The Other Kind (The Progeny of Evolution Series)

by Arsuaga, Mike

  “After the battle, Ypres returned to allied hands as a bombed out shell. The front fell quiet again.

  “Confused by what I heard and smelled when Daphne made love to Claude, I sought out Doctor Millier who had taken an interest in my development. In relating my experience, I said that I found myself trapped in the same room with them, in a closet. I asked him about the powerful feeling I experienced that left me unfulfilled and edgy.

  “He laughed. ‘Is that all? It is called Female Hysteria. It is common among unmarried women,’ he said, reaching into his bag and handing the nurse a jar of sweet smelling salve. He told me how and where to apply it.

  “As soon as I returned to the privacy of my room I tried it as he instructed. Hardly anything happened, so I put the jar away thinking the urge inside me not ready to manifest itself. At least I possessed a working knowledge regarding the pleasure giving and getting part of sex.

  “The August before the Second Battle, I turned seventeen—still with no period, a fingerling of a girl barely five feet tall with the body of a ten-year-old. The village accepted me as a harmless eccentricity deserving of fair, if indifferent, treatment, but I realized I would never receive its love.

  “Daphne gave birth. She pointedly and rudely refused to allow me near the baby. Even Mama thought her unreasonable. ‘What harm can come of it?’ she chided. ‘Your sister has no contagious condition.’

  “‘Jeanne is ‘touched’ and might harm him,’ my sister retorted, but I think she resented the natural rapport I shared with little Claude. For once, I excelled over her at something.”

  I moved closer, putting my arm around Sam. Daphne’s cruelty hurt most of all, I thought. I patted Sam’s belly. “You got the last laugh.”

  Sam stared back through congealing tears, solemnly nodding agreement.

  “One night I came across a young soldier who died not five minutes earlier,” she continued. “The smell of his cooling freshness made my head swim from the desire to taste his flesh. I glanced quickly around to be sure no one observed me, although my senses had developed to where the presence of another never escaped me. I lifted the arm and sank my teeth into it. When the raw flesh touched my pallet, taste buds erupted into hysterical joy. A warming feeling seeped through my body, making me dizzy with desire for more. Like a child alone with fudge I gobbled down all I could until I heard someone coming. After tasting fresh kill, I didn’t care if eating it made me a ghoul and damned me to hell.

  “In the summer we learned Armand died of diphtheria. Papa took his death hard, embarking on an inexorable decline.

  “Daphne met a civil servant with a draft exemption. She married him, moving to Paris soon after, where decades later I learned their family grew by three. With no one remaining, Claire gradually softened toward me. At first guardedly cordial, she became kind and, by the end of our time together, loving.

  “In 1917 a new soldier appeared, the Americans. This breed fascinated me. They believed they could prevail over any challenge. Their vigorous young country sounded ideal for a fresh start.

  “Near the end of the final battle at Ypres, Louie died in a skirmish near Nancy. His death killed Mama. Louie was her favorite. By the spring of 1918 she joined him.

  “After Mama passed away, Papa’s drinking increased so much he often didn’t arrive at work until after noon or not at all. He stayed out nights, frequently getting into fights. The war ended, but the Spanish Flu quickly presented another threat. It swept through Maison Blanche and took Claire. I cried deeply for her, the quiet virginal girl who I recently came to know as a loving sister.”

  “Is that Claire?” I asked, pointing at a small lithograph of a young woman with thick blonde braids. The tragedy of dying young always affected me deeply.

  “Yes, taken weeks before she died,” Sam said. “At her wake, Papa grieved loudly and drunkenly. Father Laurent slipped beside him. ‘You still have Jeanne,’ he said. ‘She must become your consolation.’

  “In response, Papa leaped to his feet. ‘My last daughter lies dead before me,’ he bellowed casting the whole room to silence. ‘Jeanne is no flesh of mine.’

  “A knife had pierced my heart. I didn’t expect the open love Papa showed the others but to cast me out like a bowl of shop offal was unthinkable. I ran home. My last sight was Father Laurent sternly rebuking Papa on my behalf.

  “Two of the village men brought him home after midnight. When I let him in he stared at me coldly, saying nothing. He stayed in the kitchen, continuing to drink, while I went to bed feeling disowned.

  “About an hour later he entered my room. By the oil lamp I saw a belt in his hand, the one he used to discipline the boys when they were young. He came for me with hate in his eyes, muttering he would do something he should have done years ago. I had no doubt he intended to beat me to death. Frozen in fear all I could do was scream as he raised the belt to strike. The trauma drove my body to a new level of agitation, and I felt sensations I’d never experienced.

  “The next I knew, Papa sprawled dead on the floor. My lycan reflection in the bureau mirror gradually returned to human. I immediately liked the new beautiful human me.

  “At that moment, the window in my room shattered and a large hairy creature burst through from outside. Father Laurent, covering his nakedness with a coverlet, materialized from the apparition.

  “He changed exactly as I did, not moments before. ‘What are we, Father?’ was all I could think to ask.

  “He sat on the floor ‘My child, I have watched over you for years.’ Then he told me about our kind and what I needed to know to survive. He said the salve Doctor Millier gave me would help tremendously with emergence, but refused assistance beyond verbal instruction.

  “Feeling the first of lycan urges, I wanted nothing more than to have sex. I saw the youngish man standing in the room not as a priest but as a desirable male. With heat coursing through me, I reached to remove the bedding covering him, but he blocked my hand. I thought modesty from one who preyed on human life to be hypocritical and smirked. ‘But you are not truly a priest,’ I protested against his resistance.

  “He looked kindly upon me. To this day I remember his words. ‘It has become habit.’ He said. ‘One day child, our kind will step into the light. When that happens there will be a need for shepherds.’”

  “He was right, you know,” I said, examining his picture again.

  She agreed. “He had wisdom and a noble soul.”

  I turned in surprise at her words. Sam had never used the term “soul” in connection with a lycan, or anyone of our community.

  “I decided to tidy my affairs and go to America,” she continued.

  “After reporting Papa’s disappearance, the police conducted a diligent search, but soon the matter grew cold. Everyone agreed he probably wandered drunkenly to the abandoned front lines and drowned in a shell hole or stepped on a mine. Before leaving I bought headstones for my brothers, Mama, and Claire. After considerable thought, I bought a stone for Papa.

  “I boarded an ocean liner bound for New York, planning to enter through the normal immigration process. In a stroke of luck I met a young woman my age, a war widow with American citizenship. On the night before arrival, I took her. I ate the liver, threw the rest overboard, arriving in New York as Michelle Dawson.”

  Sam stopped. My heart ached watching the brave little thing sitting there. I stretched with a rangy spread of arms. “You never said why you bought your father a headstone. Did you forgive him?”

  Sam considered the question for a moment. “Yes, I believe I did. The War took much more than lives. Humanity cast wholesale lots of love, wealth, families, even sanity into its insatiable maw. The eleven million dead were beyond pain now and in a sense lucky. Left behind were countless shattered and grieving families. Millions more impoverished and homeless lived sad dysfunctional lives that for many never healed. The bayonet of a merciless war gutted humanity, laying it open. No, I decided. Papa deserved none of the blame for what he did. T
he War systematically took everything of value from him. It took family, friends, and even the village, the only home he ever knew. After all he gave, when nothing remained, it exacted one last tribute. The creature presenting itself at my room was not Papa, but a miserable husk the War squeezed dry of humanity and filled with its own madness.”

  So far the story included nothing about her mystery lover.

  “I settled in Chicago, a vibrant lawless city. This aligned well with my hunting policy. After ten years, I left when the local crime bosses induced the police on their payroll to investigate the unexplained vanishings among their foot soldiers. I relocated to New York where I lived until after the September eleventh tragedies.

  “For twenty years I worked menial jobs, never staying too long so no one noticed my unchanging appearance. I dabbled in politics, not as a candidate but as a volunteer. Then in 1959 I met David Herndon in the book store he owned. Blinded as a serviceman in the Korean War, I thought how he wouldn’t be able to discover my unchanging appearance. We stayed together until he died in 2001.

  “I loved the way David touched my face. From our first date when he brushed it with the back of his hand it never ceased to thrill me, but after ten years he began to question what he felt. At first it took the form of compliment, ‘You have the skin of a teenager.’ Later he kidded. ‘The other women would die to know what face cream you use.’ Then, ‘How do you do it?’ And after twenty years, ‘Mickey, this is impossible.’ He was forty-nine with a paunch and thinning gray hair. The firm jawline gave way to sagging pouches, the toll time exacts from all humans. I, on the other hand, never changed: Small tight body, shining red hair, no wrinkles, no anything different.

  “For years I kept out of sight and became skilled at aging my appearance when forced to go out in public. I became so good at it that ironically David became my biggest threat at discovery.

  “We couldn’t go on much longer like this. One day after closing time, I sat him down at the table in back out of street view. I took a deep breath and with the trepidation accompanying any leap into the dark, I told him my secret. When I finished I took another deep breath and waited for his response.

  “He started laughing. ‘That’s the craziest thing I ever heard, Mickey. Werewolves don’t exist.’

  “I told him my preference for the term ‘lycan’ and morphed with a sharp ripping of clothes as I burst their seams. I stood while he remained seated. My new bulkier height, though comparatively small among lycans, loomed above him. I took his hand, put it on a hairy forearm, and rubbed it along my snout lingering at a dripping fang. Since a morphed lycan cannot speak, I kept his hand pressed to my bare chest and returned to human form. He felt rough hairy flesh instantly change to warm breast.

  “‘Believe me now?’ I asked, letting his hand drop back to the table.

  “For the longest time, he didn’t answer but only raised his eyes toward my face. He studied me for what felt like the longest time as if he actually could see. At last he said, ‘Okay, I believe you, but don’t expect me to help with kills.’

  “I smiled, hugging him. ‘It’s a deal,’ I exclaimed with relief. For the first time since Father Laurent, I experienced acceptance for what I was.

  “He died a month after the Twin Towers fell, while on his daily walk in the neighborhood park, of a heart attack at the age of seventy-one. While my wish for children with him could never be, David gave me something else as valuable in its own way. When I emerged, the ‘New Me’ determinedly pushed aside my old self, the sad and unloved Jeanne who never grew up. For decades I believed her gone forever. David showed me Jeanne still existed, as different but also as inseparable from me as are the two sides of a coin. When he said he loved me, he meant both of me. If he reached out to lycan Mickey, he also included the scared little Jeanne deep inside, sitting alone in the loveless dark for so long. Including her, he said, permitted him to love me perfectly. So over the years, bit by bit, he reached into her cold, dim netherworld, convincing her to take a place in the light. In doing so, he made me, at last, complete.”

  “What’d you do after he died?” I asked.

  “I spent two years traveling. Then I came here and created my present identity and met you. Does that answer your questions?”

  Every question but one.

  “You are beautiful.” I answered, giving her a lingering kiss on the mouth.

  She disengaged. “We have to get going to the meeting.” We walked there in silence. I thought how telling David the truth worked. I wondered what might have happened if I had done the same with Lois. Because of her religion, I assumed she would never accept me, but hearing Sam’s story now I wasn’t sure. Thinking more on it, I concluded Sam and David achieved a greater love than Lois and I did.

  Did Sam and David have a love more perfect than the love between Sam and me? Sam said David had made her complete.

  If I opened her secret diary would I find his name or mine written there?

  Chapter Ten

  The Woman Who Came for Dinner and Never Left

  When we announced Sam’s pregnancy, the rest of The Others did not share the enthusiasm we experienced at the group meeting. Past allegations of pregnancies turned out to be honest mistakes or hoaxes. The community viewed the assertion of pregnancy with skepticism.

  As the first lycan-vampire couple, we’d gained a measure of fame. In the six months since we shared the story of our successful relationship, four more couples announced pair bonds. They were the only ones to express anything besides skepticism. Some sent congratulations, hopes for our success, and asked for details, often intimate details. Sam cheerfully answered all queries with as many specifics as good taste allowed.

  It took her six weeks of nagging by email to convince Dr. Benefacio Ortiz to examine her. We offered to fly to him but he insisted on coming to us. No one among The Others knew anything about pregnancies. He explained travelling might be harmful to mother or pup. Yes, he actually called it a pup. This assumed, he reminded us, the pregnancy was genuine.

  By the time he arrived, Sam definitely showed. Her face rounded noticeably but still with the rich creamy tan. Otherwise she was no different, with firm legs, perky butt, and fifty thousand watt smile. Her breasts grew a bit, but she didn’t need a bra yet. I still craved her every night. She experienced mood spells and bad days but understanding the cause made them easier to deal with.

  A swarthy young man in a gray suit stepped lightly out of a taxi at the entrance to the complex. A scar crossed one cheek. Bright pink, it drew the light brown skin together. Judging by his demeanor he wore it like a badge of honor. His biography on the blog said he received it in a duel. He looked as young as me although he was well past two hundred. Well past. He refused my offer to pick him up at the airport. “If she is genuinely pregnant,” he explained with a thick Brazilian accent, “we cannot be too careful. It is better you not leave her alone.”

  Dr. Ortiz carried two black leather bags. When he got closer I noted they were the real thing, Argentinean steer, just like the ones they carried in the local Macys. No amount of tanning can erase the scent. I held the door for him. “Doctor Ortiz,” I said, propping the door with my butt, and extending a hand. “I’m Jim White, the father.” Even with vampire strength he strained with the two bags as he hefted them the last few feet into the apartment. I realized they were much heavier than they appeared. “I’m sorry,” I said reaching for them, already at their destination, attempting one of those futile gestures of help that people make when they are too late but want show they tried. Doctor Ortiz rewarded my effort with a brief cold-eyed glance.

  “That’s done,” he said, raising himself straight after shedding the burden. I stared past him at the bags wondering what he brought to make them so heavy. “Medical texts,” he said, noticing my interest. “I have not practiced in fifty years. Much is different. Now if you please let us visit Señora Sam.”

  Dr. Ortiz took a small black bag from one of the larger ones and followed me int
o our bedroom. Sam was coming out of the bathroom, wearing an unflattering flannel gown.

  “That’s the fifth time I’ve been to pee since I woke up,” she complained to me making an aggravated face. When she noticed the slight man beside me she brightened. “You must be Doctor Ortiz. It is so good to meet you in person,” she said.

  “Yes, Señora. I feel I know you well already.”

  Sam turned to me. “See? Sometimes being a persistent pest pays off.”

  “A pest, yes, but you’re such a beautiful one.”

  Sam beamed and basked in the compliment, like a small preening bird. “Please,” the doctor continued. He indicated she should take a seat in the flat-backed chair by the writing desk.

  Sam sat primly with ankles and knees together. She smelled healthy, full of pleasant anticipation. Dr. Ortiz opened the black bag. It contained precisely arranged instruments and medications, a throwback from sixty years ago. “In a moment now we will know for certain…” He pursed a pair of small fleshy lips, took out a stethoscope, and blew a couple of breaths on the sensor to warm it. He placed it on Sam’s bare stomach. I watched his face as he listened for a few seconds in one spot, then another, and a third. I knew the answer. After all the doubt, we repeated the tests. The best human medical diagnostic machinery and techniques pronounced her, yet again, to be pregnant. I didn’t understand how someone who had not practiced medicine in fifty years could conclude otherwise. Even if he did, I scoffed in my mind, so what? In the eyes of The Others however, no amount of human medical technology outweighed Dr. Ortiz’s opinion.

  At length he gazed up at me, took a breath, and quietly said, “Congratulations Señor White. You are to be a father.”

  Sam leaped to her feet. “For real?” she exclaimed, as if learning about being pregnant all over again.