The Hybrid Series | Book 4 | Damned

by Stead, Nick

  I fought the hunger one final time and got to my feet, looking down at the mess on the ground. To my eyes she was nothing but a half-eaten buffet now. All those bite marks I’d made had filled with pools of blood, overflowing their fleshy bowls and flowing in steady streams down to the ground. Flaps of shredded skin hung over the edges, and stringy pieces of muscle could be seen in places, like roots protruding through the soil of an earthen pit. But mostly there was just blood.

  Her skull grinned back at me since there was little else it could do. I considered telling her I was sorry but that would have been a lie, so I settled for growling “It’s nothing personal. You were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it’ll be over soon, then perhaps you will know peace.”

  And with that I stalked off, leaving the macabre sculpture I’d made behind me. The woman who’d been Tish to her friends and family in life, and who was no more than an unidentifiable slab of meat for the rats and the flies to feast on in death. She’d served her purpose. The bloodshed was only just beginning, and it was time to get the real slaughter underway.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  An Offering It Can’t Turn Down

  I emerged from the carpark into natural sunlight, the clear blue skies overhead at odds with the dark fire blazing at my core. There was no evidence of the Slayers or any emergency services yet but that would soon change. I could hear the sirens coming for me – the battle cry of the modern world’s first line of defence. Either they charged to their doom, or they were about to get the victory they’d been longing for these last two years. Whatever the outcome, there would be blood.

  It was fairly quiet in the town centre but there were about a dozen people milling around on the high street, as always in this age of never ending hustle and bustle. The human world no longer rested, even on days once considered holy, and I’d have suspected something was amiss if it had been completely dead. I vaguely wondered why none of them had come to investigate Tish’s screaming, but then I reminded myself how good people had gotten at explaining away such things. They’d probably told themselves the screams weren’t real, that they were part of a stunt someone was pulling or a prank. Anything to rationalise that which didn’t fit in with their own understanding of the world, and to avoid facing the truth, especially if that truth meant putting themselves in danger. But once I stalked into full view of those bored housewives and husbands, shift workers and school kids playing truant, there was no more lying to themselves. There was no more hiding behind any ‘rational explanation’ or remoulding the impossible into neat little scientific boxes which fit with their personal beliefs. There was only the terrifying, undeniable reality of the monster standing before them, and the panic that came with it.

  A woman laden down with a bulging shopping bag in either hand was the first to see me. She screamed and dropped the day’s haul, smart enough to realise her life was more precious than the items she’d bought. The other humans couldn’t ignore the cries of terror this time. As one, they turned away from shop windows and raised their heads from their phones to see what was going on, and more screams filled the air.

  I howled, finally sounding my excitement for the kill. But it was more than that now. It was a challenge to the approaching sirens, a vocalisation of my supernatural might and the added strength granted by my fury. And perhaps it was also a declaration of territory. Humans, in their arrogance, had come to believe the planet belonged to them. Once again I was here to remind them the Earth was not theirs to do with as they pleased. It didn’t belong to their species alone, and they hadn’t risen above the primal forces which govern the land, nor were they the apex predators they liked to think they were. Without their guns and their blades, they were nothing but prey. My prey.

  The first woman to scream was also the first to start running. My howl tailed off and I lowered my head, fixing her in my predatory sights. A growl rumbled through my chest and I dropped to all fours, giving chase. It was over even quicker than running down Tish had been. One mighty pounce and this new victim was sent crashing to the ground, my crushing jaws severing her spine with a single bite. It didn’t kill her but it was in the right place to cause paralysis. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  I was already up and running down my third victim before any of them had chance to seek refuge. This next one was a man. I lunged for his legs and dragged him to the ground as I had with Tish, but the time for leisurely torture was over. Each of these kills needed to be fast and brutal, so I dug my claws into his chest and ripped it apart, exposing his ribcage.

  I’d also missed my chance to gorge myself on a single body, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take a quick bite during each attack. His chest muscles felt so juicy and tender in my hands, and I tore them free in a single motion, gulping down first the left breast, and then the right. More blood oozed down my jaws, my tongue flicking across my fangs as I rose to take a fourth victim. She fell in a similarly gory fashion, all three bodies still breathing and yet as dead as the corpses lining the streets of Northamptonshire. They lay in the shadow of the Reaper, doomed to die before the day was through.

  Doors swung open and closed around me while I killed that fourth human. There were just two, one on either end of the street, who decided to run rather than hide. I listened to them disappearing round the corners to adjacent streets, where their fear would become an infectious disease, spreading from human to human until the entire area was stampeding in a frightened herd. My instinct was to chase after one of them, but I ignored it. The police sirens had become an incessantly loud whine in my ears, the officers in those cars undoubtedly Slayers. I was going to have to face their guns again soon, my time for killing so freely almost up. The humans cowering in their buildings would make easier targets than those who ran. It was time to turn more of their establishments into slaughter houses, starting with a large clothing store.

  A pitiful attempt was being made at barricading the doors when I slammed into them, breaking through like a battering ram of flesh and bone. Plastic body parts went flying, several of the store’s dummies lying in pieces. One man was unfortunate enough to be standing in the path of destruction and it knocked him backwards, sprawling on the floor where he lay helpless as I made my grand entrance. I was straight on him, savaging his belly with wild abandon. Blood spattered the latest fashions and more of the dummies, the faceless figures made all the eerier for the crimson streaks running down.

  Again I rose from my prey without killing him, his shredded flesh pumping out enough liquid to seal his fate. I sensed eighteen humans in the building and I took them all, leaving every last one to die a slow and painful death as further offerings for Dhaer. Then it was back outside to work my way through the next building.

  I was about to force my way into a bank when I realised the sirens had come to a sudden stop. Car doors opened and closed, and footsteps came running towards me – another dozen humans to the slaughter. Except these had guns, and they weren’t going down without a fight.

  “That’s it?” I growled. “That’s all your people can muster?”

  Their force was split into two groups, one behind and one in front. I knew they were probably just the first wave sent in to deal with me and minimalise the damage, before the stories spread of a werewolf rampaging in the streets. I knew that, but such a small force was still underwhelming. It wasn’t going to be much of a battle, and even though I should have been grateful, I actually felt insulted they’d sent so few. Did the leader of the Slayers in this area really consider me to be that weak?

  The Slayers opened fire, bullets flying from either end of the street. I ducked back into the clothing store, fast enough to avoid a killing shot but not quite escaping the sting of that deadly swarm. Pain exploded in both my right thigh and left bicep, a lump of metal embedding itself in each. I roared but didn’t slow.

  Once I was safely inside the building, I took a moment to heal my injuries, then grabbed the man with the hole in his abdomen. Loops of intestine slipped th
rough the gaping wound I’d made as I pulled him upright. His body was doing its best to hold on to all the vital pieces needed to keep it functioning, but gravity’s hold was stronger. A large length of intestine was soon hanging out, closely followed by his stomach. With nothing to hold the other organs in place, they too came spilling out, dangling from the wound like grisly decorations. But the man was not fortunate enough to have been claimed by death yet. He was fully aware of gravity finishing the disembowelling I’d started, and he found the new strength he needed to scream his horror at the sight of it.

  I held my screaming, meaty shield in front of me and ran back out onto the street. The two groups of Slayers had begun to advance towards the building, probably hoping to keep me pinned down in there until their back-up arrived. But I had other ideas.

  Once again my supernatural speed bought me all the advantages I needed, my body a blur as I charged at the group of Slayers on my left. More bullets shot towards me but most of the humans barely had time to react and pull their triggers. They never had the chance to take proper aim; merely squeeze the trigger and pray a bullet found its way into my heart or brain. But their prayers went unanswered, the few lucky shots that came close hitting the eviscerated man instead. His screams were cut short as his suffering was brought to a merciful end. It was time for the Slayers to take his place.

  I threw the corpse at the horrified humans, amused by how quickly these Slayers fell into blind panic. They looked the part of a police firearms unit but they lacked the training to provide any kind of effective response against rampaging undead. And they were clearly unprepared for the amount of damage we were capable of inflicting on our victims, most of them adding their own screams to the cacophony of terrified cries resounding through the town. A couple of them vomited up their fear and revulsion, rendering them helpless as I tore my way into the unit.

  Their uniforms included body armour designed to protect from both bullets and blades, and it did offer them some protection from my claws and fangs, but ultimately it was no match for my lycanthropic might. Not when the strength of a single swipe had the speed and power to break bones, or the bite from my jaws had the force behind it to crush anything caught between my teeth. All six of the group fell to my rage, battered and bleeding, both inside and out.

  The other six continued to fire from behind. Three bullets grazed my torso and another nicked my ear, only missing their marks because I moved too fast. But the moment I butchered the last of the first group and turned to face the second, their courage failed them and their aim went with it.

  I grabbed another dying body and ran at the second group, entering into a fight much like the first. Guns started to click empty and one of them drew a knife, but the limitations of his human body made him slow, and blind fear brought the kind of clumsiness that had gotten so many of them killed. It felt almost lazy as I sidestepped the attack and grabbed his arm in my hand, wrenching it from its socket in a shower of blood. All the fight went out of him with the loss of his limb and I turned to the next one, sending her to the floor with another powerful swipe. My claws rent her armour and something snapped underneath. She too stayed down.

  The last of the men I decapitated, momentarily forgetting about the need to make them suffer long, painful deaths. Oh well. I couldn’t keep them all on the edge of death, and there were plenty more victims still to be had.

  I managed to work my way through three more buildings without any other Slayers showing up, fatally wounding each and every human hiding within. I’d lost count of how many I’d killed by then but I didn’t think it was quite a hundred yet. Will had reckoned we needed several times that at least. It was going to be a long day if he was right, unless we could find a way to draw a bigger crowd of humans to us.

  Back out on the street, there finally came the first signs of the next wave of Slayers. More vehicles were approaching but that was not all this time. I thought I could hear at least three different helicopters flying in, maybe more. It was hard to tell how many exactly with the sound of the rotors so loud in my ears.

  This was more like the response I’d been expecting from them, and yet I found my rage giving way to apprehension. It seemed there was a small army heading my way, one which sounded to be a much bigger force than any other they’d sent to capture me so far. A force I probably couldn’t survive on my own. Not unless Dhaer appeared soon, but if Will was right about the sacrifice needed to entice it over, I was going to have to find a way to slaughter the townspeople on a larger scale, and fast.

  I abandoned my hunt through the various buildings in favour of finding somewhere more crowded. There was no way to bring any humans other than Slayers to me that I could think of, so I was going to have to go to them. But where was I going to find the numbers needed to draw the demon to us?

  The answer was so obvious, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. All the shops I’d wasted my time in were no good on what was clearly a work day for those with nine till five jobs. What I needed was a big office block full of floors and floors of workers. Or failing that, there was bound to be a high school nearby which would serve the same purpose.

  I bounded through the town centre, no longer paying any attention to the handful of humans scattered around or even the approaching doom. My focus was solely on finding a large building full of prey now. There had to be something nearby, but where? I could see no tall buildings towering over the town, nor could I hear the tell-tale signs of hundreds of young voices laughing and shouting to indicate a nearby school. Not anywhere in the immediate vicinity anyway. There were such sounds drifting across the miles of concrete standing between us, but I was never going to reach them before the Slayers descended and the real battle began. Plus Will hadn’t said how close the sacrifices needed to be for the ritual to work. They must have to be relatively nearby though, or why would there be a need for us to commit this massacre at all? Humanity were good enough at slaughtering their own without our interference. There was bound to be some atrocity going on somewhere in the world if range wasn’t an issue. But Will had been pretty clear on the need for me to do the killing, so the summoning must require pain and suffering within the area we were calling Dhaer to. A few miles out of the centre could be too much, and I wasn’t willing to risk it failing because I’d strayed too far.

  Fresh scents carried to me as I ran, scents which suddenly had my full attention. There was blood and sickness, and humans too numerous to count, all mixed in with the strong chemical smell of disinfectant attempting to mask the other odours. But not to my nose. I caught the scents humans would have deemed unpleasant and immediately knew what it meant. There was something even better than an office block or a school up ahead. The town had a hospital, a building full of the elderly and the infirm; all those too weak to run, those who would be utterly helpless lying in their beds as I went from room to room, reopening wounds and hastening the fates of the terminally ill. Some of the staff might escape with their lives, and maybe even some of the healthier patients, but not the majority. Dhaer was going to get an offering of hundreds, and the Slayers had been too slow to prevent it.

  The screaming started before I even entered the building. There were a few people walking through the carpark, their pace quickening to a sprint the moment they laid eyes on me. I let them run to their vehicles and make their escape, no longer interested in such small numbers. The Slayers could deal with any survivors when all this was over. I had too many other things to worry about.

  There were also people waiting for buses. One glimpse of the monster barrelling towards them was enough to persuade them to find another stop. I could have caught them before they got that far, but I ignored them too. Just like I ignored the odd staff member wandering around outside and patients well enough to venture out for fresh air. My sights were set on the main entrance, and nothing was going to distract me from my course.

  More cries went up at the sight of me bounding through the automatic doors. I leapt onto the reception d
esk and grabbed the nearest woman, then threw her at the wall with enough force to break her back. She fell in a crumpled heap, screaming and begging for help.

  A second woman had abandoned her computer and was just starting to run. I jumped back down and lunged with my jaws, grabbing her by her shoulder and shaking her so fiercely that her feet left the ground. The damage done by my fangs was devastating, blood gushing from torn flesh and coating my tongue in more of its intense flavour. Her collarbone broke with an audible crack and I dropped her, satisfied she wouldn’t get far before she bled out. She certainly wasn’t going to be saved.

  Staff and visitors stampeded along the corridors, running for one of the other exits. I took down a few on my way to the first room full of inpatients, where the real slaughter began.

  Some of the patients were already in critical condition and too sick or injured to put up a fight. They lay back and accepted their fate, perhaps grateful that their suffering would soon be over. Others attempted to run, but they were too weak from surgery, illness or old age to make it more than a few steps from their bed. Their blood coated the walls and the floor, tainting the clinical cleanliness of the rooms with red splodges and streaks running down.

  I killed everyone I came across on the ground level and worked my way up to the first floor. Word of my attack must have spread through the building, many of the wards I passed through deserted. There were more patients struggling through corridors the further I went, left behind by the healthy and the able bodied, like sacrifices meant to appease me. I even found my way into the operating theatre. Patients had been abandoned mid-surgery, their organs glistening beneath surgical lights. Several machines beeped incessantly as vital functions began to drop, and one was already flat lining.