by David McAfee
Something moved in the leaves to my left, and I turned in that direction. I saw nothing, of course, but I heard the rustling and knew whatever made it was only about ten feet or so away. A small animal, most likely. A mouse, or maybe a chipmunk. Either way I knew as soon as I heard it that Mr. Owl’s calls would be answered, and he would sleep with a full belly. The thought sent a fresh surge of Hunger through me. It felt like someone had stuck a hot coil into my abdomen and turned on the juice.
I stumbled and shuffled through trees, not really knowing where to go or how to get there, just that I needed to find Anna. I almost shouted her name, but I stopped myself before I did.
Did I need to find her? Did I really?
With her out of the way I would be free to search for Raine on my own and would not have to deal with the former Lost One making me feel small or smacking me around. And what would happen when I found Raine and there was no Anna there to complicate things? About that I was no longer sure, but I did know things would go a lot smoother if I was alone when it happened.
A mosquito buzzed annoyingly by my ear. I started to swat at it, but then I decided to let it be. I watched as it settled onto my arm and poked me with its tiny needle, wondering just what would happen to it. Nothing, apparently. She drank her fill and moved on. I expected the itching to start, but it didn’t. There was no slight twitching, no urge to scratch. Instead, there was just my arm, as it had been before. If there was anything at all different, it was a dark, secret type of jealousy. She’d gotten her fill, but I still burned with Hunger.
The thought annoyed me, and the next time a mosquito came near me, I swatted it into oblivion. Where there is one, however, there are always more, and before long I grew bored with smashing the lives from creatures three hundred thousand times smaller than myself. I sent one last mosquito to Hell and started walking, with no clear idea where to go.
I only walked about five steps before the owl hooted again and I heard the sound of heavy wings in the night. After a second or two a high-pitched squeak informed me that, like the mosquito, Mr. Owl had also gotten his dinner. Lucky bastard.
The damp trunks of so many trees brought my dream back to mind. Raine had begged me to stay out of the water. What was it supposed to mean? Did it mean anything at all? Probably not.
After a few minutes of walking, the sound of snapping twigs to my right broke the eerie silence of the woods, and I froze. My entire body tensed as I stood rigid and silent, willing the noise to come again. My fingernails dug painfully into my palms as I balled them into tight fists. I waited, and the seconds stretched for days as silence swallowed all traces of whatever I had heard.
It’s probably Anna. But I knew it wasn’t. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
Something was watching me, I could sense it. I could almost feel its eyes pressed against the back of my neck. I even imagined warm breath over my shoulder. My muscles compressed taut, ready to explode. They ached with the strain of maintaining energy that begged to be set free.
Run or fight, my body commanded, its basic response to danger. Run or fight. I set my shoulders and waited, feeling the skin on the back of my neck tickle as the hairs stood on end. I’d done enough running for one day. Time to fight.
A small, sharp pain worked its way from the nerves in my fingertips up the neural highways of my body and into the receptors housed within my brain. I dismissed it without checking to see what it meant. There were more important things just then than the small amount of pain in my hands.
I stood like that for an eon, waiting for the small crackle of underbrush that would reveal the stalking thing’s location. Awash in my own bloodlust, I damn near raised my head to the moon and screamed in fury and lust for the fight, but a voice out of the darkness caused the scream to die in my throat before I could release it. I had been expecting a noise, a crackle of twigs or the folding of bushes. I had not expected to hear Anna.
“Very good, Vincent,” she said, and stepped into my field of vision. “Your instincts are developing nicely. You have even learned to grow your claws. I am very impressed.”
Instincts? Claws? What the hell was she talking about? I could give her the instinct part of it as I knew something was there watching, but claws? I didn’t have any…
That’s as far as I got. When I raised my hands to my face to disprove her claims, I saw what had caused the brief flash of pain in my fingertips. I did have claws. Sharp ones! The bones of my fingers had stretched, piercing the skin and forcing their way out. Thick and strong, they extended about two inches beyond my fingernails. I looked at them in disbelief, and I thought they looked somehow familiar. Then it occurred to me; they reminded me of something I’d seen in a horror movie a couple of years before, Nightmare on Elm Street, with Freddy Krueger as the knife-fingered villain. I stood there in the misty night, looking at hands that resembled the weapons of a horror movie bad guy, and I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it; it was all so ridiculous.
Just then, another tiny trickle of sound hit my ears, and my laugh died as I realized something I should have caught right away. Anna had emerged from the mist on my left, but the noise I’d heard had come from my right. All at once the feeling that we were being watched returned full force, and while Anna looked at me questioningly, I whirled around just in time to be bowled over by a growling, furry mountain of teeth and claws.
I landed hard on my back, and the thing used my prone and hurt body as a springboard to launch itself at Anna. Anna was faster, though. As the thing jumped for her, it hit only air. Anna was nowhere to be seen. Thinking she had left me, I stood to face whatever the hell had just hit me.
It stood about the height of a man, but much bulkier. If it were human I would have called it fat. It had two arms and two legs, but the arms were long, heavily muscled, and covered with fur. In fact, its entire body was covered with fur from the flattened head to the clawed, elongated feet. An elongated snout, parted in the middle to reveal rows of long, sharp teeth, dominated its snarling face. Behind the savage jaws two small, dark eyes glittered angrily. Two pointed furry ears sprouted from atop its head, and I thought the thing looked like an angry dog or a wolf. I had a sudden vision of this thing loping along on all fours in the moonlit forest.
The only thing my mind could come up with was Holy Shit! A werewolf!
There are no such things as werewolves!
Yeah, there are no such things as vampires, either!
It didn’t give me much time to think. It sprang at me from its crouched position. I knew I should duck, or run, or something, but I was frozen with amazement and awe. A real, live werewolf, just as big as you please! By the time rational thought broke through my idiotic gawping, it was too late. I could neither dodge nor run, so I did the only thing I could think of; I tensed and waited for it to spring. I had fangs and claws, too, and I was hungry as hell. A low growling noise began in my own throat as I waited.
It all happened so fast I didn’t register it at first. The werewolf bore down on me, and I stood ready. Then, without warning, a bright flash lit the air around me like the Fourth of July, banishing the night and replacing it with an instant, artificial Day. The light was followed by a deafening roar and the smell of singed fur, then a loud yelp. The creature made a loud thud as it hit the ground right in the middle of the sudden blaze. I peered into the flames and saw it thrashing and rolling on the ground, filling the night with cries of defiance and pain.
Then a hand grabbed me roughly from behind and pulled me away.
“Come on, Vincent!” Anna’s voice.
I watched the thing twitch and roll in the fire for another few seconds before I turned and ran after her. She set a very brisk pace, but I had no trouble keeping up. Trees and branches whipped past with amazing speed, often striking me in the face or chest hard enough to draw blood.
The smell of the blood, as well as the excitement of the last few minutes, brought the Hunger to a boil inside me. It felt like a ticking bomb in my chest. It mounted, and I watched a
s Anna sped away, all the while I licked my own lips. I could take her out of the picture. I could just jump up there and kill her, as the werewolf had tried to do. I could drain her life away and fill my own. That would certainly solve a great many of the problems she presented.
The rational side of me prevailed. I needed her to teach me to use my abilities. I had grown claws on my own, sure, but what about that little disappearing thing she did when the werewolf attacked? Could I do that? Maybe, but I didn’t know how. True, I hadn’t known how to grow the claws, either; those had just sprung out of need. Would any of the other abilities be like that? And where did that sudden fire come from?
As the thinking part of my mind pushed out the hungry, predator side, the claws withdrew into my hands, again causing that slight twinge of pain. With the urgent, primal need to kill fading, I also found my speed diminishing. I figured we had left the thing far behind. Besides, I had seen it burning, likely it was dead already. No need to waste energy in a mad flight from a dead enemy.
“I think we lost it,” I called to Anna, who seemed not to have noticed I’d slowed down.
She skidded to a stop, turned, and ran back to me. I thought she might stop when she reached me and we would take a short rest. Instead she grabbed my arm and pulled.
“Hurry up, you idiot!” She shouted, “There’s no time to stop and talk!”
“But, surely the fire—”
“The fire won’t hold him long,” she interrupted angrily, “and then he’ll sniff us out and come running, and he’ll bring Sanders with him.”
“Sanders? What’s Sanders got to do with that werewolf?”
“Werewolf?” She replied, and I felt a very real shiver begin at the base of my spine and work its way up. “There are no such things as werewolves, Vincent. That was Joel Kagan, and he means to kill us. Both of us. Now run, damn you!”
I needed no further urging. Anna and I ran, and kept running, even when the woods broke and we found ourselves on the side of a two-lane highway. We looked left and right, hoping for a car to come by. Both of us were thinking the same thing: maybe we could hitch a ride. We would not be able to run forever. As our luck would have it, there was not a car in sight.
“This way,” Anna hissed. “I hear voices.” She turned left and ran. I didn’t hear any voices, but I wasn’t about to argue. So I followed, thinking if there were people on the deserted stretch of road, they would probably have a car.
If they do have a car, they’ll likely be broken down out here, I thought. But then we came around a bend in the road and I saw the most beautiful and welcome sight this side of the Promised Land. A truck stop! A very busy truck stop.
I couldn’t believe our good fortune, there must have been a dozen or so big rigs hunkered around the building like transients at a barrel fire. Not only that, but twenty or so cars dotted the parking lot, with a couple of motorcycles thrown in for good measure. I knew we would find someone willing to give us a lift. I knew it because we had something extremely valuable to offer someone for such a ride.
Their life.
As much as I hated the idea of using force, if that was what it would take to convince someone to give us either a lift or their keys, I would do it. At the thought of using such aggressive coercion my teeth poked out again, and the Hunger began a slow burn, adding another distraction I couldn’t really afford. It twisted and slithered its way through my insides, oiling my muscles and raking my nerves. My teeth poked my lower lip, drawing a brief flash of pain and a small taste of blood. I smiled. It wasn’t my night to die.
A shout from the woods told me Kagan disagreed.
I turned my head just in time to see him – no longer a wolf but back to his normal, unpleasant self – leap from the cover of the trees and run after us. While the sight of him crashing out of the bushes about a hundred yards behind me was certainly unnerving, it was nothing compared to the dread I felt when I heard Kagan’s next words.
“I found them Carl!” he shouted, “Over here!”
Then Anna and I rounded the bend and my view of him was lost as the trees on either side of the highway blocked him out. Carl Sanders’ answering shout, however, told me he must be close. It wouldn’t be long before the pair of them rounded the bend after us. I could picture it already, Kagan with his unnatural speed chasing after us in that ungainly manner of his. Worse, though, was the thought of Sanders running along beside him.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, I was so damn Hungry!
Anna and I made the parking lot, and she began looking about for someone who could take us out of there in a hurry. I looked back the way we had come and was relieved to note that Kagan and Sanders had yet to come around the bend of trees and into view. It gave me a moment of hope, and I thought that we just might make it out of there, after all, if only we could find a ride.
That brief bit of hope was all I got. As Anna climbed the side of a rig that sat idling in the parking lot, I saw Kagan crash through the trees about a hundred yards away, with Sanders right behind him. The pair made straight for us, and closed the distance faster than I’d thought possible.
Anna was having no luck with the truck; the driver either wasn’t inside or wasn’t answering. As close as our pursuers were, I knew we didn’t have time to try another.
I turned and made ready to fight, thinking as I did the worst part about dying then and there was that I would die Hungry. Starving, even. It might even be nice to let go of the Hunger and the pain it brought. Maybe the warring voices
I hate her! No, I love her!
would stop in a few minutes and there would be blessed, lovely silence. Maybe I would even get to sample some of their blood before they killed me. The thought sent the Hunger twisting and growling like something caged and angry, which is I guess what it was, come to think of it. A bloodbath waiting to happen. Death looking to be dealt. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even when I was about to die.
I didn’t hear the motor at first, distracted as I was by the upcoming fight, but I did hear the voice. It broke through my thoughts of death and silence, jolting me back to the here and now.
“D’ya need a hand, Miss?”
Then I did hear the motor, and when I whirled around to face the speaker I saw the vehicle that housed it. A man on a motorcycle had pulled up and seen Anna by the truck. He must have assumed it was hers and she’d locked herself out. Nice of him to stop and offer assistance, I thought.
Then Hell finally caught up with me.
I heard his heartbeat, loud and insistent. It seemed to drag on and on. Not Thump THUMP – pause, thump THUMP, pause, but Thuuuump THUUUUUUUUUMP. Stop. Thuuuump THUUUUUUUUUMP. Stop.
Time slowed. Insects that had been buzzing madly now floated slow and lazy in the air. The man astride the motorcycle had taken off his helmet. I saw his face in fine detail. Sweat streaked his forehead, and his salt and pepper hair was plastered to it in a sticky, disheveled mess. His blue-gray eyes were kind and inquisitive, and smiled along with the rest of his face. This was a kind man, a man who liked to help when he could. A man who would try even when he couldn’t. I could read all this in his face, but more than that, I read the slow, nearly imperceptible swelling and falling of the thick veins in his exposed neck. I had just enough time to glimpse the shine of the plain gold band on his ring finger in the nanosecond it took for the door to my cell to come crashing outward full force, unleashing the beast that had been trapped inside.
I watched as someone else’s hands (not mine, they couldn’t be mine) shot straight out, grabbed the man and jerked him off his bike. The roaring sound of the Hunger in my ears blocked out his surprised scream.
Another heartbeat, faster this time. Thump THUMP thump THUMP thump THUMP.
Those stranger’s hands pulled the struggling, terrified man closer until they had him near enough to wrap him in a tight hug. He craned his neck to see who held him, but in doing so he stretched the skin of his throat taut, further exposing it. I smelled the leather of his jacket
and the sweat on his skin. The crisp scent of shampoo from his last shower, as well as traces of his aftershave. More important than all of the above, I smelled the blood that pumped furiously only inches away. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the part of me that hated myself for what I was about to do screamed at me that Sanders and Kagan were still coming, but the hunger drowned it out.
I closed my eyes and bit down hard, tearing through the muscles and flesh of his neck with my new teeth. They ripped through the walls of his carotid artery, which made a sound like an overripe fruit when I bit into it. He screamed and struggled in a feeble attempt to free himself as my mouth filled with warm, sweet fluid. So smooth and rich I could not help but gulp in greedy ecstasy as more and more flowed from the wound and into my eager throat.
Another heartbeat. Weaker, slower. Thuuuuump thuuuuuump. A long pause, then thuuuuuuump, thuuuuump.
His life poured into me and promised me everything. Silent whispers spoke of dark and wondrous powers I had never even imagined possible. I felt for the first time what all vampires eventually feel: that ultimate sense of power over life and death. The ultimate revelation of what it means to be Bachyir. In that moment I knew I had lost.
I said goodbye to the sun forever.
Another heartbeat. His last. A single, weak Thuuuuump. Then silence.
He was dead. The flow of blood slowed, then ceased. I raised my head from the stranger’s neck as the last of his blood ran wastefully down my chin and dripped onto the asphalt below. The world became an unrecognizable blur as time resumed its normal pace and slammed me back into the present. My Hunger dwindled. As it receded, memory returned, and brought with it both the knowledge of what I had just done, as well as the fact that I didn’t really have the time necessary to do it.
Kagan and Sanders were still coming, and I had turned my back to them. Stupid! I looked over my shoulder, expecting them to be on top of me, seconds away from striking me dead and ripping my battered corpse to shreds. I was surprised to discover that they had only gained a short distance. They were about seventy-five yards away, but closing fast. The whole kill must have only taken a few seconds.