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Andrei made his way along a crumbling roof that ran parallel to Welliver’s brine-lashed seafront. The rooftops of Welliver were very steep, and decrepit, and were it not for the multitude of horrors that stalked the narrow streets beneath their eaves they would have made a poor choice of thoroughfare. But all very present those dread legions were, so the creaking rooftops and the precarious old planks and ropes running between them presented the lesser danger.
Many of the shingles of the seafront roofs had come loose from their seats or were missing altogether, allowing the passage of rainwater and sea-spray that corrupted the supporting beams and caused the ridges to sag between the solemn stone chimneys like a miserable row of bunting. The remaining slates were heavy with moss and tufts of tall grass and hearty mats of ivy seeded by gulls, more slippery and treacherous with each passing winter. Beyond the rooftops the grey water of the harbor was thick with the barnacled masts and ragged sails of ships, all abandoned, dashed and sunk long before Andrei was born.
The object of his dangerous sojourn was the dead lighthouse at the end of Welliver’s long narrow pier. Andrei had with him a bundle of sticks and a can of red powder to set a signal fire in its lantern room. His grandfather had spied a pair of ships on the horizon that afternoon, and ships had to be warned off lest they sent launches full of unsuspecting sailors to fuel a fourth generation of the Welliver curse.
It would take minutes to dash across open ground from the last house on the harborfront to the lighthouse, to ascend the stairs, to light the fire, and to retreat to safety before the light and commotion attracted the afflicted. Such a luxuriant span of time at ground level would need to be bought. Andrei took his bow from his back and notched an arrow tipped with a reed noisemaker and a thin glass vial full of his own fresh semen. He loosed it back in the direction from which he had come, aiming for the old market square. It whistled high over the rooftops and he heard the shaft clatter on distant cobblestones. Something far-off let out a chilling howl.
He scrambled from one rooftop to the next, making for a gape in the roof of the last house on the terrace, where a rope ladder had been fixed to the sturdiest of the skeletal beams long ago. Before making his descent he loosed a second semen-arrow towards the decaying heart of the town. A bin-lid rattled in the alley behind the terrace and he heard the padding of bare feet in full sprint. Andrei ducked into the house without waiting to hear his missile land.
He moved swiftly and quietly through the upturned ruin of a child’s bedroom, the walls black with mildew and the corners colonised by hardy dune-grasses and small white flowers wherever the sun had a chance to reach. The sodden floor groaned with his weight. He slipped along the landing and down the steep stairs into the living-room, which was very dim, the small windows of the house having been fortified with thick boards by his grandfather during an early reconnoiter of the seaward edge of town.
The sturdy front door was locked and barred, requiring one of the many keys from the oily wrap in Andrei’s pocket. The lock was stiff and opened with a stomach-turning thud. Andrei stepped slowly out on to the warped and slippery planks of the porch, pulling the door all but shut behind him and leaving the key on the inside so it might be locked quickly during his retreat.
The seafront street ended in a steep hill of dune-grass and huge black pockmarked rocks, and Andrei slipped into cover there, scanning the open ground for any sign of movement. Satisfied, he began his jog along the sea-wall and out along the slippery wooden pier to the lighthouse. The wooden beams amplified his footfalls many times over, filling him with fresh dread. He notched an arrow with a long head of barbed tin before testing the door to the lighthouse with a gentle push from the toe of his boot. At that slight provocation the door came clean off its rusted hinges, landing on the floor of the lighthouse’s lobby with a horrible clap of iron-banded oak on stone.
"Shit on my luck," said Andrei. The creatures would have heard that on the far side of the island. If the success of his mission had been anything short of critical he might have turned around then and run for home; certainly braver men than he had abandoned incursions into the town for less.
But critical it was, so he steeled himself and leapt up the narrow helical stairway of the lighthouse. It wound ten times around the inner circumference of the tower, narrowing as it climbed. He clung to the handrail as his head began to spin. Finally the stairway opened on to a flat deck of oak boards with the great lamp and guano-flecked mirror mounted on a geared mechanism in the middle. Andrei did not flinch when he spied the old lighthouse-keeper spread on the floor, the rags of his trousers bunched around his bleached anklebones, an old gull’s nest in his chest cavity. He undid his bundle of sticks, piled them before the mirror, and spread the red powder liberally over them. With his flint and firesteel he sent a shower of bright sparks over the pile and the powder caught fire immediately, burning with a tall red flame and a prodigious amount of red smoke. The sticks cracked and popped as the fire grew. Andrei did not dally to enjoy its warmth.
He cursed the architect who imagined up the stairway, for the helix was one continuous blind corner all the way to the exit with no means of seeing more than a few steps ahead. He made two full turns of the screw, halting to peer out each of the tiny windows to check that his run back to the harborfront house was clear. Then his hopes for a straightforward retreat were dashed by a high-pitched screech from the lobby below. He cursed again under his breath, then as quietly as he could manage he retreated up the worn stone steps, notching his barbed arrow again. Upon reaching the lantern room he moved to the far side of the red blaze, stepping carefully over the bones of the lighthouse-keeper.
The huge woman emerged slowly on to the deck, sniffing the air, snapping lipless teeth at the fire. She walked on all fours, her arms long and sinewy, her hands ending in fingers that had fused in pairs into chitinous talons. The bones of her hunched spine stood out like a row of ancient stalagmites and her shoulderblades were as big as shovel-blades, banded with wicked muscle. Her breasts hung below her pronounced collarbones like a pair of empty water-sacks, long black teats just barely missing the floor as they swung to and fro. Andrei could smell the woman over the acrid powder-smoke; like most of her ilk she produced an odour like sun-ripened refuse and rotten fish.
She peered out of the filthy windows and keened like some faithful hound waiting on its owner, then hissed at the fire and turned her considerable bulk to make her way downstairs. The lighthouse-keeper’s skull chose just that moment to part from his leathery old neckbones, rolling between Andrei’s feet. The creature rushed to the source of the sound, first sniffing at the skull, then Andrei’s boots, then fixating on his crotch. Her eyes widened. She let out a piercing wail and reached for his waist with those terrible talons. Andrei let fly his arrow, which parted the tight flesh of her cheek and embedded itself between her neck and her shoulder. She reeled away, clutching at the arrow-shaft with hands that were useful for naught but rending flesh, wailing piteously.
Andrei borrowed one of the lighthouse-keeper’s femurs and swung the bright hip-ball at her awful elongated head, aiming for her temple but catching her right in the teeth. She lashed out with her long hindlimbs and Andrei vaulted over them, twisting his body in time to dodge an oily yellow jet from one of the awful scent glands hidden in the matted forest between her legs. He slid for the stairway and took the first three steps in a single leap.
Down, down, down he went. There was no time for Andrei to survey the lay of things beyond the door, and nowhere to hide if indeed something did wait there for him, so he burst forth in full sprint. He only dared look back to the lighthouse when he had passed the threshold of the fortified house and had the door half-closed behind him. He saw the woman come bounding along the pier, her mouth bloody, running on just three limbs but swallowing up ten feet of distance with each lopsided stride. He slammed the door and cranked the key in the lock, which refused to turn until he had applied so much torque he thought he might snap the key off in the mechanism. He set the bar across the door and made for the stairs. Before he took his second step the door took some thunderous shuddering blow and the house shook with the impact. Motes of dust and plaster rained from the ceiling. A second blow saw the door begin to bow and splinter while the bones of the house groaned in protest. Andrei sprinted upstairs and turned, notching his bow with his last semen-arrow, imagining it might busy the creature long enough for him to reach the roof if she found her way in.
He nearly let the arrow fly at his own feet when he saw a small figure in the dark of the living-room, leaning by the cold hearth. The figure was described by the cool light spilling between the cracks in the window-boards, revealing bands of smooth and radiant skin and hinting at the kind of feminine curves that Andrei had only seen in photographs and paintings. "I could just ask her to leave," she said. A third impact shattered the windows but left the boards intact. "If I don’t, she’ll tear the place down looking for you. I don’t imagine she’ll be fooled by your tricks now that she’s seen you in the flesh."
A girl. Andrei levelled his arrow at her and let it fly between the bannisters, trusting the muscle memory that had sustained him all his twenty-five years. The girl twisted about her waist and plucked the arrow from the air. He caught a flash of her eyes then, slanted and red but still full of human intelligence.
"How kind," she said. She crushed the vial between thumb and forefinger and sucked her fingers dry. "I trust you have more where that came from."
"Away," said Andrei. "Stay back."
"You in your high towers will not provide for us. Why would you chase away those that would? Don’t you see that we are hungry? Have you no pity?"
"You are horrors. You drain men dry. I had to do what I could to save them."
The girl took a step into the light. Her body was taut and shapely, with none of the awful corruption of form that had beset the other women of Welliver. Her breasts were small and high, her nipples pink and oblong against her porcelain skin. Her hair was a dark copper, falling in lazy curls about her shoulders. "How heroic. I wonder; do you taste heroic?"
"How are you able to speak?" asked Andrei. He felt for another arrow in his quiver.
"Those miserable creatures are the result of years of starvation," she said. "When the curse came I was sustained by my father, then my brothers, then others I kept for my needs. I held on to my wits, slippery as they were. The mindless creature at the door had no such familial support or foresight or fortitude of her own. Now all she knows is the hunger." The girl touched her hand to the door as it splintered again under another colossal blow. Shingles rained from the roof, smashing on the street and clattering into the dank bedroom. "Hush, sister. You have lost this one." The creature let out an angry howl and struck the boards of the window, causing the plaster around the window-frame to crack.
The girl turned with a smile. "I think this can end without blood."
"At a cost, I bet," said Andrei. He snapped his arrow from his quiver and drew it in one smooth motion; its head was three splayed nails tied with twine, better suited for spearing fish than slowing down women. "Let me walk away and I’ll let you do the same. I won’t miss this time."
The girl dropped into a crouch and launched herself at Andrei like a thing shot from a cannon, taking the stairs in a single bound. Before he could loose his arrow she had a pale hand wrapped around the arrow-shaft, her face just inches from his. She snapped the head from the arrow with her thumb. "You’ll let me walk away? How merciful you are." She put a hand on his chest and pushed; he hit the wall hard enough sink a ways into the plaster, the air exploding from his lungs. He slumped winded and useless to floor.
The girl took him by the arm and dragged him along the landing into the bedroom with its view of the steel-grey sky. He reached for the rope-ladder and she slapped his hand away. She knelt and straddled him, her cool and fragrant hair brushing his face. She reached between her legs to fix a firm hand over his crotch. She gave his balls a squeeze and smiled. "I notice you have not castrated yourself. Did you know that you could walk with total freedom in the streets if you did? You could come down from your towers and go about your business. The Daughters of Welliver would be gentle as newborn calves." Her breath was hot and sweet; he felt an involuntary stirring in his loins. "Instead you risk your neck scurrying over rooftops on these little sorties. That tells me you still hope to use that thing one day. Don't you? You want to escape the island and lose that cherry of yours to some fine soft country girl."
She arched her back and pressed one of his hands to her breast. Her nipple became stiff against his palm. She began to work him through his trousers and he felt himself harden in response. "So thick," she said. "Oh, you are like iron. That cock of yours is quite without fear or doubt. You should follow its lead! Say you will feed me, boy. Say you will be mine, of your own free will."
Andrei heard the crack of wood downstairs, and a rush of wind told him either the window or door had finally been breached.
"Say it," she said. She looked at him through half-closed eyes, her lips open to reveal white teeth and a slight overbite. She lowered her copper mound over him and ground back and forth. "Say it and live. I can be your country girl."
The creature downstairs let out a howl.
"I’ll be yours," said Andrei. Was it fear or lust that had driven him to this madness? "I’ll do anything you want."
"Glad to hear it," she said. She quickly planted her hands on the floor and rolled on to the balls of her feet. Her abdominal muscles tensed and undulated and her knees shook. Andrei felt something hot and wet spreading over his crotch, soaking his undershirt. Her secretions were not unpleasant; the smell reminded him of woody undergrowth with notes of vanilla and fresh-cut grass. "I am Alta," she said. She stepped between him and the bedroom door.
The creature from the lighthouse appeared on the landing. She growled at Alta, teeth snapping, but her eyes were fixed on Andrei’s prone form and his iron-hard member. She stalked around Alta, her movements halting and hesitant.
"Leave, sister," said Alta. "Leave and you may hunt another day." She turned to Andrei with a cool expression. "New boy of mine," she said, "what is your name?"
"Andrei Tolstin."
The creature inched towards him, the muscles of her arms and shoulders as taut as springs. Dark blood flowed from the broken stub of the shaft in her neck, dripping from her teat like some terrible mother’s milk. She sniffed the air over Andrei’s redolent midsection with her long nostrils, then turned to Alta and let out a low growl.
"Andrei, I think this will require some finesse. In her hunger my good sister seems to have forgotten the natural order of things. I need you to undo your breeches and pull them down. Expose that colossal thing of yours."
"Be fucked," said Andrei.
"Do it now," said Alta. "Do it now, or she will use her claws."
Andrei swallowed hard and undid his belt. The creature watched Alta intently, breathing heavily. He unbuttoned his trousers and slowly pulled them down. Released from its bonds his cock stood straight and thick in the cool air. The creature let out a shrill wail and leaned her forearm across his chest to pin him in place. She snapped a last warning in Alta’s direction, then turned with her huge mouth open as if to swallow his member whole, ropes of cloudy saliva splashing his belly and legs, her breath stinking and torrid on his balls.
Alta snapped an elbow down on the back of the creature’s neck and its jaws clapped shut just a hair’s breadth from the tip of Andrei’s cock. The beast slumped forward, landing heavily across him. His member slipped between her ribcage and the moldering underside of her horrible warm breast and he let out a yell of disgust. Alta put a foot under the creature’s bulk and sent her skidding across the room with a single movement.
"She sleeps," said Alta. "I told you I could end this without blood. We must leave in a moment."
"In a moment?" asked Andrei. He made to get up and Alta put a small bare foot on his chest, pressing him once more to the floor.
"I have never seen one like yours," she said. "My father was old and infirm, and my brother’s cocks were small and unwilling. I had similar poor luck with the others, grateful as I am for them all. But I see true yearning in yours. See how it throbs? See how your balls pulse and shift to ready themselves for me? It fascinates me. I will not wait." She stood over him, legs spread. Her parts were small and neat behind a tuft of copper hair. She parted the lips with her fingers, revealing a tiny pink hood and a glistening pink hole. "Do you want this?"
Andrei nodded.
"I’d hear you say it."
"I want it."
"You want what?"
"I want your woman’s parts."
She laughed. "You will call it my pussy."
"I want your pussy." Andrei lifted his hips in the air. "Come on."
"What will you do with it? Will you fill it? Will you fill it with all of that thing of yours?" She put a foot against his cock, running her toes from tip to root, grinding her heel between his balls.
"I'll fill it."
"Well then." She knelt over him and took the shaft of his manhood in her fingers, directing the head into herself as she lowered herself on to it. "Oh," she whispered, and Andrei was at once surrounded by a tight hot wetness like nothing he’d never imagined, at once very soft and very powerful, gentle and throbbingly muscular. She eased herself lower and lower with a succession of small bobbing movements until her pubic hair meshed with his, all the while sucking on her lower lip, her slanted and half-bestial eyes shut in pleasure. "It’s...so...thick," she said, clenching around him. "I never imagined." She ground herself on him until he felt his head strike some inner terminus and she breathed sharply with pain and pleasure. His balls ran slick with her hot fluids. He clenched his ass to give his tower a firmer foundation and it thrust upwards, eliciting another yelp from her, then another, then another, moving his hands over her hips to pull her down to meet each upwards thrust. She threw her head back and moved her hands over her own body, pinching and rubbing her breasts. She put a thumb in his mouth and pulled his cheek roughly to one side, then lifted his undershirt to scratch his chest, opening wounds that stung in the air. He pounded her all the harder and faster for it, and finally she let out an "oh!" that became a single long warbling note, her pussy spasming around his thickness. He felt his balls clench in response, and shot himself deep into her, holding her down as he did.
"Extraordinary," she said, and she looked at him with soft eyes that had none of the bestial taint they showed just moments before, her irises now sky blue. She leaned in and kissed him, and her kiss was warm and sweet. Then she eased her sinuous grinding and dismounted him, and kissed his neck and the fresh scrapes on his chest, and kissed his belly, and kissed the sides of his turgid shaft. She put his member in her hot mouth and bobbed and sucked and worked her tongue around him until he stiffened and came again, an unfamiliar ache in his balls indicating that they were quite empty. She sucked the tip until the last drop had left him, then carefully pulled his trousers up for him, tucking his cock away.
"You know I am not young in years," said Alta. "I was a girl when the curse came to Welliver."
Andrei sat. "You are more than fifty, then?"
"Fifty-nine," she said. "Not that the years mean much. I have not aged in lock-step with the world as you can see. I do not know what age this body is supposed to be. I suppose I am something new in the world, as-yet unmeasured." She reached out a hand to pull Andrei to his feet, then slipped her arms around him. "I tell you this because that was quite the best fuck I have experienced in all those years," she said, "by a long margin. Perhaps it is just your size and the eagerness of your youth; perhaps it is because you gave yourself so willingly. But I have never felt stronger or more full. I swear you filled me with a half-pint of semen."
She led him downstairs to the ruin of the living-room. The window was gone and the brick surrounding it had been pulled away. She pinned him against the broken wall and kissed him deeply again, and though he was at first squeamish about kissing the mouth that had so shortly before been full of his own semen, he gave himself over to her and all her strangeness, and the submersion of his will in hers offered him a kind of relief.
"Come now, my great bull," she said with a smile. "We must put out that silly fire if we are ever to escape this accursed island."
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