BiteMarks

by Drew Cross

  The monster sits motionless, pale and naked on a dirty mattress, in a room that is ripe with the meat and rust smells of old blood. A battered leather chair with legs of varying lengths is pushed underneath the overhang of a thick shelf that serves as a desk, and a badly abused metal waste bin cowers in the corner. He has a large scar on his chest; the edges are bright pink a vivid contrast with his skin. The scar is self-inflicted, a stylized scarification design depicting a phoenix rising from flames, the lines neat and precise but angry with the memory of the lemon juice that had been used to raise them up from the background.

  He tries to ignore the accompanying memory of the woman who he had coerced into carving the intricate design for him all those years ago. She had spoken about love and spirituality at length, a modern day flower child confusing his intense silence for interest and concentration, warbling on and on about the search for truth and reason. The desire to harm her had been extremely strong, but would have proven impossible, since there were several others present watching the ornamentation taking shape. A certain part of him wonders whether she would still be living in the same place now.

  A small russet colored spider busies herself constructing a new web in the top corner of the window frame, buffeted from time to time by the movement of air through into the room. Twice a day her home is destroyed when the man opens the window and closes it again, but her patience is limitless and the spot yields an abundance of flies drawn by the tempting odors inside, so she persists with her rebuilds.

  The monster has none of her qualities. The pain she causes out of the necessity to feed herself, his borne out of sadistic enjoyment and the strange creeping madness that tells him that he needs the fresh blood to rejuvenate his own.

  He can feel it building inside him now, the maddening sensation that alerts him when it is time to hunt again. First an itching and tingling in the extremities, signaling the spoiling of the fluid in his veins, this will gradually become a burn until he can ignore it no longer. For now he sits in calm silence though, fixating on the people passing in the street below, embracing the changes inside and imagining how it would feel to take them all one by one and drain them completely.

  I think I'm afraid which pisses me off, since it's not a sensation that I'm accustomed to. A terrible night's sleep punctuated by blood-stained dreams that I can't quite recall doesn't help matters, but the presence of Marcus beside me in the car right now is helping a little – misery loves company. I can feel his eyes on me trying to read my expression, and when I glance across at him he looks nauseous and skittish. I wonder if I look the same.

  The purple BMW parked opposite us outside the address doesn't help either, since it serves to confirm that Levi 'Evil' and 'Arachnid' Jones are probably inside, quite possibly watching us shitting ourselves across the street and laughing their asses off.

  “Do you think they'll flay us alive first, or let us say our piece and then start the torture?”

  “Thanks, Marcus, I feel so much better about this now.”

  “You're welcome. Anyway, it was your bright idea, I'm just here to back you up, mate.”

  “Fantastic job you're doing too.”

  We are on Corporation Oaks in Mapperley Park, at an address listed on Crimint – the police criminal intelligence database - as the permanent head of operations for Bennett and Jones's gutter empire. I want to talk to them about our sharp-toothed friend, and hopefully be in a position from there to be able to narrow down the pool of potential suspects. Unfortunately, men in their particular line of business are not always happy to meet those from ours.

  Searches on Crimint, also helpfully advised us that the two men are strong suspects in the murder of a Police Officer back in Kingston. The victim was the head of an anti-drug gang task force, employing heavy handed tactics in an attempt to clean up the city slums. It had been going very well, until person or persons unknown threw a tire full of petrol over his head and ignited it, delivering the charred body to the street outside the Police Station. Call me weird, but bad manners like that upset my equilibrium a little.

  “Fuck this; I'm not sitting here running through mental images of my own demise all day. Come on.”

  I stride across the silent street and up to the front door, which stands halfway open. A pair of pale female legs are visible in the hallway, nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that they're motionless, horizontal rather than vertical and heavily mottled with livid bruises. I push the door a little wider open with my toe-cap, relieved to see the rhythmic rise and fall of a flat chest. It's hard to tell whether she's unconscious or sleeping, but there's fresh blood oozing from a pinprick in the crook of her arm, so I know what my money's on. The grunt to my right signals that Marcus has come to a similar conclusion.

  “Hello? Levi, Antony?”

  We step over the prone girl, feet too loud on the quarry tiles, doing a better job of announcing our presence than my tight voice box.

  There is a burst of music from somewhere up ahead at the back of the property, hip-hops not my genre of choice but I bust a couple of involuntary moves at the sudden unexpected noise, before I regain control of my galloping heart and settle back down again. I hope Marcus missed that.

  At the end of the hallway is a heavy wooden door which opens, with a little resistance, into a large rear sitting-room. There is intricate plaster cornice running around the top of the room and solid hardwood picture rails further down, but I have to abandon my appraisal of the interior design features to avoid being thought of as rude by the half a dozen Jamaican men reclining in chairs around the room. They don't look overly concerned at our presence, a quick glance confirms that Marcus hasn't fled for the car, and one of them is smiling. The effect of the smile is ruined by the white cats-eye contact lenses that he's wearing, Antony 'Arachnid' Jones, I presume.

  “Is she going to be okay out there?”

  I nod back towards the hallway. The man with a cane-row hairstyle sitting next to Jones, who I recognize as Levi Bennett, replies dead-pan.

  “Don't know, why don't you go and ask her?”

  “We're not here about her anyway, and this isn't a raid.”

  “That's a relief.” The sarcasm raises a chuckle from the hangers-on around the room.

  “I've come for your help.”

  “We don't go helping the five-O in case you haven't heard. Run along now little piggy's.”

  He gives a wave and gestures towards the door, cue more laughter, the guy's evidently a comic genius.

  “Some of your girls have been attacked by a man with sharp teeth and a taste for blood. They won't talk to us because of you, which makes it difficult to catch him.”

  “So?”

  “So, he'll do it again soon, which then puts another girl out of action which is bad for business, right?”

  Bennett shrugs, uninterested. “We got it covered Mr Po-lees, we don't need your help.”

  Marcus finds his voice and tries a different tact. “You don't need the hassle of trying to find this guy either. Just give us something to start us off and then sit back and we'll take him out of the equation.”

  “Now, what kind of message would that send? That we're the kind of men that can't take care of our own business? Show them out.”

  Jones leans in to say something in Bennett's ear as the other unnamed men begin to escort us out, stepping over the girl in the passageway once again. Frustrating as it is to take the chance but come away with nothing, the cool air that greets us feels good on my skin; like breaking the surface of murky water after spending slightly too long down in the depths. Jones' voice is suddenly in my ear.

  “Don't come back here unless you get tired of living. Good luck finding your albino friend.”

  The guy is still smiling even when hissing death threats at me, I'm beginning to like him already and I smile back with the reply. “Make sure the girl in your hallway keeps breathing unless you get tired of freedom.”

  We lock eyes for a few seconds, long enough for
me to show him a brief flash of what I contain, before I turn away and walk back to the car. As we pull away I can't help thinking, was that recognition on his face? Did he place me as local, or did he see me for what I really am?

  “That went well. I think you've got a friend for life there, mate.”

  “Scary fuckers aren't they?”

  “You think? Now remind me again why that was a good idea, and what it actually achieved?”

  “They just helped us to narrow down our search.”

  “How so?”

  “When Jones was threatening to kill me if we show up again, he said good luck finding your albino friend.”

  “So we're looking for a guy with pink eyes and chalk white skin then?”

  “Maybe, but if not, we're definitely looking for someone who is conspicuously pale even if they're not technically an albino.”

  Is that why you're drinking their blood then? Perhaps, but you don't have to tear people to bits to get blood do you? Why is that necessary, and why is it prostitutes?

  Marcus is looking at me expectantly.

  “What?”

  “I said what's the big deal with protecting working girls, mate?”

  “They don't deserve the treatment that they get.”

  “It's their choice.”

  “No it's not. They're drug addicts, abused, isolated and alone. All they've got are the sick leeches that live off their earnings and feed them drugs, alternating between telling them that they love them and beating the shit out of them. They're people, not combination pin-cushions and punch-bags with added holes to fuck.”

  “No one makes them run away from home, and no one makes them continue to take drugs and then refuse help from the Compass workers when they're in custody, do they?”

  “That's just it. They are made to do these things, running from abusive or smothering homes, making mistakes with who they choose to trust when they do leave. The mistakes that we make shouldn't have to mean torture for the rest of our pitiful lives.”

  “My old man beat me up all the time, Shane. Trying to make a man out of his faggot son, but I still made something of myself. Most of these people aren't prepared to help themselves, so you can't save them. You get out of life what you're prepared to put in.”

  “Well congratulations to you, accept a standing ovation and the step back down from your big fucking pedestal. Not everybody can deal with the things that they've done or had done to them the same way that you have. People are like dogs, some get kicked and then retreat into themselves shaking and cowering; others lash out at everything and everyone except the tormentor that they fear, and the last type wait for the next kick and then do their damnedest to rip the whole leg off.”

  We sit staring at each other, faces hard with anger.

  “We don't need to fight about this, mate. Let's agree to disagree.”

  “Did you hear what was said after the briefing the other day?”

  “No.”

  “Strang told the guys and girls a joke. He said what's the difference between a whore and an onion?”

  “Go on.”

  “You can't cut an onion without crying.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, if you find that as funny as the others did, you may want to reconsider helping me out on this thing.”

  “I don't hate them, mate. I just think that they should accept some responsibility for their own situations.” He holds out a hand, which I accept and give a quick crush.

  “What were you folks like, Shane?”

  “There was never a dull moment.”

  * * *

  Our memories do not belong to us.

  Most of them are insubstantial, fragile like incense ash, easily disturbed and dashed into soft fragments by a thoughtlessly directed exhalation. Then they are forever changed, still in existence but now in pieces, lost amongst the merciless onslaught of new experiences that are soon to become more fractured memories for the pile too.

  I remember my father's eyes, but the other pieces, the remaining topography of his facial features is gone. I remember those eyes in snapshots of time; frozen scenes from a life that has lost it's connection with the one that I have replaced it with now.

  Me aged six or seven, seeing the conspiratorial mischief that sparked in those eyes as he whirled my mother around the living room in a raucous tango. Her laughing, making a show of trying to fend him off and then allowing him a brief chaste kiss before laughing some more.

  Me aged nine or ten, watching twin fires ignite in the centers of those eyes as he grabbed my arm tightly, thrusting the can towards my mouth and splitting the soft lips with the hard rim. Her crying and gaunt with Auschwitz eyes, doing nothing to stop it; putting her fear for herself before her motherly duty to defend me. Me looking at her and hurting, drinking the bitter tasting lager but concentrating on the taste of my blood underneath it.

  Me aged twelve or thirteen, those same eyes as lifeless pools, no ripples of emotion disturbing the surface, sinking into the dark hollows of his face, a gradual slide closer and closer towards desiccation. Me fascinated by the effects of the drink, surely the consumption of so much liquid should hydrate this living corpse? The heavy sweet clouds of vapor snaking out with the cruel words that he spoke.

  Me aged fourteen, facing that sick alien rage in his eyes again as he charges at me in my room. Side-stepping, then punching hard one-two-three, taking pleasure in the loud moan as he sags to the floor.

  Then pulling a razor from its hiding place between my books, pressing the keen edge against the taut pulsing cords in his neck. A small red bead escaping, rolling down inside the collar of his dirty shirt, the fire and alcohol dying away, replaced by the sobering influence of fear. The tears coming to his eyes as he sees what he has helped to create.

  Other memories bubble under the surface too.

  A young boy, alone and sobbing once again in a small locked toilet cubicle in a small locked church school in the middle of nowhere. He can smell hospitals, bleach and watery disinfectant over the top of something festering.

  He looks around with wet red eyes grown accustomed to the gloom, taking in the dirty fingertip smudges on uneven off-white walls, the rough-edged scars on the back of the lop-sided door, childish declarations of love scratched in with drawing pins and pencil sharpener blades, edged with biro and felt-tip pen. The sentiments are strange to him, and the faint delighted shrieks of laughter from the distant playing field are not his to share.

  He takes the small blade that he has been concealing and presses it against his perfect pale skin, applying pressure until the blood begins to run; concentrating on the sensation, how it lifts him from the numb fog that passes for his usual emotional plain. His tears have stopped. Later the cutting will evolve, becoming something else entirely, but for now he sits in semi darkness embracing the pain like a lost lover.

  Eyes, blood, pain, rage.

  * * *

  The fanged man moves with purpose now, animated by his burning need. He carries a mental freeze-frame of himself walking these same streets a long time ago holding his mother's hand. Back then it is dark but he's not afraid, since the night is alive with activity. A sweating man cruising past slowly in a purring car, a loud slurring voice singing to the sky, the rasp of an unseen match, the smell of sulphur in the air.

  She plucks the head of a bristly purple flower, crushing it slightly between her fingers and then passing it to him, smiling as he raises it to his nose. The flower is lavender, floral and medicinal all at once, the smell is soothing but he hates it, associating it with what else these nights holds in store. Her skirt matches the pretty color of the bloom and he hates it too. The material is soft and fluid; brushing her legs with a soft shush-shush as she moves. Economical enough to show off the frilly stockings that she is wearing and, if she is not careful, short enough to display the absence of any other underwear.

  She stops when they reach the familiar corner that meets Woodborough Road, talking to a sharp faced woman with
bad teeth and bad skin who is supposed to watch him when his mother is 'busy'.

  A car stops within minutes, his mother lifting her skirt to show the man what's on offer. There is a brief exchange of insincerities, both sounding bored of the charade, then she is gone forever.

  The memory does not anger the fanged man. It has lost the power to do so with that strange obsessive repetition which dilutes all emotional impact. The past is a stranger's photo album for him, a thing of curiosity but without context or meaning. In the present he is almost feverish now, a shark amongst baitfish in a confined tank.

  Having decided on a particular girl, a car had pulled up before he'd reached her and she'd been whisked away, the resonance wasn't lost on him. His second potential target had appeared to be alone in the shadows, until the light from a passing motorbike had caught the gleam of gold on the doorstep behind her, bringing two motionless and muscular young black men into view.

  There had been nights like this before. Nights when the hunt had been doomed to frustration and he'd retreated, striving for some sort of solace through unsatisfactory masturbation until dawn bled in over the window-sill, tired of the obscene spectacle.

  There. The girl is perfect; tall, slim, mocha-skinned and wearing a short tight skirt. The skirt complements her skin tone, a soft purple material that swirls, if pressed you might call the shade lavender.

  “Hi there honey, I'm Cristal, memorable like the champagne.”

  “I bet you are. I'll bet you even taste memorable don't you, sweetheart?”

  The connotation lost for now.

  “You bet I do, babes. You got a car or shall we slip round here out of view?” She gestures to a short alleyway behind her.

  “I think it'll have to be your place this time, you lead on.”

  She takes a short stroll up the alley, far enough back to be hidden from the road, but close enough to be able to see what they're doing in the unreal light from the lamp-post. “Well here we are honey, now we're alone what would you like to do?” She smiles revealing teeth that are surprisingly white and even.