Hybrid (Book 2): Hunted

by Stead, Nick

  As if the music placed a spell on me as powerful as the call of the full moon to my lupine half, I found myself approaching the front of the building. The helicopter hadn’t continued to follow me since their trap had fallen through, and a part of me wanted to believe I would be safe inside, sheltered from both my pursuers and the elements, at least till the pub closed. I felt like that dream of a human life held me in its grip once more, so strong that I forgot about my feral appearance, wishing only to be a part of the human world I’d known seemingly so long ago. So I pushed open the door and took that final step inside, knowing it was too late to turn back then.

  The inside of the pub had been lively with the banter and laughter of the locals, but the moment I entered silence immediately fell, broken only by the sound of someone receiving a text. It was only a small pub but there were still around fifteen to twenty humans crammed inside, propping up the bar or crowded round the small tables, nursing pints of beer and cider. Every one of them turned to stare at me framed in the doorway.

  Too late, I remembered I was still naked and covered in blood. Living with lycanthropy for over a year had removed any inhibitions I’d had about being nude in public, and I made no attempt to cover myself. But I was conscious of my bloodstained skin which revealed me for the monster I truly was.

  “Oh my God, you poor boy!” the landlady cried, grabbing a blanket from beneath the bar and rushing forward to wrap it round me. To the drinkers she snapped “Stop staring at him!”

  I hadn’t expected to be treated with kindness after having seen so much of the darkness of humanity, and given my current appearance. But it seemed she had immediately assumed the blood was my own, and as with the female Slayer who’d hesitated to shoot me, she saw only the adolescent boy of my physical form, not the monster. And I looked young enough for her mothering instincts to kick in.

  “Now you take a seat here by the fire and warm up. Whatever were you doing out in the cold, and where are your parents?”

  “Dead,” I lied.

  “Oh I’m sorry, love,” she said. “All this blood; how did you hurt yourself?”

  I remained silent. The emptiness gaped ever wider in my soul, all the more noticeable now for the brief mingling of my two personalities, which had allowed me to briefly feel the bloodlust once more. That darker, brutal side of my nature awakened by the curse was better than this nothingness I’d fallen into, but with my mind firmly split back into the two separate personalities of boy and wolf it lay out of my reach once more, and the emptiness that belonged to my human half resumed its reign. It must have given me a haunted look, for the landlady didn’t press me for any more information at that point, instead bringing me a glass of water and then returning to her place behind the bar.

  “And what do you plan to do with the boy now?” one of the men asked her. He spoke quietly, but with my sensitive ears I had no trouble hearing every word that was said.

  “I couldn’t just turn him away Jim; the street’s no place for children. He looks like he’s been through Hell.”

  “There’s something not right about him,” Jim insisted. “Covered in blood like that – he should be dead by now if it’s really all his. And what happened to his clothes? Something is very wrong here; we shouldn’t get involved. At least call the authorities and let them deal with it.”

  “He doesn’t even look sixteen yet. I won’t turn away an innocent boy,” she said stubbornly.

  I stared down at my drink while they talked, wishing it was something stronger, but I lost track of the conversation when one of the other humans approached my table. I looked up and was shocked to find it was Luke, the same guy who’d found me that day I was out hunting in the area near the barn Lady Sarah had been hidden in.

  “You again,” I said in a low voice. “How did you find me this time?”

  “Never mind that. I know you’re in trouble and I know the people hunting you have been out in force tonight.”

  “How can you possibly know about the Slayers? Have you been following me too?”

  “There’s no time for questions now. I meant what I said before, I want to help you.”

  “Why? I already told you I can’t pass on the curse.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a fan of werewolves. A werewolf friend is cooler than nothing, even if I can’t be a werewolf myself. Let me help you.”

  I was still wary, and I became aware of eyes on me. Jim and the landlady were casting me suspicious looks, but I pretended not to notice. “It’s not safe, you’ll only be putting yourself in danger. Should we even be talking? I’ve already caused a stir with my inhuman appearance. The fact that there just happens to be someone here who seems to know me is only going to raise more questions.”

  “Maybe, but I think you have bigger problems. See over there, that guy sat right by the door? He’s one of the Slayers.”

  “And how could you possibly know that?”

  “Use your nose if you don’t believe me,” he answered impatiently. “Surely you must be able to smell the gunpowder with your wolfish senses.”

  I glanced across at the man Luke had indicated and tried to be subtle about scenting the air. There was something there I thought I recognised as a scent I’d noticed around guns before, but if he was indeed a Slayer then why hadn’t he made a move and why were there not more of them? Unless he just happened to be in the pub that night and it was coincidence we’d crossed paths. I assumed they must take nights off hunting us since they easily had the numbers to patrol in shifts and they had to sleep some time, but even if he was just in his local for a pint he must know who and what I was which still made him a threat, especially if he’d come out armed. Then I remembered the text I’d heard come through as I’d entered and the thought crossed my mind that even if he had been on his own enjoying a night off, he could well still be in contact with others in the area. They could be moving into position for another co-ordinated attack even as I sat there thinking about it.

  “I should go,” I said.

  “Don’t you think it’s too late for that?”

  “And what would you have me do, attack him? I’d have to kill them all, or at least incapacitate them and leave the wounded for the Slayers to deal with in the cover up.”

  “You already have blood on your hands, what does a little more matter?”

  “Why do you care?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Maybe I just want to see you in action,” he replied with a sly grin.

  Before I could ask him anything else, something drew my attention back to the humans at the bar.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you Janet,” Jim was saying to the landlady. “I’m off. I want no part in this. It’s getting late now, anyway.”

  The man turned to leave, glaring at me as he headed for the door. The warmth of the pub might have chased the numbness from my limbs, but I still felt cold and dead inside, and this latest brush with humanity wasn’t helping. Lost in the music when I’d first approached the pub, a part of me had dared to hope I could re-join the human world, if only for a matter of hours. Had I been thinking clearly I’d have realised that, aside from my nakedness and bloodied body, I would’ve been out of place due to my apparent age and lateness of the hour. If the curse hadn’t halted the ageing process with the constant regeneration of cells every time I transformed, maybe I could’ve passed for eighteen, but as it was, even clean and fully clothed I would still have been treated as an outsider. It didn’t matter. The reaction of the locals only served as a harsh reminder that I would never be one of them again. I was the outsider and would be forever more, and whatever hopes had been called forth by the rock and metal music I once loved now fell into that gaping chasm of my soul, leaving me emptier than ever. There only remained the bloodlust, and with the full moon still overhead maybe it would allow me to tap into it this time and lose myself in it once again.

  “Do it,” Luke mouthed at me, as if he could read my thoughts.

  I glanced at the Slayer still sat by the door
, but he remained impassive, giving no sign he’d recognised me or intended to mount his own attack. Maybe Luke was mistaken and he wasn’t one of them after all. In any case, he didn’t seem a threat in that moment so I didn’t make a move straight for him. If there was to be more bloodshed that night then I would start with this man, Jim.

  I cast off the blanket like I cast off my brief pretence at humanity and leapt from my seat, crashing into the man before any of the others had chance to react, my weariness all but forgotten. He landed face down with me crouched over him, but managed to kick out, dislodging me long enough to twist around in an attempt to defend himself. If I’d been mortal he would probably have succeeded in fending me off, but with my supernatural strength it was all too easy to pin him back down.

  “Your instincts were right, I am a monster,” I whispered into his ear, before balling my hands into fists and proceeding to beat his head into the wooden floor. I tried so hard to be angry, to act as violently as I knew how so the bloodlust could take over again. I hit him hard and fast with all of my unnatural speed and strength. The instant my fist connected the blood ran down and he started to gurgle, blood streaming from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He was already choking on his own blood. His nose was a mess, his teeth falling out, his eyes bruised and bloody. That first blow would have been enough to keep him down while I dealt with the others, but I continued to hit him until his head caved in from the impact and he lay twitching, brains exploding out from his ruined skull. Yet still the dark pleasures I so desperately sought remained lost in the nothingness within.

  Out of the corner of my eye I was aware of Luke quietly egging me on. Shock held some of the others frozen in place but a couple of younger men around Luke’s age had taken their phones out to film the violence, while others rushed over in an attempt to pull me off of Jim.

  I roared and lashed out at one of the first to grab me, sending him crashing into a nearby table. His head struck the edge of it, fracturing his skull and rendering him unconscious. I sunk fangs into the arm of a second man, ripping away a chunk of flesh and causing him to fall back, clutching his arm and screaming in agony.

  It was in that moment the Slayer finally made his move, while everyone else’s attention was on me. He stood and I heard him slide the bolt across the doors, before shoving the table over to bar them. That wouldn’t be enough to keep me in the building but I assumed he meant to slow me, giving him longer to attempt to make a killing shot.

  And with the first of my victims to go down, it was then that the screaming started and chaos ensued.

  Most of them began to run for the door but I caught several with ease, ripping limbs from their sockets with my bare hands and splattering blood over the walls, floor and ceiling. It sprayed out in high arcs and gushed to form pools round my feet and the carcasses I was quickly surrounded with. Others would have made it to salvation, if it hadn’t been for the makeshift barrier slowing them down and the Slayer himself. They desperately tried to push the table out of the way, only for the man to cut them down with a long knife he’d somehow concealed in his jacket. Bodies piled up and added to the blockage by the main escape route.

  Some had the sense to try and call for help on their mobile phones but they barely had time to dial the emergency services before I intervened, crushing their phones and then their lives. Some merely cowered under the tables and prayed I would pass them by, but there was nowhere to hide and I would spare none of them.

  Only Luke stayed in his seat, watching the horrific events unfolding as if this was no more than a horror movie to be enjoyed. I sensed no fear or revulsion from him in the face of such bloody murders, and he didn’t seem worried I might turn on him. He had spoken the truth about the Slayer at least since the man had shown himself to be one of my enemies, for who else could he be? It was only a matter of time before we faced each other, but until he made a move to attack I would continue slaughtering in an attempt to summon the bloodlust.

  One woman tried to run past but I swiped at her with a clawed, mostly human hand, carving deep furrows across her abdomen. She crashed to the floor where she lay screaming in agony, blood welling up in the gouges I’d made in her flesh. It soaked through her top and spilled onto the floor, mixing with the pools already made from my other victims.

  Despite the agony of her wounds and the growing barrier by the door, she tried to claw her way to the main exit, whimpering with fear at her agonisingly slow progress as much as with the pain. There was no way she could have found the strength to break through that way, but she struggled on regardless, only to be pulled back to the slaughter when I roughly grabbed her legs, digging my claws into that smooth flesh as I dragged her back to me.

  I dug my hands into the gashes my claws had made and pulled until muscle tore and blood gushed more freely, my hands slick with that crimson life force as I grabbed hold of slippery guts and ripped them out, trying to find savage joy in such brutality. But still I felt nothing, even as her body convulsed violently before growing still in death’s embrace.

  Others soon realised running for the door was a lost cause, and they grabbed the chairs to try and break the windows so they could clamber out of this abattoir. But between myself and the Slayer, none lived long enough to create another escape route.

  A man found the courage to charge at me with an empty glass in hand, swinging it at my head. I caught it with ease and tore the glass from his grasp, throwing it aside where it landed amidst the carnage, broken glass shattering over the broken bodies. The man’s courage failed him and he whimpered, which soon turned to a scream as I plunged a hand into his chest, grabbing his heart and pulling it free. I bit into the slimy organ as his body collapsed to the floor, fresh blood oozing out and spilling down my jaws. Then it was just me and the Slayer, and Luke who still sat taking it all in, though he was now splattered with blood just as I was. The Slayer was also covered in the blood of innocents, a reminder that he and those like him were every bit the monster I was.

  The Slayer drew his gun and took aim, but there was a grim look to him that suggested he expected to die. I wondered if he’d meant to sacrifice himself all along, so as to buy time for the large force hunting me to move in. If they had the place surrounded they stood more chance of killing me than he ever would have done alone. But just as I wasn’t prepared to go down without a fight, I guessed it was the same for him and he succeeded in firing off three shots before I was on him. None of them hit me and he didn’t bother with Luke either, which seemed strange when he’d been so intent on helping me butcher everyone else in there. Not that it really mattered in that moment. I was too focussed on savaging him, until the last agonised breath rattled through his body, almost leaving that same stillness and quiet as the one which had immediately followed my last massacre of the children, if it hadn’t been for Luke and the music still coming from the speakers. Still the bloodlust had not taken me as it had under the full moon’s influence just hours earlier, and with another bestial roar I fell to my knees, defeated.

  “Are you really so lost that you must continue to kill, even after confirming it won't waken your bloodlust?”

  I opened my eyes to find the vision of Lizzy stood over me once more. Maybe vision was too grand a word for the product of my own tortured mind as I teetered on the brink of insanity once again, no more than a hallucination to give voice to my innermost thoughts.

  “What else is there for me now?” I said bitterly. “My life has no purpose, so I might as well turn to death.”

  “You who could be so great yet you continue to wallow in self-pity and slaughter needlessly. You have lost your way. Find new purpose, find the path you must walk, and perhaps at the end of it you will resurrect those emotions you believe dead to you.”

  “Like the real you ever talked with such wisdom,” I growled and swiped at the image. She vanished as soon as my bloodied hand passed through her. With the hallucination gone, I realised the pub wasn’t as completely still and quiet as I’d thought. From b
ehind the bar I could hear the pounding of another heart in the grip of fear, and a faint whimpering. Still on my knees, I rose and strode round the bar, to find the landlady, Janet, cowering beneath it.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “Please don’t kill me. I have a family. It’s the season of goodwill to all men, please.”

  Only then did I notice the little Christmas tree in the corner. Time had long since lost all meaning and I’d had no idea it was that season again, too lost in my own inner darkness to think about what time of year it might be. The knowledge only added to my sense of longing for my old life. I should’ve been back home with Mum and Amy, trying to guess what the wrapped presents under the tree could possibly hold and counting down the days till we could open them. Christmas Day would’ve been a time for double the celebrations, since it would also be my seventeenth birthday, despite the fact my body was still stuck at fifteen. I turned back to Janet.

  “I’m not a man,” I said, letting a growl creep into my voice and my eyes turn to amber. Before she even had chance to scream I snapped her neck, as quick and painless a death as I could manage in return for the kindness she’d shown me, but in no mood to let her live.

  With the last of the locals dead I helped myself to a beer and sat for a while in the warmth, listening to the music and talking to Luke. But there wasn’t even any pleasure to be had in that. The beer didn’t mix well with the taste of blood so thick on my tongue, and the air was thick with the smell of the latest bloodbath I’d created, the room a gory mess no matter where I looked. Dead eyes seemed to bore into me, still wide with terror, mouths still fixed in silent screams. Severed limbs reduced to no more than meaty bones lay scattered around, one with a hand still attached looking like it was reaching out to me, as if its owner was pleading for mercy. Guts lay strewn around, intestines like macabre party streamers and, with some imagination, other organs could have been balloons. And yet I could find no enjoyment in the bloody festivities I’d created.