by Stead, Nick
“You can’t hide behind the rage forever, son,” he said. His voice sounded exactly as I remembered it, though there was none of the anger it had so often held. “Sooner or later you have to face what you’ve done.”
“No!” I snarled, throwing back the covers and glaring at Dad. “Why should I feel bad for killing you when all you ever did was make us miserable?”
Mum and Amy walked in to stand beside him, their eyes still full of grief.
“How can you think we’re better off without you both?” Mum asked. “You tore our family apart, Nick. Do you really think you can ever make peace with that?”
“We will always be a part of you, son,” Dad said. “I will always be a part of you. You can’t keep running from that – sooner or later you have to face what you’ve done.”
“No!” I roared, my eyes snapping open as reality crashed back over me. But try as I might to be angry, it still wasn’t there. And that was exactly the problem – it seemed I had no more rage to hide behind. Without it my thoughts turned increasingly to all that pain and grief I must have caused my family, and I was growing more and more homesick. Depression was taking a hold of my heart, the emotion I least wanted to feel. Without my bloodlust to offer me a way back out, I was becoming trapped in that dark pit. Despair weighed me down, crushing in the knowledge that I couldn’t go back. No matter how I longed to do something for my family, to help ease their pain, and no matter how great I desired to return to my old life, I could never go back.
“You murdered me, son,” came Dad’s voice. “Even if you could go back, how can you ever make that right?”
I scanned the surrounding moorland but I couldn’t see him, and came to the conclusion that my brain was my own worst enemy. It seemed my mind was especially good at tormenting me with the things I just wanted to forget. And since I no longer felt any horror for the victims I’d so brutally murdered, it had turned to twisting the knife in the one wound that could still cause me pain. My family were my weakness and my mind wouldn’t let me move on, no matter how I tried.
I couldn’t help beating myself up over the things I’d done, even though I knew it was pointless. There was no changing the past. There was no bringing Dad back, even if I really wanted to. And did I want to take it back? I’d been so sure we’d be better off without him, and there was still the question of what he’d been doing there that night, out on the battlefield. If he had been involved with the Slayers all along, a fight to the death might have been inevitable. But my treacherous mind kept showing me images of Mum and Amy, broken by the sudden loss of both me and Dad. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. All I knew was that my family must be suffering, and it was because of me.
Lady Sarah was quick to notice this latest deterioration in my mental state when she rose at nightfall, but she didn’t have the patience for my self-pity.
“You are still mourning your old life and it is doing you no good! How will you ever find peace if you do not move on? That life is over. You must accept who you are now and adapt to this new life you have been given. It does not have to be a curse if you look for the positive, instead of focusing on the negative all the time.”
“And how long did it take you to move on?” I growled, trying once again to rekindle my anger, despite the message in my dream. I’d happily lose myself in it to escape the guilt. “Oh that’s right, you didn’t till you had to for your own survival – you told me the night we first met! You got to carry on as though everything were normal, till your immortality became too noticeable. So forgive me if I don’t jump to take your advice. You don’t understand what I’m going through and your sympathy is as dead as your humanity!”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “You do not have the same luxury I did. And do not assume it was any easier for me, just because the threat of the Slayers was less. It was equally as hard for me to relinquish my humanity as it is for you, even if I was able to cling to it for longer. I am trying to help you adjust to this life as quickly as possible without making the same mistakes I did. But if you do not want my help then fine. Go and get yourself killed by the Slayers or Ulfarr.”
“No,” I replied, defeated. The depression only weighed on me all the heavier when my rage didn’t even stir within. “I know I’m not ready yet and I know you’re only trying to help. I’ll try to concentrate.”
With the vampires looking for even the smallest excuse to blame me, she was growing more determined to carry on in her attempts to teach me greater control over myself.
“Then come. You still have much to learn.”
I was already growing weary of her lessons and I trudged after her with little enthusiasm.
“It is about time you learnt to tread lightly,” she observed. “You might be able to rely on the wolf to guide your paws when hunting, but you need to be equally light on your feet as a human.”
She was right but I was too stubborn to admit it. I had always had heavy feet as a human – the traitor, Vince, had said as much the second time I met him, making a joke out of it. I kept my head down, knowing full well what was coming next.
“Of course, this would no longer be a problem if you would just allow your mind to become whole again.”
And I knew she was right about that as well, but I was also too stubborn to act on her advice. Especially when she was asking me to embrace the very thing that had ultimately brought about the destruction of the life I found myself missing more and more as time went on.
“All those skills each half instinctively possesses, or has learnt over the years, would be at your disposal. With your combined talents you could become a far more successful predator, better than either half of you will ever be alone.”
I kept my eyes on the ground and grunted. She let it drop.
So I was forced to spend each night with her, breaking off only to feed. I was starting to hate it. The daylight hours offered little respite, the weather growing colder as time wore on. Sleeping was harder than ever. The nights taxed both my body and mind and I was becoming exhausted, but there was no peace to be had when I laid my head down to rest on the cold, hard ground, far removed from the human comforts I used to know. It was yet another reminder that the simple pleasures most people take for granted would forever be denied to me. Just when I thought I’d come to terms with the fact I was no longer human, I found myself longing to be amongst them once more.
How long had it been now? It was hard to say. The nights all bled into each other until it became one continuous period of darkness, with the occasional bit of daylight thrown in. It couldn’t have been more than four months, I knew that much. There’d only been four full moons since I’d left home.
Only four months, and already I missed my old way of life. Surprisingly it was the little things I often missed the most. Obviously I missed my family and my mates, but I also found myself longing for a good book to read, or my video games, or more often than not my music, which wasn’t mainstream enough for me to have heard from human buildings in the distance or the occasional passing cars on quiet country roads, before we’d been driven to our present surroundings.
I even missed the more mundane things, like transport. Unless I’d been itching to get back to my games either on the internet or the PlayStation, I usually wouldn’t have minded an hour or so travelling in the car. I’d quite enjoyed watching the world rushing by and allowing my imagination to run wild. Or maybe it was just my aching paws that missed it. My stamina might be greater than any mortal creature, but even a werewolf has his limits.
Winter advanced, assaulting the land with icy breath and frosty claws. Whichever part of Britain we’d ended up in, it had to be high above sea level, and the bite of the wind came so much stronger as a result. I was getting less and less sleep as the temperature continued to drop and conditions worsened, not only uncomfortable on the hard floor now, but cold and miserable without any shelter to protect me from the elements, even when curled up in wolf form. Then there was the hunger, worse than ever before with t
he lack of prey to feed on in the area. How was I meant to rest in these conditions?
I could feel my body’s need for sleep but the cold was keeping me wide awake. Closing my eyes did nothing. My mind was racing, my thoughts on my old room. Shivers racked my body. I took to wandering the moorland in that halfway state between boy and wolf, hoping the simple act of moving would help bring some warmth back to my numb limbs.
God how I missed my old life. It had begun to seem increasingly like a distant dream, as if it had never been and there was only the miserable existence which I’d found myself trapped in. What I wouldn’t have given to see my family and my mates again, to hang out with them and enjoy human pleasures. Would I have given it up so freely if I’d truly realised the harsh nature of the world I’d chosen to embrace? No. Had I known the reality of life outside of the human world, I wouldn’t have so readily left it all behind. I’d thought I was embracing the new world to which I now belonged, but it seemed there was no real place for the undead, no world of their own. Just as we were forever trapped between the realm of the living and the dead, so were we caught between the worlds of humanity and nature. Once our humanity was gone we could never truly be a part of their world again, yet neither did we belong to the natural world. It seemed we were doomed to forever be the outsiders looking in, living in places such as this, on the fringes of the human world but never quite a part of the natural one either.
Gales began to roll across the country. The wind ruffled my fur, seeking to drive the icy cold of winter past my thick coat and through to my very bones. When it failed there came a stronger blast, assaulting me with such power that it became a struggle to breathe. I was being forced to spend as much time in a more lupine state as possible, yet even with a body designed to withstand such harsh weather, I was still miserable.
We were exposed out there on the moors. There was no shelter from the raging winds, not like humans safe behind their four walls, warm within their homes. It was okay for Lady Sarah, hidden away during the day. In protecting herself from the deadly sunlight she would also be protected from the weather, at least to an extent. Did she even feel the bite of the icy wind upon her equally cold skin? She hadn’t sought out any warmer clothes, seemingly content to roam around in the same black dress she’d worn ever since I first met her. Clearly vampires didn’t sweat like mortals, for I hadn’t noticed the dress beginning to smell. But I was sure it couldn’t offer even the slightest bit of warmth, which made me wonder if she felt the cold at all.
I, on the other hand, was all too aware of the drop in temperature. Having spent most of my life inside wherever possible, it was something of a shock to my system to find myself out in such unforgiving conditions. Common sense told me to keep moving to generate body heat, but all I really wanted to do was curl up into a tight ball and lay there, shivering and pathetic.
I walked for miles before finally reaching the point where I felt I couldn’t go on. Every step became agony, an aching throb deep in my calves. The cold was seeking to drive me back to the ground and I was on the verge of giving in, when I caught the sound of the human world I longed to know again. It was faint and distant, but it was there.
My numb legs lurched towards the roar of traffic. I knew the dangers of getting too close, knew I ran the risk of the Slayers finding us again, as well as the temptation to walk among humans becoming too much. But after the time I’d spent in total isolation, I couldn’t seem to help myself.
Like so many other people out there, the human in me longed for that which was to remain firmly out of my grasp. My heart ached for the life I had once known, the life I’d been so cruelly torn from by the curse. A life I could never know again. The closest I could hope for was a solitary walk on the fringes of their society, snatching glimpses of lives similar to my own prior to all this madness.
Lady Sarah probably would have told me I was doing myself no good by spending so much time looking and obsessing over what I could no longer have, had she known, and she would have been right. It was only feeding the depression which had been growing inside me, and I couldn’t help but feel doomed to walk this world alone for all eternity. The vampire could never be the companion I sorely needed, and there were none of my own kind left. Humans were too frail with their own mortality, and anyone I allowed myself to grow close to (assuming I wasn’t too damaged to feel anything like love or friendship) would only end up dead one way or another. Wasn’t that why I’d left everyone I’d once cared about in the first place? I knew all this, but still I mourned everything I’d lost, and allowed my mind to torment me with these feelings of longing.
So I stood on the highest hilltop, looking down into the valley where a small rural village lay, somewhat humble and more modest when compared with the urban sprawls I’d grown up with. I could tell it was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else and one neighbour’s business soon became the business of the entire village. The kind of place where a stranger would instantly be recognised as an outsider, and even mistrusted by some of its inhabitants. The kind of place Lady Sarah would tell me to avoid.
A break in the clouds allowed a shaft of bright winter sunlight to touch down upon the valley floor, as if the heavens were offering the villagers a ray of hope in an otherwise hopeless world. The surrounding countryside and the woodland bordering the settlement seemed all the gloomier for it.
That the sun’s beam should just happen to illuminate the village seemed symbolic to me, though whether it was a sign I should stay clear, shrouded by the darker side to my nature as I currently was, or a sign that here was a source of hope for even a monster such as myself, was debatable. I chose to believe the latter. Somewhere in that village, I would find some comfort, no matter how small. There was something among its people for me. There had to be.
Lady Sarah definitely wouldn’t have been happy if she’d been there to witness my decision, but how much risk could the village really offer? Such a small settlement was unlikely to get much attention from the Slayers, surely. Less inhabitants and a smaller area to patrol suggested to me that they would be few in number. If I were to linger for too long, word would soon reach them of the presence of an outsider, of course. But I felt certain I could have a quick look around and be long gone before they found me.
And there was another reason I felt compelled to approach the village at that particular moment. With the growing resentment I was currently feeling towards Lady Sarah and her lessons, the fact the village was currently bathed in sunlight seemed like another sign I was meant to go there. Not to mention the fact she would be so against it meant that an echo of my rebellious teenage self wanted to go there all the more.
I slunk down the hill and crept towards the woods. All was quiet, my senses detecting nothing of interest between the trees. There were none to witness me returning to my human form, driven by my desire to be closer to their world.
At first I intended only to watch from the cover of the woodland I’d seen. My body might look human but I knew I couldn’t actually enter the village without washing and finding clothes. But then my thoughts turned darker. Hunger for both flesh and to feel again steered them in a certain direction, and I began to wonder whether human prey was what I needed to restore my bloodlust. And if these were relatively safe hunting grounds, this was surely the place to try.
My legs sprang back into action and I found myself creeping through the woods, close to the treeline separating nature and human society. There I watched the village’s inhabitants going about their business, to and from work and their other mundane daily tasks. As an outsider looking in, their entire existence seemed so pointless. The majority of them hated work or school, and they spent the days looking forward to the weekend, only for Monday morning to come and the monotonous cycle to start over.
Once I would’ve thought escaping the human world would be a dream come true. I was free of the chains human society placed on their people, free of the arduous routines they were forced to repeat day in, day out,
and the hours they wasted on work. So why did I want to return to that life so badly?
Every creature must fight for survival, and yet humans had created so much more work for themselves just to survive in their own world. And here I was, free to do as I pleased and spend my time as I wished. Surviving wouldn’t have taken much effort if it weren’t for the Slayers, my supernatural speed and strength ensuring my place at the top of the food chain. Short of any threat posed from fellow undead, I’d have had nothing to fear. Time was mine to do with as I pleased: no authority or law governed me. Yet as much as I’d always hated the thought of a lifetime stuck in the same old routine – whether that was due to education or employment – was freedom really worth it without the human comforts I had always taken for granted? Freedom had come at a high price, one I wouldn’t have been so quick to pay if I’d truly understood the cost. I watched them go about their business, feeling I would gladly go back to the monotony of that existence if it meant having somewhere warm to sleep and hobbies to occupy my mind.
Half-heartedly, I wrestled the hungers fighting to rob me of my self-restraint. The hunger for the life I had once known wasn’t enough to combat the hunger to feed and, I hoped, to feel, and with a snarl I withdrew deeper into the woods, moving on in search of the perfect opportunity to hunt – even though I knew it would only serve to widen the divide between myself and the village.
The sound of children playing was unmistakable to my keen hearing. They had to be young, no more than six or seven years of age. To the predator in me they only represented one thing – prey. I tried to lose myself in those predatory instincts, even though my lupine half wanted nothing to do with this hunt. Like Lady Sarah, he was too cautious and cared too much for our survival. The recklessness and risk-taking lay solely with the human side of my nature, the part of me that no longer cared if I lived or died, so long as I escaped this depression I’d sunk back into, one way or another.