by Stead, Nick
The nightmares were worsening.
I padded through the building, a shadow in the night. Whether my body was human or wolf I didn’t know, but the stench of death was thick in my nostrils, calling me to the hunt. A trail of crimson spots led me onward, each one fresh and glistening on the cold white tiles. My mouth watered at the sight of them, my breath steaming out before me, measured and slow at first, but quickening with excitement when the trail became heavier, the promise of prey nearer.
The world around me was quiet, the silence interrupted only by the hum of the refrigerators. There would be no one to interrupt this meal, the only company in the building never to speak again. I quickened my pace.
Blood had pooled in the next room, vast quantities of it. It was everywhere – on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet, and even in the back of my throat. More drool spilled over my lips, my hunger rising.
A glimpse of movement slid into the edge of my vision and I glanced at the shapes hidden beneath white cloth, dozens of them, all lying on the tables around me. They remained still and unmoving, and I turned my attention back to the crimson pool, noticing movement from within the puddle now.
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.
More blood pumped from the torn tubes and spilled onto the floor, the puddle growing larger by the second. Here was my prize. I moved forward to take it, feeling a shiver of delight to find the heart slimy and warm to the touch, despite the coolness of the air around us. It almost slipped from my hands then, almost escaped.
A noise broke the silence. I spun round, the organ still in my grasp, still beating. There was a little girl standing before me, 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 poured from it, strands of torn muscle and sinew hanging down like wet, ragged cloth. I could see a section of her spine towards the back, in the space where her heart should have been, framed by broken ribs and the two lungs on either side. I could even see the arteries and veins that should have been attached to the organ in my hands, 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 began to sit up, the sheets falling away to reveal every victim I had taken, all asking for the return of their missing body parts.
The heart fell from my shaking hands and I covered my ears, trying to drown out their voices. They were getting to their feet, shuffling forward like zombies. A scream tore from my throat and they closed in…
I awoke drenched in cold sweat, shaking uncontrollably as I fought to banish the gruesome images from my mind. What disturbed me most about this particular 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 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 we became one would that be the end of my humanity? Would I kill every time hunger struck? Would I crave raw flesh – human flesh – even more than the wolf did at present? I shuddered at the thought of it.
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.
People’s worry for me grew. Even my teachers noticed, Mrs Redgewell pulling me out of her IT lesson to talk one day.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Nick? You don’t look well.”
There was deep concern etched in her kindly face and I knew I should be grateful to see she cared, but I could only laugh with bitterness at her words. What the hell did I say? 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 don’t look fine. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong? I just want to help you.”
“No, I’m fine, just feeling a bit sick.”
She gave me a sad, disbelieving look, but obviously knew she couldn’t force her help on me, so she led me back into the classroom and I returned to my seat, somehow feeling worse for it. My loneliness gaped wider.
Friends were no longer content to leave me alone. David was still mourning Fiona and hadn’t really noticed anything, but the others had.
I could feel Lizzy’s eyes on me from the moment I entered the Graphics room. Unable to meet her gaze, I kept my head down as I walked over to the table and sat, staring at the wooden surface.
“When are you gonna stop pretending you’re okay and tell me what’s wrong, Nick?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Her hand gripped my arm, like she thought that would make me look at her. “Stop lying to me – something’s up.”
“I’m fine!” I growled, pulling myself free.
There was more hurt in her voice but she wouldn’t let it go. “You’ve been different ever since that Saturday morning I bumped into you in town. You know you can trust me. I’ll keep your secrets for you.”
She didn’t know how much I longed to share my burden with her then, even more than the first time she’d asked. She could tell me it hadn’t been my fault – that the wolf was the killer, not me – and ease my conscience. I needed that more than I knew.
“I’m fine,” I repeated.
“You’re not fine. Come on, Nick, you can tell me.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing to tell. I just want to be left alone, okay?”
Finally she gave up, but she kept eyeing me for the rest of the lesson. That began to grate on my nerves. And what if I did tell her? Would she be afraid of me? Would she sell me out to the Slayers?
No. I didn’t really believe she’d do that, no matter what I did. Would she even believe me? She might think I’d gone insane, or that I was making up some bullshit story to avoid telling her the real truth. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t talk to her, no matter how much I wanted to.
The depression became too much. Dad decided we needed a nice family meal to cheer us all up after school, but the only way I was going was in a body bag.
“Are you not part of this family? You’re coming and that’s final.”
“I’m not well again, Dad. Please, if I go I’m only gonna throw up.”
He opened his mouth to argue but Mum stepped in. “Leave him be, John. If he doesn’t want to go we shouldn’t make him.”
Dad shook his head and turned away. Mum was looking at me with more concern and I ran up to my room before she could threaten another doctor’s appointment. I passed Amy on the stairs, her eyes red from crying. She looked like she didn’t want to eat out either, but she didn’t argue, allowing Dad to shepherd her into the car.
I waited till I’d heard them drive off, before going back down to the kitchen, my eyes falling on the bread knife at the side of the sink.
And so finally it had come to this.
I should have died the night I was cursed, should have died and not come back. I felt I had been living on borrowed time, stolen even, taken from every victim I’d killed. So I picked up the knife, still wet from being washed, and held it over my wrist.
Its blade caught the light, shining with that freshly cleaned look. I wanted to feel the metal slice into my flesh, watch the blood spill out from the wound. I could almost see the life flowing in the blue tubes under my skin. Would anybody grieve for me? Probably not. Nobody mourns the death of a monster.
The knife began to shake as I willed myself to do it, willed myself to end this cursed l
ife that had been thrust upon me. Was I afraid? Possibly. I was certainly angry. So what was stopping me from committing this one last sin?
I imagined myself going ahead with it, dulling the blade which would fall from my hand. I watched myself fall to my knees, clutching my wrist as my life pumped onto the floor, pooling and congealing. But it looked like it would be too slow, so I brought the knife up to my throat, imagining slitting that too, so deep the wind pipe severed and the blood sprayed 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 spin and the way it would all turn black as my life faded. And I imagined my family finding my corpse lying on the kitchen floor, crying over me while others celebrated. The nightmare would be over, the town safe for good.
There my life would have ended, 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 collapsed beside it, crying and screaming with the pain from my mental wounds.
And so I could not live and yet I could not die. Why couldn’t I do it? I believe it was the image of my family’s grief. I couldn’t do that to them, not after the suffering I’d already brought by killing Mel. No matter how my conscience tried to tell me it would be better for everyone in the long run, I just couldn’t bring myself to inflict more pain on the people I loved.
I really needed someone to talk to then. But who was there, other than the vampires? No one. So I fled the house and ran to the cemetery.
The vampires’ voices carried across the tombstones, and I silently thanked anyone who might be listening that they were home.
“You can bring me as many books as you like, Vincent – it will not change my mind. I simply fail to see what enjoyment there is to be had in this modern literature.”
“That’s because you’re still stuck in the fourteenth century. Don’t you find these stories exciting?”
“No. It is a mockery of our kind and you should be ashamed of yourself for wasting your time on them.”
“I suppose you’re right, this one isn’t the best take on a vampire tale they’ve ever come up with. They’re not all bad though. That last bookworm I fed on was carrying some great novels around with her – almost got caught out in the sun with one of them, it was that good!”
They were in the mausoleum that night, each sitting on a coffin. The offending book lay by the wall where it had clearly been tossed aside. I barely gave it a second glance, too depressed to care about the title.
“Ah, Nick. Perhaps you can offer a more cultured view on the works of fiction?” Lady Sarah said, smiling. But her smile withered when she saw the look in my eyes, turning into the expression of concern I raised wherever I went. “What has happened?”
So I told them about everything I’d gone through since Halloween. Lady Sarah proved to be about as understanding as I’d expected, her concern turning to puzzlement. Vince felt oddly distant. His eyes took on a faraway look again and I wondered if he was remembering his own struggle to adapt in the early days of his vampirism. A grimace flickered across his features. Old wounds reopened? My despair dragged me down to a new low. If that pain still haunted him after so many centuries, what chance did I have?
“You cannot stop yourself from killing now – it is in your nature,” Lady Sarah answered when I’d finished. “You have to learn to adapt, otherwise you will not survive. The Slayers will hunt you down.”
“There has to be something I can do. I can’t live like this, knowing I’ve taken lives and the pain I’ve caused their families. There has to be some way to stop the wolf hunting people.” A thought occurred to me and I felt a faint glimmer of hope. “What about your power to hypnotise people – can’t you put me under your spell to calm the rage and stop the craving for humans?”
She gave me a sad smile. “I am sorry, Nick, but this is who you are now. Even both mine and Vincent’s powers combined are no match for the moon and its hold over you. Now if you will excuse me, I have yet to feed tonight.”
My hopes crushed, I turned to Vince. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to hunt as well?”
His expression had warmed again and I felt more in the way of sympathy radiating from him. “I am still hungry, but I can wait a while before I take any more blood. Come, let’s walk.”
“You looked like you were remembering some bad shit while I was talking about my own problems,” I said, following him out of the mausoleum. The tombstones felt like silent spectators as we passed through them, looking on with disapproval at the two beings who had escaped their own graves. I tried not to think about the bodies I had sent here.
“Yes. It is hard at first – you still feel human, I understand that. But 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 shook my head and looked away, annoyed to hear him saying similar to Lady Sarah. But then he elaborated on his own experience, if only a little.
“I do remember my first night as a vampire. Do you think I wanted to kill?”
That drew my gaze back to him, desperation making me search his face for the kindred spirit I sorely needed.
“Of course I didn’t,” he continued. “I didn’t want to feed on humans any more than you do, but the thirst for blood was so strong. People died because of me – are still dying because of me – just as they are because of you. I have learnt to live with it, but it took time. It’ll be the same for you.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I said.
He shrugged. “I could use my powers to take away the guilt, if you’d like.”
“You can do that?” My hope found new life again.
His features were decidedly neutral, and I got the impression he didn’t really want to. “I could. I wouldn’t advise it though – a vampire’s spell does not necessarily last forever and the pain might be worse the longer you put it off. Better to work through it now if you can.”
I felt my shoulders slump. “I guess.”
And did I really want rid of the guilt? No, the guilt was maybe the one thing keeping me human. Plus I deserved it. After the terrible things I’d done, it was only right I should be suffering.
I left him not long after and returned home. It had only been an hour and my family weren’t back, which came as a relief. I couldn’t bear to be under the same roof while I had the feeling of being so close to them and yet feeling so isolated, as if there was a wall between us, keeping us apart. I didn’t even feel that old thrill of being home alone. Online games had lost all meaning and I doubted I could stomach horror movies anymore, the blood and gore on screen sure to remind me of things I wanted to forget. So I sat with Alice, briefly considering putting on an album by his namesake and deciding against it, unable to face even that – not when so many of the songs had a horror theme.
There I stayed until my family got in, then I took to the streets again, determined not to slip back into the nightmares.
I felt like I was close to breaking point the next day. Everything was becoming too much and there was no escape, not unless I could find the willpower to go ahead and end it.
Half-eaten corpses seemed to lurk around every corner, and I had to concentrate hard on reality if I didn’t want to relive the bloody scenes seared into my brain. I tried to keep my mind on my lessons to avoid the memories, but my victims waited in the shadows and lunged at me without warning, forcing me to relive their death.
Morning break came and I tried to lose myself in my book, but even reading couldn’t distract me from my guilt. It didn’t help that I’d finished the horror story and had started a new one about wolves, of all things. I’d picked it up before Fiona’s death, and it had lived in my school bag since. It was all I had to read that day and t
hough it wasn’t exactly horror, the chapter I was on was somewhat horrific, featuring a wolf character killing a human hunter. The fictional attack was in self-defence and the wolf didn’t stay to feed on his kill, yet still I had to put it down, my stomach queasy. It was all too easy for my imagination to turn it into another gory memory.
I sat staring into space when a girl’s voice called me back to reality.
“How can you like wolves? They’re evil creatures,” she said with a shiver. I looked round to find Grace, a church-goer brought up with real belief in the word of the Bible. The glint of a silver cross came from around her neck.
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. “I’ve always liked ’em, as far back as I can remember. Anyway, they’re not evil – no animals are.”
“Well they’re savage.”
“So are lions but people don’t hate lions like they do wolves.”
The need to defend them came so naturally to my lips, despite the hate for my lupine side. Besides, 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. But 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. I knew her prejudice came from people associating them with the Devil, coupled with her love of fluffy bunny rabbits and other such creatures. She hated anything that tore fluffy bunnies apart.
“Well I don’t like lions either,” she said. “How can you like something that’s a born killer? It’s evil, the way they slaughter other animals for food.”
I sighed. “They’ve got every right to survival, just like 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. 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, not when they share strong bonds with their pack like any human family and rarely hurt people. Dog attacks are way more common!”
