It had been nearly three full nights now and his fever hadn’t broken. This was longer than any of the others had been ill before it had come to its ultimate consequence, but Meredith did not know what that meant. He was the youngest by far yet to be afflicted, perhaps he was fighting it off. No, she did not want to hope. Hope had long ago fled from this place and her family should have left with it. But the death of her husband at the hands—no, the ungues—of the thing that was once their neighbor Albert had forestalled any intentions they had of leaving. Martin had defended his father, killing the abomination with the pointed end of a spade, but not before it inflicted the mortal wound, and, it seems, passed on its blight to Martin who now lay sweating and shivering in his bed. No, it was foolish to think that there might be anything like hope still found in the village of Dunbourne.

“Has his condition improved any?” Godfrey was kind to offer help but it seemed that he had more stupid questions than anything else to give.

“No, the fever still has him.” Meredith wiped the sweat off Martin’s forehead with a rag as though to illustrate this fact.

“It is perhaps a mercy then, that he is spared awareness of the last few days,” he said as he peered warily out of the window into the night.

Dunburne was always quiet this late, but since the afflictions had come to the village, that thick, silent darkness had taken on a much more sinister quality. Twelve men and three women had been infected and turned in the last two months, but nearly half of those had been in the last week alone. It was spreading more quickly.

“God has deemed us unworthy of mercy,” she said beneath her breath, maybe not quietly enough.

“We are all worthy of His mercy, Meredith, we need only to ask for it,” Peter sat clutching his tattered old Bible in his arms, as if the book was warmer than the glowing embers in the hearth next to him.

“And who here has not asked? Who has not been asking for months now, father?” Meredith snapped at him.

“I- I did not mean to imply any… any…” Peter stammered and held the Bible closer to his chest, his fingers digging into the pages at the sides.

“God has forsaken this place. The sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you can begin to make your peace with it.”

“Please,” Godfrey slowly lowered himself into a chair, the old man was out of breath. “We must not give in to despair.”

“I have sent letters to the bishops, they will surely send aid soon,” Peter said with such exaggerated confidence that it sounded sarcastic.

A few of the women sat knitting behind him nodded and muttered various Yeses and Of coursees and Amens, sounding more like they were trying to reassure themselves than agree with Peter. Meredith had been glad for the company so many of fellow villagers had provided for about half of the first night. Now she wished they would just leave, but she knew they were here due more to their own fear of being alone as they were for her. Godfrey leaned forward on his old walking stick, still breathing heavily. “There is plenty reason yet for hope, the boy has been feverish for days but not shown the rib, no one yet has persevered so long.”

Meredith knew better, but she squeezed her son’s hand tightly. “Peter—“ she was interrupted by a shriek from one of the women, pointing at Godfrey.

He had slumped nearly entirely off his chair, the walking stick was the only thing propping him up. A bloody, pointed bone was protruding from his left side.

“I…I am sorry,” he wheezed. “I hoped it was not…”

The women and Peter scrambled out of their chairs to the farthest end of the room away from Godfrey. A sickening crunch emanated from somewhere inside him and the protruding bone was joined by another just below it as they both slowly pushed outwards. More crunches and cracks as his body went limp and fell forward onto the floor.

“…mother?”

Meredith turned to look at her son. He was awake. He was alive. He was still her son.

She stood and grabbed the spade that had been left leaned against the wall next to the bed. It still had dried blood on it. She faced the thing that used to be Godfrey.