by Rashaad Bell
Chapter 16
I think therefore I am…what?
From the moment I opened my eyes I knew something was wrong. I sat up slowly, the weathered bench that I had fallen asleep on damp, the wetness already soaked completely through. As the wind stirred in the Fruitvale Bart Station, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Everything around me was wet, even the air tasted of moisture. Had it rained? But when? When did it rain? I tried to stand, but it was difficult. At first I stumbled, barely able to catch myself before crashing to the concrete. It was dark, darker than it should be, the Fruitvale Terminal unnaturally still and quite.
I didn’t see Connor anywhere. I was alone in the terminal and it took a second for me to get my bearings. I checked my watch. 4:45 am. That made me pause. It’s been over six hours.
The last thing I remembered was someone pulling a machete out of my gut at the Townhouse where Goodwin lived. The place was crawling with…Werewolves of all things. It was Goodwin’s Pack members and that domicile was their Den. Connor told me to run and that’s exactly what I did. He said he was going to hold them back and he would meet me at a safe house later. I checked my stomach were I was stabbed, dried blood was caked up around the slit in my shirt, but the wound was gone, completely healed.
There wasn’t even a scar.
How is that possible? Wound like that, without medical attention, stitches, I should be dead twice over and yet I wasn’t. It was as if it never happened. I remember making it to the Bart station and finding a seat away from all the other passengers, then nothing.
Everything after that was black. I shook my head, trying futilely to clear my thoughts, attempting to focus, but it was utterly pointless. The pain was gone and my joints no longer ached; yet, my mind was racing, incoherently so, useless facts flooding my brain all at once.
I pushed these things aside, compartmentalizing the thoughts and tried to focus on tonight, trying to figure out what my next move was. I turned once, spun on my heels a little too quickly than planned, expecting a head rushing dizzy spell, but it didn’t happen.
There was a poster on the wall; the backdrop was completely red with white graffiti sprawled across it. The poster read: The Mutant among us may be YOU! I’d seen these types of posters before, popping up in back alleyways in Palm Coast. I thought they were for a new movie, but here in the Bay Area, they took on a completely different vibe.
It felt like there was actual meaning behind it.
I checked the wall map of the city, then made my way towards the steps leading downstairs. No need to wait here considering I was roughly fourteen blocks from the address Connor told me to meet him at. It wasn’t until I reached the fourth step down, the pain started.
It was gradual at first, yet it came on with such increasing force that I doubled over. My foot slipped and I had to force myself to grab the handrail to keep from falling. There was a thudding in my ears, impossibly loud, almost to the point of being deafening.
That’s when the burning started.
It began in my chest, working its way up to my esophagus in rapid succession. It felt as if my throat was on fire. The inner flame wrapped itself around my head as if tiny burning fingertips were massaging my brain.
Something began to bubble up inside of me, working its way through my veins, driven by the insane pumping of my heart. I never thought a heart could beat that fast, that intense, a tunnel vision ferocity of single mindedness.
I began to heave. Well, at first I thought that was what I was doing before a stream of dark crimson splashed the steps in front of me. Blood. And a lot of it. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. My body had taken a mind of its own and its only thought was to bleed me dry.
There was so much blood and it was everywhere. The steps, the side of the wall, the handrail. It was a crime scene now. That’s how much blood there was and when I finally stopped throwing up the one thing that separated me from a lifeless corpse, bloated swollen with formaldehyde, all I could do was collapse back on the top step, my head in between my knees as I desperately tried to regulate my breathing to something more manageable.
My breath was coming in haggard gasps, my lungs fighting to oxygenate the few little remaining blood cells I had left. Tears streaked down the side of my face, striking the ground, pooling together in little red puddles on the floor.
Why are my tears red?
Yet before I could even begin to ponder the significance of that question a new sensation began to overtake me. The pain had all but subsided, replaced instead with a cooling calm effect that was so intensely profound that it forced me to my feet in one fluid motion.
I didn’t even feel my legs move.
I gripped the handrail to steady myself, squeezing the metal beneath my fingers tightly. My mouth was bitter, the dull, flat metallic taste of blood seemingly overpowering my senses. My head swooned as I swallowed, the blood tainted salvia in my mouth changing texture.
I licked my lips. The blood tasted…different. The thundering returned. Why were my ears so sensitive? I attempted to tune it out, somehow block the rhythmic pounding in my eardrums.
Thumpthump. Thumpthump. Thumpthump.
It was getting louder, stronger, more powerful with every ear-shattering beat. It was getting…closer? I closed my eyes again, concentrating on the precious sound, my own heartbeat attempting to synchronize with the pounding until it matched itself to the deafening crescendo that played within my head.
“Jesus!”
The sound of another human being snapped me out of the lethargic trance that had enthralled my senses so fully.
I opened my eyes.
There was a uniformed police officer a few steps down from me, an expression of terror playing across his hard features. His eyes never left the gallons of blood splattered across the steps and walls. I could see it in his face, the horror of it all. I watched his thoughts play out as I stared at my reflection in his eyes.
I was drenched in blood. From my shirt to my jeans and shoes. Blood dripped from my hands, my chin and the amount of blood that splattered my surroundings like a Jackson Pallet portrait was ridiculous. No one person could lose that much blood and still be alive.
The Cop reached for his standard issued nine-millimeter Beretta, pointing it in my direction. “Hands over your head! On your knees!”
I tried to speak, attempt to explain, yet my mouth refused to listen to my mind, refused to acknowledge the words that were so palatable on my tongue that I could almost taste them. I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus on anything other than that blasted thumpthump, thumpthump.
It had speeded up now and…
“On your knees! Do it now!” Bellowed the Cop at the top of his lungs.
I released my grip on the handrail. There were deep indentions in the metal where my fingers had been wrapped around the bar. Odd that I didn’t notice that before.
I placed my hands behind my head and took a knee, the deep pool of sticky wet on the steps soaking into my jeans at the knees. The Cop took a tentative step forward, speaking into his Walkie Talkie.
“Possible 187 in progress at the Oakland, Fruitvale Station. Suspect: Caucasian female, approximately five foot three, one hundred and ten pounds, covered in what appears to be human blood. Suspect in custody. Officer requesting assistance.”
I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. Something had clicked inside of me as I stared at this man with the loaded weapon in my face. It wasn’t like before, when Goodwin shoved that gun at my head and I was so scared that I didn’t know what to do. There was no terror that overtook my senses now, no panic that froze me in place.
This Cop, he seemed so fragile to me. As if the slightest gale would scatter his limbs to the wind. The vein in his neck throbbed with each beat of his heart and I realized the thundering in my ears was in fact the adrenaline laced pounding of the officer’s heartbeat.
I could smell the beads of sweat as they trickled down the side of his templ
e. Taste the putrid smell of his breath on my tongue. That’s when the urge overtook me.
It was so overpowering, so all encompassing that it worked its way through every sinewy fiber of my being. All I wanted was blood. I had already licked my lips clean, savoring? Yes, savoring, that’s the word I would use to describe it. I was savoring the taste of it, the taste of blood.
I craved more.
No matter how hard I tried to fight off these murderous designs of filling my mouth full of this man’s blood, to the point that it over flowed out the corners of my lips, I couldn’t. My throat burned for more and my body tensed as the Cop came closer, gun in one hand, handcuffs in the other.
That vein!
I couldn’t take my eyes off it!
The way it throbbed in concert with the thundering in my ears. I let out a growl, but it didn’t come out as any sound I had ever heard of before in my life. It was bestial in nature, Predator like. So disturbing in fact, the Cop froze in his tracks.
Nevertheless, by then it was already too late.
I lunged at the man, or rather my body did. Everything was on autopilot, my body trying to satisfy what my conscious mind state was unwilling to comprehend.
My hand wrapped around his wrist and when I tightened my grip, I could hear the bones crunching underneath the sheer force of it, crumbling like so much brittle timber weed. The gun went off. I could feel the breeze generated by the bullet across my cheek as the round whizzed past only centimeters from my face.
He tried to scream, but by then I had already buried my face in his neck. I could taste his skin on my tongue. It was salty with sweat and fear. I could feel him struggling against me, fighting with every ounce of strength he possessed; yet it was pointless. My free arm wrapped around his waist, pinning his body against mine.
Now I considered myself decently strong for my size, but this guy had at least a hundred and twenty pounds of muscle on me easy. But my grip was steel coated in iron, dipped in that metal they made Wolverines skeleton from and I held him in place, despite his fervent struggles, as easy as one would hold a pillow to the chest.
I had to pull myself away from the body, physically forcing myself to recoil.
I wanted more. I wanted to gorge myself on his blood, to devour it totally. I released my grip around the Cop’s waist, the limp corpse slumping to the ground unceremoniously. His throat was torn out and blood flowed freely from the wound, almost incensing a frenzy from me as I backed away slowly from the dead body.
What had I done?
I just murdered a man. Killed another living, breathing, sentient being with my bare hands. Not only that, but I drank his blood as well. Yet instead of disgust, there was only…satisfaction?
Connor what have you done to me?
I felt even stronger now, a seemingly unending amount of adrenaline coursing through my system, filling each limb with grandiose potential. I thrust my hands into my pockets. I could hear sirens and it was enough to put me into action.
No way was I about to wait around for reinforcements to arrive, not after murdering one of their own. I glanced around and saw one of the many security cameras aligning the walls of the Fruitvale Bart Station. The Security Office was to my left and I made a beeline towards the door, turning the handle.
Locked.
I turned harder, this time slamming my shoulder into the door as well. To my utter astonishment, the door tore free from the hinges, my shoulder placing a sizable dent in the metal door. When I released the handle, there was just a mangled lump of metal where the doorknob should have been.
What the hell was happening to me? All I wanted to do was sit down, to replay the last ten minutes of my life, try to grasp the ramifications of my actions tonight, but I knew now wasn’t the time.
I scanned the room and found what I was looking for aligned against one of the walls. Two Cop cars pulled into the Bart parking lot, their actions being recorded and displayed on one of the many monitors in front of me. It was a canine unit. I could smell the German Shepard from here.
How is that even possible?
I gave the security equipment a once over then pressed the eject button. A small, black plastic DVD tray opened in front of me. I removed the disk and placed it in my pocket. Countless episodes of C.S.I. Miami and Law and Order taught me that homicides caught on video equals a life sentence with the possible option of a needle in the arm.
I never did sit well with needles.
The scent of gunpowder coming steadily closer caused me to run. Fourteen blocks. That’s how long it would take for me to be safe, however safe one could be when wanted for homicide and being hunted by a pack of Werewolves.
Everything around me looked wrong.
I just left the Bart station, 15 maybe 20 seconds ago. I hadn’t even reached a good sprint, yet the address I was running to was less than two blocks away now. There it was right there. I could see it! Twelve blocks in under 30 seconds! This has to be a dream, but even that didn’t make sense; everything was just too real, my emotions to raw for it to be fabricated, so it can’t be that.
Yet here I was, already done with the two remaining blocks in less time it took me to think two blocks. I kept moving, barley pausing at the security gate. I hit the first step leading to the second floor and jumped, my intent on taking the steps two by two.
Instead, I landed on the second floor catwalk!
I glanced down the stairwell, calculating the distance from bottom to top. There was no way I should have made that jump. It was just too far, too many steps involved.
I’m hallucinating. The blood, the dead Cop, how fast I made it to Connors apartment and now this? My clothes were still damp with blood, sticky to the flesh and I could still taste that Cops blood in my mouth, sliding down my throat like human bloody Mary.
And yet…
I bounded up the second floor steps, landing on the third floor catwalk without even the slightest hint of sound. Amazing! I fumbled for the keys, my hand shaking from sheer excitement as I tried each one until the door unlocked and I ducked inside.
It was dark; none of the lights in the entire apartment was on, yet I could see perfectly fine. Like my eyes no longer needed illumination to operate. I just stood there, unmoving, marveling at how calm I've remained throughout this entire ordeal. So calm in fact, that I began to question my own sanity.
I could tell the place was empty. Not because I checked any of the rooms, I was well aware of the fact that I hadn’t moved an inch, in like, the past 15 minutes, but rather I didn’t hear or smell anyone inside the apartment. It was as if my senses were on blast at the moment, the nerve endings ablaze as my body calibrated my system for the massive informational blitz that had assaulted my newly enhanced abilities.
Where the hell was Connor? He said he would meet me here. Maybe he’s running late? Maybe he got here before I did and left? Maybe he never got here at all and they killed him?
Whatever the case, I needed a shower. Badly. My head was beginning to swoon again. It was the blood splattered against my clothing. I hadn’t paid attention to it until now, but the smell was almost potent in toxicity.
I took my shirt off, holding it crumpled in my hand, staring at the blood stained mass of cloth. I brought it to my nose, burying my face into it as I inhaled deeply, the blood craving momentarily overriding my natural state.
Before I knew what was happening I was licking the damp blood with my tongue and when I was finished, after there wasn’t another drop of blood on my entire shirt that I hadn’t licked, I removed my pants and repeated the process all over again.
Now one would think that the act of licking blood off your own apparel would and should freak me out, disgust me in one shape, form or fashion, but it didn’t. Not only did I move, see, and smell differently than my former self of just twenty-four hours ago, but my thought process had been altered as well.
Fear was almost nonexistent at this point, chipped away to all most nothingness. Despite what I tr
ied to convince myself earlier, everything that was happening tonight was real and I was wanted for the brutal murder of a police officer, yet somehow I just didn’t care.
I wasn’t fearful of retaliation, of being corned in some random alley, surrounded by revenge driven cops. That didn’t even register a 1.0 on the things you really don’t want to happen to you, scale.
Don’t even get me started on Bartholomew Kruger and his Wolf Pack. They just seemed inconsequential at this point, their threat level demoted into oblivion. Nothing could touch me, nothing could hurt me. The sense of overwhelming power that was coursing through my system was intoxicating. Is this how Connor feels all the time?
I examined myself in the bathroom mirror, the amount of detail I was able to identify mind-boggling. Everything was sharper, crisper, as if up until now I had been living my life with the clarity of VHS tape. But now my 3D HD eyes were open wide.
I still looked like me…somewhat at least.
There were differences however, though it was difficult to pinpoint each exact one individually, rather than the portrait as a whole. I was still me, but the reflection that stared back was a prettier, photoshopped version of myself. Everything was smoothed out, not a blemish or wrinkle evident. My bone structure seemed more prevalent, my face taking on a more chiseled appearance.
It was the eyes that stood out the most, their color changing entirely. Now my eyes originally changed color by nature, yet now they sparked a bright blue, as if someone had replaced my iris with sapphires that seemingly sparkled like diamonds when the light danced across them at just the right angle.
I felt tired, really tired all of a sudden, as if the rush from the blood had finely began to ebb. I climbed in the shower, letting the steaming water stream onto my face. I washed my body, not stopping until the river of blood at my feet whirl pooling down the drain changed from diluted red to clear.
I neither dried nor wrapped a towel around my body when I was done. Scooping up all my bloody clothes, I tossed them haphazardly in a black trash bag, tying the bag off in a knot as tightly as I could. I tossed the bag in the closet, my intention being to burn everything later.
The bed was nice and neat, pillows still fluffed from whenever they were last made. The alarm clock next to the nightstand blinked: 5:15 a.m. as I climbed into the bed, underneath the covers. I closed my eyes and attempted to sleep.