by David Wright
He thought of the parasite within him, evolving his body to turn him into the very things he’d been hunting for so much of his life — feeders, vampires, whatever the hell you wanted to call them.
Now he was one of them.
Duncan wished he could reach inside himself and pluck the disgusting monstrosity from his body, but it was now one with him, controlling his urges — more by the minute — and now some of his thoughts. Jacob used their psychic connection as a leash, making Duncan his dog.
Duncan had never been anyone’s bitch.
The swirling regret, circling Duncan’s mind ever since he was thrown down into the basement, was that he’d wasted his one shot on Jacob, when clearly he should have used it on himself.
Jacob tried prying information from inside him — chiefly where Jacob’s brother, John, could be found. Duncan was trained in psychic warfare well enough to keep Jacob from the most sensitive information inside his mind, but it was difficult to maintain his vigilance with the parasite’s constant sniffing for weaknesses in his mental firewall. It was only a matter of time before Jacob would break through Duncan’s defenses.
He had to find a way out of the basement. He didn’t know where he’d go, but he had to do something other than wait to be used as a pawn in Jacob’s game.
Duncan was considering his limited possibilities when the door at the top of the stairway creaked opened, and bright light from above pierced the gloaming.
“Hello, Mr. Alderman,” Jacob said in the same cheerful voice that made Duncan want to rip the flesh from his face.
Duncan said nothing.
“How are you feeling?” Jacob asked, descending the steps. “Oh, wait, how silly of me. Why ask when I can simply tap into your head? Ah, let’s see. Seems you’re hungry. Is that right?”
Duncan said nothing.
“I can make you answer me, you know,” Jacob said.
Sharp pain twisted through Duncan’s brain, as if someone were sliding a knife through his skull. He screamed out, clutching his head with both hands, as if he could pry the dagger from inside him, and somehow kick Jacob out of his head.
“You can’t evict me,” Jacob said, reading his thoughts. “I’m a part of you now, Mr. Alderman. The pain ends only when I allow it to. Understand?”
He nodded, eager to end his torment. Duncan’s guts threatened to spill their stewing vomit, though he doubted there was much inside to lose.
“Say it,” Jacob said, his voice dripping with sick glee.
“Yes!”
“Good,” Jacob nodded. “Glad to see we’re speaking.”
The pain ended immediately, and Duncan’s urge to vomit followed.
“Now, I understand you don’t want to tell me where John is, and that you’re going to resist me. That’s OK, Mr. Alderman. I do admire your loyalty. And fortunately, for you, I don’t really need to find him right now. I’m more concerned with the vessels, of course. But mark my words, a time will come when I ask you again. You will answer when I do.”
Duncan said nothing, glaring out from the shadows at the monster, standing at the foot of the stairs like a conqueror awaiting coronation.
The monster sighed, and stepped toward Duncan. “You look at me with such hate, as if you’re better than me.”
Duncan said nothing, nor did he flinch when Jacob drew closer, stopping just inches from his mattress.
“Get up,” Jacob ordered.
Duncan held his stare, already disgusted with himself for his surrender a moment ago. Jacob was chipping his will, and while Duncan had little doubt he would eventually be broken, he refused to make it easy.
“I said get up,” Jacob said, narrowing his eyes at Duncan.
He felt the thing inside him, worming its way through his brain until it found what it was looking for. One moment, Duncan was actively defying Jacob. The next, his body was rising from the mattress against his will, obeying its new puppet master.
Jacob smiled, smug and disgusting. Duncan longed to reach out and slit his throat. Somewhere upstairs, assuming Jacob had not found and destroyed them, he had two Otherworld onyx blades which would do the job perfectly.
“Wow, such violent thoughts, Mr. Alderman,” Jacob laughed. “You and I, we’re not so different.”
“You’re a monster,” Duncan said, surprised he could speak since his limbs were ignoring commands to sit, strike, or do anything other than obey.
“Correction, we’re monsters,” Jacob said, jabbing his index finger sharply into Duncan’s chest. “You and I are now the same. We are one. And soon, there will be many, many more. It’s pointless to resist. So why put yourself through the pain of denying what must be?”
“You may have infected me, but I am not a monster.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jacob smiled, then turned and headed back to the stairs, letting go of the controls of Duncan’s body.
Duncan was a rag doll falling to the mattress. He ran his hands over his limbs, feeling his true self slowly return to his body, staring as Jacob ascended the stairs. Jacob stepped through the door, then leaned back through the doorway and said, “Oh, that was rude of me to leave without offering you a meal. I’m so sorry. Where are my manners?”
Someone else stepped through the door, was shoved through the door, by one of the Harbinger soldiers for hire. It was an attractive brown-haired woman — Duncan wasn’t sure of her name — but she was in her mid-20s and until a couple of days ago had been one of his housekeepers.
She looked down, saw Duncan, then turned back at the top of the stairs where Jacob was closing the door.
“Bon appétit,” Jacob laughed, closing the door and leaving Duncan to his meal.
**
“Are you OK, Mr. Alderman?” the housekeeper asked as she slowly approached him. Her hands were bound behind her. He looked down, past the length of her black dress, and noticed her shoes were missing. He wondered if Jacob’s men had taken them to keep her from trying to leave.
“I’m fine. Are you OK?” Duncan asked. “Did they hurt you?”
“No, but they killed Helga and Trina,” she said, her voice cracking with grief. She seemed on the verge of tears, perhaps finally glad to see someone she knew still alive. Little did she realize she’d only been spared to feed to Jacob’s newest vampire. Duncan didn’t have the heart to tell the woman that he had no idea who Trina was, let alone know her name.
“May I sit?” she asked, stepping toward his mattress, the only place in the dark basement to sit, unless she wanted to sit on any of the dusty crates or boxes filled with stuff he hadn’t seen in years.
“Yes, but don’t touch me,” he said sharply.
“OK,” she said, sitting on the corner of Duncan’s bed as he fell back, as far as he could into the corner where the bed and wall met. She looked at him confused, as if she couldn’t understand his repulsion. Or maybe, he figured, she thought he was afraid.
Her sudden nervousness stirred a hunger inside him. Duncan could see a shimmering orange aura swimming around her. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but the parasite inside him was salivating, and chewing at his insides. Duncan wanted to touch her, to draw her life from inside her, and feed. He wanted it more than a beggar starving for food, or a teenager with a hard-on wanted somewhere to put it.
Duncan wanted the life from inside her more than the air in his lungs.
He closed his eyes, and tried to drown his bloodlust.
She asked, “Who are these people? What are they going to do to us?”
He wondered why she’d just said people. Had she not seen the monsters?
“They’re going to kill us,” Duncan said, unsure why, except that he enjoyed the scent of her terror. The colors around her went from orange to red. He closed his eyes to deny the parasite the joy it was getting from stoking the woman’s fear.
“Kill us?” she asked, suddenly on the verge of tears. “Why?”
Duncan struggled to keep his eyes closed, knowing he would reach out and grab her the
second he saw her. He tried to think of anything other than feeding, disgusted by his irrepressible animal urges. He was a man of tremendous self-discipline. He’d worked for decades to master his every impulse from the foods he ate to the sex he had. Now it was as if some impetuous, psychopathic child had jumped into his driver’s seat and was taking control, eager to run him off the road just to see what would happen.
No, you don’t have to do this. You aren’t a feeder. You are not a monster.
He thought again of his words to Jacob:
You may have infected me, but I am not a monster.
“We’ll see about that,” Jacob had said with a huge, shit-eating grin.
Duncan now knew what he meant. Jacob was proving they were one and the same, forcing Duncan to acquiesce to his new parasitic instincts. He could almost feel the pompous fuck laughing upstairs, imagining Duncan’s struggle to control his hunger. It was like locking a starving vegan in a room with a juicy steak, knowing full well that no matter how much he claimed to love animals, he would revert to their own animal nature to survive.
No, I am stronger than this.
Duncan tried thinking of better things, like Caleb.
Not Caleb now, wherever he was, assuming he was still alive since he’d vanished into Jacob’s portal. He thought of Caleb as a young child, and how much he’d loved the kid. Caleb looked up to his Uncle Duncan, and gave the old man the closest thing to a paternal role he would ever have. He wished Caleb’s adopted father hadn’t felt so threatened, and hadn’t made Caleb feel guilty as a result. Hell, his dad had made Duncan feel guilty, and that was almost impossible.
Duncan remembered going fishing with Caleb when the boy was 11, and first starting to notice girls. Caleb asked Duncan what to do when a girl didn’t like you like you liked her. He pointed at the lake. “See that lake?”
Caleb nodded.
How many fish do you think are in there?”
“I dunno, maybe a few hundred.”
“And how many fish do you think are in all the other lakes in the world? How many in all the seas?”
“Millions?” Caleb looked confused. “Why?”
“Let me ask you, Caleb. Remember that brim you nearly caught last time we were here? Just as you were reeling it in, it popped off the hook?”
“Yeah!” Caleb said laughing.
“You didn’t get all bent out of shape about that, right?”
“No, not really.”
“Why is that?” Duncan asked.
“I don’t know. I figured I’d catch another one.”
“Exactly,” Duncan said, holding up a finger. “It’s the same with girls and women. There’s no shortage, and never will be. Getting hung up on only one will end in nothing but heartache.”
“But she’s not a fish, she’s a girl. A beautiful girl. She’s smart, pretty, and even likes to play soccer!”
“Yeah, but there’s plenty more out there too, son. There’s always someone else out there. Trust me.”
Caleb’s line went taut as another fish bit on his line, almost on cue, as if proving Duncan’s point.
Duncan couldn’t remember what happened with that particular girl, or anything about her outside their shared conversation on the lake. There had been many girls in Caleb’s young life until he finally met the woman he married. Duncan never once considered that he might’ve been wrong. There was always someone else to occupy a space in your heart. Maybe that sort of realization could only come after living through centuries and watching everyone you love die, until you finally stopped allowing people to get close enough to miss them.
Now, as Duncan sat with nobody caring one way or another if he lived or died, he wondered if he’d been wrong from the start. Some people, whether lovers, or someone welcomed into your family — there were some people whose absence could never be replaced.
The housekeeper’s voice cut through Duncan’s thoughts, and with his attempts to forget she was easy prey beside him. “Can you untie my hands, sir?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said, meeting her eyes.
She paused, then asked, “Why not?”
“Because if I touch you, you’ll die.”
The woman’s eyes widened as she stood. “What do you mean?”
Her aura darkened to deep crimson. Something in her scent changed, and stirred his hunger further. He also found himself sexually aroused, which only disgusted him more.
“The man who brought you in here, did you see him burn anyone by touching them?”
She nodded yes, shaking as her eyes brimmed with tears.
“That man is a monster. And now I am, too.”
She stared at him, unmoving.
“What are you, fucking stupid?” Duncan barked. “Go away!”
She turned from him and ran up the stairs, as fast as she could with her hands tied behind her back. She banged her head on the door as she wailed, “Please, please let me out!”
As her fear escalated, Duncan’s inner creature stirred, like a stomach growling over the scent of baking bread. His cock was rock-hard.
Duncan was at the top of the stairs a second later, surprised by his speed, once he surrendered to the creature’s will and let it guide his actions.
The housekeeper screamed.
Duncan reached out and silenced her forever, drinking her soul, and feasting without thinking of the monster he’d become. As he ingested her life force, and her memories, he finally knew her name — Melora.
* * * *
CHAPTER 5 — Abigail
Abigail stood, unable to move, staring at the charred bodies in the bed.
“Oh, God; , God; oh, God. What do I do?”
She spun in a circle, looking around the room as if the answer might pop out at her, maybe from the closet. She thought about calling Larry. Surely, he could help her cover this up.
No way. He will freak out. He’ll want to leave. Immediately, no questions asked. Take no chances. Adios, Katya.
She looked down at the burnt corpses again, wondering if the police would tie the murders to her. Or worse, what if the agency John worked for, the ones who’d taken her and held her like a lab rat until John traded himself for her freedom, was investigating?
They would definitely tie it to her.
Unless they think there was a fire.
Abigail ran from the bedroom and bounded down the stairs, through the dark living room and to the garage. On the ground, beside the lawnmower, she saw it — a big red gas can.
Please be full, please be full, please be …
It was.
She picked it up and carted it into the living room, running back up the stairs as fast as she could, gas sloshing all along the way.
OK, where do I start?
She thought of Bobby. She’d killed him first, even though she held no memory of doing so. She went into the boy’s room. Seeing Bobby’s charred body triggered a store of his memories, a fresh wave rolled through her mind.
Bobby found a tiny, filthy dog with a broken back sprawled in the middle of the street outside his house, and cried until his mom agreed to make Dad find a vet.
He was trick-or-treating too many streets over. He got lost, bag snatched, then got beaten up by three boys, ironically all dressed as members of the Justice League: Superman, Batman and the Flash.
Bobby petted his mom’s head for who-knew-how-many hours after she lost his baby sister, two months before Rebecca was supposed to be born.
As Bobby’s memories softened from boil to simmer, Abigail stared down at his charred remains feeling as if she’d lost a close friend, even though she’d never known the boy, except for a few fleeting seconds inside her dream. She imagined a different life where she met him not as a vampire, but as a girl instead — a life which would never be, and hurt so much to think about.
She uncapped the gas can and shook it over his body, like she was watering the lawn.
The gas was pungent in her nose, burning her throat, as Abigail went from his room to his pare
nts’, spilling a trail of fuel along the way. Once she reached their room, Abigail poured the gas all over his parents, making sure to save at least a little for downstairs. She emptied more gas in a line down the stairs and then in front of the couch and in a long wavy line running along the front door and window until the can was empty.
Abigail went into the kitchen, searching for a lighter or matches.
She pulled out drawer after drawer, heart pounding in her chest as utensils rattled and drawers banged back in their home.
Hurry, hurry. I’ve gotta get home before Larry notices I’m gone.
Finally, Abigail found a junk drawer, and seized a green plastic lighter from inside.
Yes!
She ran up the stairs holding the tighter tight, afraid she’d drop it. As she passed Bobby’s room, Abigail froze, unable to move again.
What have I done?
She stared at Bobby’s body again, trying to figure out how she’d gotten into the house in the first place.
Was I sleepwalking? And if so, what’s to stop me from doing it again?
She thought again of the incident in the restaurant restroom, overcome by memories, and the overwhelming sadness she’d not only experienced through her victims’ memories, but that which she inflicted herself.
She thought of Bobby’s father screaming, “What are you?”
She swallowed, tears streaming her cheeks.
I’m a monster.
Abigail moved closer to Bobby’s burned body, then sat on the bed beside him, allowing the gas on his sheets to seep into her pajama bottoms. She lay on the bed and let the gasoline soak into the back of her shirt. It was ice cold, which she thought ironic given its flammable properties.
More memories raced through her mind, more misery, more sadness.
She raised the lighter above her, staring at the little gray wheel, then realized she’d never lit a lighter, though she’d seen people do it plenty and it seemed easy enough. She ran her thumb along the wheel, waiting for the fire.
Nothing.
She looked closer, and saw a plastic red tab, probably there so kids didn’t accidentally start fires. Abigail pressed down on the red tab and started to run her thumb over the metal wheel again, bracing for death.