by David McAfee
“Taxes?” I asked. “You’re the one who’s going to pay taxes tonight, my friend.” A look of relief washed over his ruined face. He thought I meant money. Some people have so little imagination. He croaked out something that may have been “Sure, anything you want,” but came out sounding more like a fist slamming into mashed potatoes.
I shook my head, and the relieved look faded from his face. Genuine fear took its place as I explained things to him, just in case he didn’t quite get it yet.
“I don’t want money,” I said. “Your taxes are going to trickle down the storm drain.”
Then I began to squeeze. His face became an exquisite mask of pain and horror as my fingers closed ever tighter around his wrists. He was trying to scream, but with his jaw smashed it lost a great deal of its effectiveness. Someone even yelled for him to shut up and go back to his hole, as I thought they might. Excellent. His eyes were no longer wide with fear; instead they were clamped shut against the pain. I bet he’d have liked to clamp his mouth shut, too, but of course, he couldn’t.
The bones in his right wrist gave way with a sharp crack and crumbled in my hand like stale bread. I smelled a sharp, all too familiar tang in the air and looked down at his crotch. Sure enough, there it was; the spreading stain in his pants as his bladder let go. His eyes opened wide for a brief instant, then rolled back into his head. All of a sudden he went completely slack in my hands. I knew he wasn’t faking because my hold on him would have been excruciating without his legs to support his weight. He didn’t make another sound, however, and I released his wrists, one of them whole and the other pulp. I noted with no small degree of satisfaction that the wrist I crushed was his right, which was the one he used to hold the knife.
I felt no pity as I looked at him. This fellow human being, whose great pain I had caused knowingly and willingly. Would you? The man was about to stab me, after all. I only did to him what he would have done to me. No, no sympathy, no pity. I began to walk away, I was going to leave him be. Not because I felt moved to mercy, but with him unconscious on the ground, there really wasn’t much else I could do to him.
Or was there?
I turned around to face him again. He was still lying on his back in a small, oily puddle. The rainbows thrown off by the oil mingled with the red of his blood as it ran from his ruined jaw into the dirty water. As I stood looking at him, watching the scarlet trail from his face to the alley floor, it struck me that the lower half of his face seemed to resemble the hamburger I’d eaten earlier. I realized that while I might not feel pity, sympathy or empathy, I did feel something.
I felt hungry.
It came on me like a striking snake, a hunger so intense, so powerful, that I’d never known anything like it before. Waves of it rolled into me, hollowing me out like a pumpkin at Halloween, leaving only a husked-out shell. I fell to my knees next to Grabby’s prone form, not trusting my legs to hold my weight. The pain was so intense I thought I would die lying on that alley floor next to this hoodlum, and when he woke he’d be able to take my wallet and anything else with little trouble. Grabby was going to win; he was going to get what he wanted after all.
I rolled onto my side in a feeble attempt to curl up into a tight ball, and as I did so I caught my reflection in the filthy water. At that exact moment, the worst spasm of hunger yet slammed into me like a tsunami, and I grimaced with the pain. That was when I caught a glimpse of the thing that had caused Grabby’s eyes to bulge earlier. In spite of the pain, they caused my eyes to widen, too. The thing I’d seen earlier in the mirror was not my imagination, after all. Two long, sharp fangs protruded from the spaces where my canines should have been. But far from scaring me, the teeth felt good. They felt right, somehow. Like they belonged there. Like they’d been there my whole life.
My belly screamed again, and I forgot about my fangs. Every fiber, every pore, every atom of my being was focused on two things. One was the red liquid drizzling sluggishly from Grabby’s jaw. The other was the steady, rhythmic thumping of his heart, which I heard with perfect clarity. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Pumping blood through his body. The same blood that smelled so strong, so vital. It smelled so fucking good. Like the blood in the hamburger.
Like the flash of a light bulb, I knew what I had to do, how to fix my screaming innards. I didn’t have to die squirming next to a criminal. I could live, if I chose to. Life. The law of the jungle; him or me.
I chose me.
I crawled the few feet between us on my belly. When I reached a point where he and I were pretty well parallel, I pulled myself on top of him. We lay there for a minute like lovers. I saw the place in his neck where his carotid artery throbbed, and watched the hypnotic pulsing of a highway of blood just beneath the skin’s surface. I was so close, but something held me back. Some small voice buried deep beneath the bloodlust cried out for me to stop, just hold on a second, and really think about what I was doing. I was about to kill. Not just hurt, but kill.
The hesitation lasted only as long as it took for the next wave to roll over me and flatten me down on top of my victim. I could not argue with the hunger. It was a mindless, empty thing. Deep and without remorse, it burned with need. I might as well have tried to reason with the ocean. Any sailor worth his salt will tell you what a hopeless cause that is.
With shaking hands, I reached out and grabbed his bloody shirt around the shoulders. Now that I knew what to do, I didn’t want anything to get in my way. His shirt was a light cotton button-up, and the collar covered the spot on his throat where I would need to make my mark. I pulled the shirt apart with my bare hands, ripping it in two like a piece of tissue paper, and revealed the base of his throat and his chest.
That was when I saw it. The chain around his neck. More important, I saw the crucifix that hung from it. So, our boy here is a Catholic, eh? Not a very good one, since he’s out robbing people at knifepoint in the middle of the night. Would he have gone to Confession the next day? I doubted it. What would he say? Forgive me Father for I have sinned, I have robbed a man blind and spilled his blood for no purpose? What priest would bless him after that? Still, I suppose, anything is possible.
Another spasm hit me and I shook my head. It was irrelevant. Grabby wouldn’t be going to Confession ever again. Unless they held Confession in Hell, that was. Somehow, I didn’t think so. I opened my mouth, ready to sink my fangs into his neck.
But, just as I was about to sink my teeth into his throat, the necklace shifted, and the crucifix caught the light and sent it back to me. I could see it quite well in the moonlight, a silver crucifix that shone red with fresh blood upon it. Blood from Grabby’s broken face. It immediately caught my attention, and the Hunger was pushed back a little. Something about it seemed so familiar. I fixated on it as my mind ran loops trying to figure out where I had seen it before.
Then it came to me.
Oh my God!
Kagan!
The memory of the previous evening snapped back into my head like a rubber band. How could I have forgotten Kagan? The hunger vanished. It didn’t lessen or fade, it just disappeared, as though it had never been. The only evidence it had ever existed was me laying on top of an unconscious man with a busted face, teeth bared and ready for the kill. Then the teeth subsided, and Grabby began to groan.
It was a weak, pathetic sound, but it meant he was coming around. Soon he would be fully conscious. I didn’t think I could stand to be there after that. I didn’t want to see his pain, the pain I had caused and been so content with – even proud of – seconds earlier. What kind of monster could do that to another human being? What kind of monster, I wondered, was I?
What the hell is happening to me?
I sprang to my feet and ran out of the alley, Grabby’s weak cries followed me out and trailed behind me as I ran up the street that would take me back to my apartment. I should have kept running until I got home, then I could have crawled into bed, said the Hell with everything, and slept until I felt normal again. T
hat’s what I wanted to do, anyway. Had I done so, this story would have had a very different ending.
But I didn’t.
Chapter Six:
A Single Word
I could still hear Grabby whimpering as I sped down the street. I couldn’t understand his words very well because of his broken jaw, but I had a pretty good idea of what he was trying to say. He was calling for help, but help wouldn’t come. Not until his buddies found their stones and returned to see what happened. What a surprise they would get. Their leader lay beaten and broken. Still, it could have been worse. I could actually have gone through with it and killed him. Not a pleasant thought, but one that wouldn’t go away.
In any case, I hadn’t broken his legs. Sooner or later he would realize he could still walk. If he had any sense at all, he’d walk to a hospital before infection set into his crushed wrist and broken jaw. I doubted he’d think of that, though. He struck me as the type who would be more concerned about getting his hands on some painkillers. Ah, well, who could blame him? I’m sure it hurt a lot to have your wrist crushed into splinters.
I realized with sudden shock that I was grinning again, and I skidded to a stop on the middle of the sidewalk, wondering what the Hell was wrong with me. How could I have enjoyed what I did? Worse, what I almost did? The only thing that stopped me was the memory of Joel Kagan’s death, which weighed on my mind and pulled my eyes to the sidewalk. I tried to remember if I’d smiled that night, but the whole incident was a blur. I didn’t think so, though. At least, I hoped not.
The only things I could remember with any clarity were the weight of the crucifix as it buried itself into his skull, the blood everywhere, and the way Kagan just stopped moving. I could remember shoving him off me. I also remembered seeing that bloody silver crucifix glinting red in the moonlight as it lay half in and half out of an oily puddle. New York is full of oily puddles. I don’t think the city has any other kind. And all my worst moments seem to involve them.
In fact, I stood in one even then. I looked down at my swirling reflection and my breath caught in my throat. Grabby’s blood covered me. It stained my forehead, clumped my hair, and colored my shirt. I even had blood on my hands from when I pulled myself on top of him. The parts that weren’t covered in blood were soaked through with water from the alley floor. I was a mess. If anyone saw me, they’d be sure to call the police in a heartbeat.
I looked around to see if there was anyone nearby, but saw no one. The street was deserted but for myself and the sound of Grabby pleading for someone to help him. This was punctuated by the occasional “Shut Up!” from one of the windows overlooking the alley. I turned back in the direction I had come, and was surprised to learn I’d run six or seven blocks. Not only did it seem impossible I could have run that far so fast, but without being even the slightest bit out of breath? That certainly wasn’t normal. Not for me, anyway.
Then another thought struck me. I shouldn’t have been able to hear Grabby’s whimpering. I was too far away and he wasn’t exactly yelling at the top of his lungs. In truth, his voice was little more than a hoarse version of its normal volume. Even that probably hurt him, though.
I started to walk away again, hoping to find some private place to wash up. With all this blood on me I was sure to be noticed if I strayed to any active areas of the city. Fortunately, this neighborhood was silent and deserted. Ordinarily New York is a city of crowds and noise, bustling with activity even into the wee hours, but there are still some places you could go where people actually slept at night. This, apparently, was one of those neighborhoods. Funny, but I’d never noticed that before. Not that it mattered. I kept walking.
I didn’t get far before my conscience got the better of me. Like it or not, I’d left a human being half dead and bleeding back there, and his cries of pain were something I just couldn’t ignore. I did that to him. Me. Not some mugger or careless driver, but me. True, at the time he was about to stick five inches of stainless steel in my gut, but I couldn’t just leave him there to die. You know that scene at the end of so many action movies where the hero lies on his belly holding the hand of the movie’s villain who is about to drop 500 feet or so to his death? The hero holds on to the man or woman who, only seconds before, had been about to blow his brains sky-high and tells him to Hang On! For God’s sake, Hang On!
I always thought those scenes were unrealistic. If a crazed sociopath had raped and murdered my family, for example, no amount of some “good cop” telling me to “hand over the gun, this guy ain’t worth it” would have stilled my trigger finger. That asshole would be splattered all over the pavement. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Hollywood be damned.
In real life, it’s not so easy to walk away.
I turned around, catching another look at myself in the window of a store. The sign said “Need cash? We loan on anything of value!” On the counter behind the glass were several watches, a few rings, some necklaces, the usual. Nothing of any real value. That stuff would be hidden in the safe at the close of the day’s business, lest some opportunistic individual with a brick come along and make off with some of the most valuable items in the store’s inventory. The only thing that stood out was a pocketknife with a scrimshaw carving of a wolf’s head on the handle. The wolf snarled, and it reminded me of something I’d seen recently, but I couldn’t remember what. Something to do with a wolf, but the color was wrong. The handle of the knife was ivory colored, but the thing I was trying to remember felt different. It felt red, somehow. I wondered briefly if it might have been something I saw during my drunken blackout the night before, which would explain why I couldn’t put my finger on it.
It wasn’t important. I had more pressing matters to attend to. Getting Grabby to a hospital, for example. Once I thought about it, carrying him to the street far enough to hail a cab seemed like a good way to solve the problem of needing to clean up before I went anywhere. Grabby was covered in his own blood, and of course, as his “rescuer” it stood to reason I would get it all over me while taking him to safety. This might just work out. I wouldn’t even have to tell him to keep his mouth shut; no one would understand a thing he said until his jaw was wired back together, and by then I’d be long gone. I doubted he’d try and press charges anyway, since he’d been the one about to mug me. Try telling that one to the cops. The only real problem I might have would be getting him to come along quietly. It would be difficult to make him believe that I wasn’t going to hurt him, considering I’d already done just that.
If I had to, I could knock him out again. It wasn’t a pleasant thought but hey, I was taking him to the hospital anyway, right? What was a concussion when added to a broken jaw and wrist? Besides the guy wanted to cut me. As far as I was concerned I did my good deed for the day by not killing him outright, taking him to the hospital was above and beyond. If it took a little aggressive convincing on my part to get him to go along then so be it.
I walked back to the alley entrance. It didn’t take long for me to see that my initial estimate of how far I’d gone had been off, though not by much. All told I’d run nine blocks in the space of a few heartbeats. I was tempted to run back to the alley, just to see how long it would take to get there, but I held back. I wasn’t in much of a hurry to deal with Grabby again. He was going to be a problem. As soon as he saw me he would either start screaming or start running, and I would probably have to knock him a good one to calm him down. The thought did not appeal to me anymore. Whatever malevolence I’d felt earlier had fled with the memory of Kagan’s lifeless body, leaving only a sad kind of pity.
What bothered me the most was I couldn’t even remember why I’d killed Kagan. I tried and tried to come up with a reason and kept coming up blank. I couldn’t even remember when it happened. Surely it had happened during my inebriation of the night before. Why else wouldn’t it come to me? Damn it all, I hated blackouts! It was like having a part of my brain stolen. As though some thief had crept into my head while I slept, invaded my personal thoughts,
and packed up a bag (I imagined one of those little sacks with the dollar sign on it) full of my memories and then poof! Off into the night he went. Frustrating.
The closer I got to the alley, the clearer Grabby’s cries became. With his jaw broken nothing that came out of his mouth made much sense. His calls had gotten weaker, and I was glad I’d made the decision to come back for him. I didn’t think he’d be able to get to his feet on his own; he’d been through too much. He lost some blood, as well, though it wasn’t enough to kill him. Was it? I didn’t think so, but I’m no doctor. The folks from the Red Cross could take a pint from some people, maybe more, without risk. I was sure he hadn’t bled that much. Besides, he was a pretty big guy. He stood just over six feet and probably weighed about two-fifty. Surely he could have survived even if he lost a pint, which, again, I doubted very much.
I was about three blocks away when suddenly his voice changed. No longer a soft, pathetic whine for help, but a full-blown scream. He couldn’t form the words he needed, of course, but the sheer volume was there. Without thinking, I ran toward the alley, hoping to get there in time.
I was only half a block away when, with a final wet gurgle, the screaming stopped as quickly as it began. I stopped, too, no longer in such a hurry to get there, or to see what had silenced Grabby. Someone else was in the alley, someone who had no trouble finishing what I’d started. What would they do if they saw me? I wasn’t worried about myself; I could handle almost anything the night could throw at me. Grabby was a perfect example of that. I was worried about the killer. Does that sound strange? I worried about what I might do to him if he came at me. I’d killed once, and nearly killed a second time. Could I control myself if it came to that again? I didn’t know. I hadn’t been in total control with Grabby; I nearly finished him. The only thing that stopped me was his crucifix, and only because it reminded me of the one person I did kill. Kagan.