Author’s Note: Thank you to those members of the Garden of MC who commented on the original drafts of this story in The Vineyard. Thank you to Tabico for the original inspiration for this story.
Goblins.
by Vanderbilt.
Chapter One.
The goblin’s long pale leg hovered over Juli’s hiding place beneath the floorboards. She watched the goblin up through the little crack in the floor. Tears of sweat ran down to soak through the neck of her tee.
She could make out little criss-crossing scars on the bottom of the creature’s bare foot. Juli wondered if they’d been there before the turning.
Taut muscles flexed in its naked thighs as it prowled in a circle; the scattered purple lesions, almost like tattoos running up and down the goblin’s flanks, moved up across its small high breasts, up to frame the goblin’s blank face. Juli sensed, rather than saw, its empty white eyes scanning the little room. She saw a few wisps of dark hair hanging from its scalp. Juli estimated the turning must have happened inside the last week.
She hadn’t imagined other free women this far south. Just her and . . . .
The goblin hissed softly and moved out of her vision. Each footstep made the old floorboards creak. The wall cupboard protested as the goblin dragged it open.
Shit. Rowan.
The nineteen-year old had been holed up in an old chain store when Juli had stumbled across her—quite literally. Juli had been trying to find some cans that might still be good, rolling along a loose shopping trolley in front of her in the darkness, when she’d tripped over Rowan’s little camp in the former frozen food aisle. The girl had woken, jumped up and tried to shiv Juli with a steak knife. It took a little time—spent frantically darting around the trolley—before Rowan registered that they both had pink skin and body hair.
The teenager had holed herself up in the store when things had started to get bad, only sneaking out to scavenge at night. Juli had told the teenager to stay there. If the goblins had missed her spot, even if just by chance, then the girl shouldn’t move camp. Don’t mess with that luck. But Rowan had insisted on coming too.
She craved human company again, at nineteen, she should have been out dating and having fun, not hiding away, now she couldn’t bear to let it go. Rowan’s mother had died long before the epidemic and the rest of her family . . . father . . . brothers. Dead like all the other males. Juli wondered if there were any men left in the world.
The faint musk of the goblin made Juli’s nostrils flare. She closed her eyes. The smell insinuated itself into her body. A warm, deep languor crept through her limbs.
Juli made herself think about Charlotte. Of lazy Sunday mornings in bed together, nuzzling Charlotte’s long red hair, so different from Juli’s own short blonde buzz-cut. Listening to the church bells before going out to walk in the park, getting bagels at the corner-stand. The memories helped, but she could feel her body responding nevertheless.
Her pussy started to tingle as the musk smell strengthened inside her head. Slicker, wetter, licking and sliding against the insides of her skull.
The floor creaked. Juli opened her eyes in time to catch a flash of pale flesh as the goblin moved over to the open window. She held her breath.
The goblin turned and walked back directly over her position. Rusty hinges whined for a moment, then the door closed.
Remember.
Wait. You always wait.
“Oh my god, she left.”
No. No.
She heard Rowan moving the broken back panel to the wall cupboard. The cupboard groaned as she climbed out of the tiny hole they’d made in the crumbling wall of the ancient tenement.
An excited whisper, “Juli, I think you can come out now.”
Oh, god. Too late.
The pretty blonde curls veered into Juli’s vision; framing angelic blue eyes that didn’t deserve to look so sad.
Juli didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound.
Rowan’s brow furrowed, “Juli?”
Don’t give away your position. Wait.
Juli saw the confusion in Rowan’s face for a moment before realization dawned.
The teenager froze still.
Juli’s heart thumped in her ears. Nothing moved outside the door.
A faint smile played across Rowan’s lips.
A single precious instant that Juli wanted to last forever; when she wanted to push the floor panel up and climb out and throw her arms around the girl. When she let herself believe that Juli, and not pretty, sad little Rowan, had made the mistake.
The door burst open with a retort like a rifle shot. It fell off its frame as the hinges collapsed.
Rowan didn’t scream. She didn’t glance suddenly away from Juli as if discovered in the act of looking. Instead, she lunged for the window. She didn’t give Juli’s position away.
Juli saw pale limbs and purple markings blur above her through the crack in the floorboards.
More than one. They must have been waiting on the stairs. They must have crept up to the tiny landing below and waited while the goblin with the wisps of dark hair had come up to the top room. They could be so silent.
Rowan started screaming. High-pitched and terrified and hopeless. The teenager grunted as she struggled, but Juli knew the goblins had the girl. The musk filled the room. Heavy pungent scent drifted through the air, making Juli feel drowsy and deliciously comfortable. Her thighs parted without conscious thought. Rowan’s screams faded away, replaced by little whimpering sighs.
The soft, slithering whispers of the goblins played in Juli’s ears. They curled like little warm tongues that stabbed into her mind. Her left hand trembled as she shoved her wrist into her mouth. She bit hard to stifle the moan. Rowan sobbed; one of the goblins almost seemed to be crooning to her in tiny sing-song notes.
Running on instinct, almost feverish with the prickling arousal between her thighs, Juli raised her neck. Something deep and primitive inside answered to the goblin sounds. Her wrist still pressed in her mouth, she forced her eye up to try to see through the crack. But she couldn’t see it happening.
The musk had become almost too strong in the little room. Juli wanted to close her eyes and simply breathe it in, wallow in it. Rowan’s feet scuffled against the floor. A bare ankle swung across Juli’s vision. They’d already stripped the girl.
Rowan’s ragged, heavy gasps blended with the goblin music, making Juli squirm. She could hear them touching Rowan. Stroking. Licking. Tongues making soft, slithering smacks against the teenager’s bare skin. The quiet sucking sound made by slick fingers teasing the girl’s wet pussy; making her ready for the kiss.
Juli closed her eyes.
It made it even better, down in the darkness in her hiding place, listening to Rowan being turned.
Soon, Juli knew, she’d make a noise of her own. They’d hear her and pull up the floor. Find her pushing her fingers into her hot pussy, already too far gone to resist a second more. A helpless slut ready to lose herself to a goblin’s kiss.
The image made the heat burn up through Juli’s damp skin. Her cunt dripped. She wriggled her free hand down to push under the waistband of her sweat pants, into her panties. Parted her wet labia and stroked up to her clit. She ran her fingers around the hood of her stiff clit and then stroked back again. Teasing herself as her orgasm built.
Above, Rowan sobbed with need. Her voice broke, “Yes . . . yes . . . please. Oh, please.”
The goblin music stopped. Juli’s fingers stiffened, poised at the wet entrance to her cunt.
Time for the kiss.
“Please . . . please.”
Juli’s stomach hollowed. Such perfect raw, desperate need in Rowan’s voice. Nothing else in the girl’s world any more, except for that one pure thing.
Juli thought about what it must be like. Losing yourself like that. Never having to think about the . . . the end of the world. Losing yourself in bliss. So tempting just to let it happen. Losing the past.
She remembered Charlotte in the park, walking around the reservoir together. Gravel crunching under feet as joggers passed the two of them by. Charlotte always loved the park; she never gave up, no matter how bad it got.
Rowan’s voice husked, “Yes . . . ohhhhh . . . Juli, it feels soooo good!”
The floorboards creaked.
Her gun shots shattered the floorboards as Juli came up through them. Her little snub-nosed pistol clutched in her left hand. Bells rang in her ears from the gun blast.
The goblins had scattered against the walls. Three of them. One over by the empty door frame. The one with the wisps of dark hair close to the window. One in the far corner by the wall cupboard where Rowan hid a lifetime ago.
Rowan sprawled against the wall, a little way from her hiding place. Naked except for her purple tee, pushed up to expose her round breasts. Her big pink nipples stood out like little bullets. The teenager’s left hand tweaked and twisted them, while her right hand played deep between her thighs. Her skin turning deathly pale, beads of sweat puddling under her ass; the first purple markings appearing on her arched neck. The back of Rowan’s head rolled against the wall. Her mouth opened and closed.
The girl’s eyes had turned completely white.
Juli jumped for the open window, diving head first through it, rolling onto the fire escape’s balcony. She twisted onto her back, ignoring the stabbing pain in her left shoulder. Pale arms clutched at her over the window sill. Fingers coiled around her left wrist, another hand grabbing at the gun.
Juli squeezed the trigger and the fingers released. She rolled again, legs kicking into space, then her hips.
She fell.
The ground reared and hit hard.
Juli screamed. White agony shooting up from her left ankle. She scrabbled against the soil, sinking her fingers into it. She hissed through her teeth. She couldn’t see, the pain too much. Her vision swam, then focused.
She pushed herself up with her left hand. The gun. She hopped, but couldn’t see it in the dust.
Juli heard the door to the tenement building bang. They’d be in the alleyway in a moment.
She pressed her left hand against the tenement’s side-wall, half-hopping, half-stumbling forward. A tree rose in the street in front of her. Its old, elegant branches arched outward to cast long shadows over the alleyway entrance. Juli heard the runners coming, the goblins not bothering with silence now that they knew they had her.
She let the wall go, screaming as the pain jagged up her leg. It gave way beneath her. Juli fell into the long shadows of the tree. She looked up through the branches at the orange sky. A light breeze made the leaves rustle. Charlotte would have loved them.
Getting dark soon. Might have made it if not for the ankle.
A goblin rose over her. Deathly pale and bald, purple lesions tracing the lines of her body. Ears curving into sharp tips. Its lips curled back to show its little pointed teeth. A long, purple tongue snaked out from its mouth, saliva dripping from the tip. It had firm, big breasts, tipped with hard purple nipples. This one had been turned a long time. The other goblin hovered over its shoulder, equally bald and pale.
Juli struggled to think of something defiant. Instead, the pain made her cry. She could taste the snot and tears on her lips, pursing them together to stop herself from sobbing.
The summer breeze felt warm against her skin. Juli wondered who the goblins used to be, what their names might have been. She wondered if they remembered any of it; wondered if she would remember anything of herself after the kiss took hold. Juli stared up into the lead goblin’s solid white orbs.
The goblin leaned forward, humming, the shadow of a branch falling across its face. The shadow passed between its empty eyes, running up across its forehead. A single red point danced in a tiny circle there.
The back of the goblin’s head burst in a red cloud of blood and bone. The other goblin spun. It fled back down the alley; then it jumped in the air like a rabbit and lay still.
Juli rolled over onto her side. She retched, her throat scraping with each dry heave.
Somewhere faraway in a distant world she heard a voice barking orders.
The darkness brought blessed belief.