nothing to offer to kill the pain. "What can I do for thy sister?" She asks herself. Sorrow tremors over her heart knowing there will be no reminders of Jacop and the girls. How will she remember them except with the horror she is left with? With the options that are left Victoria weighs there will be nothing but to flee this night. Everything must be left behind. Geertrudia must leave everything behind. Victoria sheds tears for her. Powerless to watch Geertrudia's life be torn from her. Forced out of her home, robbed of her girls and made to watch her husband be killed in front of her.
She is deeply empathetic and still she is unable to find any path to be beside her and comfort her. What can she do when she is to blame for all her loss? There is no telling how far down this hole is but Victoria wants more than anything to get back some resemblance of Geertrudia's life. How irrational she knows it is. There is no natural science that could resurrect her hopes, whims and wishes. It is impossible. This is not a world of magic in which it can be whisked back to the way it was before today. This world is only made sense of when reason can be defined. Reason brings about truths and the truth is unmistakable. Victoria sees Geertrudia in the ruins of herself and none of her is recognizable. Seeing the death of joy in a woman made of it is gutting. The night brings an approaching tiredness that she embodies. Who stands there now is a woman in her place wearily crafted together of assertiveness and terror that is the caffeine that keeps her cautious.
She can't even help her understand how to recover. Today, tomorrow or any other day for when it was of her own experience Victoria was younger. She still had a life to return to. She still had comforts and wealth to aid in her healing. Her and her family didn't deserve this. Geertrudia survives now as a mother without children and a wife without a husband. Where does home exist after this?
The rain dwindles down the fires to smoldering embers. The colossal presence of night returns draping the village in giant darkness. With an unnerving anxiousness Geertrudia begins shaking and tapping her palms against the wall as she whispers to Victoria in a quiet urgency, "It's comes… Victoria it comes."
The creature walks with a menacing deliberation. Stalking with almost a chase like mindset through the street. Its luminescence glows blue in the pelting rain which carries dread that sets off alarms within Geertrudia. It will never give way to surprise for it's light leaves little to the unknown committing atrocities clear as day without ducking into the shadow, unimpeded by morale. The down pours veil has put out the flames on its clothes having burned away its black murky hair, the sleeves of its long fisherman's coat up to their mid forearms; and the pant legs half way up their shins.
Victoria rushes to pull her away from the window, stopping to see what she sees. Now looking out the window she remarks to herself, "The unnatural glow lights up its form- I have created an Adonis. Beautiful and monstrous; never succumbing to a mere mortals ailments such as illness or fatigue. I have seen the death and perfection of humanity and I have unwittingly unleashed him into the world."
With a grip on Geertrudia's sleeve Victoria pulls her back. Hiding them both in the shadows against the wall. Just then they hear Laurens and Albertus from outside. Albertus can be heard yelling but his words are indistinguishable. Soon there is a loud scraping across the ground. For a brief moment all that can be heard is the droplets echoing.
Then suddenly all silence is broken. Crashing noise erupts. The cart from in front of the house explodes through the wall. Shattering wood screams. Fierce unmitigated devastation happens rapidly. Victoria and Geertrudia are thrown to floor and covered in debris. The sound of countless collisions of wood is deafening. Splintered beams and broken bricks disperse. Unsuppressed clatter of rain intrudes. The small space condenses more. The warmth of the house escapes with the unforgiving weather taking over.
The wreckage quickly fixes. Stagnation lingers. Then Victoria's arm emerges. She uncovers her head. As soon as she is able to open her eyes and lift her head she sees the figure of a man cutting through the rain fall- in flight.
It is Albertus. He soars horizontally. Cascading like a chicken that has been flung. Feet first his body hits the floor. But the distance he flew built up too much momentum and his inertia forces his journey to continue. After landing his body tumbles across the red mammoth beets, shards of wood and wet. Stopping as he plunges into the wall. As he recovers he drunkenly searches the debris. His movement wild like a cat chasing shadows. Finally his search ends and he rises with both his hands narrowing tightly around the handle of an axe.
The cart lays on its side in the middle of Victoria's house. Albertus beside it readies his stance for a fight. A disquieting incandescence draws near. A cold pale glow enters the gaping hole in the wall and everything in destruction's wake reflects it. As Victoria backs away in fear she can hear the Shudders of fright come from Geertrudia. The sight of the creature as it sets foot in the house reminds her of the hopelessness she felt the first time she laid eyes on Napoleon's De la police. Uncertainty of her safety gripped her soul when she was in the clutches of their malice regime. But this was a greater evil. For when in the clutches of this monster's dread she knew what it wanted. She has seen it's intention within in actions that there is but one goal. To scorch the earth.
Victoria can hear her through the rain fall. She looks her over to see a shard of wood has pierced Geertrudia's abdomen. Pushing off the debris she takes Geetrudia's hand all the while uncovering her. From outside Laurens rears his head in the hole in the wall. From where Victoria is she can see him but he can barely see the women in the blackness of the house especially when he is distracted by the phenomenon of the monster.
From his gut Albertus screams to Laurens in Latin, "Run! Run and find the others. By god get as far as you can from this place!" Luarens hesitates briefly before giving a nod and running away. Victoria pulls Geertrudia whom then lets out an agonizing cry. Victoria turns to see if that got the attention of her monster. It was enough to draw it's attention. Victoria and her monster lock eyes.
In this moment they are only fifteen feet apart and there is a temporary stillness. Her inquisitive brain spins cognitive thoughts of her collective knowledge to critically think. No mind like a Frankenstein's as she thinks with a heightened velocity. Though only a second or two passes it is enough as she mentally documents theories. It's hair has burned away leaving nothing to obscure its eyes. Inside they are protected from the rain and there is little obstacle but the pressing constraints of time to analyze the monster.
Victoria recalls reading her mothers records of the witch trials where in one entry she wrote of a man who was a prominent skeptic of allegations of witchcraft. An English physician named William Harvey. He reached his death at the age of 79 in 1657 but in his lifetime he was publicly recognized for a report that led to the subsequent pardoning of four woman who stood trial for witchcraft. That was in a time when a death sentence was guaranteed for woman who were accused. He would go on to write the book:
"An Anatomical Dissertation Upon the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals"
In where he writes about recognizing the flow of blood rapidly traveling around the human body and diagramming a single system of arteries and veins. That map of the human circulatory system is evident as it radiates under the monster's glassy skin. Within the diversity of its venation and the burning flare of its eyes she recognizes the light is generating from countless tiny flashes that hold its fairly uniform luminescence.
A repetitious glint of lightning is hauntingly quiet but while Victoria's creature is seen in it's company those billions of tiny flashes explode with burning flares. She thinks how the ghostly glow coursing through it's body could be bacteria trapped in a constant decay and regeneration affect. In another recollection it was during her travels to the America's that she recorded one specific evening. An evening where darkness reigned and her ship was cutting through light in the water. She would later come to understand that the algae in the ocean's far recesses created light in defense of feeling threatened.
"Is the electricity provoking the disease?" Victoria asks herself.
There is no time to ponder more as the axe Albertus wields ravages the creatures neck while its turned away. Albertus jerks at the axe intentionally tearing as much flesh as he can. The gore is abstract from what Victoria can see because it's flesh tears with a momentary blood loss only to close back up in healing with the blood dripping like white lava made of gleaming opaline. Where every part that is beyond it's light is contrasted in darkness. With the axe retrieved Albertus swings again but with the intention to dismember the creatures arm.
The skin breaks. Blood spills. Albertus is shaken with disbelief when the axe bounces like a black smith hammer against an anvil off of the creatures arm.
Victoria recognizes this. She remarks to herself that it's muscle fibers have a density of metal. To fall victim to a precise strike from the monster would mean instant death. An orchestra of thunder plays on like nature makes endeavors to warn all life that they walk amongst the unkillable. Still Albertus is not convinced it is beyond defeat. Committed he continues to engage in a death defying battle.
The stressed voice of Bernardo is heard, "Victoria." soaking from the rain he climbs inside the house.
"Victoria." he says again. He drops to his knees to wrap his arms around her. He pulls back placing her face in his palms, "Victoria, are you hurt?" Victoria can see anguish in him. His apprehension for her welfare stirs her heart. Still her concern lies in her selflessness and she replies, "It is Geertrudia. She is hurt. We need to save her." They both lift her and carry her out of the house. Bernardo can see at a glance the red leather of Victoria's Journal. He leaves them both momentarily to grab it.
As the three of them make their way up the street Victoria looks back one last time. The monster presses forward in nonstop momentum using all parts of itself as a potential weapon of bludgeoning. Albertus is outmatched and as he becomes overwhelmed in an instance his forearm becomes broken folding over itself like a deep rubber boot. The proof of it's monstrous nature can be seen in it's sure fire decisions to inflict harm. Without remorse. Without hesitation. Average men falter under equally physically demanding conditions. The monster instead propels forward with an endless battery. Both made of energy, both unpredictable, both dangerous.
The monster pounds Albertus's collar bone forming a hump in his back. With certainty parts of his bones have turned to dust. Before Albertus can collapse from the fatal blow the creature grabs him by his head. He swings Albertus making him horizontal. The monster spins him around. In a vicious undertaking, the monster repeatedly belts the limp body of Albertus against the walls of the house. Thrashing him at the floor and against the cart till the man was mostly broken bones. A once tall and handsome Dutch man who was ideal in his strength and health has been reduced to a tenderized slab of veal. She contemplates to herself momentarily that her monster is the monster of monsters for it is the sleepless and relentless undoing of good men. Victoria weeps in terror and remorse for the dark is a kindness as it hides what vivid mutilation her monster bestows where the light makes visible enough to comprehend Albertus's lamentable misfortune.
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