This is a new installment in The Flightless, which takes place about fifteen years after a mysterious apocalyptic event in which a plague of vampires was unleashed upon the world.
Photographer: Shannon Marsden. Like her work? Let her know: Venmo @Shannon-Marsden-1
The blue-white glow of Skaggsville on the horizon had teased Blaze and Arthur with its nearness as they reached the delta, but the sun’s rapid descent had crushed all hopes of getting home before dark, leaving them to shelter in the nearest bolthole until morning.
Just across the slough from Skaggsville, the Scuttle was far from luxurious, but they’d slept in worse over the past week. Canted to one side and accessible only by a soggy spit of land that all but disappeared at high tide, the old wreck didn’t look at all habitable from the outside. The inside wasn’t much better; a few boards had been laid across the slanted floor to make a more level sleeping or sitting surface, the walls were slimy and damp, and the whole thing was drenched in the briny, rotting-vegetation, dead-fish smell of the delta.
That was the beauty of it, though. The smell masked their scents, and there was the added benefit that the bloodsuckers tended to avoid salt water. Still, one couldn’t be too careful. They kept their voices low, huddling against the wall opposite the one porthole left clear.
Blaze sat cross-legged onto the rough floorboards, sighing deeply as she dug through her pack.
“Sorry,” Arthur said as he unbuckled his own pack and rummaged around for something to eat.
She shot him an irritated look. “For what?”
Arthur flinched under the heat of her glare. “It’s bonfire night. We’re missing it. I slowed you down, and I’m sorry.”
Blaze produced a tin of dried smelt and popped it open. “It’s no big deal. We were never gonna make it before dark anyway.”
She was always gruff and short-spoken, but her face seemed stonier than usual. She was disappointed, he decided, but she’d never admit to it. She wasn’t big on emotions.
The porthole framed the scene quite aesthetically, Arthur mused as he chewed a nugget of spicy rabbit jerky. The UV perimeter lights reflected on the gathering clouds above, and the comet hung in the sky as if poised to crash into the town. His dad had told him the comet’s name—his dad knew stuff like that—but he’d promptly forgotten it. It had last been visible just before the Fracture, he’d said. Arthur had been too small to remember.
Beside him, Blaze stiffened. “The fuck is that?”
“The comet?” Arthur asked.
“Not the comet. Look.”
As he watched, a section of UV light blinked out, then another. In a few seconds the blue-white radiance had darkened, and in a few more an orange glow bloomed in its place, rising higher and sending up dark plumes into the clouds that now obscured the comet.
He felt all the blood drain from his face as he turned to Blaze to confirm what they were seeing. A tear slid down her cheek, leaving a streak of moisture that glistened in the orange light that shone across the water.
“The bloodsuckers took out the UV lights,” she said. “Skaggsville is burning.”
Soundchecking The Void 