Hybrid

by Wild Wolf Publishing

  Two days later the police came and went. They’d searched the place for evidence and found none. Somehow they missed the bloodstains on my wall. But they did take prints and as soon as they matched them they’d know no one else had been in the house except for the five of us, and then they’d be back to question us some more. We’d all given them an alibi. I wasn’t sure they’d believed mine. Was I being paranoid? Or did I see a flicker of suspicion in the police officer’s eyes? Either way, it was too late to do anything more to hide my guilt.

  They searched the town for any sign of Mel but found nothing. They tried using dogs to find her, but the dogs only found my scent on the ground and went wild with panic. If they took them as far out as the fields where she lay peacefully, blissfully unaware of the world above, the fear got to them long before they found the scent where I had laid Mel’s corpse while I dug her grave.

  Somehow we got through the next few days, though it was hard for all of us. Guilt hung over the household, making us all subdued. Amy would burst into tears without warning. God knows what they thought had happened. No struggle, no break in, so she couldn’t have been kidnapped. Maybe they thought she’d run away, but then why would she leave all her belongings?

  The police were just as puzzled. They questioned us again as I knew they would, and learned nothing new. If they suspected me there was nothing they could do about it without evidence. The search was growing more desperate. If Mel had been kidnapped time was running out, though I think the police knew she was already dead. And the worst was yet to come.

  Mel’s parents made an appeal sometime after she had first been declared missing. The appeal was broadcast on TV and I could only watch in horror as they held each other, pleading through their tears for anyone who might know anything about their daughter to come forward. I wanted to run away from the TV screen and hide in my room, as if I could make it all go away, but some invisible force held me there, maybe my conscience punishing me for what I’d done. Dad changed the channel before Amy came down from her room and saw it. It would only upset her.

  She was spending a lot of time in her room, shutting out the world. At night I heard her crying herself to sleep. At least those three could find a brief respite in their sleep. I still fought it whenever I could. Reality was preferable to the nightmare world I was forced to visit every time I closed my eyes.

  The same night of the appeal, I lay in bed fighting my weariness. I even cut myself when I had to with my swiss army knife. The pain was as sharp as the blade that caused it, small and relatively harmless as it was. It cut through my senses, straight to my mind, keeping it alert, repressing the sleep. Then I’d heal the wound so Mum and Dad wouldn’t know I was self harming, in case they took everything even remotely sharp from my room. I’d learnt to cause the wound to heal without bringing on any noticeable changes. Don’t ask me how, it just happened when I wanted it to, and it meant I didn’t have to face the reality of what I really was every time.

  How long had it been since I’d had a proper night’s sleep? Too long. My eyelids were drooping for what seemed the hundredth time that night. The blade sliced through my skin, leaving a trail of blood. My eyelids snapped open again. Something happened at a cellular level and the wound knotted together once more. My eyelids started to droop again. So tired. I just wanted to give into it, just once. Eyes closed, it felt good. No! The knife came up again, too late, I was losing the battle. My arm fell back down and hung limp over the side of the bed, the knife slipped from my fingers and sleep washed over me.

  The nightmares were worsening.

  I padded quietly through the building, a shadow in the night. Whether I was human or wolf I knew not, but the stench of blood and death hung heavy in the air, clinging to my nostrils with icy claws, to the exclusion of all else. I was using sight alone for this hunt, following a trail of blood, crimson spots splashed across the cold white tiles. I paused to listen to the sounds of the night, alert to the sounds of danger, but the only company here would never speak again. The silence was interrupted only by the hum of the refrigerators. My breath steamed out before me, measured and slow when I first began to follow the drops of blood, but it quickened in anticipation when the trail became clearer, as did my heart. The blood had pooled in the next room, my prey bleeding more heavily from a mortal wound. The blood was everywhere in that room. It stained my hands and the soles of my feet, and the overwhelming taste stuck to my tongue and the back of my throat, making my mouth water, thirsting for more. I caught signs of movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced at the still shapes hidden beneath white cloth, littering the many tables surrounding me. I turned my attention back to the blood and noticed movement from within the puddle. Drawing closer, I could see there was a heart in its centre, arteries and veins severed where it had been torn out from its owner’s body. I stared at it incredulously.

  It was still beating.

  Blood pumped out of the torn tubes onto the floor, the puddle growing larger by the second until it soaked my bare feet. Here was my prize. I moved forward to take it. The heart was still warm to the touch, despite the cold air surrounding it, and the blood made it slimy – it almost slipped from my hands, almost escaped. Then a noise broke the silence. I spun round quickly, the powerful muscle still in my grasp, still beating. There was a little girl stood there, about seven or eight years old.

  “Excuse me Mister, can I have my heart back please?”

  And that’s when I saw the gaping hole in her chest.

  Blood was pouring from the wound, which was partially hidden by strands of torn muscle and sinew, hanging down like a ragged piece of red, bloody cloth. I could see a section of her spine towards the back of the hole, and the ribs and lungs around the space where the heart should have been. I could even see the arteries and veins that should have been attached to the heart, dangling uselessly and spewing out more blood. With every movement she made the torn skin, flesh and tubes flapped loosely.

  “Please?” she said, walking towards me. I backed away, my wolf instincts confused, and watched in horror as the shapes on the tables slowly sat up, the sheets falling away. Every victim I had taken was there, each one asking for the return of their missing body parts. I dropped the heart and covered my ears, trying to drown out their voices. A scream tore from my throat as they closed in…

  I awoke drenched in cold sweat, shaking uncontrollably, trying to block the horrific images from my mind. What disturbed me most about this nightmare was not so much the corpses of my victims coming back to haunt me, it was the thought of not knowing what I was. I realised what I really feared was the thought of mentally becoming a half man, half wolf monster, the two different parts of my mind fused together so deeply that they became one. At least while the wolf was a separate part of me I would only kill under a full moon or if I ever lost control. If the two halves became one would that be the end of the precious little left of my humanity? Would I kill every time hunger struck? Would I crave raw flesh even more than I did then? Would I crave human flesh? I shuddered at the thought of it. In the nightmare I had been joined with the wolf’s mind so strongly that I didn’t even know what form I was in. I couldn’t let that become reality.

  As the days passed I became more withdrawn. Time lost all meaning. My hope was dead and buried and the boy I had once been lay in the grave with it. I might as well have been a walking corpse. People were getting really worried about me. Mum kept telling me I needed help. She only worried more when I didn’t reply.

  I didn’t think my teachers had noticed but one day Mrs Redgewell, my IT teacher as well as our Head of Year, pulled me out of the lesson to talk.

  “Are you sure you’re okay Nick? You don’t look well,” she said doubtfully.

  I laughed bitterly. What the hell did I say to that? Oh yeah Miss, I’m doing great, just fucking great. If I hadn’t been turned into a werewolf and then slaughtered a load of people I’d be even better. I settled for a simple “I’m fine.”

  “You do
n’t look fine. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong? I just want to help you,” she said, looking genuinely concerned.

  “No, I’m fine, just feeling a bit sick,” I told her.

  We’d gone back into the classroom and somehow I’d felt worse, more alone.

  My mates were no longer content to leave me alone. David was still mourning Fiona and hadn’t noticed the change in me, but the others had.

  “When are you gonna stop pretending you’re okay and tell me what’s wrong Nick? Stop lying to me, something’s up. You’ve been different ever since that Saturday morning I bumped into you in town,” Lizzy said. “I’ll keep your secrets for you. You know you can trust me.”

  She didn’t know how much I longed to tell her then, even more than the first time she’d asked. If I could just tell my dark secrets to someone human, it would make everything easier. She could tell me it hadn’t been my fault; the wolf was the killer, not me; ease my conscience. I needed that more than I knew.

  “I’m fine,” I protested.

  “You’re not fine. Come on Nick, you can tell me.”

  I shook my head stubbornly. “There’s nowt wrong, just leave me alone okay?”

  She didn’t believe that but she gave up. I think she was hurt that I still wouldn’t tell her. And what would she do if she knew the truth? Would she be afraid of me? Would she sell me out to the Slayers? No, I didn’t think she’d do that, no matter what I did. Would she even believe me? She might think I’d gone insane, or she might think it was some cock and bull story to avoid telling her the real truth. It didn’t matter, I couldn’t tell her no matter how much I wanted to.

  The depression became too much. Death was more appealing. When I went home that day my family wanted to go out for a meal. I told them to go without me, and then some time after they went I was stood in the kitchen holding the bread knife over my wrist.

  And so finally it had come to this.

  I should have died the night I was cursed, should have died from my wounds, should have died and not come back. I felt I had been living on borrowed time, or stolen time, stolen from every victim I had killed. So I’d picked up the bread knife from the side of the sink, still wet after it had been washed, and held it over my wrist. I wanted to feel it bite into my flesh and slice into the veins that lay therein. Looking at my wrist in anger and the veins I could see beneath, I could almost see the life flowing in the blue tubes. I wondered if any would grieve for me. Probably not. Nobody mourns the death of a monster.

  The knife shook violently in my hand, possibly with fear, but certainly with anger as I willed myself to do it and end this cursed life that had been thrust upon me.

  I imagined slitting my wrist, creating a gaping wound from which blood would seep out, the knife falling to the floor where it would become dull, already stained with my blood. The pain would have been intense but it would have felt good. I imagined falling to my knees and clutching my wrist, watching the blood pumping out, gushing down my arm and onto the floor, pooling and congealing. But it would be too slow, I wanted the end to come sooner. So I brought the knife up to my throat too, imagining slitting that so deep the wind pipe was severed, feeling the blood spraying out, splashing the walls and painting them red. And the wounds would weep, like the families of my victims had undoubtedly done on so many occasions, while I choked on my own blood. I imagined everything seeming to be spinning and then all would fast become black as death drew near. And I imagined my family finding my corpse lying on the kitchen floor, crying over me while others would celebrate. And there my life would have ended, bringing with it the end to my suffering and I wouldn't be here, now, to tell you my tale. But I was not permitted to know peace in death, not permitted an end to the suffering I had known and had yet to know. For I did not have the strength to do it. The knife fell from my shaking hand and I cried out in anguish.

  And so I cannot live and yet I cannot die, I thought wretchedly as I picked up the blade and put it back on the side. Why couldn’t I do it? The image of my family grieving over my passing had stopped me. I couldn’t do it to them. They were already suffering enough after Mel. I really needed someone to talk to then. I fled the house and went to find the vampires in their graveyard.

  Lady Sarah, as I had guessed, didn’t really understand what I was telling her. “You can’t stop yourself from killing now, it’s in your nature. You have to learn to adapt, otherwise you will not survive. The Slayers will hunt you down.”

  Vince was easier to talk to. Lady Sarah went off to hunt, but he wandered the streets with me for a while, waiting to hunt until I went back home.

  “It’s hard at first,” he agreed with me. “Hell, hard don’t cover it. You still feel human, I understand that. In time you’ll learn to accept what you are. Then you can learn from the wolf and get used to your new senses. I remember the first night after I’d been made a vampire, I didn’t want to kill but the thirst for blood was too strong to ignore. It drove me to feed and afterwards I was horrified by it. I learned to live with it but it took time. It’ll be the same for you.”

  I didn’t believe him but he was trying to help and I was grateful. I had an idea of exactly what it was for him to delay feeding. The thirst must have been as powerful as the hunger that I felt after every transformation. We talked some more, and then I left him and let myself back in the house. I’d only been gone an hour and my family weren’t back. I was glad; I couldn’t bear to be near them at that moment, not with the feeling of being so close to them and yet being so isolated, so alone, as if there was a wall between us, keeping us apart. Before this had all started I would have enjoyed the freedom of the house to myself, but I didn’t think I could stomach my horror movies anymore. The blood and gore on screen would only remind me of things I wanted to forget. So I sat with Alice until they came home, listening to the King of Shock Rock himself. I didn’t used to be into music until I discovered shock rock and heavy metal. Before that I’d mostly only heard the soppy love songs from boy and girl bands of the 90s that I would claim made me want to puke. Then I discovered Alice Cooper and all I lived for were horror movies and my music. But suddenly the love songs didn’t seem so bad after all.

  I turned off the music, unable to listen to it anymore, and sat in silence, alone with my thoughts, fighting off the sleep that threatened to overwhelm me. When my family came home I told them I was going to bed and took to the streets again, determined to stay awake.

  The next day at school I felt like I was close to breaking point. Everything was becoming too much and there was no escape, not even in death, unless I found the strength to free myself. Every time I turned a corner I half expected to see a bloody half eaten corpse waiting for me, and I had to concentrate hard on reality if I didn’t want to watch the bloody scenes playing again in my head. I tried to keep my mind on my lessons, dull as they were, to avoid them. It seemed each victim was waiting in the shadows of my mind to lunge at me without warning, forcing me to relive their death. Morning break came and I tried to lose myself in my book. I’d finished the horror story and was onto something else, a story about wolves of all things. I’d started it before Fiona’s death, not knowing how much I would grow to hate the damn creatures after what I’d done. It wasn’t exactly horror, but the chapter I was on was somewhat horrific, where one of the wolves killed a human hunter in self defence, and I had to put it down, my stomach queasy. It was all too easy for my imagination to convert the scene in the book into another gory memory.

  I sat staring into space when a girl’s voice called me back to reality. Her name was Grace. She was a church-goer and deeply believed in the word of the Bible.

  “How can you like wolves? They’re evil creatures,” she said with a shiver. It took me a minute to make sense of what she was saying. Then I realised she’d seen my book on the table.

  I shrugged as I turned to look at her. “I’ve always liked ’em, as far back as I can remember. Anyway, they’re not evil. No animals are evil, except man.”

&n
bsp; Even though I had grown to hate them, I still felt some need to defend them. They weren’t like the wolf that lurked in me, and they didn’t really deserve the bad reputation myth, legend, and the Church had given them, even if a monster like me was descended from them. I didn’t voice that out loud. I didn’t want to get onto the subject of religion with Grace. Arguing about wolves would be bad enough. She was prejudiced because they were associated with the Devil, and because she was your typical girl, into cute fluffy bunny rabbits and such. She hated anything that tore fluffy bunnies apart.

  “Well they’re savage.”

  “So are lions but people don’t hate lions like they do wolves,” I replied, voice neutral. All the passion had gone from the argument. I wanted to work with wolves once, and I’d been determined to overcome the public’s negative views. I used to spend a lot of time arguing with people about this misunderstood animal, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

  “Well I don’t like lions either,” she told me. “How can you like something that’s a born killer? It’s evil, the way they kill other animals for food.”

  I sighed. “They’ve got every right to survival as much as any other animal. Go ask God, He created them that way. At least they only kill for food. Humans kill for the hell of it. Now that’s evil. And we kill to eat too, it’s nature. It’s God’s way, if that’s what you believe. Whatever, it’s the way the world works. Without predators we’d be overrun with the animals they feed on. And wolves really don’t deserve the bad reputation we’ve given them.

  “They live in packs, and they depend on every individual’s co-operation within the pack to survive, and the bonds between them are strong, not unlike our own family groups when you think about it. If you knew more about them, you wouldn’t hate them so much. They rarely hurt each other like men do, and it’s even rarer they attack a human. I only know of one recent wolf attack on a guy camping out in the States, and I’ve spent a lot of time researching it. Dogs are more dangerous than wolves. They’re not always as tame as we think and they’ve lost their fear of humans. I know about a pack of dogs that savaged a boy’s arm for no apparent reason. He wasn’t even running past them; there was nothing to trigger the attack. Dogs kill a hell of a lot more people than their wild cousins.”