Blood Winter

by S. J. Coles

  She caught my eye and smiled at her companion. “One moment,” she said and we stepped out of earshot. “I’m so sorry, Alec. I had no idea it was going to be a Blood Party. I swear.”

  “Not just a Blood Party,” I breathed. “They’ve got a living haemophile tied up in the basement.”

  She winced. “I thought only the dealers kept donors. I’m sorry, Alec. I didn’t know.”

  “I believe you,” I said, staring over the gathering with a mixture of bewilderment and growing revulsion.

  “It’s not as bad as some of the things we went to back in the day,” she said softly, like she was trying to convince herself. “At least no one here’s gonna OD.”

  “And the thing they’re torturing downstairs?”

  “No one’s bothered,” she said softly, gazing around the room.

  “Aren’t you bothered?”

  She swallowed. “Olivia said if it wasn’t down there, secure, Blood or no Blood, it would be out at large somewhere, killing people.”

  “That sounds like something she’s read in The Sun.”

  “Or something she tells herself to justify all this.”

  “Oh no,” I said, looking over at Ogdell’s sister, one arm draped around her husband’s shoulder, the other around Brody as she mouthed at his neck. “I don’t think she feels the need to justify anything.”

  Meg followed my gaze to see Brody tilting Olivia’s head back and kissing her feverishly. I felt sick.

  “He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Meg said quickly. “He’s high, Alec. That’s all.”

  The threesome got up and went to the door, Brody throwing me a long glance over his shoulder before closing it behind them.

  “I’m sorry,” Meg said again, putting her drink down. “Shall we leave? I’ve not had too much to drink. I think I could drive.”

  I lifted a curtain and gazed moodily out onto the snow spiraling through the air and the branches of the trees thrashing in the wind. “We can’t go anywhere in this.”

  “Christ,” she said, looking over my shoulder. “If this keeps up, we mayn’t even be able to leave tomorrow.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” I stated, “even if I have to walk.”

  She tactfully did not point out that we’d not brought boots or coats or anything suitable for hiking through the mountains on a good day, let alone in the snow. I accepted a glass of whisky from the butler and chose one of the chairs away from the remaining guests. Meg sat with me to start but was eventually drawn away by a man who Olivia had said was an actor from television, and a fresh glass of champagne. She appeared to relax a little.

  I could not. The longer the party went on, the more I found it unnerving and inexplicable that anyone else could smile, laugh or fuck, as those upstairs were undoubtedly doing, knowing what was in the basement.

  I accepted another glass of whisky and wondered again if I was the weird one. Haemophiles weren’t human. Everyone agreed on that much. I ate meat and drank milk. In the online debates, some argued that there was no difference between that and drinking Blood, except that it was now illegal, of course. On paper, anyway.

  Clem got twitchy whenever the reports of conflict and tension, sometimes violence, came on the radio. The unsolved murder of Shelly Morris had been in the papers for months. I only got my impressions of the wider world from Meg, but she’d implied that people were being more careful with what they said since a few charges of human-on-haemo harassment, slander and assault had been successfully tried in court. But the general feeling of abhorrence-tinged-with-fear was just as dense now as it had been when haemophiles had first emerged from their secluded communes and announced their existence to the world.

  I’d always told myself it would never touch me at Glenroe. It was yet another ugly reality to separate myself from. But reality, I was coming to realize, always had a way of catching up.

  I decided I had to see it again. If I could look at it as they looked at it, as a thing, I might at least be able to make it through the night without going crazy. Meg had disappeared off somewhere with the handsome actor. Brody was still upstairs with Olivia and her husband.

  I was unsure how I felt about that, beyond the obvious. The alcohol and rich food layered over the prickly sense of unease created a tangle of emotion that was quite complicated enough without adding wounded pride and jealousy.

  I put down my glass and slipped from the room. The corridors were unnervingly quiet, the only sound the storm gathering force outside, like a monster roaring in the distance. I found the security door and stared at the keypad dumbly. I was only just getting my head around my stupidity when I heard footsteps and laughter down the corridor.

  I ducked through the nearest door, discovered a coat closet bigger than my bedroom and pulled the door to. Through the gap I watched Ogdell approach and key the code in, Olivia, disheveled and swaying slightly, at his heels. Her husband, Matthew, came just behind her, gazing around with dazed fascination.

  “No more tonight, Jon. I mean it. You’ll kill it,” Olivia said.

  “Relax,” he drawled, pushing the door open. “The bastard’s still got plenty of juice.”

  Olivia’s spluttering protests were cut off when the security door shut in her face. She glared at the metal before her husband guided her back down the corridor. I held my breath. Ogdell re-emerged with more shot glasses filled with red-black Blood and sauntered off, humming to himself. I darted out just in time to catch the door before it closed. It was utterly dark on the stairwell. When my feet hit flat ground, the illumination from the machines allowed me to find a light switch.

  The haemophile’s face was turned to the wall. Its shallow breathing rasped behind the mask. My throat closed. Despite the perfect environment controls, I felt cold.

  I made myself move closer. In pictures, the ones that weren’t artificially enhanced by the tabloids, haemophiles resembled people—people who perhaps hadn’t seen much sun and with something about the depths of their eyes and the fine lines of their faces and bodies that wasn’t quite right. But this living skeleton seemed like nothing that could be real, nothing possibly alive. Every slope and angle of its skull was evident through the paper-white skin. Its hands were curled rigid like birds’ talons. Its fingernails were neat, perfect, translucent and sharp as claws. Its hair was impossibly fine. Even in its matted and dirty state, it looked like it would be soft to touch. A ripped and stained jumper and jeans hung off the wasted frame, looking utterly surreal, like someone had dressed a skeleton in cast-offs from a charity bin.

  The machines hummed and bleeped. With growing alarm, I became aware that the creature’s ragged breathing was getting shallower. The pulse meter on the machine was barely registering a heartbeat. I stood frozen, not knowing whether I should do anything or whether I could, even as I realized Olivia was right and it was surely dying.

  The head rolled toward me. The eyelids flickered then opened a slit. I caught the tiniest glimpse of large pupils, blacker than night, before they fluttered closed again. Its hands trembled. A harsh noise came from behind the mask. Its chest rattled as it pulled in another breath then made the noise again. It was trying to speak. My hands trembled but I reached out, fumbled the fastening of the mask open and gently pulled it free. The creature gagged as a blood-stained tube slipped from its throat. It took a huge breath, opening a very red mouth filled with teeth, surely more than any human had, wickedly sharp and white. I stared, unable to look away and, for the first time, felt fear. It opened its eyes. The whites were bloodshot. The pupils were so large and so black that they were like holes into space. The irises were shrunk to next to nothing, but I could still see they were a luminescent shade of silver unlike anything I’d ever seen in any living creature.

  “Kill…me…” Its voice was raw, cracked, but I heard the words loud and clear. Its gaze flickered to the handgun on the wall. I couldn’t move. Icy water flowed through my veins. “Please…” it rasped. The bloodshot eyes bored into mine. The terrifying mouth hun
g open as it struggled to breathe. Then its deep, pained eyes slid closed again. The hands went slack.

  I looked around hopelessly. The pathetic bleep of the pulse meter petered to nothing and was replaced by a whining alarm. I froze, waiting for someone to open the security door and come running, but nothing happened.

  The alarm whined on. I retrieved a pouch of blood before I had time to think.

  “Will this help?” I asked in a shaky voice. The haemophile didn’t answer. It hadn’t moved again. I stared at the bag of blood in my hand for a long moment, only coming back to reality when I registered that the haemo was no longer breathing. I swore, twisted the plastic release on the blood bag and held the opening to its mouth. A small amount spilled across its cracked lips, looking very red against the pallid skin. I started to shake, feeling very unwell. Nothing happened.

  A powerful mix of terror, revulsion and humiliation churned in my gut, but then the creature’s mouth opened. Swallowing a bad taste in my mouth, I tipped the bag to let the blood flow. It swallowed. Color suffused its face. Its whole body shuddered. It drank deep, long swallows, the muscles of its throat moving sinuously. The alarm stopped and the pulse meter started bleeping again. The pale eyelids flickered. It rattled its restraints.

  I watched the pulse indicator grow stronger and heard its breathing steady. I stepped back, realizing, too late, that the bag was empty. I held my breath, but the creature just lay there, its tension and pain visibly eased. I couldn’t decide if it was a trick of the light or whether its appearance had altered. It was still pale, but now it had the coloring of someone naturally fair, rather than the sickly gray of someone close to death. It looked—he, I suddenly realized with a shock—looked more real.

  I was hunting for somewhere to hide the depleted pouch when the haemophile shifted, straining against the restraints so hard that they creaked. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I was backing away when I heard the door open and footsteps on the stairs.

  “I knew you’d change your mind,” Brody said as he joined me, his smile wide, hair mussed and pupils huge, until his glance slid to the trolley and the empty blood bag on the floor. All the color drained from his cheeks.

  “Shit,” he swore. “What did you do?” One of the restraints snapped. Brody wore again and pushed me toward the stairs. “For fuck’s sake, run.”

  It all happened so quickly. One second I was making for the stairs, my heart in my mouth. The next there was the groan of protesting metal, a blood-chilling cry and Brody was screaming.

  I froze with my hand on the bannister. Brody was on the ground, the haemophile on top of him, hands digging into his arms so hard that the fingernails were slicing through his shirt and into his flesh. Its face was buried in his neck, just under his ear. Its white hair was stained red. Brody was yelling, choking as blood bubbled from his mouth. It pooled on the floor. He slipped in it trying to scrabble backward. His screams grew weaker and his struggles slowed. His body stiffened then went limp.

  I tasted bile in my mouth. I still couldn’t move. The haemophile straightened, its mouth wide open, taking the deep breaths of a drowning man breaching the surface. Blood stained its face and throat and blackened the front of its clothing. Its eyes were closed in ecstasy, the lines of its face slack with pleasure. It was gripping Brody’s body so hard that I heard bone crack.

  It opened its eyes. There was a horrible, confused moment when it took in the sight of Brody in its grip, blood-soaked and unmoving, a gaping wound oozing in his neck. Horror filled its face. Then its gaze fell on me.

  I tried to run but my muscles had no strength. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I could smell Brody’s blood. I could smell his terror and my own. I could smell his urine. Silver-gray eyes, clear, pale and sharper than knives, pinned me to the wall.

  The muted sound of laughter through the ceiling broke the spell. The haemophile shoved Brody’s body away and reached for me. Adrenaline finally released my limbs. I dashed for the stairs, but it was too fast. Hands like vises closed on my arm and neck, the grip so tight it choked off my attempts to yell. Nails dug into my skin. Hot breath smelling like copper brushed over my face.

  “Struggle and I’ll have to kill you.” The voice was low. Smooth. It was a young man’s voice, lilting with a Scandinavian accent, sharpened with an edge of something powerful and barely contained. “Move. Slowly.”

  I blinked until I could focus. I took a step. Then another. The haemophile’s body pressed against my back, his hands bruisingly strong. My breath dragged in and out of my restricted throat with a noise like someone gasping out their last.

  The corridor was empty. I tried to call out but the haemophile tightened his grip, his nails breaking the skin. Blood trickled down my neck and I couldn’t breathe. He let me choke until the world started to go gray, then moved me onward.

  Ogdell, Olivia and her husband emerged from the sitting room just as we reached the front door. They froze, their eyes widening, the smiles fleeing their faces quicker than the lightning flashing through the windows.

  “Stay back.” The haemophile’s voice wasn’t loud, but everyone winced. Matthew Ogdell-Paige swore under his breath. Olivia pressed a thin hand to her suddenly bloodless mouth. Karlsson appeared behind Olivia, took in the scene and turned white.

  “Stanley!” Ogdell called. “Stanley, the shotgun!”

  The haemophile snarled and wrenched open the door. I yelled and tried to break away, but it was too strong, nearly yanking my arm from its socket as it dragged me into the night.

  “Follow and he dies.” His shout was almost lost in the rushing wind as we bowled into the blizzard. I was blinded, bruised and dizzied, sliding in the snow. He tumbled me into the passenger seat of Meg’s Mazda and slammed the door. There was a snap as he broke off the handle. The driver’s door opened, allowing another gust of freezing wind to blast in, then he was pulling the dash apart with his bare hands.

  I rattled the interior handle uselessly. I tried elbowing the glass but there was a cough and sputter, the engine roared and we were speeding off into the dark with no headlights. The sports car slid and scudded over the icy road, already a foot-deep in snow. The gale-force wind caught the side and buffeted it toward the ditch. The haemophile heaved the wheel over and we skidded back onto the road. I fought down vomit as we raced blindly into the storm.

  He had a death-grip on the wheel, his knuckles standing out white, flooring the accelerator. His face was a grisly mask in the blue light from the dash, smeared in blood, his black eyes hollow and huge.

  “Stop,” I yelled the second I had breath. “Stop.” He bared his carnivore teeth and jerked the wheel. We skidded around a corner, the back wheel crunching into the stones at the side of the road. “You’ll kill us both.”

  He made a low noise like a growl and jerked the wheel over to skid around another corner. I was flung against the car door with bruising force. I clutched the overhead handle so hard it hurt.

  “If you’re going to kill me, do it now. Get it over with.”

  The haemophile screamed. It started a low grumble in the back of his throat then rose to a keening cry. He whipped the wheel over. The car groaned and crunched, climbing the verge and ramming something with head-snapping force. My vision swam and I tasted blood in my mouth. By the time I could see straight, the driver’s door was hanging open and the haemophile was gone. I fought down vomit and clutched my head, trying to make it stop spinning.

  Slowly, I became aware of a sound over the wind. Someone crying out. Great, long, mournful cries like an animal being tortured rent the air, stabbing ice to the center of my soul. I fumbled for the headlight control. Ten feet away, at the edge of the pool of light, the bent form of the haemophile knelt in the snow, head in his hands, swaying back and forth. A painful mix of emotions tightened my chest.

  I shook my head, knowing I wouldn’t get another chance, and clambered over the gearbox and out of the driver’s door. My heart clamored behind my ribs and the freezing air burned
in my lungs. I tried to run but stumbled onto my hands and knees in the freezing snow and vomited copiously. When there was nothing left, my head was pounding, my hands stinging and every inch of me shuddering violently.

  “Get back in.”

  I blinked in the stinging wind. The haemophile stood over me, skin and hair glowing white in the headlights, making his blood-blackened clothing seem even darker. I scrambled away, but I was pained and dizzy and the haemophile had no trouble heaving me up by the armpits and crushing me back into the car. I cursed him, struck out, kicked, but he sshoved me into the passenger seat like I was nothing more than a toddler having a tantrum.

  “Bastard,” I swore. “Sick bastard. You better let me go or—”

  He flung the car into reverse. It crunched free of the damaged wall, engine emitting pained coughs, screaming when he pressed the accelerator. He’d wiped his face and hands clean with snow. The ends of his long, pale hair dripped with melt. His flesh had filled into the normal, smooth lines of a healthy, if slim, adult. The eyes were no longer sunken. His hands were less like claws, even if he did grip the steering wheel tight enough for the bones to stand out like cables under his skin.

  If he hadn’t been wearing the torn sweatshirt still soaked in Brody’s blood, I would have sworn it was a different man—a wild-looking, terrifying and dangerous man, but a man nonetheless.

  My body shook from cold and coursing adrenaline. I forced my voice to be level. “If you don’t want to eat me, what the hell do you want with me?”

  He didn’t answer. Something inside me snapped and I snarled and grabbed for him. I had no idea what I was planning, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He seized my wrist and twisted it. I strained against the grip, felt something give and cried out.