Hybrid (Book 2): Hunted

by Stead, Nick

  My dreams were troubled but I didn’t wake until sunrise, when the transformation took hold once more and the bright, early light of day revealed me for the monster I truly was.

  The wolf fought to remain in control out of hatred for me, but the sunlight called me back and I overpowered him before I’d even returned to human form. The scent of the massacres I’d committed in the night was overpowering, and perhaps that was the reason the transformation came to a halt for the first time on a morning after a full moon since I’d been bitten. I had the form of a hybrid wolf man once again. I could have allowed the change to resume until I was fully human, but I found I didn’t want to, the smell of so much death renewing my bloodlust until I felt the need to take yet more lives.

  I felt jealous of my lupine half as I took in the scene of his moon crazed slaughter. There was blood everywhere, bright and lurid in the morning light. Animal limbs and entrails lay scattered around in each of the barns, a bloody jigsaw that even an expert in biology would have had trouble piecing back together. But there was little left of the two human corpses, which the wolf had clearly gorged himself upon. It seemed I’d made an utter ruin of the two lives I’d taken that night, not even leaving the legacy of the petting zoo for their family to continue on in their name. Yet it seemed the horror I’d visited on the family was not quite over, for the sound of a car approaching reached my ears, new victims driving unwittingly to their doom. I retreated into the gloom of one of the barns, waiting for the humans to come to me. I knew Lady Sarah would not have approved if she’d been with me, but that thought only made me all the more eager for the kill. I would indulge my bloodlust again that morning, and there was nothing she could do to stop me.

  Chapter Four – Out of Control

  The car parked up in front of the old farmhouse and I heard a family of three climb out. They couldn’t see the damage I’d caused to the animal’s housing and the front door to the house was closed; it had been the back door my two victims had run out of in the night. And the wind was blowing in the wrong direction to carry the smell of the carnage to their weak human noses. The family weren’t yet aware that anything was amiss.

  “Mummy,” the little boy said excitedly. “Can I go see the animals, please Mummy?”

  “Go on then, while we unpack,” the woman answered him. She’d barely finished her sentence before her son set off running towards the barns, the pitter-patter of little feet sounding loud and clear in my lupine ears.

  “Not for too long, Elliot!” his father called after him. “Your Aunt Sally and Uncle Jack will want to see you too!”

  A low growl drew the little boy to me as he raced towards the damaged enclosures. He slowed as he came to the barns, trying to decide where the sound had come from, but I heard him approaching the one I hid in. Too young and innocent to realise something was very wrong, he probably thought his aunt and uncle had added a new dog to their menagerie. Moments later he was stepping into the gore that now decorated the interior of the barn, his nose wrinkled as if to fend off the foul stench assaulting it. The child stared in shock at the grisly sight that met his eyes, his gaze locking on the dead eyes of a severed sheep head.

  “Timmy?” he said, his eyes filling with tears and his lip quivering. Then I growled a second time and he looked up from the carnage to see the monster lurking in the shadows, and he screamed as I pounced on my prey.

  The sound was painfully shrill and high pitched to my sensitive ears, but it cut off once I wrapped my jaws round his throat, sinking my fangs in and ripping the flesh free. I watched the life drain from those young eyes, so full of life and excitement only moments ago, bright as blue summer skies. Death crept over those bright orbs like a shroud, dulling that spark of life until they were completely empty as they stared sightlessly up at the beast that had dragged them into darkness.

  “Elliot?” his mother cried from the front of the property, where they’d still been unpacking the car and wondering why there was no answer after knocking on the door.

  I heard his parents rushing to the scream of their son, but I’d cut it off before they could pinpoint his location and they split up, frantically checking the barns for their little boy. Not yet giving myself completely over to the bloodlust, I retreated back into the gloom, waiting once more.

  It was the mother who was the first to come upon the scene of any parent’s worst nightmare. Overcome with grief, she fell to her knees beside the small body lying there in a pool of its own blood, cradling the empty shell of her beloved son.

  “Oh God Elliot, please no, come back to me, come back to mummy,” she sobbed hysterically, rocking back and forth.

  I watched my prey coldly from the shadows, as utterly devoid of any sense of empathy for the woman as the corpse she held in her arms, no matter how disturbing others might have found the sight of her grief, or how moving the depth of her love had clearly been for her child. Besides, they would be reunited in death soon enough.

  The boy’s father heard his wife’s anguished cries and hurried over, already fearing the worst after seeing the evidence of some wild animal’s attack on the farm. He must have also found the bodies of the aunt and uncle they’d brought their little boy to see on that fated visit, as he’d armed himself with the rifle Jack had carried during the night.

  The father squeezed his wife’s shoulder, but when he glanced over to the back of the barn where I crouched and our eyes met, through the tears I could see a rage that mirrored my own. Here I was, the monster who had taken their little boy from them, their son’s blood still wet on the jaws that had ripped the life from him, and the mere sight of me gave rise to the man’s need for revenge. He must have felt so powerful and righteous as he raised the rifle and sighted down the barrel, ready to kill me with so simple an action as the squeeze of a trigger. A life for a life, and could I really blame him for wanting that kind of justice? Yet in the grip of my own anger I saw only another human with a gun, intent on slaying any beast that posed a threat to human life which they so arrogantly considered more sacred than the life of any other creature. I responded with a challenging roar, and charged towards him.

  Still distraught over the loss of her son, the mother hadn’t noticed what was going on around her, and the thundering shot of the rifle made her jump all the more because she hadn’t been expecting it. She screamed when she saw me and scrambled to her feet, carrying Elliot’s corpse in her arms as she fled, leaving her husband to battle it out with me.

  The rifle proved to be as little use for this man as it had been for Jack during the night. He was far from a master marksman and his aim was not true, though he did land a lucky shot in my shoulder. If I’d been a mortal creature he might have succeeded in bringing me down, but without the skill required to put a bullet in my heart or brain he would never even be allowed the comfort of vengeance. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t realise the rifle wouldn’t stop me until it was too late.

  I crashed into the man, throwing us both to the stone floor, and pinned him down while I ripped into his torso, stringy flesh like wet rags tearing away so easily from the ribcage in my fearsome jaws. Bones snapped like twigs and organs ripped from the tubes chaining them in place, until only a hollow cavity remained. It took only minutes for me to rip my prey apart, which hadn’t given his wife much time to get away.

  Just as I rose from the carcass, I heard the sound of a car door and I snarled with a fresh wave of fury. On foot I’d have run her down easily, but if she’d given up on her husband and had enough wits left about her to make her escape by car, she may well succeed in escaping the same fate that had met the rest of her family.

  I burst from the barn and bounded towards the car to find the woman carefully lying the body of her son across the backseat. Either she was unable to face the reality that her little boy was really gone or she didn’t want me to feed on the body, but whatever her reason for taking the corpse, she was determined not to leave it. Even though it had meant spending a portion of the precious time her
husband’s death had bought her, she wouldn’t leave her son’s remains for the monster to ravage any further.

  The woman just managed to climb into the car before I closed in, desperately rifling through the contents of her handbag in search of the key. But I threw myself at the car door before she could find it and start the engine, denting the metal and smashing the window. She screamed and scrambled across to the passenger side, climbing back out seemingly with the intention of running for the house. I leapt onto the roof and back down on the other side of the car, landing just in front of her. Unlike my lupine half I wasn’t interested in the thrill of the chase, only the savage ecstasy of the kill once I’d given myself completely to the bloodlust, and the feel of frail mortal bodies ripping and tearing in my hands and jaws. So I grabbed the woman by her throat, my bestial face twisted into a feral snarl. She wriggled in my grasp but the mere strength of a human was no match for me as I threw her body down onto the car bonnet, denting more of the metal shell and breaking her bones with the impact. My prey was too damaged to make another run for it when I released my grip on her throat, only to plunge my clawed hands into the soft flesh of her belly, ripping open a hole to bury my snout in and eat her alive like I had with her husband. Intestines hung like a string of sausages between my teeth, but there was more appetising flesh and viscera to be had, so I dropped them and went in search of tastier organs.

  The woman died screaming as I drew out her liver, which I bit in two. Half of it fell to the ground, where it quivered like a slippery lump of jelly. I ripped my way through her torso, as much to feed the bloodlust as my hunger for flesh, until only a bloody mess remained of what had once been a human being. Only when the bloodlust was satisfied and my mind cleared of the red haze did I rise from my meal, suddenly aware of the amount of noise my victims and I myself had made. Though the area was sparsely populated, I felt I should check no other humans had heard and come to investigate. So I abandoned my kills to search the premises, but it seemed I was alone, with only the dead for company. I returned to my freshest kills and ate my fill of what was left, before slinking back into one of the barns to rest while I had the chance, making the most of the relatively warm shelter. I knew I should probably try to find Lady Sarah, but it would be riskier to run around in daylight when there was more chance of me being seen and hunted by the Slayers, so I decided I’d wait till nightfall. Besides, she would already be hiding somewhere from both the sun and humanity, which would make finding her harder.

  I settled down amidst the carnage both myself and the wolf had made, quickly slipping into a light sleep. Not even the nightmares troubled me that day, and I lay there for the remainder of the daylight hours.

  It was already dark when I awoke, still in my hybrid form, to find someone stood over me. I growled in alarm, wondering how they’d managed to sneak in quiet enough so as not to wake me, but then I realised it was Lady Sarah and let myself relax.

  “You are out of control,” she hissed, gesturing angrily to the bloodbath I’d created.

  Her anger ignited my own as if a flame reached out between us, catching the glowing embers that burned deep inside me and setting them alight once more.

  “Well what else am I supposed to do with my time?” I snarled. “I can’t be human anymore and there’s no wolf packs to run with in this country. So what else is there, other than embracing my true, murderous nature?”

  “I had hoped it would not have to come to this,” she said, ignoring my question and grabbing my head, forcing me to look into her eyes.

  “No!” I growled, realising she intended to use her hypnotic power to put me under her spell. I started to struggle, but it was too late. The anger blazing through me suddenly felt to be far away, as if it belonged to someone else, and in its place there was only adoration for this beautiful goddess I had the fortune to look upon. When she spoke, her voice sounded to be the kindest and warmest I’d ever heard, and there was no question of whether I would do what she wanted. In that moment, I felt I would do anything to please her.

  “No more killing without my permission, except in self-defence. Do you understand?”

  I nodded in response.

  “Good,” she said, and released me from her spell.

  But I was aware of what she’d done and as soon as my mind cleared, the rage crashed back over me and I roared “You have no right to do this!”

  “You left me no choice,” she replied, all traces of her own anger hidden from me as she turned to walk off into the night. The show of calmness she now presented angered me even more. I wanted a fight and she wouldn’t even grant me that.

  “Killing is all I have left. Don’t do this!” I shouted after her, but she didn’t even turn to look back at me. I roared and lashed out at the walls of the barn, carving deep gashes into the stone, but still the vampire continued to walk away. “I swear I’ll fucking kill you for this! You can’t keep these mental chains on me forever, and when I break free I’m killing you first Sarah. Do you hear me? I’m coming for you first!”

  Not even dropping her medieval title in a deliberate show of disrespect could bring her anger back to the surface, and she was suddenly so far ahead that she would soon be out of sight. I considered leaving her then, but I knew she’d only find me again and use more hypnosis to bind me to her. I had little choice but to run after her, though I refused to speak to her again that night. I would find a way to break free of her spell, and I would continue to indulge my bloodlust until the day a human succeeded in killing me. I was determined of it.

  We found another abandoned building to shelter in through the day, in another rural area. Childish as it was, I wouldn’t eat any of the dried meat Lady Sarah had offered me in the night, consequently leaving my stomach aching with hunger once more. The vampire had advised me to return to human form and I’d done so only because I didn’t want her to use her power on me again to force me to obey her. But my body craved more meat to replenish the energy spent on the transformation and all I could think of was the need to hunt, and just as strongly, driven by the rage, the need to kill.

  I prowled the fields outside the empty house Lady Sarah had chosen to hide away in, searching for more prey. My hunt took me to another stretch of woodland, where I found and caught a pheasant, and I gave myself to the bloodlust once more. Yet when I raised the plump, feathery body to my mouth, it was as if an invisible barrier surrounded the bird, preventing my fangs from biting down into the warm flesh. I growled with frustration and tried again, but no matter how strong the urge to rip the animal apart or how fiercely I tried to obey that urge, I couldn’t break through the vampire’s spell and end its life. My jaws began to ache from straining against the mental muzzle Lady Sarah had placed on me and I was just about to admit defeat, when it occurred to me that the restraint had been placed on me as a human, not the wolf. With a rush of excitement I surrendered control to him, thinking if this worked, then perhaps through him the spell would be completely broken and I’d be just as free to kill as the wolf once again.

  As much as I’d grown to loathe my human half, I co-operated with it since I too shared in the hunger currently assaulting our body. My stomach screamed for food so badly it was almost sickening, and the pheasant I held was too good a snack to resist.

  My eyes had turned lupine and my canines had already lengthened into fangs, but my body was otherwise human. Ordinarily I’d have taken the transformation to my full wolf form but I knew it would only leave me hungrier to do so, and now the full moon had passed I wasn’t gripped by the same lunar frenzy which had robbed me of my reason and any sense of caution I may otherwise have possessed. I wouldn’t waste energy on a mere whim, my instinct to survive too strong for me to throw my life away so recklessly.

  I raised the pheasant still clutched in my hands to my jaws once more, but just as the human had found, it was as if there was an invisible force preventing me from biting down. I knew it would prove just as useless for me to try and fight it as it had for the human, so
I retreated back into our subconscious, not wanting to remain in control of my body while necessity forced me to stay in human form. I was content to wait for the next full moon, when my time would come again.

  The wolf retreated, leaving me still clutching the living pheasant I longed to tear into. Rage answered my defeat but since I was unable to take it out on my prey, I released the terrified animal still struggling in my grasp and instead clawed at myself in the grip of a new kind of madness. I scratched long bloody furrows in my scalp as if I could somehow break Lady Sarah’s chains with my physical strength, since the strength of my mind had failed me. And as ever the pain only drew me into more of a frenzy, until blood splattered the surrounding trees. Yet there was no joy to be had in spilling my own blood and my rage soared to new heights. The morning rang with my roars of fury. I was a tormented creature, bound by invisible chains. If any were there to see I wonder if they would have felt sorry for me, or would you all take pleasure in my suffering? Perhaps I deserved this new torment I was being made to endure, but such thoughts didn’t make it any easier to bear.

  Some part of me was vaguely aware that this behaviour was more likely to attract the attention of the Slayers, but since Lady Sarah’s power would allow for me to kill in self-defence, I wanted them to find me. I bellowed as loudly as I could but the land remained still and empty around me, and eventually my anger died down again.

  I returned to the empty house, beaten and still hungry, and sat sullenly on the cold floor. After a while I slipped into more troubled sleep.

  Back in the woods, I stalked after new prey, a deer this time. Shadows lengthened as the daylight began to fail, my hunger stronger than ever after enduring a full day without being able to feed. It had grown so powerful that this time I felt sure it would break the vampire’s spell, and eagerly I pushed on in pursuit of my prey, threads of saliva dripping from my jaws in anticipation of the meal soon to come.