Goblins.
by Vanderbilt.
Chapter Five.
Juli stirred, she could feel Charlotte’s breasts and thighs pressed against her back, a soft pillow under her head. She kept her eyes shut, her last memory the carpet of the theater rushing up to meet her as she fainted. Maybe if she kept her eyes shut the two of them could stay like this forever.
Charlotte stirred, her hand brushing through Juli’s short hair. “How do you feel, darling?” she said.
Juli felt Charlotte’s lips kiss the back of her neck. It made little electric shivers of pleasure run down her spine.
“Is this real?” said Juli. She didn’t open her eyes. Charlotte shifted, her fingers tracing small circles down to the small of Juli’s back. Juli arched under her touch, sighing.
“Yes,” said Charlotte. Her hand curled around Juli’s hip. “Please look at me, darling.”
Juli twisted, opening her eyes. Charlotte’s pretty face leaned over Juli’s right shoulder, eyes shockingly green in contrast to her deathly pale skin. The purple lesions spiraled across Charlotte’s skull and down the sides of her neck.
“Oh, god, Charlo—,” Juli choked. She lifted her head without thought, running on pure instinct, reaching for Charlotte’s lips.
Charlotte bobbed her head back, fingers covering Juli’s mouth. She shook her head, “No. You mustn’t.”
Juli dipped. She pressed her lips against Charlotte’s neck; they held each other while they cried.
“How?” said Juli.
Charlotte sat up on her knees. “I remember you started the viral therapy for my cancer . . . .”
Juli’s stomach hollowed. The musk filled her lungs and nostrils, almost springing from Charlotte’s skin. Her eyes drank the curves of Charlotte’s full breasts, the smooth flare of her hips, the swell of her bare mound. Juli licked her lips; she leaned into her lover, taking one hard nipple in her mouth. Charlotte tilted her head back, moaning.
Juli pushed Charlotte back onto the pillows of the couch beneath them. “It can wait,” she said.
“I remember the thoughts,” said Charlotte. They lay in a tangle of limbs, their thighs scissored one against the other, moving in lazy time. “Not mine. Other peoples. Dripping into my head—kids, parents, lovers, marriages, deaths. I thought I’d go mad. I think . . . I think I did go mad for a little bit. The only thing that I could cling to was you. I knew you were mine. That at least stayed with me.”
She ran her tongue across the nape of Juli’s neck, licking down the slope of her breast. Juli shut her eyes and shuddered as Charlotte’s thigh rose to grind into her wet pussy. She rode it, clenching as her orgasm came.
“It was like being caught in a storm. Being caught in the waves and spinning under them,” said Charlotte. “I don’t know how long it lasted. It lasted forever. Everything I used to be, everything I was disappeared. I think I stopped being . . . human.”
Charlotte pushed Juli onto her back, pressing her fingers in between Juli’s thighs. Juli sobbed, lifting her hips up against the wicked fingertips.
“I can’t remember when I began to swim. But I started. I started swimming through the memories and when I did the sea calmed. I could still see the storm, but now I was in the eye of it. That’s when I woke up.”
Juli came again, the pleasure almost painful. She felt molten, like wax underneath Charlotte, her flesh being shaped by her lover’s hands.
“The men were all dead. And the women . . . they’d become the goblins,” said Charlotte. “I learned that’s what people called them when I started to see those memories. Fear, terror, awful things. That’s when I learned I could push the storm back. That I could control it, just a little.”
Charlotte leaned her head on one hand, up on one elbow beside Juli. She ran the palm of her hand across Juli’s hot skin, slick with their sweat.
“The goblins never bothered me. They left me alone. I came here,” said Charlotte, she nodded her head at the stage where the couch lay. “Recognize it?”
Juli looked around the theater, recognition suddenly dawning, “Yeah, you always loved showtime,” she smiled, “First date.” Charlotte nodded, her pointed teeth showing as she smiled back.
“That’s when I found I could control them, one by one, and then more than one. Moving in the sea, diving in deep and coming up inside of them. I could see through their eyes,” said Charlotte. “It’s not easy, but it’s doable. And they . . . like it. A lot. They crave it, having a will directing them, telling them what to do. That’s why there are so many on the island. It’s my realm—outside it, I can’t go that far; it’s chaos.”
“You’re the Queen,” said Juli. “You were inside, Maria. She told me the Queen loved me.”
“Yes, and I saw you beneath the tree. I was there, you can’t imagine what I felt,” said Charlotte. “And I’m sorry you had to meet Rachel.”
Juli’s mouth opened.
“Oh, I know her name. I know her very well,” Charlotte’s lips pursed. “I’ve seen the memories of the women she’s brought here. She keeps coming back, bringing more women she’s found, telling them stories about the army she’s in, losing them to my goblins. She’s quite insane.”
Juli bit her lip, “I know.”
“It feels good when the goblins kiss someone,” said Charlotte. “It’s not because they want to harm them, it’s because they love them. They’re all so happy now, Juli—Beth and Maria and Sam and Rowan.”
Charlotte sat up, one arm straight, palm flat out on the bed, her other arm draped casually across her knees. “I knew you’d finally come back for me. I’ve always known you would.”
Charlotte’s back straightened, “Because you know, don’t you, darling?”
Juli flushed cold, the feeling of the musk suddenly gone. Charlotte looked at her, green eyes so terribly sad.
“You know who did this, don’t you, darling?”
Juli drew herself up, her arms clung around her knees.
“Yes,” said Juli. “When I saw you.”
Juli closed her eyes tight shut.
“I did it. I killed the world.”
“You were dying. Charlotte. Terminal. Untreatable. No hope.” Juli whispered. “I . . . cut corners. I didn’t run tests on the rats, didn’t get the sign off from bio-sec, it was a synthetic virus, it was . . . the only thing I could do, the only chance you had left. I didn’t think it could go airborne. I didn’t think . . . .”
Juli rocked, head on her knees, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so . . . .”
Charlotte’s fingers stroked her neck, her voice hushed Juli, “I know. And now I can take it all away, all the guilt can disappear with one kiss.”
Juli looked up into Charlotte’s sad eyes. She swallowed, “Charlotte, we could cure it. I could try . . . . There could still be people who could.”
Charlotte pressed a single finger against Juli’s lips, “It’s too late, darling, I can’t go back. They can’t go back.” She tilted up Juli’s chin, her dark purple tongue running out across her lips, “I don’t want to go back.”
Charlotte’s sweet breath played across Juli’s lips as she leaned in. The musk filled the air again.
“Ask me,” said Charlotte.
“Please . . . ,” said Juli. “Forgive me.”
Charlotte kissed her, soft lips touching, her tongue sliding into Juli’s mouth. It wormed inside Juli’s mind. She could feel it there, licking against the hot wet walls of her thoughts. Fucking her brain with its tip.
It felt . . . so fucking good. Bliss.
Charlotte let her go. Juli fell back on the bed arching, vision narrowing, the world becoming dark. Thin pin points of light from the candles barely visible.
“My eyes . . . ,” her voice slurred, “gone white . . . .”
Tongue in my head. Thoughts melting.
“Yes—,” said Charlotte, her voice broke. “Completely white.”
Juli couldn’t control her limbs, her fingers opened and closed in spastic ecstasy. She convulsed, sprawling on the pillows.
“Feels so good, Charlotte, . . . I can feel it. Oh. They’re melting away.”
With Charlotte. The park. Getting bagels. Tickets to.
Juli sobbed, “I can feel you. You’re deep inside.” She could feel fingers playing in her wet cunt, opening herself up to the tongue that swirled in her head.
Charlotte. The park. Getting.
She could feel intense pin pricks of heat on her skin, “The lesions. . . . They’re forming.”
“Yes,” said Charlotte, her voice seemed to come from another universe, echoing across vast distances of space. “They ar—.” The rest disappeared in the haze of pleasure, meaningless sounds as if heard beneath the surface of a vast sea.
Charlotte.
“I. I love y.”
She couldn’t remember words any more. The pleasure rolled over them and blotted them out.
The goblin sang in soft moans. Lesions budding along the sides of its thighs, its skin pale. It rose and ran its purple tongue up the thigh of its Queen as she stood by the couch.
Charlotte reached out and stroked the goblin’s short blonde hair. It licked her fingers, taking them into its mouth to suckle.
“I know,” said Charlotte. “I know you did.”
The Goblin Queen rose and lead her goblin outside by the hand.
Epilogue.
She peeled the damp pages apart. They’d got wet swimming through sections of the flooded subway under the east river. Couldn’t be helped, only way to get off the island.
“Centcom, I’m looking at some sort of circle of tiny letters.” She spread out the pages on the little table inside the attic of the brownstone she’d holed up in. She’d opened the skylight just above, letting the daylight in without letting the goblins see her.
—Describe it, Lieutenant. Does it look like it’s related to the outbreak?
She flushed warm at the sound of his voice, but she knew he’d never let the secure channel be used for private conversations.
“It says it’s a viral genome, Centcom, I think it’s a DNA sequence. Some of the other papers have some other letter sequences too. Amino acids . . . that’s protein, isn’t it?”
Centcom stayed silent for a moment.
—Yes. But the papers don’t say anything about the goblins?
“No, Centcom, but this is what the Doctor lead me too.”
She waited while he conferred with the President. God, only a Captain. He’d be a five-star general when this was over. She imagined the church for their wedding. She knew just the dress she wanted.
—Decision is to stow them, we can’t assess their importance at this time. We need more intelligence. Start circling back at night fall, you need to get a new team together, Lieutenant.
“Roger that, Centcom. Out.”
She sent him her love with her thoughts.
The papers fit inside an old cardboard box. She piled some comic books on top to cover them up from prying eyes then stuffed the box behind the old boiler where no one could see it. Then she sat back down under the skylight and waited for night to fall.