by F. Bradshaw
The ground smelled like them. It cried out in pain as I bit down harder. I gave it what it needed. The venom I could taste as it flowed back to me with the blood. It was like adding spices to a bland mixture. The blood tasted more alive with venom in it. I could taste the grass as the cow had. I could smell the world as it had. Part of me drank in the senses of the cow. How blind I had been when it came to this. I had feared to eat, to take. No fear now.
I ran full steam toward the house dropping the cow. I needed to feel alive. I had gotten a taste, small enough to make me want more. Humans had more life in them. They were full of complicated wants and endless desires. I was so cold. Flashes of red keeping time pulled me closer to it. I could see the house I was so close. No stopping now. For the first time, I knew what it meant to be me. I was a monster to them as I would be the one eating them, same as a cow thinks of a human. Monsters we all are.
A sharp pain and a pulling on my leg held me back from what I wanted. A wolf held me by the ankle snarling at me trying to get me to stop. I tried to kick it free to move beyond it. There would be lots of time to have a snack later. I was ready for the main course. I wanted human. It would not let go. I did not have time for this, but if it wanted to die this badly, I would let it.
Turning to it, and I lunged for its neck. I was going to get free from this stupid wolf. It bit down harder. I could feel the cold dead blood running freely from my body. The wolf renewed the rage I felt. Poor wolf, it had gone after the wrong little red riding hood. This one was already dead and loved to have wolf for dinner, especially, if he already ate the granny. A fire started to pass up my leg from the wound. What did it have? Rabies or something?
I turned to it, kicking and beating it, trying to get free from its grasp. Growling and snarling, it would not let go. Blood, human blood, wetted his coat. The smell of this human blood was new to me. I could not help but to bite in. I wanted the blood. I needed the blood. The wolf screamed out in pain from my bite. My bite was worse than my bark. His voice came so softly I was struck back. Blood still called me.
“Stop. You must stop.” The voice squeaked out of the wolf as I bit into his warm flesh taking in human and wolf together.
A rush of blood into my mouth warmed my cold lips flowing down my throat warming it like none had. The mixture, the smell of it, I knew the smell. It was human but more to it. Matt. It was him. I could taste it now, the knowledge making it sweeter and more delicious.
My cold body entangled with his wolf body. He bit at me, trying to pull me off him, and yet keep me from my ultimate prize. His human blood clung to the fur. He was so warm compared to everything else I had tasted. His heartbeat quickened our dance. His breathing becoming more labored excited me. He was getting what he deserved. He tied me to the fence and sliced me open. I was going to be on his dinner menu but now he was mine.
“Please.” Begging from a dog, he only excited me more.
Each new bite and tear tried to claim the other. Both of us battled for control of the other. I wanted him dead. He unleashed me, and now he begs for his life? How weak. I would never go back. I would never let myself be weak again. Why had I feared this? What was so bad about being whom I had become? The need was simple. The moon drifted from us to its own bed. Blood mixed upon the ground black and red swirling into each other.
I licked the blood as it flowed from him, trying to pull it into me. So warm, so alive. His heart beating out of his chest, and he tried to keep me at bay. I was unrelenting darkness. His fur ripped apart from him. I tore away the flesh with each bite. Human skin lay underneath red, raw, and new. I tore into it with his screams now calling out to whoever could hear. He could not fight me off. I was stronger.
The hunger took me to him, but the rage kept me there. He had done this. He asked for it. There was no part of me that could be human anymore. How could there be? As the sun rose, the ground became ablaze with the red and black mixed color. Each color fighting to be seen more than the other, but the blackness kept sweeping over it. A smell on the wind carried to me softly, but there under the remnants of the wolf were bits of man.
Ryan was coming to aid Matt. He was still alive, or someone was wearing a lot of him. I kept tearing into Matt. He could not, in his human skin win this fight, nor could he survive it. There would be nothing left of this place but darkness and death. I would drink it dry. Matt’s heartbeat was slowing from its quick pace. He was not going to be fighting much longer.
Ryan’s heartbeat so near to me. I could smell him as he came. He had wanted me to become this, and now I would be his end. Matt was too easy of a kill, now his weakened body barely able to hold me. There would be no surrender from him, and I knew that. He wanted to go out fighting, but what better treatment then to leave him begging for it. Matt would wish I had finished what I started.
Ryan drew near calling out my name. How sweet that he thought that I was the one in trouble. Too bad he was too late. I had shed the tattered bits I had of my humanity to be free. Unrelenting in my quest to feel warm to take what I could to feed the darkness growing inside he would be next. I could see as he came over the hill heading toward me. All I could see was the heart beating in his chest. There was nothing else.
Matt tried to hold fast to me. He did not want to let go. Did he really want me to finish him that badly? Enjoyment at my victory over him completed me. That part of me that I had hid from everyone was free. No one could help as all I wanted was my natural desires to be filled. I wanted blood. I needed blood. Human blood would be the most delicious. I could take them. No one would really miss them. It would be for the better of me. The air was rich with blood. Ryan stopped. He was a good distance from me. If that mutt would let go, I could get to him easily. I needed him to come closer. As much as I did not want to admit, he had gotten in some good bites.
“Help me, Ryan,” I called out in a weak and meager voice. He would come. He would want to be the knight in shining armor. I tried to hide my smile as best I could. He started to come to me.
“No don’t. Run and get out of here. I needed to get her to snap out of it,” Matt called to him. Who would he believe, the weapon or me?
“Ryan, please help me, Matt is killing me.” I sounded so weak and helpless that he could not resist. I let my body appear loose and less ridged. He would come to me. He would try to save me from the big bad wolf.
But I was the one in sheep’s clothing waiting to take what I wanted. He could not see my face, how would he know the difference? Ryan drew closer, and I let Matt look like he was winning. He would give me all I wanted. Matt tore at my wrist. Ryan ran closer. I could feel his heartbeat almost tasting it. It pulsed through the ground.
Ryan. The taste of his flesh and feeling of his body on mine reminded me faintly of him. He had been the person I felt something for. He had looked into the darkness beneath my skin. He wrapped me in his arms holding death close to him. Matt was the one I wanted to kill. There was nothing good left in me. The choices had always been to keep him alive. I had made that promise to never go there. Hunger bit into me. It called me like the singing of his heart. Wild and rampageous had been my nature when set free.
Monster.
I was a monster.
This is what I was supposed to do. I could feel Ryan’s mouth on mine, and his fingers trailing down my spine in a circular motion. Ryan was not touching me, but I wanted him to as his green eyes looked into mine while I sank into his flesh. I stood wobbly toward him.
Matt grabbed and smashed me into the ground. Dawn breaking over the horizon. I did not have much time. Ryan would see the change in the light. I needed to kill him now and end all of this. The connection needed to end. I would be released from my prison. Nothing would hold or contain me any longer.
Matt kept hitting me and biting me. Did he think he could stop me? Did he think he would win? Broken and bleeding, my black blood covered Matt.
He was soaked through in my darkness. The blood fell from him back onto me like thick ink. Ryan was
almost close enough. He would be by my side any second. There would be no surrender to that weakness of him. I would take what is mine, what has been mine since he helped them. I was so hungry, and Matt had kept himself at bay, away from my waiting teeth.
Chapter 24
“Emily, listen to me. Stop. Don’t. Do. This. You. Won’t. Come. Back.” Matt grunted out trying to keep me held down.
He had hoped that the dawn would show who I was. I could not stop now. The world would be still and silent. It would become lifeless and dead. I was just so hungry that I did not care. Humans could never see the world like this. They lived in their time, counting minutes. I counted heartbeats, driven by impulse.
I was alive more than I had ever been. What blood I had of Matt’s made me warm. I could not give up this. I had to keep going. World be damned and me along with it, always had been. My mother was right as usual.
“No.”
I was not going to be caged into a human like existence. Darkness, take me. That is what I wanted. It was so easy to let it take control. I would no longer be bound by their rules and laws. I would be truly free. Matt reached to his own neck and cut it open. The blood at first slowly dripped to me rather than a steady stream. The smell of warmth and everything.
I could not control myself. I bit into him. I was so close to having Ryan, as well. He could not out run me. I drank greedily from his self-induced wound. Human blood, but more to it the under taste of his changed blood added a spice of earthiness. I could feel him as his body flowed to me. There was more being transferred than just his warmth. Pieces of him flowed into me. Years of heartbeats could have passed as I felt him. He was just as broken and twisted as I was. Peace. He felt like peace to me, so quiet. What had I done?
His body grew lifeless and cold like mine. His heart was not dancing now. It begged for each beat and cried out to let go. The dawn broke over the horizon of the hill showing my true self to Ryan. Darkness covered both of us. Flesh and fur littered the ground. My body welcomed him to its cold embrace. I could be free. Just a little more and there is nothing left of her. I won’t be the weak and powerless Emily. He was so peaceful. There was no anger drifting from him, just peace. I never wanted it to end. To be wrapped into his arms, to have the peace from him.
“Emi…” He tried to speak, but he could not hold on any longer.
He fell into unconsciousness. I somehow was not able to resist the urge. I closed my eyes. His peace was my peace just as my darkness was becoming his. My body became heavy and unmoving. Sleep. There was finally peace in me. My body gave into his. Both of us feeling dead, and he was nearly there. I could not fight what I felt coming from him as it was a wave of emotion that I could not shut off or shut down.
My darkness could not win in spite of its trial. I could not break from Matt even though he was pulling me into his death. The red sky burned my eyes through the blood. I was left helpless. I could not break away from Matt, and I could not let myself kill him. I was no longer lost in my darkness. I was caged in a human existence, and now I was dying with Matt. My only thought was to keep him alive. He had already changed once with blood. Could he do it again? Every part of my will is what it took me to release the bite I had. He would take me with him if he died. I knew that he knew that in doing what he did, it would cost him his life and possibly mine.
I tore the healing wound from my wrist dosing it with my venom. I did not know if this would work or even if this was how it was done. I put my wrist to his mouth, but he would not take it. He could not take it. I sucked the blood and venom from my wrist and kissed him, pushing the mixture into him. I was not sure what venom I had used since I had never tried to get it before that moment.
He was already changed. That is what I had to keep telling myself. If he lived, well, re-lived, then I would be alive. If he died, I could, too. I was unable to break the connection. I pushed his weak half-dead body backward wrapping my arms around him holding him near.
Blackness and half-mangled flesh and fur clung to him. My darkness, the demon that lived in me had taken on a new life that night. She had almost killed everything including me. I could never give into anything like that again, or I would not survive. I held him close as his heartbeat was still fading. Ryan ran to me, and I could only push him away. I cried into Matt.
Let this work. Let him live.
His wounds had started to heal like mine only much slower. The change that took him gave him the same healing only not enough. He was going to die, and the monster in me had left me to be here for it. It left me to be the one that felt death. The ground soaked thick with my blood mixed with his.
Just let him live some sort of life, even a half-life.
This is what they had wanted me to do all along, and I had given it to them. I did what they wanted, but it was useless. His body was growing colder. There were no screams of pain. There was nothing but the silence of his fading heart and quiet breaths. It was entirely my fault. I had asked the universe for this. I cursed the world, and now it would come back to me. Killer.
No changing that. If he died, I would be the cause. Yes, there was reason to do it, but I should have been the one, not the darkness in me. I wiped some of the blood from his face. His face was a streaking mess of fur, his blood, and mine. I looked up to Ryan, and the breaking dawn, still clinging to Matt. The look I had waited for was there. Ryan truly could see what I was. Matt was fading, but Ryan would not move closer again. Thump, thump, quick, quick, slow. Time wore slowly. I felt so bound to him. He was not dead yet, but he was dying. His heartbeat weak, and soon would be gone.
“I have Emily and Matt on the north side. I have the situation under control, and I do not require you.” Ryan radioed back to the others.
They would come soon enough. The world smelled like my blood and his. Everything around us fell into silence. Death settled in the air like an old friend. It was my only friend and had always been. I listened only for the beating of Matt’s heart. Tears filled my eyes the darkness pouring out of me onto him. I dammed us both.
I held him close to me as though I could provide him with anything. I was dead and ice cold. My hands trembled holding him close. I did not need air, but I tensed holding it in. I held it, waiting for a release. I could feel my body still called to him. Matt’s body was still so warm. Most of the bleeding had stopped. I assumed that the blood was almost gone. I had failed. I could not turn anyone.
I clenched him tighter. The warmth of the day came and went with the sun. The setting sun to my back dry, sticky, black blood clung to us both. Matt had not taken a breath for some time. I tuned out everything. I could not listen for the last beat of his heart. If I did, I would die with him. I wanted to go back before this all began. I wanted to be warm and curled up in bed. I wanted the nightmare to never happen. I did not want my wish to come true anymore. I would happily settle for just Jessie and me alone in the house with my pain. That is what I deserved. This was a worse Hell.
Chapter 25
I could see it. I could feel it. My mind wandered back home, back to where I was free. The wild flowers covering the gravel drive. The way they swayed in the cool breeze in spring. They would be undisturbed. I would not be there tearing through them to park my truck. The sway of the lawn as the wind rolled through it, not breaking, just bending to the other’s needs.
I missed the sound of the wind rolling through the oak trees dropping the small leaves to the ground. The ashen color of the bark of the knotted trees with their branches dipping back and forth still in my view. I missed the smell of the pond out back. Every time the wind blew, it would pick up the smell of water and roses. How precious that life had been and yet gone now. It was gone forever. It was the fleeting moment in my past.
Matt was going to disappear just like the life I had. The life I threw away. I wanted him to live. No matter what he did, he did not deserve to be torn apart by my darkness, by my demons. I could not let him slip into the darkness of emptiness. Not alone. Matt could not face the
darkness by himself. I listened for his heartbeat. I would let him take me with him on that journey. This may be the only time I would come this close to death. Quick, quick, slow. His heart was dancing?
No darkness here. We were alive. His heartbeat, although slow and shallow, was there. No one else existed here but us. The sun was gone, and moonlight dripped on us. His breath barely escaped his lips. It was as though he was whispering trying for no one to hear. This was his moment. He was close to death, and yet life was still there. Had what I done worked? Was he turned into something worse? He would live, but what would he become?
I gathered his torn, shredded body wrapped in my arms. He would be the one to keep me from my darkness. He would keep me from being what they wanted. Matt would live but at what cost? I rose to my feet holding him close to me. Ryan tried to take Matt from me. I kicked him away. He would not touch him. No one would touch him. Matt was mine.
It was an instinct I did not know I would feel. I wanted to protect him more than to have Ryan. Matt was mine, and no one would take him from me. The feeling rushed over me like a tsunami hitting the beach for the first time. I could either fall to my knees or run. Running was the easy way. I could just let go and run. Learning to let someone in is hard. When you let them in, they see all the parts, even the bad, dark, and cold parts of you.
Matt had done everything in his power to keep me from being the monster I was. I walked toward the house. I would keep him no matter what. He was still so warm to the touch. His skin had not cooled from my body. I kept him close to me. His fate would be the same as mine. We were bonded. His connection to me was stronger. Even in his current position, I still felt his desire to dominate me. I did not buck at the feeling this time.