Undead Uprising Chapter 3

Upcoming Events

This Wicked Wednesday brings a little something more of a story you’ve seen before — an urban fantasy involving a twist to the werewolf mythology, battles with vampires and a struggle for control in a werewolf pack. The tentative title is UNDEAD UPRISING and I hope you like this next free read that I’m offering you.

For me, the power struggle in this work, which is in large part about women in a male dominated society, resonates with what many women face in the real world. The heroine, Catalina, is torn between accepting the leadership role and the restrictions and demands it will bring to her. She does not wear the cloak of leadership easily, but is willing to make the sacrifice to ensure the continuance of her pack.

The scene which follows is the backstory which explains how Catalina’s pack was created. I hope you enjoy it!

For those of you may have missed the first two chapters, you can read them here:

UNDEAD UPRISING, Chapter 3
Puentebueno, Galicia, Spain, 1348

The smell and taste of blood filled Miguel’s mouth as he slowly woke. His hands were covered with it.

Sitting up, pain lanced through his left arm and leg. With the pain came remembrance. The wolf that had attacked his family had come at him as he ran to their defense. When the wolf had launched itself at him, he had managed to get his arm up to stop the wolf’s attack. He had fought it bravely, striking it over and over with his shepherd’s staff. The wolf had bitten him several more times before finally giving up the battle and running away.

He had watched it go, racing into the dusk, he recalled, but was too weak to either chase after it, or go see to his family. He remembered dropping to the ground by the garden his mother tended so carefully. The smell of tomato plants trampled during the fight spiced the air.

His mother, he thought and found the strength to rise and limp downward to the small thatched home where his family lived. He leaned heavily on his staff, his leg badly injured from the wolf’s mauling. As he neared his home, the first signs of destruction were visible even with the approaching night — the two fat hogs his family had been raising were dead in their pen. Bodies torn apart, the pieces strewn across the dirt dark with blood.

Yards away at the door to their home, his father sat against the rough stone wall, his throat ripped out. Scarlet blood drying to brown stained the clean white shirt he wore. Marked the somber grey stones of the wall behind him where the blood had spattered from the wound in his neck.

Miguel hurried to his father in an injured hop-skip. Sightless eyes stared up at him. Was it his imagination that they seemed to condemn him for not arriving quickly enough after he had heard his family’s screams?

He reached down, closed that accusatory stare, and cautiously entered his home. His mother had been baking. The aroma of bread lingered over the smell of gore and blood.

He could see only a part of his mother behind the large oak trestle table in the kitchen. As he stepped around the table, he wished he hadn’t as he spied what remained. Like his father, her throat had been torn out, but she had also been gutted. The tangled remains of her entrails marred the floor she had always labored to keep spotlessly clean.

She still had flour on her hands, he realized, and hoped that the beast’s attack had been so swift that she hadn’t suffered.

Her eyes were closed. Miguel was thankful for that. He didn’t think he could have handled her condemnation as well.

Bracing himself, he slowly limped to the one large room at the back of the house. The room he shared with his younger brother and sister. He stopped at the door, but couldn’t contain his reaction. Turning, he retched up the remains of the lunch his younger sister had so carefully prepared for him.

His sister and brother who looked as if they had been tossed around like rag dolls and torn apart limb by limb. Pieces of them lay scattered across the room.

He couldn’t bear to look anymore. To be within the walls of the home desecrated by the beast.

Moving as fast as he could, he left the house tucked high up into the edge of the woods and went for help down in the village. At its edge sat his uncle’s blacksmith shop. The bang and clang of metal striking metal greeted him as he neared the building.

“Tio,” he called out at the entrance to the shop.

When his uncle turned and noted his condition, he laid down his tools and the project on which he’d been working and hurried over. “Mi’jo. Que paso?”

Miguel’s knees went weak as he thought about what he had left behind up on the hill. His uncle, realizing that he was in no condition to talk, eased himself under Miguel’s arm and helped him out of the shop and into his home. Once inside, he eased him onto his small bed and tended to his wounds.

Miguel grew sleepy as he rested there. The room seemed too warm. Grew warmer with each passing second. As hard as he battled to stay awake, he soon drifted off, images of his family chasing him in the nightmares that soon came.

Miguel didn’t know how long he had slept, but it had to have been a long time. His body felt stiff as he slipped his legs over the edge of the bed. He noticed then that the horrible wounds inflicted on him by the wolf had healed over. So well that not a mark remained on him. It was almost as if he’d never been attacked. Glancing at his arm, he realized it was in the same pristine condition.

A sound caught his attention. A loud whistle that grated against his ears. He covered them with his hands and sought out the source of the noise. Only the fire burning in the hearth where the sap from a still green log whistled as it steamed from the wood. A loud pop followed. Louder than any he had heard, but then again, everything seemed extreme. The everyday sounds of life were thunderous. The bed beneath him harder. Sheets coarser than usual.

Glancing around his uncle’s simple one room home, he noted the details all around him. Saw into every little nook and corner even though the room was dark.

Dark because the sun had yet to rise, but would shortly. Miguel didn’t know how he knew it, but he did, almost as if he had tapped into the forces of the universe and become aware of the very fabric of life. He sniffed the air, wet with the damp of the night which would become morning dew. Heard the clang of metal and the smell of the coal smoke from the smithy. His uncle had risen early.

Standing, the slight stiffness fled, quickly replaced by a new sense of strength. Looking at himself, it seemed as if his seventeen year-old body had suddenly sprouted more muscled. More like a man’s. He flexed his arms, pleased with the change.

He peered around the chamber, searching for his clothes, but they were gone. They had been torn and dirtied with the blood of his family. Beyond repair. He wondered why his uncle hadn’t left him new garments so that he could dress after he woke?

Walking to the small dresser beside the cot, he opened a drawer and took out some clothes, hoping his uncle wouldn’t mind that he borrowed them. As he dressed, he once again noticed the feel of the coarse wool and linen as he slipped it on his body.

Once clothed, he stepped out to his uncle’s workshop where his tio busily labored over something. He worked quickly, swinging his large hammer with one heavily muscled arm while with his other hand, he held the brightly glowing piece of metal being shaped. Sparks flew, bright in the dark morning, as metal struck metal. The noise of it reverberated loudly inside his skull.

As Miguel approached, he finally noticed what his uncle was fashioning — a large shackle. At his uncle’s feet its companion was already finished and attached to a goodly length of chain.

“Tio. Why are you making that?” he asked, but when his uncle looked at him fearfully, Miguel suspected he wouldn’t be prepared for the answer.