by Stead, Nick
I helped myself to some more cereal and forced it down, until I was feeling strong enough to walk again. Then I grabbed some clothes and spent the rest of the day arguing with my parents.
“Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with me,” I said. “I don’t need a doctor, just more time to get over Fiona, that’s all.”
Dad’s eyes blazed. “Amy hasn’t been this bad after Mel; what’s the matter with you? You always have to be so damned melodramatic!”
“John! That’s enough.” Mum’s own eyes were on fire, burning fiercer than I’d ever seen before. Her expression softened as she turned to me, full of sympathy and understanding. “If there’s anything we can do to help you, Nick, please tell us.”
I forced a smile. “I will, Mum.”
My parents grew wary after that, as if they thought I was losing my mind and were terrified of provoking any more fits of madness. I couldn’t blame them, but I hated it. It dug the knife in a little deeper, worsening the feeling that I was apart from them, and the rest of humanity. I spent more and more time in my room, shutting out the rest of the world as much as possible. Sometimes I’d play on the PlayStation, though my heart wasn’t really in it. Other times I’d just sit with Alice, letting the guilt and the grief take over.
Amy was more relaxed around me, probably too caught up in her own emotions to take much notice of what I was going through. She came barging in one day while Mum and Dad were out taking advantage of the January sales, not bothering to knock.
“Nick, I’m bored.”
“That ain’t my problem. Go find summat to do.”
“There’s nothing to do. I’m bored!”
“Well go watch TV or something!” I snarled, knowing I should have had more sympathy for her and hating myself all the more for it. This was probably less about boredom and more a need for someone to help keep her mind off her missing friend.
“I don’t want to watch TV.”
“Then go on the computer!”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be stuck at home in front of the TV or the computer all the time – I want to do something different.”
“I don’t care what the fuck you do, just get the fuck out of my room!” I shouted.
“Oh, well I’m sorry for not wanting to spend my life in front of a screen,” she snapped.
I completely lost it then. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone?
“Get out of my room!”
I stood and grabbed her shoulders, walking her out onto the landing. She tried to fight but I was too strong for her, so she resorted to lashing out, catching me between the legs and sending me into a world of pain.
I doubled over and felt the wolf stir within. Now I really was pissed off, and the wolf responded to the anger, its hunger latching onto my fury. I wanted blood. Amy ran back into the room just to spite me, ranting about something and mouthing off. She’d never been a good loser, always determined to have the final blow. But not anymore.
“Get out of my room!” I roared, punching her right in her gobby little mouth. She fell back, stunned, and reached a hand up to her face. It wasn’t the first time she’d pushed me to the point where I’d struck back, but never really hard enough to hurt her before. The shock at what I’d done showed in her face, and her hand came away with blood. Then the pain set in and she started to cry as she fled the room.
I was panting heavily as if I’d been running. The wolf was pressing for the transformation, and I was struggling to control it. Beneath the anger I was as shocked as Amy at what I’d done. The nightmare scene of her wriggling, bleeding body dying to my jaws came back to haunt me.
“No!” I screamed. “That’s not me, it’s not me! Get the fuck out of my head, it wasn’t me! I won’t do that to her. Not that, not that!”
I sank to my knees and my head tilted back, screaming again until it became a howl. My eyes were turning amber, my teeth lengthening. The change was coming whether I wanted it or not.
“No!”
My voice came out as a growl. Veins bulged beneath my skin as I dug my claws into the floor and gritted my teeth, the pain of the transformation worsening the more I fought it. But I couldn’t shift there, not with Amy in the house. The smell of her blood excited the wolf, I could feel it, and I knew if I gave in I would never be able to control the hunger. She would die and part of me would enjoy it. So I fought harder than ever before until suddenly, as quickly as it came, the wolf slid back beneath the surface, and the few changes that had taken place reversed. Relieved, I ran to find Amy. I was still horrified by what I’d done and what I’d wanted to do, and I needed to put it right.
I found her curled on the sofa in the lounge, crying and shaking, her phone cradled in her hands.
“Amy,” I said softly, reaching a hand out to her. She whimpered and curled up tighter.
“Amy,” I tried again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what’s happening to me but I can’t control it. You have to leave me alone when I tell you to, so you don’t get hurt.”
She didn’t answer, still crying into the sofa. I glanced at the phone.
“Did you tell Mum?”
She shook her head.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “You know you can’t tell Mum, right? Please? She’ll take me to a doctor and they’ll take me away. Please, Amy. I’m scared. Doctors can’t help me. I have to work through this on my own. The more people who interfere, the more people who get hurt. Please, don’t tell Mum, for me. It’ll be okay; everything will be okay. Just stay out of my way when I tell you to and no one will get hurt.”
Slowly, she turned round to look at me. Blood was pouring from her mouth, three of her front teeth loose. I couldn’t read her face and struggled to guess at what she was thinking. What made me say the things I’d just told her I didn’t know, but I knew it was all true and that I couldn’t go down that route. Doctors couldn’t help me. They might even end up dead for their trouble. Or the Slayers might get me somehow, and then I’d end up dead. Maybe not such a bad thing, or maybe I still wasn’t ready for death yet. Finally Amy spoke.
“Nick, what’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know but you’ve got to trust me on this. Mum can’t find out what just happened.”
She nodded and let me clean her up. The blood flow in her mouth was slowing, but I shuddered at the thought of the damage I could have done if I’d hit her with everything I had. She agreed to tell Mum she’d fallen and hit her mouth on the desk in my room. Mum would buy it. But after that, Amy grew as fearful of me as our parents, and my guilt was all the worse for having felt the wolf’s hunger directed at my own sister, and its need for blood. Over the last week I’d been trying to pretend it was all a nightmare, that none of this was happening to me, but its desire for flesh had been all too real. And the thought that I’d come so close to killing Amy wouldn’t leave me alone. If I’d not been strong enough to fight the transformation… I spent even less time with them after that.
A few days later, I was in my room when I heard Mum and Amy calling from the lounge. I started downstairs to see what they wanted when I heard Amy whisper “Nick smells!” from her bedroom. My head tilted to the side as I paused, listening intently. And then I remembered I was home alone. Was I going insane? Was my brain offering me a way out of reality? I smiled to myself. Letting them lock me away in a padded cell did have a certain appeal about it. It would mean I couldn’t kill any more and put an end to the misery. But it wouldn’t solve matters. Much as I wanted to run from this harsh reality, I knew there was no escaping what I had become. I was a killer, and even if they locked me away I would kill again, eventually. The wolf wouldn’t be caged for long and it certainly couldn’t be tamed.
“Nick!”
My name came again, louder than before and more urgent. I descended the stairs, slow and steady, dreading what was waiting for me at the bottom.
The door to the lounge was closed. I paused again with a hand on the knob, afraid to go in. My name ca
me a third time. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and crept through.
Mum lay sprawled on one end of the sofa. She was just lying there, no reaction as I walked into the room. Was she sleeping?
“Mum, are you okay?” I asked, drawing closer. No answer.
“Mum?” I repeated, shaking her. To my horror, her head fell from her body and rolled across the floor, coming to a stop by the fireplace where it stared at me with a wide eye. The other was missing, a fly in its place, laying eggs in the socket. A flap of skin hung down from one cheek, revealing the shiny red flesh beneath, and an ear had been torn off.
Amy was curled at the other end, her head intact, though it was missing the lower jaw, her tongue dangling uselessly. One arm lay on the floor; the other bore deep cuts spaced evenly apart, unmistakably claw marks. I screamed and ran from the room. When Dad brought home their real counterparts, they found me cowering underneath the table in the dining room.
Back at school, things had become worse still. I’d finally snapped. Friends came to talk to me and all I could do was cringe with fear, seeing my victims coming for revenge, bloody and half-eaten and starting to rot. I was convinced I could hear the voices of the dead whispering to me, threatening to drag me back into the earth with them. Everyone seemed to be looking at me, talking about me. Oh God, what if they knew? No one dared approach me though. To my paranoid brain this was proof that they had discovered my true nature, though in reality they were as scared of me as I was of them, either because I was mad or because of what I’d done to Jamie, or both. Then one night after school, things reached their climax.
I went straight to my room, the only place I felt safe, and the voices were getting louder, driving me to my knees. My hands clamped over my ears and I was screaming at them, trying to block them out. When it became too much, I ran out onto the landing and shut the door behind me, as if I could lock them in there. The voices only grew louder still. They were whispering worse things then, bringing back all the gory details. I ran into the bathroom and filled the sink with vomit, retching until my stomach was empty.
When I raised my head, it was to find my reflection seemingly changing before my eyes. I stared at the wolf grinning back with its bloodstained fangs, and a roar tore from my throat, my fist punching the image as hard as I could. The glass shattered, shards raining down and smashing into smaller pieces when they hit the tiled floor.
There’d been shouts from downstairs but I’d ignored them, then my parents came running at the sound of the breaking glass. I didn’t even acknowledge they were there. Whimpering, I sank to the floor, still hearing the whispers of the dead.
There was a throbbing in my hand where bits of glass had embedded in the flesh, but it was just background noise. I could hear my parents’ voices, but they seemed far away as well. There were only the terrible whispers of my victims, tormenting me with the constant reminders of what I’d done.
“Evening. Can I get your name and address please, and the reason for your visit to A&E?” the receptionist said.
“It’s our son.” My Dad gestured at me. “We’re worried about his mental health and he’s hurt his hand – there’s shards of glass stuck in it.”
I didn’t follow the full conversation. My gaze was fixed on the ghoulish apparition of Fiona, what remained of her features less a face than a skull. But this was not the clean, chalky white of bare bone. No, skin still covered her hairless head, black and necrotic and disgusting to look at. Her teeth showed where it had pulled back from her jaws, and her eye sockets were empty and teeming with maggots. As I watched, one fell from the hole and rolled down the side of her nose, down onto her bloated torso. It brought another scream to my throat and I turned and ran before anyone could stop me.
Freedom was only a few feet away when strong hands grabbed my arms and pulled me back. I think it must have been Dad.
“No!” I roared, breaking free and starting forward again. He chased after me but I was pulling ahead, running for some safe place I could crawl into and hide away from my victims. If only such a place existed.
My flight took me out of the hospital car park and onto the street, down another alley and into a patch of trees and vegetation. A short slope separated it from the pavement, rising up and dipping down again like a miniature hill. It was the perfect cover for me to cower behind while I whimpered and tried to shut the voices out.
That was where the police found me. My memories of the night are vague, but I think they managed to get me back to my parents at A&E, where I was seen by a nurse and a mental health specialist. I sat on the bed, trembling and staring at the floor while the nurse treated my wounds, barely noticing the sting of antiseptic and the sharp brush of glass against flesh as they pulled the shards out.
The specialist tried talking to me. His eyes were kindly but I couldn’t bring myself to meet them, let alone to speak.
“We can’t help you if you won’t talk to us, Nick,” he tried again. “Won’t you tell me what’s been going on?”
“He lost a close friend about two months ago,” Mum said, her voice thick with tears. “At first we thought he was working his way through it so we left him to grieve in his bedroom and come to us when he was ready. We should have seen the signs and brought him in sooner but he was insistent he didn’t need help. Oh, why didn’t I listen to my instincts?”
She broke down at that and Dad wrapped his arm around her.
“I see,” the specialist said, but his eyes were still on me. “Do you want to talk about it now, Nick? Talking might help. What about your hand – did you do that to yourself?”
I said nothing. The wolf’s second victim chose that moment to appear, decayed like Fiona, except his head was all but gone, mere remnants of his lower jaw attached to the blackened stump of his neck. It was too much. I leapt to my feet and caught the flash of metal at the specialist’s belt. Was that a gun?
“Leave me alone!” I screamed, falling on him and sinking my teeth into his cheek. The damage wasn’t as devastating as they’d inflicted as fangs but my bite was still enough to rip off a patch of skin, blood spurting from the wound.
Something long and thin stabbed into my own skin. I rose from the specialist with a roar and advanced on this new enemy, but something was wrong. There was a metallic taste in my mouth and a strange buzzing sensation, like the blood was rushing from my head. I blacked out.
I woke to find myself strapped to a bed, a needle in my arm which was hooked up to a drip. Already I could feel my strength returning, and I hated it.
How long I lay there I don’t know, but I’d guess it took only a day or two to lose my gaunt appearance, recovering much quicker than a human would have. They couldn’t explain that. Nor could they explain why my hand healed so quickly where the glass had penetrated the flesh.
I was barely aware of my surroundings or the staff trying to help me at first, but I couldn’t escape reality forever. A woman entered my field of vision – another specialist as far as I could tell.
“Hello, Nick. Nice to see you awake and looking better. I wonder if you could talk to me about what happened on the night your parents brought you into hospital?”
I turned my head away. They couldn’t help me.
“Please, Nick, we can’t do anything for you if you won’t talk to us. Won’t you tell me what’s been troubling you?”
Why couldn’t they have left me to waste away? The moon had to be waxing again. More people were going to die because of their misplaced kindness.
“Is it your friend’s death?”
Something sidled across the corner of my eye.
“No!” I roared, struggling to escape. The straps started to break, and the woman’s face filled with alarm.
Nurses rushed in, trying to calm me until the fit passed. They wore the faces of my victims and I fought all the harder, sending one crashing into the wall as my arm ripped free. Someone else ran over and introduced a new fluid into the drip. Then the darkness was closing in again.
“Hi, Nick. You must be hungry. Are you going to eat some of this for us so we can take you off the drip?”
She stabbed a piece of meat and held it to my mouth. The smell made me gip but some part of me recognised I had little choice in the matter. If they were going to force sustenance into my body it seemed I might as well try and eat.
Pleased with my progress, the doctors released me from my restraints after a while. I sat up on the bed, taking in my surroundings. It felt like a prison cell. There was nothing personal about the space like my room back home – just four walls, a window, a door, and the bed. The window didn’t offer much of a view either. Most of my time would be spent lying down and staring at the ceiling, fighting sleep with everything I had. It was about all the hospital could do for me.
The nurses were quick to encourage me to go for a wander. I got as far as the corridor outside when another patient danced into view, naked and laughing at a joke only she could see. More nurses chased her and I felt the wolf stir at the sight of running prey. I fled back inside my room, shaking and struggling to keep my human shape.
Looking back now, it makes me laugh at the irony of it all. I’d spent my childhood fantasising about being a werewolf and it came true. For more years than I care to remember, I’d been telling people someday I would end up in a padded cell, and there I was, in a mental hospital. Though it wasn’t quite like I’d imagined.
In many ways it reminded me of the old people’s home my Grandma was in. There was a room where we could go to socialise with each other, complete with board games and a TV. I was encouraged to join in but I got as far as the doorway before one of the other patients tried talking to me, and I shrank away, afraid either I would hurt him or he’d hurt me. It was only a matter of minutes before I was running back to my room, feeling only marginally safer inside its cold, clinical walls.