by Stead, Nick
The climb would have been awkward before I’d been bitten, but with my newfound agility it was easy. I was soon back at the cemetery, only to be met with fresh disappointment. It was deserted.
There was no Lady Sarah lurking in the mausoleum now and she wasn’t anywhere to be seen amongst the graves. Maybe if I’d understood how to follow scents I might have been able to track her down, but it had only been two days. To my human mind it was still a confusing jumble of smells.
Disappointment turned to anger. How could she just leave me alone in the world without explaining everything fully? She must know how difficult it was to adjust. I was willing to bet becoming a vampire wasn’t all that different to becoming a werewolf, and yeah, it might have been a long time ago when she’d had to deal with it, but she had to remember what it had been like.
Come to think of it, she might have had help adjusting, especially if it had been at a time when our numbers were more plentiful. It seemed highly unfair that I had to do it on my own.
I thought back to the near miss in Aughtie’s lesson. Was I even capable of surviving long enough to adjust on my own? No, probably not. I needed help and if Lady Sarah wasn’t going to give it freely I was going to have to force her, somehow. She might have gone off to hunt, but I could wait awhile. And if she couldn’t be there for me in the hours of darkness, she’d just have to face the sun. There had to be some way to wake her, or so I convinced myself.
It was happening again: my stomach ached and I could feel the itching where fur was beginning to grow. My desperation grew. Where the hell was she?
I kicked a tombstone in frustration and yelped at the sharp pain in my toe, which helped stop the change. The stone came off worst though. I’d lashed out with such force it uprooted and fell over, the stone cracking and crumbling where my foot had connected with it.
Snarling as though it were all the tombstone’s fault, I left the cemetery to wander the streets awhile, not wanting to go back home and face sleep. It was only when the rain began to fall that I decided I’d been out long enough, though I checked the cemetery one more time before admitting defeat. The rain didn’t bother me, but if I came back soaking wet my parents would know I’d lied to them. It was better for everyone if they remained ignorant to my nocturnal wanderings.
I went back to the cemetery the next day as planned, but Lady Sarah was still missing. There was no way she was walking around in daylight, so where could she be? Had she found a new resting place? The terrifying thought occurred to me that she might have left town. Or worse still, what if the Slayers had her? Would she keep my secret? Or would she trade my identity for her life? I shuddered at the thought.
She wasn’t anywhere to be found come nightfall either, or in the days and nights to follow. I had been abandoned, it seemed.
Time wore on. Sleep remained an unpleasant experience full of horrific images, what little I had of it. I now faced an almost constant struggle to stay awake in lessons, but at least I didn’t start transforming in any more of them. After a week or so I found I was growing used to the nightmares, and they failed to raise the same terror in me as the first few had.
There were no more reasons for anyone to suspect I’d changed, and other than Lady Sarah’s absence, everything else was going great. I knew it wouldn’t last forever and something was bound to go wrong eventually, but the need to find her became less urgent. I kept on checking the cemetery though, just in case. But still no luck.
Then before I knew it, the moon was growing fatter, the wolf stronger, and I was forced to accept I would be facing my second transformation alone. There would be no Lady Sarah to come to my rescue if I needed it, leaving me no choice but to put my trust in the wolf. I could only hope the Slayers wouldn’t outsmart it a second time, or we were doomed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Blood Moon Rises
It was a beautiful October morning, bright and clear. The dawn held no hint of the gruesome events that were to take place later on.
Sleep had eluded me once more, and it wasn’t just down to the nightmares. I was restless, the first half of the night spent tossing and turning until eventually I’d given up and decided to risk watching an eighteen.
So I’d sat on my sofa, watching with the sound turned down and the light off. But that was okay – I’d always liked the dark, especially for movies. It added to the atmosphere.
I’d seen this film plenty of times before, but there was a certain thrill about watching in the dead of night while everyone else was sleeping, knowing at any moment a character might scream too loudly and wake someone. It set my nerves on edge, making me listen hard at every little noise, trying to determine if someone was coming. If I disturbed Dad there’d be hell to pay, and Mum wouldn’t be too pleased either. I didn’t much care at that point. The same reckless energy I’d felt after my first full moon had filled me again. What were my parents going to do, ground me? I’d like to see them try.
The film finished about an hour before daybreak and I was back in bed, feigning sleep long before Mum came in.
Then began the usual morning routine. I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror, wondering if anything had changed. Something inside me felt different, and I knew it had to be down to the lunar cycle, but I was surprised to find my appearance was barely altered. My gaze was my usual hazel, full of laughter and warmth and human emotion, if a little bloodshot from the lack of sleep, and so very different to Lady Sarah’s. And somehow that didn’t seem right.
My face was the same as ever, though the skin round my eyes looked bruised, the sleepless nights beginning to tell. There was nothing lupine about it though. Not yet anyway, not till later that night. Nor was there anything different about my rounded ears, despite my mind telling me that wasn’t right either. Every time I heard a noise I wanted to swivel them like animals do, but they were in the wrong place on my head. And then there was the need I was feeling to sniff the air, even though I still couldn’t understand everything my nose was telling me. It did seem like my canines were slightly longer and more pointed, but maybe that was just my imagination.
School went slower than ever that day. I couldn’t concentrate on my lessons. Not that I ever paid much attention, but that day my thoughts were in the woods, hunting prey like in the nightmares. Only in my daydreams, while the wolf was certainly influencing them, I was still in control. During the day the prey were always animals.
I wanted to run in the real world and I enjoyed PE more than ever, though I had to fight the urge to drop to all fours, no matter how much more comfortable my brain kept trying to tell me it would be.
We were already overrun with coursework and we had PD (short for Personal Discipline) that day, a free period for the teachers to sort out detentions and isolations and things, as well as signing off credits in our planners for good behaviour. PD was spent in Form, and it wasn’t timetabled; it took place when we should have had another lesson, but the time and day changed each week so that we didn’t miss the same subject all the time. Lower years were meant to read through PD when they’d sorted out everything with their teachers, but in our GCSE years we could use the time to catch up on coursework, which I would have been doing, if I hadn’t been too distracted. Instead I sat gazing out of the window, watching the birds fly by and fighting the instinct to chase them.
The hunger hadn’t returned though – I’d been content with a normal sized meal at lunch. Yet I still wanted to chase the living prey taunting me behind the glass. I felt like a caged animal, stuck inside that room.
“Haven’t you got anything better to do, Nick?” Ms Brooks asked me, breaking through my thoughts.
“Yeah, I should probably do some work but I really can’t be bothered today,” I said.
“That’s not the right attitude, young man. Don’t you want to pass your exams?” Her voice had grown stern, while Becci sniggered.
I merely shrugged and went back to staring outside.
Evening came. I sat watching TV with my
family, but I was restless again, even more so than I had been through the night. I kept shifting position on the sofa until I felt the need to stand and pace.
“What’s got into you, you weirdo?” Amy asked.
I paused and glanced at her but didn’t answer.
“Nick, will you stop pacing?” Dad snapped. “You’ll wear the floorboards out! Be still.”
“I’m not a dog – I don’t have to obey you,” I snarled. An anger sparked inside, from both human and wolf.
“Don’t talk to me like that! I’m your father,” he bellowed. “Go to your room! Now!”
“I’ve had enough of you anyway,” I spat, turning my back and leaving him fuming.
I was about halfway up the stairs when I unwittingly stepped into moonlight, caught in the faintest of slivers filtering through from one of the bedrooms, and I faltered. My hand gripped the banister as I fell to my knees and I all but cried out, grinding my teeth to keep from screaming.
It wasn’t quite as bad as the first time, but it was still agony as my whole body began to shift shape. I wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and wait for the pain to pass, except that it didn’t work like that. When the fur began to sprout from my skin, I knew I had to reach the safety of my room before it became too intense to move.
I had to force myself to crawl up the rest of the steps, like I had so many times before. Except that night I wasn’t pretending to be a monster. Limbs were shifting before my eyes. Fingers appeared to be shortening and sucking back into my hand. The underside hardened and turned black, while my nails lengthened and became claws. It was excruciating. I felt like my bones were being ground into each other, crumbling away bit by bit until they reached the right length. And I hadn’t even set eyes upon the moon yet.
My thumbs lost their dexterity, sliding up to become dew claws as the bones in my hand elongated, until the two digits were too high up to be of any real use. Similar changes were already beginning in my feet. True wolves have no dew claw on their rear legs, however, so my little toes, being the least developed, were fast disappearing, and each foot needed to lengthen significantly to allow me to stand on all fours.
It took all my physical and mental strength to keep myself moving upwards, the staircase seeming to stretch ahead of me, so far that it might lead to the very stars and the moon that caused the agony.
I’d nearly made it to the top when the next wave of pain crashed over me and I had to dig my claws into the floor to keep from sliding back down. Deep scars were gouged into the woodwork, but I had other things to worry about. Movement was aggravating the pain, and I knew I had to reach the sanctuary of my room soon. Just two more stairs and then across the landing and I’d be there, just had to push myself a little harder.
My claws still digging into the wood, I used them to heave myself up to the top where I paused, panting from the effort. My tongue hung out like a great fat worm over teeth that were fast becoming fangs. The growth of new teeth set my gums throbbing, while existing teeth ached as they extended into points. My canines were the most unpleasant, pressing uncomfortably into the flesh of my mostly human mouth.
It seemed the changes were random – I was sure it hadn’t happened in that order before. Though admittedly my memories of the previous month were still very hazy, so it could have just been the way I was remembering it.
I forced myself onwards and made it to my room, collapsing inside. Nerves renewed their complaints as I twisted round to shut the door.
My clothes suddenly felt too tight and I struggled out of them as best I could before they ripped apart like the previous month. Jeans proved to be hard work without opposable thumbs but somehow I managed it. I knew I was going to have to get into the habit of stripping off before the change started in future though. If I’d left it just a few minutes longer I didn’t think they’d have survived in one piece.
My underwear I was less worried about. I had plenty of socks and boxer shorts, and I doubted anyone would notice any of those going missing.
I lay sprawled out on the floor as the other changes took place, bathed in the moon’s light now. It felt more comfortable to stretch out my limbs while the bones continued to lengthen or shorten as necessary, but I wanted to curl up again when the throbbing intensified in my gut. It always seemed to start there, and it didn’t seem possible that it could increase any more, but it had. My blood boiled and my muscles rippled, but it was nothing compared to whatever was happening inside my abdomen.
I think I read somewhere wolves have a shorter gut so as to be able to digest raw meat, which might be why my intestines felt like they were being twisted and tied into knots, and the way they appeared to slither beneath my skin. The greater amount of acid necessary for killing the bacteria in raw meat was probably the reason behind my stomach seemingly being turned inside out. I’d been lying on my front, but I had to roll over onto my back while that took place.
Even the simple act of breathing turned into something unpleasant. Each breath was shallow and quick as if I were dying from a hole in my lungs, and I didn’t want to think about what might be happening to them. Worse still was the sensation of my heart being squeezed while it sought to beat and pump the blood around my body. I didn’t think it could take the strain for much longer, half expecting it to stop at any moment.
Sweat trickled down as I writhed on the floor, levering myself up on my elbows when my back caught fire, only to fall back and then rise up onto my shoulder blades as a tail grew out from the end of my spine. I wanted to scream for it to end, scream for death to come and take me, save me from this agony. But my vocal cords had changed and I was unable to make any sounds other than those of an animal: grunts of pain, snarls, growls, yelps.
My face stretched outwards until it formed a snout. I felt like my skull was splitting down the middle as the anatomy altered. My ears migrated upwards. The optic nerves behind my eyes shifted and my night vision improved. I imagined my entire brain was being rewired, turning into a completely new machine, one programmed to hunt and kill.
More wolf than human, I rolled back over onto my front and risked standing on all fours while the final changes took place.
If I thought the world was alien before, it was nothing compared to what it was then. But I didn’t have much time to explore that world, with its even louder sounds and greater scents, for the wolf had been waiting all month for the chance to hunt, and now its time had come and it would wait no longer. Like a dormant volcano it erupted into my consciousness, its thoughts flooding my brain, as alien as the world around. How could it be a part of me? And yet it was. It pushed me aside and I was drowned in its dominating mind until I lost sight of the surface of our consciousness. Forced down into our collective subconscious, all went black. There I lay, dead to the world, awaiting the sun to bring me back to the living.
I stood in the same room as before, scenting the air and pricking my ears for a hint of prey. The hunger was already taking hold again. I sensed the three humans just beyond the wood trapping me inside, each one an easy meal, and my mouth watered. Maybe I could break through the wood?
No. Lady Sarah had opened my eyes to reality – I had to be more careful when hunting. Their screams would be heard in neighbouring houses, and I would soon become the hunted.
But I could find no other way out that night – there was no opening in the glass wall for me to jump through as there had been before and, if I shattered the glass, that would attract as much attention as killing the prey in the house.
I took to pacing the length of the room, looking for a way out. Yet there didn’t seem to be any other means of escape. It was either go through the glass or go through the wood.
Rearing up onto my hind legs, I rested my front paws on the windowsill and studied the transparent barrier standing between myself and freedom, trying to find why there was no opening this time where there had been previously. I was about to give up when I noticed a handle which had been twisted upwards before.
; Nudging it with my snout, I pushed against the glass and almost howled with joy when it swung outward. The hunt was on.
An hour passed. Hunger ravaged my insides but the streets were devoid of any prey fit for my near insatiable appetite. The only humans I’d sensed had been in groups, as though they knew of the danger prowling the streets and felt the need to seek safety in numbers. I considered attacking anyway, but the threat of becoming the hunted was enough to keep me looking for an easier kill. It felt too great a risk to attack a group when any one of them could be a Slayer.
My senses guided me to the town centre. I lurked in the shadows, watching them gather in their herds and flock to the nightclubs and bars. My sense of restraint was crumbling. I could practically taste the blood on my tongue, hear the screams as I turned the buildings to slaughterhouses, killing and feasting until morning light. The moon urged me onwards, and I found myself slinking towards the nearest watering hole with a will that didn’t quite seem my own.
A barrage of noise assaulted my eardrums, loud and unnatural. It was both painful and confusing to my sensitive ears, and in my confusion I snarled and snapped at thin air, as if I could silence the sound somehow, until fear took over. And so I ran, back to the quiet streets I had already explored. Away from the noise, I came to my senses and realised I was right where I’d started: no prey to hunt and growing ever more ravenous.
Desperation drove me to the smell of rotting flesh wafting from the bin of a nearby house. I would have preferred fresh meat, but it was either scavenge or go hungry.
The bin fell over with little effort on my part, crashing to the ground and spilling its contents. A chicken carcass lay among the garbage, its strong scent calling to me amidst the empty packaging and slops scraped from plates. I picked it up in my jaws and retreated down a dark side passage, licking at the scraps and crunching bones.