All day long now, whenever Grandpa was quiet, she watched.
If only she could get out of the house and meet new people, she could change. But the idea filled her with dread. It took all her courage to answer the door to delivery men, or exchange a few words with the postman. After signing for a delivery she would have to sit quietly alone in a darkened room for half an hour, watching a game show to recover.
She knew she had a serious problem. She didn’t need her sister to point it out to her. Anthropophobia, it was called. Fear of people. She had started reading books about her condition, becoming obsessively interested in self-help and psychology books. But books couldn’t cure her phobia. And despite Sarah’s pleas, Melanie was spending more and more time out with her men, sometimes leaving Sarah alone for days at a time.
And so, she watched.
The news was pulling her attention more and more. First the creature known as the Beast of Clapham Common had drawn her in. The Common was only a few miles from where she lived in Richmond upon Thames. She shuddered to think that a savage monster stalked it after dark. She’d experienced a guilty thrill when that policeman had been attacked by the Beast.
The lunchtime news had been filled with wild speculation, with members of the public calling in with crazy theories about the creature. More sightings of the Beast had been reported in other parts of London too. Commentators wondered aloud how one Beast alone could be responsible for so many different appearances right across the city. ‘Does the Beast have a rail pass?’ quipped one journalist.
Bizarrely, similar sightings of a Beast had been reported in other cities in other countries – in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, and in New York’s Central Park – and jerky video footage of strange creatures in those locations also made the headlines for a few days.
But the Beast had been pushed aside once the serial killer known as the Ripper had begun his gruesome work. Sarah had spent hours watching TV coverage of his murders and following up online, hungry for more details. She’d always had an interest in psychopaths and serial killers. An unhealthy interest, according to Melanie, perhaps even an obsession. The Ripper killings fed that obsession and Sarah had been secretly, guiltily pleased when the Ripper murders continued even after the arrest of the Romanian man.
But this evening, news had broken of two further arrests in the ongoing Ripper search. Two More Men Arrested in Ripper Hunt screamed the headline that scrolled continually across the bottom of the screen.
Sarah watched intently as the Police Commissioner gave a Press Conference to announce the arrests. It seemed that two separate arrests had been made at different locations and times. In both cases, the men arrested had been caught in the act of devouring their victims. Sarah shuddered with a curious mixture of horror and delight. The first man was another Romanian immigrant recently arrived in Britain, the other a respectable headmaster at a school in South London. It seemed that each man had been responsible for several horrific murders.
The police were at a loss to explain why apparently unconnected men should be involved, but the Commissioner eagerly reassured the public that with three men now safely in custody, their reign of terror had ended.
That didn’t seem to satisfy the journalists however. Many questions remained unanswered. Were the three men known to each other? Were they working as a team? Was there a connection to Romania? Were any other people involved? Could the police guarantee that there would be no further killings? The Police Commissioner declined to answer any of their questions.
Sarah longed for her sister to return home. Much as she had enjoyed the thrill of the Ripper murders, she’d been terrified for Melanie’s safety too. And no matter how many times she had begged Melanie to put her ‘work’ on hold, it had been no use. Her sister needed to be free in a way Sarah had never quite understood. It wasn’t as if they even needed the money any more. Melanie’s hauls had put plenty of money into the bank. They had enough. And yet for Melanie it seemed, enough was a word that didn’t really exist.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Greenfield Road, Brixton, South London, full moon
When the time for the change finally came, James found that the trepidation and nervousness of the previous week had all but vanished. It was as if he were about to go into an exam where he already knew all the answers. He felt nothing now but anticipation and impatience. He had watched the moon wax steadily over the previous nights, feeling its inexorable pull. The way it dragged at every atom of his being had become almost unbearable. He yearned for its purifying pain, and the fire that cleansed.
Before going out he said a prayer, but as always since he’d been bitten, God’s voice remained still. No matter, he knew what he must do. He felt as if he had known it all his life. All that he had lived through, everything he had learned, experienced and felt, had simply been in preparation for this night. All his dreams and yearnings were about to be fulfilled. If God really were listening, he would answer James when the change came.
Leanna and Adam would be going out later. They had already changed so many times that the thrill had become commonplace. But James was eager to taste it as soon as the full moon rose.
Samuel laughed. ‘You’re like a six-year-old on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa to come.’ But the laughter was just his way of putting James at ease. Samuel understood. He knew how much the change meant.
The two of them went out together, just before sunset, when the sun had lost its power to burn his skin. The sky was clear this evening, perfect conditions for the coming change. Already the moon had risen, but it made a pale face against the light western sky. Not until the fiery sun had relinquished its hold over the day could the cold silver orb begin to bathe them in its pure rays.
They headed out to the park, where Samuel thought they would have the best chance of privacy. The park was locked at four o’clock in the winter months, and no one would be fool enough to climb over its iron fence with the stories of the Ripper and the Beast still circulating. He had never seen any police go into the park after dark either. They ought to have the place to themselves, apart from any other werewolves they might chance upon.
They climbed over the fence together, Samuel giving James a boost up, then leaping over himself in a single bound. James glanced behind at the darkening street, but no one had seen them enter the park.
‘Come on,’ said Samuel, heading across the clipped grass. ‘Let’s get into the trees before anyone comes.’
They jogged along together, following the curve of a concrete path that wove between trees and bushes, the canopies of the trees mostly bare now, standing tall like columns in a cathedral, supporting the heavens in their outstretched arms. Above them, the moon rose slowly, becoming brighter as the sun dropped down beyond the horizon and twilight made its entrance. They continued on into the very heart of the park, the light fading as the sun set in a last orange blaze, until the sky began to lighten again as the moon lifted above the trees.
James stopped to look up at it, his eyes narrowing reflexively, but not turning away. The moon smiled back, its mottled face familiar, its bright reflective surface transmuting the steady light of day into a shimmering and magical firelight. As it rose higher, it became blindingly bright, forcing James to look away.
Moonbeams fell against him like the burning rays of the summer sun. His skin and eyes began to prick. ‘I think it’s beginning,’ he said.
Samuel stood beside him, alert and watchful. ‘You’ll probably feel it before I do,’ he said. ‘You’re fully sensitized.’
‘I do,’ said James. ‘I feel it now.’
With a growing rush the fire took James in its hot embrace. From head to toe his body shuddered as his skin turned first to flame and then to ice, and back to hot, molten lava. Fine hairs erupted from his hands, his chest, his back, legs and face. Even his fingers and toes thickened, first with hair, and then with fur. It wrapped him like a perfectly-fitted glove.
The power coursed through his veins, and hi
s muscles writhed within him like snakes uncoiling. He felt his clothes tear and fall away as his chest and shoulders grew broad, his arms and legs flexing and bending, as he stooped forward onto all fours. He pawed the wet grass, enjoying the feel of mud and grass between his fingers and toes. They lengthened as he dug them into the soft ground, and his nails grew thick and sharp like talons. He padded forward purposefully, enjoying the ease of walking on four legs.
Finally he felt a blistering thrill as his teeth pushed through his gums, twisting and sharpening as they readied themselves to kill. A soft growl came from his mouth, turning to a deep-throated roar, and he sprang upright once more, standing tall on hind legs to howl at the moon that watched silently overhead.
He had changed, just as Samuel had promised. The cleansing transformation left him wordless with wonder. Never had he experienced such pure and simple joy.
He remembered Samuel then, and saw that he too had changed. As a wolf he was perhaps even more beautiful than in human form, his fur black, his strong, fine features flowing with fluid grace under the silvery light.
‘Ready?’ asked Samuel.
‘Yes,’ said James. The sound of his new voice surprised him. It was his own familiar voice, yet the voice of a wolf.
‘Come on,’ said Samuel, and he bounded forward away from the path.
The park at night assaulted his wolf senses. Human language simply did not have the words to describe it; it could only be experienced. A thousand distinct scents presented themselves to him, and he instinctively knew the source of each. A fresh, open breeze laced with diesel particulates and petroleum fumes; a decaying mildew tang of dead leaves and rotting vegetation; a lingering trail of smoke from a smouldering bonfire. And beneath it all, faint but rich, the slightly cloying aroma of fresh meat that roused his appetite and made saliva drool from his pink tongue. Their prey was still distant, but they covered ground quickly.
When they reached the black metal fence that girdled the park, they leapt over it without slowing, James now running ahead in his enthusiasm. His nose guided him as much as his eyes. Prey was close, and in some numbers, and his hunger seemed almost boundless.
These streets were familiar, but he saw them differently now. Darkness held no mysteries anymore; it had become his ally. He moved silently from dark space to dark space, clinging to shadows, invisible beneath the shroud of night, Samuel following soundlessly in his wake.
Together they crossed street after street, drawing ever closer to the prey.
James knew their destination. The mainline railway station closest to the park. There would be commuters there, alighting from trains, or waiting to return home after work. Dozens of them, waiting. Waiting for him.
He ran faster, his heart pumping, the fiery blood coursing, the scent growing ever more intense. Blood lust had come on him, pushing conscious thoughts aside. He moved purely on instinct. He had no need to think. His teeth, his claws, his jaws thought for him.
They arrived at the station together, leaping easily over the low wall and fence that ringed it, landing on the hard platform concourse out of nowhere. Crowds of people milled about like sheep before him. His wolf eyes delighted at the surprise that turned to horror on those stupid faces.
And they were slow. So slow.
He flew at the nearest, a young man in jeans and hoodie, sinking his canines into his neck, ripping at the throat, and tasting the rich iron blood that gushed into his mouth. The man fell quickly and James wanted to feed on him, but so many others were waiting nearby. He released his prey and turned to the next. This one was smaller, a woman in a smart green raincoat, her eyes wide with terror. James killed her too, taking a hunk of flesh this time, shearing through her neck with his rear carnassial teeth. She didn’t even have time to struggle before she dropped to the station platform, her eyes staring sightless and glassy. He stopped to chew, watching the others flee in panic. They rushed in terror, tripping over each other, stumbling, directionless. James watched them, laughing.
After that, he forgot how many he killed or maimed. He didn’t stop until Samuel’s voice broke through the frenzy that had taken him. ‘The police are coming, James. Run! Run for your life!’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
King’s College Hospital, Lambeth, South London, full moon
Doctor Kapoor yawned. After working an eighteen-hour shift he was reaching the limit of his endurance. Not since his days as a junior doctor had he been so overworked, and he had been a lot younger then. The number of patients requiring Intensive Care grew almost day by day. Never mind beds – there simply weren’t enough doctors to treat them all. Whatever this thing was, it was spreading at epidemic rates.
Chanita was right. The bite cases needed to be kept away from other patients. Doctor Kapoor had already asked the Medical Director for a dedicated ward, but the hospital was stretched to full capacity. He would have to deal with this outbreak with the resources already at his disposal.
He’d begun to make a little progress in treating the condition, mostly by trial and error. Administering intravenous fluids as early as possible was the critical factor. That, and the severity of the wound. Bites were a lot more dangerous than scratches, as far as he could tell.
The patients that survived the critical stage and regained consciousness seemed to make a partial recovery, but he wouldn’t say they were completely cured. In the end he had no choice but to discharge them in order to free up beds for new arrivals. The whole situation was just one step away from blowing up.
It had been hard to spot a pattern in the cases at first, because of the high degree of variability of the symptoms. The case reports had confused him too. Dogs, wolves, humans. Sometimes bites, other times just scratches. It was hard to make sense of the data, and he still didn’t really know what he was dealing with. He’d had blood samples from his patients tested for viral, parasitic and fungal infections but nothing had shown up. Bacterial infection didn’t seem to be a factor either, or at least none of the broad-spectrum antibiotics he’d tried had done much to combat the primary infection.
The white blood cell counts from the affected patients were all severely depressed, so the body’s immune system was clearly battling against a pathogen of some type, but the Clinical Pathology lab couldn’t identify it. He wondered if it could be some kind of auto-immune condition like Addison’s disease or Sjögren’s syndrome. These produced similar symptoms, though less severe, and also resulted in a low white blood cell count. But these types of diseases were not known to be transmitted by infection. This new condition had the hallmarks of something completely new to medicine.
He remembered seeing something on the news a year or so previously. Some mad scientist had predicted a werewolf apocalypse, or at least that was how some of the newspapers had reported it. He’d dug out the original articles on the internet, but they were more fevered speculation than journalistic fact. He hadn’t been able to locate any actual medical papers. But he’d discovered something else online that had piqued his interest – similar reports of cases from other hospitals, some outside London. He’d even unearthed a few cases overseas, mostly in Romania, dating back nearly a year, close to the time of the newspaper stories. It was starting to look like the professor’s predictions contained a grain of truth.
He was examining the progress of one of the bite patients when the screaming started.
They were a man’s screams, and not just the usual cry for help you heard on a hospital ward, but something more primal, more desperate. He extricated himself from his task and ran to the source of the cries on the nearby ward.
It was Mr Lancross, the elderly patient Chanita had told him about.
The other patient, Jack Clarke, was leaning over him, lunging at his throat like a maniac. He was still attached to an IV drip by his arm. His skin was deathly white, his eyes covered with the now familiar yellow film, much like a cataract, that was one of the clearest visible symptoms of the condition.
The old man, Mr Lancross,
was fending him off with weak arms, but didn’t look like he could last much longer. A nurse was trying to help, but was unable to hold the patient back. The younger patient had some mad strength about him, even though he had been close to death just a week earlier.
Doctor Kapoor ran to him and tried to pull him off. ‘Mr Clarke, stop that!’
The patient turned to him, a crazed look on his face, his eyes burning yellow. He didn’t speak, just snarled like a dog and pushed the doctor to the floor with unnatural strength.
Doctor Kapoor shouted for help, but the nurses close by seemed too scared to intervene.
The man turned back to Mr Lancross, slapping his face and clawing at him, growling as he rained down blows on his victim. The old man writhed in his bed, desperately trying to fend off the attack.
Doctor Kapoor struggled back to his feet. ‘Mr Clarke!’
The man had Mr Lancross in a tight grip now, sinking his nails into the age-mottled skin of the old man’s arms. Pinning him to the bed, he thrust his mouth to his victim’s neck and bit. Mr Lancross shrieked, thrashing from side to side as his own blood spattered across his face.
Doctor Kapoor had no time to think. No one was coming to help. He kicked at the younger man’s leg, striking him just behind the knee.
The man’s leg crumpled and he collapsed to the floor in a howl of rage and pain. The IV crashed down next to him, the needle still in his arm.
Doctor Kapoor looked on, appalled. He was a medic, here to care for his patients. And yet …
The patient pushed himself up from the floor, his yellow eyes now fixed on Doctor Kapoor.
‘Help!’ shouted the doctor. ‘Some help in here, please!’
The old man, Mr Lancross, was already going into anaphylactic shock.
Lycanthropic (Book 1): Wolf Blood Page 17