<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/f4/Theodorehowell.png)</div><br/><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Theodore "Teddy" Howell<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Unknown<br/><strong>Date:</strong>Friday Christmas eve night, December 24th, 1875<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>not too long after midnight<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Gomorra Volunteer Fire Brigade<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Lady Anne Boyle, closed<br/><br/><hr/><em>Teddy backpedaled through the barn, his feet catching on the straw, as the shambling hordes made their way towards him.  His breath came in gasps, and he kept the long handled axe clutched tight in his hands.  He stumbled and fell, the axe nearly tumbling from his grasp.  He looked back over his shoulder, at the mouths full of tiny fangs, at the pale, stretched skin, wrapped over nearly bare ribs and skeletal limbs.  Their skin was like paper, and they opened anguished, needle sharp maws in cries of ravenous hunger.  He trembled, his fingers tightening.  His sister.  His father.  His mother.  They shambled towards him, along with the rest of the town of Santo Bendito.  <br/><br/>The stablemaster burst through the wooden stable wall, screaming and charging him. His body was emaciated, his skin papery, and that fanged mouth opened.  Within the stable, a half eaten horse stared mute accusations at Teddy.  He'd learned to ride Romeo when he was a boy – a gentle gelding that had never bucked a child.  The stablemaster's favored horse, one he always took extra care to tend, to brush, to feed.  He'd gone hungry before he'd allowed the horse to eat anything but oats.  Now it's half eaten carcass underlined the ravenous hunger of the creature that charged him.<br/><br/>He sank the axe into its skull, and the creature went down in a spray of blood and brain and bone.  It flopped to the ground, its lifeless body twitching, and the rest of the shambling creatures heard the anguished cry as he felled the creature.  They screamed, like a pack of howling wolves, and charged at him.  Teddy shuddered, pressing closer and closer to the back of the barn.  He scrambled up the ladder, into the hay loft, kicking the ladder away even as one of the creatures climbed after him.  He'd just cleared the top when the creature lept, a clawed hand wrapping around his ankle.  It clawed a hand at the edge of the loft, dangling while the ladder fell back into the massing creatures.  Its grip was impossibly strong, and Teddy screamed and swung the axe, severing the hand at the wrist.  It continued to cling, even as the creature fell back into its fellows with a cry of wordless rage.  <br/><br/>Teddy looked down, transfixed for a moment.  The township howled up at him.  His friends.  His family.  All of them twisted into pale, parched creatures, starving for flesh.  He looked behind himself – the barn's hay loft window was open, and he slipped towards it.  It was a dizzying drop to the ground, and he landed with a grunt and a wince, his ankles crying protest.  He ran on them a moment after landing, each step making him grunt in pain.  The oil lantern would be just inside the barn.  He slammed into the giant barn door, pushing it closed.  The creatures, the monsters, everyone he knew turned towards him.  They began to run towards the door, even as he finished the slide.  The door's momentum was in motion, and he ran to the end, reaching inside to grasp at the lantern just inside.  He felt a parchment-dry hand across his arm for one shivering moment, then he pulled the lantern free, just getting it and his arm free before the heavy door would have crushed it.<br/><br/>“I'm sorry,” he whispered.  “I'm sorry.”   <br/><br/>His hand slid down to the oil's light, turning the sparker to make the wick catch light.  “I'm so sorry,” he said again, as the lantern caught light.  He swung it overhead, and then with a grunt threw it at the thick wooden door, while the monsters battered at it from within.  The flames began to spread.  Across the door, up the walls.  It crawled slowly, flames jumping from painted board to painted board.  <br/><br/>A tiny fist punched through one of the burning boards.  He recognized the shape of the tiny hand, before it had been curved into malicious claws.  Another punch, and the board began to break free.<br/><br/>“No.”  Teddy winced, tightening his grip on the wood chopping axe.  “No, please no.  God in heaven, please, no.”  There was a sudden shriek of anguish, as the creatures began to catch alight.  The hay had caught.  The barn was burning in earnest – but then a slim girl, a sister twelve years his junior pushed herself through the weakened board.  Her flesh burned as she ran, her mouth open, her cry rage and pain and desperation as she charged her older brother without recognizing him.<br/><br/>“Please,” he pleaded, with a merciless God.  “Please, don't make me - “  <br/><br/>He swung the axe at her neck.</em><br/><br/>Teddy snapped awake in his bed.  He sat up with a start, his heart hammering in his chest.  He closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to slow, forcing his body to relax.  He tilted his head forward, then leaned and reached for the rosary around his chest.  He kissed the crucifix, bending his head in prayer, then letting the cross dangle over powerful muscle while he offered half-hearted praise that it was only a dream.  That it wasn't happening.<br/><br/>Again.<br/><br/>He lay back, but the memories tormented him when he closed his eyes.  He reached for the flask of whiskey at the side of the bed, taking a swig.  He closed his eyes and his sister's gruesome face leered.  He shook it off, opening his eyes, sliding his feet out of bed and into his boots.  He slept half-clothed, always, and he reached for a linen shirt, tugging it over broad shoulders and then pulling a battered duster from the peg on the wall.  He needed to walk.  He needed to stretch and feel the cold air fill his lungs and forget the fire.<br/><br/>Gomorra's Volunteer Fire Chief slipped out of his tiny bedroom, off the simple mattress, out into the cold of the night.  He passed the battered wood-cutting axe by the door, picking it up and sliding it inside the coat, the head of the axe protected by a leather pocket, the loop in his jacket catching the neck of the axe and keeping it hidden from view.  It gave him a comfortable sense of reassurance, and his shoulders unknotted slightly before he plunged into a Gomorran winter.<br/><br/>The wind was a harsh nip, cutting even through his coat, and the inches of snow on the hard packed, frozen earth reached midway around his cowboy boots.  The chill cut, but it helped to clear his mind, and he inhaled it deeply, his eyes closed.  The past was gone.  The deed done. The fire would always be etched in his memory, but he didn't want to forget it.  Not ever.<br/><br/>He opened his eyes, and a blond head flounced past him, hair streaming, eyes wild and lost.  He blinked, surprised, and looked after the fleeing woman.  The robe was barely fit for public modesty, and her feet were making easy tracks in the snow.  He gulped, and then instincts and some sense of the public good gripped him, and he ran after.  Long and powerful legs kept pace with her until she finally slowed, leaning against a wall and sobbing, her chest heaving.  Her feet were in inches deep snow, and she looked so... so stricken.  So completely, deeply undone.  Without a word he slipped off the coat, wrapping it around her shoulders.  He had no idea who she was, he had no idea her name or when she'd come to Gomorra.  He just knew something was wrong and she needed help and... and she might well be out of her mind.<br/><br/>He was a foot taller than him.  The coat brushed her ankles, and he wrapped it tight.  Her bare feet – she was going to lose toes.  He needed to take her somewhere warm, dry – and so he wrapped an arm behind her back, then scooped another beneath her knees, lifting her into the air without a word, and turning back towards his shop.<br/><br/>Dark green eyes searched hers.  “You alright, ma'am?”