by Anton Strout
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked.
Aidan looked at Connor, but he was so messed up I wasn’t sure he could see him in his state. “I told you my kind doesn’t take well to water,” Aidan said. “Not really our element, and I was in it far too long, I think. I’m having trouble healing.”
“At least you can,” I mumbled, still in my daze.
Aidan turned and followed the sound of my voice. He shuffled toward the foot of the bed. When his bony claws of fingers hit the end of it, he grabbed onto it like it was the only thing that could keep him standing. “Simon?” he asked. “How… how are you?”
“I’ll live,” I said. I couldn’t hide the darkness in my voice. “What happened to Jane? I saw you let go of the severed tentacle and then dive through the fire into the water.”
Aidan tensed. Parts of him were slowly healing, his features turning back to his normal look of a teenager, everything except his clothes. The better his features got, the worse his actual face looked. The young vampire looked pained and worried.
“There was so much going on,” he said. “There was the monster. It was dying, but not fast enough. Underwater, I couldn’t avoid the tentacles. They were thrashing about everywhere, making it harder to try to find her.”
“Did you find her?” the Inspectre asked.
Aidan nodded. “Eventually, yeah,” he said. “I don’t know how long I was under. I don’t need to breathe, but still the water was having an effect on me. I felt my body giving in to the river, until I finally struggled to the surface.”
I lay there, thankful for whatever painkillers they had given me. My mind filled with sadness, but my body wouldn’t react to it in my condition. When I could finally speak, I did. “At least you found her body,” I said. “Her family will be able to give her a proper burial.”
Aidan looked exhausted, but even through that I could see some hesitation in him. “About that …”
“What?” Connor asked.
“Please tell me you found all of her,” I said. “Please.”
“You have to understand something,” Aidan said. “I barely made it to shore. We were both… burnt and wet. I could barely pull her after me …”
“What the hell did you do?” I asked. “What happened to her body?”
“Tell the boy, for goodness’ sake,” the Inspectre added.
“I needed to replenish myself,” he said. “I… I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You fed on her?” I asked, horrified.
“I would have died,” he said.
“So you fed on her body,” I said, feeling rage rising up in me despite the painkillers coursing through my system.
“Jesus, Aidan…” Connor said.
“Wait, wait,” Aidan said, holding up his shaking bony hands. “Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly?” the Inspectre asked.
“I liked Jane,” he said. “A lot. She was always nice to me. Whenever Simon or Connor sniped at me, either in jest or whatever, she didn’t. She treated me… I don’t know, normal.”
“And that’s how you repaid her kindness?” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “By feeding on her.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” he said. “You’re not listening. I wasn’t trying to feed on her. I was trying to save her.”
“Save her?” I said. “Bullshit.”
“He’s not listening to me,” Aidan said, turning to Connor.
“I’m not sure I’m listening to you, either,” Connor said, getting pissed himself. “Why don’t you just say what you’re here to say?”
Aidan looked down at the floor, looking unsure of himself. “It just takes humans some time to adjust to it,” he said. “To accept it.”
Maybe it was the meds clouding my head, but I wasn’t getting it. “Time to adjust to what? Accept what?”
Aidan moved to the side of the room, exposing the door leading out into the hall. A nurse walking by stopped, a startled look on her face as she backed away slowly from something coming down the hall. The wet squick of footsteps came slowly toward my hospital room and a moment later the doorway filled with a lone female figure.
Jane stood there, her hair wet and tangled. Her clothes were torn, burnt, and stained with blood. How they even stayed together enough to remain on her was a mystery. They were practically destroyed.
But not Jane herself, though. Everything about her body was perfect. Her skin showed not a scratch of damage, except for a small section of burnt black skin on her cheek, but even that flaked away when she smiled at me. The skin underneath it was just as perfect as the rest of her was.
“The change,” Aidan said. “I told you I lost a little blood.”
Even in my fragile condition, my heart leapt. Was this really Jane? Was I really seeing her like this, transformed? I could only pray that this wasn’t just the pain medication messing with me. “Jane…? We thought you were dead…”
“Hey, Simon,” Jane said. The pronounced points of her eyeteeth bit into her lower lip as she smiled. “I’m not dead yet. Hopefully your offer to move in still stands…?”
I had spent so much time worrying about the water woman’s mark gaining control over her and what I would do if I had had to kill her, but Jane had taken all those choices away from me by running off to take on the sea monster herself. Seeing her alive killed any residual traces of anger, rage, or my own insecurities, all of it replaced with the sudden inescapable fact that my girlfriend was now one of the undead. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, although I was relieved to see her alive, or rather unalive. Still, one thing was for certain.
“I told you I loved you and I told you that wasn’t going to change,” I said, mustering a weak smile in the hospital bed. “Looks like I’ll need to invest in some serious blackout curtains.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANTON STROUT was born in the Berkshire Hills mere miles from writing heavyweights Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. He currently lives outside New York City in the haunted corn maze that is New Jersey (where nothing paranormal ever really happens, he assures you).
His writing has appeared in several DAW anthologies—some of which feature Simon Canderous tie-in stories—including : The Dimension Next Door, Spells of the City, and Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies.
In his scant spare time, he is an always writer, sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the world’s most casual and controller-smashing video gamer. He now works in the exciting world of publishing, and yes, it is as glamorous as it sounds.
He is currently hard at work on his next book and can be found lurking the darkened hallways of www.antonstrout.com.
Ace Books by Anton Strout
DEAD TO ME
DEADER STILL
DEAD MATTER
DEAD WATERS
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