by Sean Davies
“It must be the weekend…” Genevieve whispered to herself. Somehow, she had lost most of the week.
The warm sun kissed Genie’s face through her window pane, and she closed her eyes for a moment. The strong heat reminded Genevieve of her trip to Tropica, and she wanted to go back in time so badly, just to savour every second of those carefree days on her gap year with Annabelle. Everything had been so simple, and Genie wished it had stayed that way.
The heat from outside intensified, and Genie wondered why it was so hot. It looked like a normal day, and the people she could see were all wearing regular clothes. She looked upwards; there were barely any clouds in the sky but the sun was burning intently, and to Genevieve it felt as though someone had lit a magnesium flare next to her face. She quickly clenched her eyes shut and could hear her flesh cooking like sizzling barbequed meat. With a sharp squeal, Genie recoiled from the window.
She kept her eyes closed tightly and fumbled for the door. In a blind panic, she smashed through it as though it had been made of cheap MDF and skirted around the apartment until she found the bathroom. She felt for the sink and turned the handle as far as it would go. Genevieve dunked her face in the cool water until it was numb. She slowly opened her eyes and winced at the horrific sight of her own reflection. Her skin had burnt, blistered, and peeled down to the muscle tissue, and her irises were a striking shade of blood red. Genie stared at herself in shock, forgetting about the how and why, and her strangely imposed captivity, and tried to wrap her head around the fact that she was scarred for life. Even the best reconstructive surgery on the planet (which she couldn’t even afford) wouldn’t be able to fix her face. Then her eyes went wide with surprise.
“What the fuck…?” she breathed in awe. Her damaged face was slowly, but surely, regenerating.
Genevieve watched on mesmerised as the blisters receded and thin trickles of blood spread across her ruined face, leaving trails of repaired flesh in their wake. Her face was as good as new, and her complexion was even better than before, but her irises remained red. Genevieve also had two new protruding fangs beside her regular straight white teeth.
After gawping at her flattering reflection for a few minutes, the shock and surprise ebbed away, and Genevieve once again realised the gravity of the situation. Genie didn’t know what she was, her throat was dry, her stomach ached with hunger, and she couldn’t even guarantee that she was alone in the apartment.
Genie knew that making sure that she was secure, at least for the time being, should’ve been her top priority. However, the urge to quench her thirst was so great that she just couldn’t resist. She turned the water back on and cupped the cold liquid with her hands, slurping it up ungracefully. Genevieve drank until her stomach was full and she felt physically sick, but her thirst remained unabated.
Groaning miserably, she turned her attention to the only matter she could solve. Even though she had blundered into the bathroom when her face had been scolded by the outside world, she assumed that the people responsible for her situation weren’t above playing with their prey, from the way the note had been taped to her head. She looked at the partially open bathroom door fearfully, knowing that somebody could be lurking on the other side.
She quickly looked for a weapon but couldn’t find anything substantial to wield. Genie took a deep breath, steadied her nerves, and carefully crept into the living room. She cringed as the bathroom door creaked open noisily, and Genevieve swiftly looked around at her living room for threats.
The rectangular room was a complete mess, just like her bedroom had been, and the shattered door added to the disorderedly look. Genevieve stared at the splintered wood in disbelief – it looked as though a rhino had stampeded through it – but she quickly snapped her focus away. There were more pressing matters at hand than whatever was happening to her body.
Her eyes darted around the dark, messy living room, rapidly checking for people hiding behind the overturned furniture, but she was alone. Genevieve picked up a long, sharp piece of broken wood, and preceded to the apartment’s small kitchen. There was no one inside, and Genie discarded the wood and upgraded to a long kitchen knife instead.
Genevieve checked every cupboard, every wardrobe, and any hiding place she could think of. Satisfied that she was alone, Genie entered Annabelle’s room. She grimaced when she saw the ruined room, as she had done her best to leave it just the way Annabelle had left it, only tidier. Like all the other rooms, its curtains had been reinforced with her spare sheets, and after the incident in her own room Genevieve was happy to leave them that way. All of Anna’s money, Dreamleaf, and Tropican cannabis were missing. However, Genie still let out a sigh of relief when she found no sign of strangers within it.
As Genie tidied her friend’s overly pink room, she mused about her own personal condition. Someone had smashed her face into the Woodsholme Grill’s backroom door, but there was no sign of damage to her head. The sunlight had roasted her face through a window pane, and she had then watched as the damage repaired itself. Her eyes were crimson red, her senses were immensely better than they had been, and she was abnormally stronger than before. She had long fangs and was also unable to satisfy her thirst.
Genevieve finished placing Annabelle’s furnishings back to where they belonged and made her friend’s bed with loving care. She sat herself down on the soft pink sheets and studied her pale hands in a daze. Genie had read enough fantasy books to know what category of supernatural phenomena she belonged to.
“I’m a Vampire…” she whispered aloud, and felt incredibly stupid for doing so.
Conspiracy theories about Vampires, Werewolves, and spell-casting Mages had always been a part of Mydia’s culture and had been woven into works of fiction since ancient times, but now Genevieve was living proof that they were in fact very real.
She ran her tongue along her smooth, viciously sharp fangs as she thought about her next move. Something – or someone – supernatural had taken an interest in her that night at the restaurant, and Genevieve was certain that she’d heard Big Dave and the other gang leaders being murdered. She assumed that those responsible were Vampires and had chosen to turn her on the side of their night-time killing spree. She remembered the liquid that had been poured down her throat and ignited her insides, and assumed it was blood. Genie couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact she was self-diagnosing herself based on works of fiction. What she did know for sure was that the people who had turned and restrained her were extremely dangerous, and she would be a fool not to heed their threatening note. For the sake of hers and Annabelle’s parents, she would stay put and meet her makers.
All she could do was wait. Genie cleaned the apartment from top to bottom, which helped to keep her mind off the insane turn of events and the ever-growing thirst and hunger. She raided the kitchen, and although the food tasted good, it did nothing to abate the pain in her stomach.
“Guess I need blood…” she scoffed both jokingly and fearfully.
Genie discarded her filthy waitress uniform which was caked in her own dried blood, and took a long hot bath. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but her insides churned so much that she struggled to lay still. Genevieve dried herself off and dressed herself in a comfortable pair of black leggings and a long white t-shirt.
She missed the college’s computers, with their text-based role-playing games and the challenging turn-based strategy games. She tried to do some writing on one of her many notepads, but all she could manage was a dozen lines of ‘I’m hungry’ before giving up completely.
Genevieve did her best to keep her spirits high, but the sense of dread and fear of the frightening unknown, coupled with the incredible discomfort in her throat and stomach, quickly won the battle. She wished that the Dreamleaf hadn’t been robbed, and resorted to necking down shots from a bottle of whiskey that had survived the pillaging of the apartment instead.
After a long miserable day, the sun set and the twin moons rose in its place. Genevieve had grow
n progressively drunker as time stretched on, and she found herself throwing nervous glances towards the front door. The urge to escape grew wilder as night fell, and she had to keep talking herself out of running away and never coming back.
“Mum and Dad, Martha and Julian, Annabelle…” Genie recited over and over like a prayer.
She staggered over to the long living room window and pulled down the random assortment of sheets covering it. She threw open the curtains and drank in the night. Genie looked out of her first-floor apartment and out at the moonstruck fields, trees, and buildings. She had never seen the evening with such clearness, but it was the people walking along the pavements that drew her interest. Genevieve could feel their warmth, their lifeblood coursing through their bodies, and the pumping of their beating hearts. She didn’t just want their blood, she wanted to eat them whole, and Genevieve had to use all her restraint to stop herself from leaping through the window and tearing into their flesh. She threw the sheets back in place, ran into the bathroom and closed the door, just to put something between her and the delicious looking people below. When she caught her reflection out of the corner of her eye, Genevieve received another unpleasant surprise.
Her beautiful complexion had been replaced with patchy greying skin, she had dark bags under her eyes, and her new red eyes were violently bloodshot. Genevieve’s veins were darkening and more of her teeth were growing into sharp points. Genie shied away and spent the night huddled in a ball beside her bathtub.
Genevieve was a wreck by the time that morning finally arrived. All her skin had turned grey, her mouth was filled with razor sharp fangs, and her fingernails had elongated into blade-like talons. Her face was looking better, but not in a human way. Her features were sharper and even further defined, her eyes were pure red slits that leaked seduction, the bags under her eyes had darkened further and it looked like she was wearing thick black make-up, and her hair was longer, fuller, and moved on its own accord in tantalising rhythmic waves.
Hunger became Genevieve’s entire world that day, and every minute seemed like an hour. She paced around the apartment aimlessly, and switched between stalking like a hunched over beast and gliding along with elegant inhuman grace. Genie could hear her elderly next-door neighbours moving around, and she wanted to smash through the meagre wall to get to them.
The night came around again, and Genevieve didn’t know how she’d held out for so long without losing her mind completely or murdering every person that she’d sensed passing by. She tried to stay focused on the parents and Annabelle, but truthfully, imagining people just made her hungrier. She was literally scratching at the dividing wall when the front door swung open.
Genevieve retreated to the far end of the room, fanned out her bladed nails, and crouched as she readied to strike. Her long dark hair blossomed outwards around her head and rippled rapidly in a strangely threatening manner.
Three men – two with red eyes and one with purple eyes – walked into her apartment holding a silver case. They appeared to be in their early twenties and were wearing tight white vest tops, skinny denim jeans, gaudy gold chains, and incredibly smug expressions. They were handsome in a brutish sort of way, and Genie immediately recognised them from the rowdy table at the Woodsholme Grill.
“You fuckers,” Genevieve hissed violently. “You did this to me!”
“Aww… she recognises us,” the purple-eyed man said. He had short spikey hair that was as white as a sheet.
“Bugger me, she’s almost become a Feral! We got here just in time, boss,” one of the red eyed men said with a hint of nervousness in his tone.
Genevieve’s nose twitched as she smelt his fear. He had a face as wide as his brutish figure, and black spikey hair with bleach blonde highlights. He was large and muscular, but Genie knew from her new killer instincts that he would be easy for her to outmanoeuvre and slaughter.
“We would’ve got here sooner if you didn’t drive like such a pussy, Archie,” the other red-eyed man, who had hair as gold as his plated fangs, said with a smirk.
Genevieve looked at him warily. She could somehow sense that he was the stronger of the two, and she fantasised about carving him to ribbons with her talons.
“I’m Seth,” the tall gold-haired man said nonchalantly, as he opened the metal case. Cold vapour poured out from within. “This red-eyed one is Archie, and the purpled-eyed dude is Chaz. We’re here for a little bit of fun, Genevieve Jameson.” He dug out a medical blood pack with one hand and unzipped his flies with the other.
Genie’s pure red eyes went wide at the sight of the delicious blood, and she pounced across the room to get it. Before Seth and his cronies could even blink, Genevieve had snatched the blood pack from his pale hands. She ravaged the plastic bag with her fang-filled mouth and greedily gulped down the cool contents.
The blood flowed down Genie’s throat and purged the raw dryness that had been irritating her for days, and instantly sated her stomach-crunching hunger. She could feel her fangs retracting back into normal teeth, and although two stayed prominent, they were nowhere near as elongated as they had been before. However, as soon as she stopped drinking, the animistic craving for blood returned with a vengeance, and she looked towards Seth and waited for an opportunity to obtain more precious blood.
Seth gawped at her, and Chaz and Archie were equally speechless.
Chaz broke the silence first. “The bitch… she’s quicker than you, Seth!” he stammered warily.
“It’s cos she was going Feral,” Seth shot back defensively. “She’ll be slower now she’s had her first proper drink.”
He pulled out another blood pack and dangled it in the air, goading Genevieve into grabbing it like she was a trained pet.
Genie smirked, and once again she hurtled across the room, snatching the blood from Seth’s hands with ease. Seth was ready for her and kicked out viciously towards her torso. However, Genie registered the movement of his body, and spun herself out of the way at the last second. She tore into the blood pack and watched Seth’s square jaw drop in astonishment.
The greyness faded from her skin, although it remained pale and cold to the touch. Genevieve’s hair stopped moving, retracted back to shoulder-length, and returned to its normal brown colour. Her nails shrunk but stayed just long and pointed enough to be used as a weapon. The blood also jump-started her conscious mind, and she began to feel less like a starved beast and more like her old self.
Genevieve stood upright, feeling stronger and more revitalised than ever, and eyed Seth up and down. She sniggered at his open flies.
“Were you planning on showing off your prick to your boyfriends or something?” she teased, feeling confident from upstaging the gold-haired tough guy.
Seth glared angrily and quickly zipped his flies back up, but then he smiled, and the light of the twin moons reflected off his gold-plated fangs.
“Looks like you’ve inherited my talents,” he said proudly.
Genevieve raised an eyebrow critically and tried to keep a fierce façade. The more her senses returned, the more she remembered about the life-threatening situation she had stumbled into.
“My friend,” Genie said in a fierce tone, “what do you know about her?”
“Annabelle Jones? About as much as you do, I reckon,” Seth shrugged. “What I do know is that she had a mean supply of Dreamleaf, that shit was top-notch quality.”
“The note-” Genie began.
“Said I might help you find her. You really should stop writing so much,” Seth interrupted. “You never know who’s gonna go through your stuff.”
Archie and Chaz sniggered.
Seth took a moment to stare at Genevieve and seemed to be deep in thought as he appraised her.
“I like how you’re more worried about your friend than all of this,” he said, gesturing around him. “You’ve got balls, lady.”
Genevieve scrunched her face up in response to the poorly worded compliment. “Thanks, I guess…”
“H
op it, boys,” Seth commanded as he jerked his thumb towards the front door.
Archie and Chaz looked confused and remained stationary.
Chaz scowled at Seth with his mystical purple eyes. “I thought we were going to-”
“Fuck off,” Seth hissed. “Now!”
Chaz and Archie grumbled, but followed their boss’ orders and quickly left the apartment.
“And leave the fucking jeep!” Seth yelled after them.
Genevieve had an idea of what they’d been expecting from their visit, and she didn’t like it one bit. However, since she’d snatched the second blood pack from Seth he’d been looking at her in a pleased and awestruck way, as though she’d been gilded. She guessed that her speed was more valuable to him than her body, although she still was sure he wanted both.
“We’ve got a lot to discuss,” Seth said to Genevieve after a long pause.
“Yes… yes, we do,” Genevieve replied plainly. For a moment it felt as though she was in the drawn-out moments before a quick draw duel, like she’d seen in the movies about old-Desem cowboys.
Seth clapped his hands and rubbed them together cheerily. “Let’s grab some food,” he said, instantly defusing the tense standoff.
“What? Where?” Genevieve asked, confused. She hadn’t been expecting to leave for quite some time after she’d almost become a psychotic supernatural mass-murderer.
Seth clipped the blood case shut and headed towards the front door. “The Woodsholme Grill. I guess you haven’t heard; it’s under new management,” he said with an evil grin.
Genie grabbed a coat and handbag, locked her front door, and hurried down the stairwell after Seth. He strolled casually across the road to a big sporty white jeep and hopped inside. Genevieve walked around the big vehicle as Seth turned the ignition, opened the reinforced door, and sat herself in the comfortable leather passenger seat. She had a million questions but didn’t even know where to start, and she was still very cautious of the golden-haired man.