Madison almost laughed. He reminded her of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. “You know what’s going on with me, don’t you?”
“I have a feeling I do, Madison.”
“I was hoping we could talk.”
The Butcher said, “As it so happens, I am off today. I have a place where we can meet.”
Chapter 8
Madison pulled off of State St. onto Platt, parked behind a building on Mill, and walked south on Browns Race. The Pont De Rennes Pedestrian Bridge was made of steel and stretched over 800 feet across the Genesee River. The High Falls district had gone through entertainment renovations in the 80’s and 90’s in a failed attempt to draw people downtown. Rochester was one of few American cities with a large waterfall in the heart of downtown, restaurants and clubs opened and closed, often within the same year.
Anytime they were downtown, her father would revel in telling the story about The Yankee Leaper, Sam Patch. She knew it better than any other history lesson taught in school. Sam Patch brought notoriety to High Falls. On November 6, 1829, in front of almost eight thousand spectators, he tossed a pet bear cub over the ninety-six foot falls into the river. When he saw that the bear had made it to the shore, he leapt in after and survived. Problem was, he hadn’t made much money for the stunt. A week later, he repeated the stunt, but constructed a twenty-five foot stand. Witnesses claim that this time Patch fell from the platform before he’d been ready to jump. Rather than dive, he crashed into the water. Rumors spread that Sam Patch survived the fall and was hiding in a cave nearby enjoying the excitement his stunt created. However, in early spring the next year, his body was found frozen under ice down by Charlotte. Buried in a nearby cemetery, a board by his headstone read, “Sam Patch . . . Such is fame.”
The sky was blue, cloudless, and the sun looked like a white marble suspended over the planet. It was misleading, the niceness of the morning. She shivered in the cold and hugged her leather jacket close. Head down, she walked against the wind toward the pedestrian bridge. She wore sunglasses to block the morning glare and to protect her eyes because they felt extra sensitive to the natural sunlight.
Seaspray-blue steel railings lined both sides of the bridge. Wooden benches littered the long walkway. One man, halfway across, sat snuggled in a heavy winter coat with his hands folded in his lap. The dark knit ski hat was pulled over his ears. It could be the Butcher, but Madison wasn’t sure why she expected him to be waiting dressed in a white, blood-smeared apron.
On her right, she could see and hear the Genesee River. It was muddy brown and green, and raced over the falls. The bridge was high above the water, eye level with the crest of the falls. On weekends during the summer the city displayed a laser show on the falls and rocky gorge that ended with fireworks. She’d been there many times with her father.
The Butcher stared at her as she approached. He didn’t rise to greet her. She sat on the bench beside him. Two Styrofoam cups between them. “Are those for me?”
“I’d have brought more,” he said. “It wouldn’t be any use. This is fresh. Blood coagulates. Even if it’s refrigerated. You can add a coagulant, but I’m told the chemical spoils the taste, and ruins the nutrients your body craves.”
“So how does this work? I just keep calling you?”
Butcher sighed. His breath plumed in front of his mouth, and was swiftly taken away by the chilling breeze. “I’ll help as much as I can.”
“How do you know about this? About me?”
“What do you know?”
She just looked at him, silent. This man was a stranger, someone who had given her blood the other day, had given her his phone number, and had come out to meet with her. It didn’t make sense. She knew she should be scared, apprehensive about coming out here to ask questions, but she wasn’t.
He smiled. His eyebrows were thick and unruly and his eyes were set too close to his nose. The smile was warm, despite the hardened features. “My father was a butcher. I used to go to work with him. He had his own shop. I’d run the register. Unload delivery trucks. That kind of thing. Little by little he’d teach me his craft.
“Every once in a while this man came into the shop. He was tall, thin. Looked old to me, but when you’re a kid, someone in their thirties looks ancient,” he said. “He never bought cuts from my father, but every time he came in, my father treated him like a Gold Card customer. He’d give the guy two cups of blood.
“The man looked like you do. He had that same colorless skin.” He waved a hand around his face, his dark eyes locked on hers. “The blue veins showed through as if his flesh was transparent. He never asked for the blood, no. Their relationship had been established long before I started helping out at the store. One day, though, I worked up the courage to ask my father what that guy’s story was. I could tell my father didn’t want to get into it. Any time the exchange was made, whether I was behind the register or pushing a broom, I’d catch my father looking at me. He always had this guilty expression, like he wished I hadn’t caught him giving this guy cups of blood.”
“Did he tell you it was blood?” Madison said.
Butcher nodded. “Eventually. We went in back. He was cutting up a half cow for a customer. I always marveled at the way he used a cleaver. He was precise when he worked. He trimmed off fat and wrapped the meat up in meat package paper that made them look better than any Christmas presents I’d ever seen. So, while we’re back there, and he’s working, he tells me a story about how this man had come into the shop one day, could barely stand. My father wanted to call an ambulance, but the man begged him not to. He said he needed to drink blood; he knew he sounded like a lunatic, but it was the only thing that would help rejuvenate him.”
“And your father just gave him blood?”
“My father thought the man was crazy. He wasn’t worried about his own safety. He knew how to handle a knife, and unless the man pulled a gun and shot him, he was confident the skinny, malnourished man posed little threat. What my father did instead was ask questions.” Butcher rubbed his palms together, cupped his hands, and blew into them. “Should we walk? I’m freezing sitting still like this.”
“The blood?”
“Leave it. We’re alone on the bridge. No one will steal it from you. And if by chance someone does, I will replace them. You have my word.” His smile was kind and warmhearted. His words and his actions made her feel safe if for no reason other than he knew her secret.
At the opposite end of the bridge was the Genesee Brewing Company, a local beer factory. They walked side-by-side along the railing, the falls to their right. Butcher stuffed his hands into his coat pocket. “The man explained that he’d been at a wedding at a party house over on Jay Street. The house is gone now, but he’d met a woman, they’d had too much to drink, and went outside. They were, well, fooling around, when she bit into his neck. Not a love bite, but actually tore into his skin and started to drink his blood. He tried to fight her off, but she had some kind of power over his mind and muscles, and all he could do was stand there and let her have her way with him.”
Madison put a hand to her throat. She saw Butcher watching her and lowered her hand. “And what happened?”
“He died.”
She gasped.
“Sort of. He became what you’d call a vampire. I didn’t care for the term before. Made me think of the old black and white movies about Nosferatu. Eventually, my father gave him the blood. They sat in the cold back room where the meat hung from hooks and continued talking. He drank freshly poured blood, and my father tapped into his bottle of bourbon. The man told my father a few things. They are not easy to hear,” he said.
“But I need to know,” she said.
“Do you have a similar story?”
They stopped walking and leaned over the railing. They stared at the river water raging over the falls. Seagulls maa-cawed, swooned, and glided around.
She recounted what she knew about the night she went to the carnival, about waking up in the hospital
with little memory. “My neck was ripped open, and I’d lost a lot of blood.”
Butcher faced Madison. “I don’t see any scar.”
“It healed. There’s no mark. Nothing,” she said. “I don’t remember what happened after my friend brought me home. I guess I was found in the grass outside, half dead.”
Butcher seemed to reflect for a moment in silence. His hands were folded together, elbows on the railing, and his arms out over the river. Staring at the river, he appeared as if mesmerized by the swift current. “The man told my father that animal blood would sustain him, but just barely. He claimed that he was not a full-fledged vampire. There was only one way that the transformation could be completed, and this man had done all he could to stay the half-breed he’d become.”
Madison kept quiet. Butcher never looked away from the falls while he spoke. She knew he was working his way up to something, was almost lost in his recounting events best he remembered. His deep voice did seem to sooth her, but her mind drifted some. It was hard not to think about the blood on the bench back the way they had come. A part of her had thought it was a fluke; that wanting to drink blood had been an odd craving, perhaps caused by a concussion missed by the doctors when she had been in the hospital. Part of her knew she would always want the blood. She could not recall the last time she had eaten food. It saddened her to remember not drinking her hot cocoa last night.
Life was different now. She knew it. It was difficult to explain, even to herself, but she knew it. She felt it. Madison wanted any revelation to be good, but suspected devastation. How does one say goodbye to things like hot cocoa, steak, and McDonald’s? There were going to be worse goodbyes, but Madison refused to let those thoughts materialize inside her mind. The longer she avoided solidifying the idea, the longer she could deceive herself into some semblance of happiness.
The silence between them stretched on for what felt like an eternity; Butcher lost in his thoughts, she in her own. The sun became brighter. She squinted behind tinted UV protective lenses. The sunglasses felt less effective in direct alignment with the sun. Could the oncoming, but steady throb inside her skull be brought on by the day’s light, or her hunger?
She knew she was hungry. She preferred not to think about it. In the steady breeze, Butcher smelled only of blood. The heavily splashed on Aqua Velva was a failed mask he wore like a paper-mâché shield used to thwart off a Viking’s sword. The beating of his heart made her teeth and gums ache.
Butcher turned to face her, his side against the railing. “The man told my father the turning was completed only after consuming the blood of a human. The powers received once the turn happened are said to be amazing, and nearly limitless.”
“What powers?”
Butcher frowned. “The point was this: my father always had blood ready for this man, night or day. It is the same offer I extend to you.”
Madison looked down at the river where water moved around a kidney bean shaped island sat almost directly between the banks. Some grass was noticeable between piles of fallen leaves beneath a thin forest of bare branches of oak, birch, and sugar maples. For some odd reason the urge to jump filled her. Worse still, she felt convinced she’d not only survive the plummet, but could walk away from the fall unharmed.
“My mother’s brother, my Uncle Gary, he was an alcoholic,” she said, and closed her eyes. She saw her Uncle Gary’s face behind her eyelids. His nose was always red, his face covered in a perpetual three-day growth, and his hair unkempt, long, and greasy. The man was funny, always cracking jokes and making people laugh. “Growing up, I didn’t realize he had a drinking problem. I just always loved when he came to family picnics and birthday parties. I loved him, I did.”
“Loved him?”
“Cirrhosis of the liver. I guess he knew about it. Doctors had told him if he didn’t stop drinking it would kill him. My father told me Uncle Gary was in his mid-twenties when he was warned. You know when he tried to quit?”
Butcher shook his head. “When it was too late?”
Madison let out a short laugh. Her eyes teared up. “In the hospital. When his liver was failing. He said to me one day, ‘Maddy, I’m done. Never going to touch another drop. You have my word. I’m going to get out of here and be a brand new man.’”
“Why are you telling me this?” Butcher said.
“His funeral was June third. It was a beautiful morning. The service was at Holy Cross, on Lake Avenue.”
“I know the church,” he said.
“He was buried at Holy Sepulchre. And after they lowered my uncle into the ground, this man came up to my mother. They shook hands and he introduced himself. He said his name was Ned, or Ed. Turns out he had been Uncle Gary’s A.A. sponsor for fifteen years.” Madison brushed away tears. They felt hot against icy cold skin. She welcomed the fleeting warmth.
“That’s right, Madison. You do understand what I am saying.”
“You would be like my A.A. sponsor.”
“My father did everything he could to prevent this man from taking another human life. Being on call, he said, was the least he could do to ensure this man did not forfeit his soul.”
“Forfeit his soul?”
“There is no reason to be shy about the truth at this point. What has happened to you is unique, but not so different from trials people suffer every day,” Butcher said.
“How is that even true? I only drink blood now.”
“And you heal miraculously quick. And I bet your sight and other senses have increase dramatically?”
She hadn’t thought about it. If anything, she felt weak, drained, and more tired. She shook her head. “No. I haven’t noticed anything different.”
“In time, I suppose. In time. The choice is yours. You can take the events that have happened and use them to your advantage, try to make the best out of the situation, or succumb to the temptation and risk losing yourself forever.”
The choice was hers.
# # #
In her father’s Jeep, Madison took the hunting knife from the pocket on the driver’s side door. She removed the blade from the stitch sheath and drew the blade across her fingertip. A ball of bright blood bubbled up from where the tip pierced skin, and then a line of red oozed from the gash.
She held her finger up to her nose and sniffed. It didn’t have an odor. She put her finger into her mouth and sucked on the cut. There was more blood than she’d expected. The laceration must have been deeper than intended. She removed her finger and shook it, realizing cutting herself had been stupid.
Butcher, her new sponsor, promised to keep her supplied with animal blood. At first she worried that she would have to ration what he’d given her. Knowing she could call him night or day provided some relief. She peeled the plastic lid off one of the two cups he’d brought and drank the thick blood with relish.
After licking her lips, she set her sunglasses on her head and checked her face in the rearview mirror. The last thing she needed was to be seen with a blood mustache as if she’d just had a glass of milk or blue Kool-Aid. She ran her wrist across her lips and went back to studying her reflection. Her skin was pale, pasty. Her eyes looked bluer than they had ever been, but also they looked off.
Wrong.
Different.
The pupils were missing from both eyes. She shuffled her way closer to the mirror for a better look. She was not mistaken. The pupils were indeed gone. Behind the cornea, her irises brewed like a cyclonic storm that made her think of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
She replaced her sunglasses over her eyes. This would not be a feature she’d easily be able to hide
Before she stuck her finger into her mouth to suck at her wound, she stopped.
There was no cut. No sign of one. The laceration, like her pupils, was gone.
Chapter 9
Sunlight was diminished by rolling grey clouds, an all too common occurrence from November until March. The downside was the cold that came with it. The temperature dropped several degrees,
and wind’s bite increased. It sounded angry, howling, and whining as it crashed against, and ran alongside and between, buildings. The air was damp and heavy. Since it wasn’t cold enough to snow, it would surely rain instead.
Madison hid the extra cup of blood in her bedroom when she arrived home, thankful that her father still asleep.
Her phone rang as she walked into the kitchen. It was her mother calling. She slid a thumb across the red X to ignore the call. She touched the music icon, and play. She’d have streamed music from the television, but didn’t want to disturb her father’s sleep. She set her phone on the windowsill over the sink and swayed to the beat, adding extra bounce to her steps.
She decided in order to better ignore the three missed calls from her mother, she’d rummage through the kitchen to cook something special for her father. What she found out was that he needed to go shopping. She did not want to give up on the idea of making him an early dinner, though. She half-filled a pot with water, added salt, and set it on the stove to boil. In the cupboards she found jarred sauce. She dumped it into a pan to simmer, adding sprinkles of sugar, and Italian seasoning. The loaf of French bread on top of the fridge was the piece de résistance, she thought, and sliced it open. She covered the open face sides with butter, garlic, herbs, parsley, salt, and pepper. She found round slices of provolone from Wegmans in the fridge, and layered it over the halves of bread. She turned on the oven, set the bread on a cookie sheet, and figured she’d let it bake until the cheese melted.
A new song came on. She didn’t know the artist or the song, but it stopped her dance. She stood up straight and still. Her mouth froze open, and she stared at her phone as if it might perform some extraordinary trick.
She felt like she stood before a sandy beach. Beyond, the ocean water pulled back, reseeding from the shoreline. Madison thought she knew something scientific about the ocean removing itself from the beach. Fish flopped onto exposed coral, and erect seaweed fell limp like stringy green hair. Running would have been her best option, but she knew there wasn’t time to escape. She saw the wave rise and roll toward her with such speed and power, her demise was certain.
Young Blood: The Nightbreed Saga: Book 1 Page 7