by L. L. Soares
“I saw the same vision when I first met Grif. Is he the same way?”
“He’s my brother. Yeah, he’s the same way. Except he likes to move around a lot more. He never found someone like Jeremy I guess. Jeremy offered me sanctuary, a place where I didn’t have to run anymore. A place where I could hide and where I wouldn’t have to exist if I didn’t want to. He let me come and go as I pleased, with no questions asked.”
“Jeremy was pretty special, huh?”
Viv nodded. “Like I said, I am not a demon. Not the way you meant. I am alive, I breathe. I need food and water and love, just like you.”
“I said I won’t judge you, and I won’t,” Colleen said. “I care about you, Viv. And I’ll keep your secret just like Jeremy did.”
“And that’s why I’ve been so distant. Others’ pain makes my urges stronger and you’ve been in a lot of pain lately. I don’t want to hurt you, Colleen, and it has sometimes taken all my willpower to resist taking you into my arms and taking you away from everything, for good. But I can’t do that. So I’ve had to go out and find other ways.”
“Was it difficult with Jeremy?”
“Yes, sometimes it was very difficult. He went through periods of bad depression. After his plane crash, he didn’t want to live anymore. He begged me to kill him, but I couldn’t. I cared about him too much. He accepted me like no one else ever had, aside from Grif. It was painful living with him, so sometimes I had to leave for a while. But there were good times, too. Lots of good times.”
“I knew that you wanted to go after Wayne when you got better. But you stayed here because of me. If those urges of yours are that bad, I must have been very difficult to be around.”
“That’s why I acted the way I did. It was a constant struggle.”
“I’m sorry for that. I can’t say I feel a lot better now, but I’ve stopped crying at least. I guess that’s a good sign.”
“It is.”
Colleen sat down beside her on the couch and hugged her close.
“It’s been a painful time for both of us. We both loved Jeremy.”
“I know.”
“But it’s time for the next phase in our lives,” Colleen said, fighting back the urge to start crying again. “Do you still want to go after Wayne?”
“I’ve been trying to keep tabs on him. Looking for any weird activity out there. Riots, acts of rage. I think I have a good idea where he is now.”
“I’ll go with you, if you want,” Colleen said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. I want to pay him back for what he did to Jeremy. And Turney.”
“You’ll come in handy. You can detect him quicker than anybody else, if you see this vision thing you mentioned. But I don’t want to put you in any danger. You have to promise me you’ll listen to me if we get too close.”
“I want to help,” Colleen said.
“Maybe I should call Grif back,” she said. “And see if he’s up to coming along with us.”
* * *
When Sam woke a second time, it was later in the day. The arguing had stopped.
Rachel was no longer in bed beside him. He sat up, putting his feet on the floor. He listened for sounds. There were none. It was quiet and he was alone.
He felt sticky as he pulled his pants on. It was dark as he went over to the door. He listened for any sounds in the hallway, but there still wasn’t anything to hear.
Slowly, he opened the door.
The first thing that caught his attention in the hallways was the puddles of blood on the grimy floor. He forced himself to walk around them, to move forward. To explore, hoping that it might jog his memory.
The second thing he noticed was the smell of death that was all around him. Not yet strong enough to be overpowering, but well on its way there.
As he walked down the hall, he noticed that all the other doors were broken in. Torn off their hinges. A few lay in the middle of the hallway; others were pushed into the rooms themselves. There was more blood on the doorjambs.
He looked inside one of the rooms and saw a human body in pieces on the floor. A hand. A head turned away from him. A coil of bloody entrails.
For some reason, he was not afraid. Despite the horrors that surrounded him, he did not feel as if he was in danger.
I did this, he thought. He had no memory of it, but he knew it was true. I killed everyone in this building. I am the only one left alive.
As he continued to move down the hall, there was a sound coming from one of the rooms. The soft humming of a radio. It was playing classical music. Beethoven’s Sixth. The Pastorale.
He looked into the room. Two men lay on the floor, their faces blue, their dead hands around each other’s throats. They’d choked one another to death.
The music played on. Sam made no move to shut it off.
He walked to the end of the hall, to where the staircase led down to the other floors. He did not have to explore the other floors to know there was more of the same downstairs. Death in every room.
Still, he forced himself to look down. Rachel was on the stairs, or at least the upper half of her body was. Her face was staring up at him, dead and unseeing. Just hours before he had marveled at the warmth of her body; surprised by his ability to still feel close to another human being.
But, I’m not human anymore, he thought, forcing himself to look at where her body stopped, where her entrails draped across the cracked marble stairs. He had no idea where her lower torso was.
Fighting back a violent shiver, he turned and walked back to the room he woke up in. He went back there and closed the door again, to block out the blood.
Sam sat down on the old, creaky bed and covered his face with his hands. But no tears came for the dead.
I have to get out of here, he thought. I have to go far away from here.
Sam put his hands down and stood up. First, he had to wash off the blood.
When he was done, he pulled his suitcase up from under the bed. He filled it with all of his things that he could find. Then he got dressed.
He made his way out of the building. Avoiding spilled blood and human tissue. Avoiding Rachel’s remains on the staircase. Gingerly stepping around her, his eyes avoiding her wide, accusatory eyes.
Sam had no idea how much humanity he had left, or how much longer it would last. But however much remained inside him told him to get away from this place and the carnage he had committed and forced others to commit.
He could not bear to see the fruits of his handiwork. Perhaps there was another part of himself that took satisfaction in such things, but there was enough of Sam Wayne left to know that he wanted to stop the slaughter. He just had no idea how.
* * *
“Grif’s on his way here,” Viv said, putting the phone down on the kitchen counter. “I guess that means we’ll be leaving soon. Are you sure you still want to come?”
“Sure,” Colleen said. “I don’t have anything else to do. Besides, I want to get that bastard as much as you do.”
“You can help us find him, but I don’t want you getting involved when we move in. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I know,” Colleen said. She hesitated, then said, “Can I ask you something?”
“You know you can.”
“Do you find me attractive?”
Viv smiled. “You’re fucking with me, right? This is a pretty funny time to ask me that.”
“No, I really want to know. You told me you’ve been with other women. I was curious.”
“Yeah, sure. I find you very attractive,” Viv said.
Colleen blushed. “This thing you do to people. Does it happen all the time? Can you ever have normal intimacy with anyone?”
“If you are asking if I could sleep with you,” Viv said. “The answer is no. You’ve got a lot of pain in you, and I refuse to risk it. Sure, I’ve made love to people without taking their lives, but not often enough to feel comfortable with it. Somewhere in my min
d, I am quite sure I equate sex with death. Let’s say I find some pain inside you that I never knew about, something so serious that I just lose any sense of willpower. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. I never risked it with Jeremy, and I won’t risk it with you.”
“That sounds like a horrible burden to carry through life,” Colleen said. “Always so afraid to be intimate with someone else.”
“You could say that.”
“Have you ever fallen in love, Viv?”
“Sure, a few times. It passes.”
“Have you ever killed anyone you loved?”
“It’s happened. Early on, I wasn’t as knowledgeable about all this as I am now. I made mistakes. I still do, even now.”
“It happened recently?”
“I don’t know if I want to talk about it.”
“Please, I want so badly to understand. I want there to be no secrets between us.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I should have mentioned it before. But that time I went into Sam Wayne’s house, intent on killing him, it wasn’t the first time I’d been there.”
“I know you took a photograph of him and his wife. You said that the woman had been special to you.”
“To be honest with you, she was more than that. I had no idea who Sam Wayne was, then. I had no idea what he was. I never met him then. I met Maggie in a bar, and we started talking. I sensed so much pain in her, and it drew me to her. She made it so easy for me.
“At first, I let it play out. Like a cat toying with a bird. No, it was never really like that. I had feelings for her right away. And I questioned my motives constantly. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to explore the feelings I had for her. But it was too late by then. I was desperate for someone to devour, and it was too late to look for someone else. Besides, it seemed like I was using all my willpower to keep Jeremy safe, I didn’t have enough for two people. By the time I was convinced I didn’t want to kill her, I realized there was no other option.
“She was such a sad woman. She was an alcoholic by the time I met her. She felt isolated from her husband. And she had suspicions that there was something disturbing about him; that something about him scared her. She was beautiful and very fragile. My first instinct might have been to take her life, but once I got to know her, I wanted to protect her. To save her. But you see, in these situations, my urges are so strong. They are a question of survival. I had no choice at the very end.”
“And you feel horrible that you had to take her life?”
“Of course I do.”
“So you are not a cold, emotionless creature at all. You are struggling with your emotions constantly.”
“Colleen, I really don’t like talking about this.”
“I think it’s beautiful that you cared so much about her. That you didn’t want to kill her.”
“Being in that house again, seeing her picture, it brought back so much. Knowing that had been her house was more painful than any injuries Sam inflicted on me.”
“I really don’t want to belabor this. But a succubus is a demon who seduces humans and then takes their lives. An incubus is the male counterpart. You and Grif…”
“Demons again.”
“Just an observation. I am not judging you, just trying to help you understand what you are.”
“You think you’re helping, but it’s not that simple. You’re looking at this from some kind of religious mumbo-jumbo kind of viewpoint. But I didn’t come from Hell. I was born just like you were. I breathe just like you do. I am alive. If I do things to survive that are kind of horrible, things other people do not do, then there has to be some kind of explanation. But I don’t think this stuff about demons makes sense. Maybe it did back in the Middle Ages. Back then, they thought people who were insane were possessed by devils. And we know now that isn’t the case.”
“I’m sorry.”
“One minute you say you want to be close. To have no secrets between us, and then you feel compelled to say stuff like this. I know you don’t mean it that way, but it feels insulting.”
“I’m really sorry. It’s just a hard concept to understand. You tell me that you are responsible for the deaths of others, and I am trying so hard to understand why.”
“I know it’s not easy. Jeremy had a hard time understanding, too, but he let me stay here anyway. He said he’d always be here for me, which is why I could never risk hurting him. He accepted me unconditionally. Which is why he meant the world to me.”
“I’m always here for you, too. I want you to know that. I never meant to hurt your feelings.”
“I know it’s hard to understand. I have a hard time accepting it myself a lot of the time. But you know, I had to make a decision early on. Either I accept what I am and live with it, or I kill myself. And I want to be alive too much.”
Viv’s eyes were moist, but she did not shed a tear. It was the closest Colleen had ever seen her to crying.
“I’m here for you,” Colleen said, moving closer. She took Viv in her arms and pulled her close. She could feel the hardness of Viv’s muscles in her embrace, as she tensed up, but Viv did not push her away.
“I know,” Viv said softly into her ear. “And I know you are trying so very hard to understand, which is more than I can ask for. I’m asking you to forgive and accept a lot about me. I think maybe it would have been better if you didn’t know any of this stuff. But now that you do, for you to still want to hold me like this. That really means a lot to me.
“I’m here for you, too,” Viv said and gently kissed Colleen’s cheek.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Sam got off of a Greyhound bus and began to wander. He had tried to sleep most of the trip, and wasn’t even sure where he was. Not that it mattered anymore. He just had to get as far away as he could.
Now, he wandered the sidewalks, trying to figure out what to do next.
Sam found himself in the middle of a park, on a bench, wondering where he could go. It seemed like wherever he went, death followed. Because he was the cause of it. This was becoming much clearer to him now, even though he had no idea why it was happening.
I have to kill myself, he thought, looking out over the quiet duck pond in front of him. There is no other choice. If I am the cause of all this violence, then I have to put an end to it myself.
But how?
He wasn’t sure where he was. What town? What state? He wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was. He had to find a newspaper.
He ran his long fingers through his hair. How long had it been since he’d had a haircut? Since he’d taken a shower? Everything was a blur to him.
Sam looked down at the suitcase beside his leg. He hadn’t taken much with him. Perhaps he hadn’t been planning on leaving for very long. But something told him that it would be a mistake to go back home now. That his house would be crawling with police looking for him.
That clinches it, he thought. I have to put an end to this.
Sam grabbed his suitcase and stood up, convinced that he had to find an answer to his dilemma.
Up ahead, beyond the trees, there were skyscrapers. He could go to the top of one and jump off. But that could endanger someone below, and he’d already taken enough lives. He could throw himself in front of a speeding car, but that would endanger someone else as well.
He kept walking, out of the park and down toward the congested center of the city. It was there that he saw it, off in the distance.
I can jump off that bridge, he thought. It’s perfect.
With this destination in mind, he walked with a new sense of mission in the direction of the suspension bridge.
* * *
“Is there anyone you should call before we leave? Who knows when we’ll be back again?”
It was Viv’s way of saying, Maybe we won’t be coming back. Even though she knew Viv would do everything in her power to protect her, Colleen knew that something could go wrong. It would be very dangerous. She had seen Sam Wayne in action before,
and she knew what he was capable of.
During the past couple of weeks, Viv had been watching the news channels intently and checking the Internet. Staying on top of any odd behavior. Riots, unusual waves of violence, sudden incidents of rage, as well as any particularly violent murders that involved people being torn apart limb from limb. Viv thought she had some solid leads, but there were several of them, and it might take awhile to check them all out.
Colleen stared at the phone, but couldn’t think of one person she wanted to call. She hadn’t talked to her mother in months and couldn’t bring herself to call her now, just to say good-bye. Maybe forever.
After a while, Viv came back in. “Grif should be here soon. Are you all packed?”
“Almost. How long do you really think we’ll be away?”
“It’s hard to say. I have some leads, but who knows how hard it will be to follow them up? You better take at least enough clothes for a week. We could always do laundry out there.”
“Out where?”
“Most of the suspicious behavior I saw was around Philadelphia,” Viv said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Sam stood on the edge of the bridge, looking down at the turgid waters below. It was a pretty long fall, and when he hit bottom, it should be easy enough to drown, if he didn’t die on impact.
He closed his eyes and put his suitcase down beside him. He wouldn’t be needing it for this particular trip.
Cars were passing him by on the bridge, beeping their horns as if encouraging him to jump.
This is the best way to stop the bloodshed, he thought, and took a deep breath.
He jumped.
He could see the water coming toward him, and then he lost consciousness completely.
* * *
By the time Grif reached the house, they were ready to go. Viv was sitting on the couch in the living room, her bag packed, her feet up on the coffee table as she watched the television. The news was on, as usual.