#in the beginning i thought she was thirsty and then i bought a lil water fountain for her but she kept doing it lmao

[ashswritingplace]

Flanders Field

This is a short story I rewrote based on this flash fiction. I went over my word limit, but I think the story is better for it. This one is about a man whose life changes when his sister is attacked by a monster.

“Flanders Field”

11 November, 2018

“On this and every day, may we remember those who have fallen for our freedom.”

Lincoln Hyrix was not a history buff. His knowledge of the past came more from video games than from textbooks, and though he had generally enjoyed his time in school, he couldn’t care less about the significant dates that had littered his exams throughout his school days. Today, however, was the one date he couldn’t forget, partially because it was plastered across his Facebook feed.

He remembered reading about World War I and Flanders Field from his freshman history class in high school. He didn’t remember the significance of all those poppies, but as he scrolled through the fields of red on his computer screen, he found himself thinking back to photographs of those flowers. They marked the end of a bloody war, and an annoyance to clog up his social media.

He pushed away from his desk and absently glanced at the clock hanging above his bedroom door. His sister still wasn’t home yet. Lilee was twenty-five, only half a decade his senior, but she had been more a parent to him than a sibling. Their mother had died giving birth to their stillborn brother when Link was a kid. That child had been a bastard, the proof of his mother’s cheating that had caused his father to leave the family. He had seen his father sparingly since, making Lilee the only family he was close to.

They had plans that night. Link was off from work due to some plumbing incident at the theatre, so he and Lilee had agreed to get comfortable, bring out the beers, and make some progress on whatever video game they picked out that day.

Lazily, Link plucked a book off of his bookshelf and leafed through the pages. He took a moment to admire one of the illustrations, and it was then that he heard the front door open. “Lil?” he called. “Jeez, what kept you? I could have finished a whole pizza in the time it took you to get home. Thank god we can order now.”

His sister didn’t respond. Link set his book down and listened for his sister. “Lil?” he called again. He got up and walked from his room to the living room.

Lilee was absent. Drops of scarlet led to her bedroom, thick, haphazard. Link shivered. “Lilee?” he called, more cautious this time. “Are you alright?”

Silence. Panic seized his breaths as he followed the ominous trail, creeping towards his sister’s bedroom. The door was open, so he peered inside, and there he finally found her.

Lilee, the definition of stability, of strength, of reliability, was on her knees, clutching the threads of her neon-colored rug. Her skin was several shades too pale, and fresh blood soaked her pores. Her once luscious brown waves were kinked and matted. Red ran from her lips, thicker than any lipstick. Her teeth poked from her mouth, two fangs that had not been that long before. When she looked up at him, her eyes were too pale, vacant, filled with a hunger he would never understand.

“Lilee?” His voice quivered. He was struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. Fear clutched at his hands, shaking wildly at his sides. “What… what happened?” he dared to ask.

The smile that split her face was mirthless. “Lincoln, my sweet baby brother, I’m so thirsty. Won’t you bring me some water?”

Link tried to ignore the chill that ran down his spine. “Of course,” he started, but Lilee held out a hand to stop him from moving.

“On second thought,” she mumbled, “I think I will visit your father. I think he has what I need.”

Link couldn’t understand what she meant. “Lilee,” he said, stern voice wavering. “Leave Dad alone, would you? We can get you some help. Let me get you water.”

Lilee was still; it appeared she hadn’t heard him at all. She looked to the door, to the drops of red. Then, she shot out of her room, faster than Link could react. By the time he’d gotten up to chase after her, she was out of the house.

Link scrambled to gain composure. He hastily grabbed his car keys from their dish, nearly knocking over the glass in the process. As he started for the front door, his eye caught on a decoration.

It had been hanging on the wall in their foyer since Lilee had bought it for Link, on his eighteenth birthday. They had passed by it every day, a conversation starter, a piece of furniture. Link prayed it would not become more than that.

Link’s hands were shaking so hard that it took him four attempts to get his keys into the ignition. His father’s house was fifteen minutes away by car, thirty on foot. Would he get there before his sister? Fear clawed at him the entire way.

Lilee hadn’t even looked human. Link couldn’t make sense of it. She was a kindhearted person, always willing to lend an ear, always working hard to help everyone around her. Just what had happened to turn her eyes so cold, so lifeless?

Link’s car hadn’t even stopped moving by the time he ripped the door open and leapt out of it. He hadn’t visited his father’s family in years, and as he desperately jogged up the stairs leading to the front door, he could feel his heart throbbing. The door had been torn open, and its hinges lay bent on the walkway, broken. Link swallowed, hard, and ran inside.

There, in the living room, he saw it.

Flanders Fields.

Dark red poppies bloomed all over the room. They spiraled on his sister’s skin, splashed on her clothes, spilled from her mouth. She was hunched over Link’s three-year-old half-sister, Penny, a garden of liquid flowers and stark white stems. Her brother, Henry, held petals in his hands, between his eyes, through his throat. He slumped in his field, lifeless. Their mother, Link’s stepmother, a statue of stem and petal, back and red, another poppy buried in a sea.

Link felt the nausea push past his lips. His vision was blurring, his hands were growing numb. Somewhere, he heard his father sobbing, crying words no one would ever believe.

Tears pierced Link’s eyes. As he looked over the thing hunched over a toddler’s body, he understood. His Lilee had died the moment she’d been attacked. The thing that stood before him was no kin of his.

Choking back a sob, Link reached for the gift his sister had gotten him. For two years it had remained untouched, an immobile part of their home. Now, that changed.

He could not bring himself to look at her. His hands trembled as the broken man grasped this gift. His voice, small, childlike, kept repeating, “I’m so sorry.”

And finally, he found the strength in him to bring the sword down into the beast’s heart. She looked to him, panic and pain crossing her monstrous eyes. With a fading voice she begged him, “Why?” In silence and confusion, she fell dead.

Link could not move. His hands fell from the handle of his sword. He couldn’t believe what he’d done.

Outside, he heard sirens racing towards him. He shook his thoughts clear, and in a hurry he pulled the sword from the defeated monster. He shot out of the house, threw his keys into the ignition, and returned to the place that was no longer home.

Link would never know what had bitten his sister. He’d never know how she was attacked, how she fought, how she turned. But Link vowed he would not allow anyone to feel the pain he now felt.

Link was twenty years old, with a whole life of opportunity ahead of him. Suddenly, he understood what he had to do with his years.

He had left a garden of poppies, dark as death, in his father's home. The posts from his feed returned to his mind.

Flanders Field had marked the end of a war. This field marked the beginning of a new one.