I suppose it would be scary if you came home and found something with way too many teeth and eyes and claws as big as your head lunging for you. Most of the damn things move faster than our eyes can pick up. At least until you've trained your eyes. Most people never really got the chance.

The true horrors were the fairies. Those little cutsy things that people used to collect BV with dragonfly or butterfly wings and sitting on mushrooms. It makes me laugh when comparing it to reality. Fairies were small as toddlers. They could speak, they remembered the names of their family and friends. They would look up at you with big eyes and a child's face and giggle while they ate you alive.

In all the years since, I've never actually seen one feed. It's hard to imagine how they can punch holes in their victims with their mouthparts. High blood pressure I suppose. That's the best I could figure following autopsy. I liken it to an actual butterfly's mouthparts. The proboscis unrolls like a party favor and is held stiff by pumping blood into that section of their bodies. I just didn't know that blood pressure trumps kevlar. Lost a good friend of mine that way. Marty did always have way too much faith in anteviral technology.

“I hear that purple and blotchy is the new black.” That was the snarky comment that brought me out of my reverie. Andrew must be channeling his inner gay man again. Commenting on my appearances after a job was his absolute favorite thing to do. Good thing he’s useful or I would have probably maimed him by now.

My clever comeback consisted of “shut up” and I looked up to see that we had arrived at the little run-down shack that was where we had our version of the nerd cave. He pulled the string that unlatched the door. We sat our stuff down and he put the plank across the door frame. Since we were home for the night, he pulled in the string - nothing but the finest of 1700s peasant home security technology for us.

I was so tired by this point that my eyes felt gummy and so did my knees, although that was more on the inner consistency scale than a surface feel. I stumbled back to our shower and opened the bung on the bottom of the barrel. The cold water stung all of the surface burns and I knew that our homemade lye soap was out of the question. So I did the best I could with wash cloths and water. Of course all that water washed away my bee sting remedy and the burning pain began all over again with the happy fun addition of blisters… yay.

Miserable, I clambered out of the back room. I was in such pain I couldn’t even bear to put on clothes. The blisters just kept swelling with fluid and I was not looking forward to lying down. I dreaded the pressure but longed for the feeling of being horizontal. My back got the least amount of contact with Neckert whatever it was. At this point I was too peevish to call it blood. But my belly was horribly blotchy and the biggest blister on it was longer than my thumb and about as thick. The wound from the binding ritual was really ugly looking and I didn’t know what to do. I lay on my back with a groan, closed my eyes and just hoped that the room would stop turning Technicolor.

I felt a curiously cool touch on my stomach. It was feather light and almost made me feel as if I were floating off the bed. I tried to open my eyes but found that I couldn’t. The lids were glued shut. When I tried to raise my arms, the swelling in the shoulders prevented it. A curious movement told me that I could still use my best weapon, my mouth.

“You’d better be Andrew or I’m totally flashing a stranger.” I said. Points for me that I didn’t let the fatigue show in my voice or express the good feelings that the continuing touches were creating.

It was his turn for witty repartee. “Shut up and sit still.”

The coolness seemed to spread outward from what I assumed were his fingertips. I was feeling so out of it that I couldn’t tell if that light pressure was coming from 10 individual spots or from something else entirely. I felt that itchy burning sensation slowly decrease to a tolerable level. The cool touches seemed to travel underneath my skin, not over it. I could almost see the blisters shrinking before the light breeze of his touch. Well, I could if I could actually open my eyes.

It was just as I thought that, that I felt a cool weight on my forehead and eyelids. Yet, I was still feeling the touches on my belly and upper thighs. How was this possible? I started to sit up and was pushed back down by a sarcastic snort.

“You do that, and you’ll undo all of the effort I’ve put into you. Then I’ll truly be pissed.” he said.

“Okay fine, then tell me, oh great god of the northern reaches, how are you touching my belly and head at the same time.” I replied.

“Relax, it’s just a cool cloth on your forehead. I’m only touching your lower abdominal quadrants and quadriceps areas.” He replied.

Andrew always had to be so annoyingly technical. It made for a useful skill when researching how best to kill things, but it was awful for normal conversation.

I answered him, with a sigh. “Well, whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.” And promptly fell asleep.

We trudged back to the "office" in companionable not-silence.

"Gods, you smell too!" he said to me.

"I got the picture, dork. Now leave me alone for a minute. I'm thinking." I responded.

Thinking I definitely was. Neckerts weren't common in North American folklore. Sure, a lot of Germans immigrated to the United States, but it was like 200 years ago or more by now. Even the most traditional of families wouldn't have kept something so minor as neckerts in their lore for this long. Sheesh. I think the only thing I found in my research on them before dunking my head under this particular bit of water, was one source from about 1600. So why were they here and now?

Granted, lots of random folklore nasties have been showing up since the Change. But most of the appearances have been more run of the mill stuff from popular legends. I think the Change took the legends that were most common in a particular area and used them for fodder. I'm not sure if that's true in other countries or not, considering I can't get there anymore. But since they're out of touch, I can make up any damn explanation I really want to.

I was too young to remember the horror that some people experienced when all the technology just stopped working. Everything manmade that required power of any sort became defunct all at once. That horror was secondary, however, to the real one.

I hear it started in Iowa, just like the old political caucuses used to. Some kind of virus mutated and started this whole trend that led us into fairytale hell. The only ones really spared were either the products of random genetic recombination, or the nerds like me and Andrew. You can't get social diseases if you're totally antisocial. I'm just glad that it had such a short lifespan. Once it wiped out most of the human population, it lost it's virulence. Basically the results of the virus' action could breed on their own, so it no longer needed to spread.

People would come home and find a family member transformed into some nightmare beast and then that was the end of thinking altogether. Each family member attacked their loved ones first. Most couldn't figure out the way door handles worked with claws or hooves anyway and so had to wait for some bonehead to come home and open the door. The lucky ones starved to death in their new state before anyone could come for them. There was quite a range in metabolisms of the freshly minted monsters. Some could linger for years without eating, while a few could only make it about 24-48 hours.

“Grab on to my hand, dammit!” he shouted at me.

I reached for him with both feet. Thrashing desperately, despite my need for focused calm. His arm and hand felt like they had been slimed by a dozen fish and I slipped off. I reset myself and tried for him with my feet again.

“The other hand, moron.”

“I’m trying! If you’d back off my ass long enough, Andrew, I’ll do what you want. Shouting is not going to get me there any faster.” I sooo didn’t need this in a partner right now.

“Excuse the fuck out of me for trying to keep your wet butt from drowning, Miss Shit-for-Brains.”

I grabbed his other arm with my feet, finally. Once I got hold of him, I took a huge breath of relief. Yeah, I know I’m underwater, but I have to be here in order to finish this particular binding ritual. Andrew was my anchor, literally. He held me underwater so that I didn’t bob to the surface like a cork. Having a fat ass, does make you do that sometimes… well all the time really. In addition, I needed his monitoring and grounding skills so that I could breathe and function underwater long enough to perform this extremely difficult cantrip.

To anyone else, what I next said sounds like “mwefhal lfwquohsh thoihahk counglikng gnkilgnuoc khahioht hshouqwfl lahfewm” or at least that’s how I think it sounds from the outside. What I really said was, “I bind thee by blood” and I opened the small cut on my belly. It’s not my fault that I have to speak this god-forsaken language in order to do it.

Plus, why do I always have to cut near my organs? Why doesn’t an arm or a hand cut suffice? I blame the misogynistic pricks who invented these rituals. Always gotta be the belly if a female performs it. Something about vital power of the womb or some shite. I tried a leg cut once, I’m still carrying those particular scars. Enough said.

Once enough of my blood decorated the knife, I thrust it into its head, right between the big, silvery, compound eyes. It took some doing too. The broad gray head had a skull that was like thin, strong steel. The neckert then shrieked and his inky blood plumed in the water all around my face. As I drew in the next borrowed breath, I found that the blood tasted like battery acid and my skin began to itch and swell wherever the blood brushed against it.

“Pull me up, Andrew. We’re done here.” I called wearily up to him.

I felt strong hands grab both my ankles and pull me slowly toward the surface. As soon as my head broke the water, I pulled a long gasp of blessed air into my lungs. I know that it’s all in my head, but even though I can breathe underwater with Andrew’s help, I still want to feel my lungs working on their own. My diaphragm was moving like a bellows to get as much oxygen as I could.

“Wow, you look like shit, dearie.” He said with a broad grin on his face. I never figured out how he could smile so wide and still talk. It must be a mystery involving wormholes, string theory, and several physicists on heavy drugs.

I didn’t want to look at my face. I could feel it beginning to puff up enough to close my eyes for me. This is gonna suck in a minute, once the pain signals hit my brain. The adrenaline was wearing off and I was in that shaky unreal phase. The one where you either sit and stare at a spot in the wall or the one where you keep rocking in place and repeat yourself while your body shakes.

I rummaged in our little portable med kit. There it was… my instant bee sting remedy. This will probably work in this case too. My face felt the same as it did when I got stung by some jellyfish tentacles across the face and eyes when I was a little kid. Not seeing for a day and a half was not my most fond memory. I quickly made up the paste of baking soda and water while I could still see. I then slathered my entire face with the stuff, wrapped a wet hand towel around my head and lay flat.

I could feel the cool drawing action of the paste pulling some of the sting out of my face. Sting sounds so nonchalant doesn’t it? Okay, fine. I felt the paste drawing some of the bone-melting pain away from my face.

“No more neckerts, ever. Got it?” I said to Andrew.

He just pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grinned some more. I glared at him. Andrew looked the part of the computer geek in every bad teenage flick ever. He had unkempt straight, black hair that was either a little too long or a little to short to really do anything with it. He was really pale and he had a few freckles here and there. He wore crappy shoes from K-mart or some other cheap discount box store. He had shapeless jeans and a FIXX t-shirt that he never left home without. Andrew’s main interesting feature lay underneath that t-shirt. He had been born deformed. His rib cage was lopsided to the point that his breastbone was about 3 inches to the right of where it should be. That and it stuck out. I thought it was the coolest thing about him. He agreed to disagree.