by William Cook
He’d woken up, dazed and bloody, with a head-ache like no other and an unequalled thirst. He’d assumed that he’d been mauled by dogs – there were plenty that roamed the back alleys after dark, whole packs of vicious strays that often attacked the down-and-outs. Despite his distress, Harper’s senses bounced off the alley walls. His vision elongated and adjusted to the dark, picking out varying hues of life – a rat amongst the trash, a mouse peeking from a crack in the wall, a pigeon twitching as it roosted on the rung of a fire-ladder . . .
His nostrils flexed as the scents that hung rank in the air, separated themselves into organic and unnatural odors. He darted towards the biological smells and managed to feed upon what he caught, but it didn’t satisfy his thirst. His twisted brain burned with the afterglow of his addictions, yet another urge over-rode his desires. A deep instinct spun its way through his swollen vascular system, somehow preventing him from leaving the dark confines of the alley-way.
Harper’s human memories faded with each breath that left his body. The rodents and felines he caught and consumed, sustained only a small portion of his being, but he felt their lives become part of his and this pleased him somewhat. Then, luck prevailed. A drunk lurched down the alley, bouncing off the brick walls as he stumbled, fell and picked himself up, before doubling over as he noisily vomited his stomach contents onto the concrete. Harper’s body bristled with energy as he stalked his prey. The drunk leaned on the wall, fumbling for cigarettes in his jacket pockets. Harper crashed into the man; the man’s flailing limbs tried to fend Harper off, but he was too strong. Too thirsty.
He stripped the body of its clothing and gouged and tore with his teeth until the skin broke and ripped and blood bubbled to the surface. Harper lapped hungrily at the warm fluid – the sweet taste of alcohol tempered with the intoxicating ambrosia of blood. He burrowed his face deep into the human’s chest, pulling the rib-cage apart as he ploughed deeper inside, devouring flesh and organs until he bit down on the throbbing muscle. He pulled the heart from the gaping wound and held it above his open mouth, squeezing the bulbous organ as blood gushed forth. He gulped the hot coppery liquid down, each swallow filling his muscles with strength, his mind with purpose. As he wrung the last drops from the human’s heart he heard the voice. A strange ancient dialect filled his thoughts with instruction. He knew what he must do, where he must go.
He looked up at the starry sky above. His skin was the color of chalk, dark crimson stained the lower half of his smiling face. His broken teeth had repaired themselves, resplendent with animal power and acuity. He rose up into the night, arms outstretched in a cruciform fashion. Harper surveyed the world beneath him as he ascended, the alley below merging into a maze-like warren of streets and geometric passages, small human figures went about their nocturnal activities like ants as he passed over them. Rows of down-town sky-scrapers loomed, as the cold night air buffeted his clothes and he eventually alighted on the roof of a towering apartment building.
He felt at home up there above the city and this apartment block still possessed a familiarity that betrayed its presence as significant to his past life as a mortal. Harper breathed verily deep the night air and measured the boundaries of his thirst against his fleeting sense of time. He waited, prowling the rooftop, sensing the warm blood-filled bodies of the human inhabitants below him.
The Master appeared from the shadows of the lift-maintenance building. Harper dropped to his knees, completely servile, but with an innate fear of this being who had given him life through death – the pale stranger who had led him into the alley, three nights previously.
‘Rise,’ the Master said in Harper’s mind’s core, the dialect now plain to hear.
‘We have much work to do.’
The master flourished his outstretched limb around him as if conducting some unseen orchestra then, with a devilish grin, he pointed downward in the direction of the apartments below. Harper stood transfixed, his mind filled with the gourmet possibilities of the human life that teemed in the building beneath. The apartment building seemed to breathe, the essence of which filled his senses illustrating the great variety of activity within, but all Harper knew and felt was a great thirst.
He could hear the heartbeats as a cacophony of percussive life-forces that invited his hunger to feast. An image of his wife and children flashed through his mind, but all he could think of was the blue pulse of blood running through the veins in their throats. His thirst knew no bounds, not even the memory of his home and his family who occupied one of the apartments below. The Master was his mentor, his father now, but his thirst was his god. He smiled and rose in the air before making his descent to the nearest apartment balcony, secure in the knowledge that he now knew his thirst would be forever quenched, with the aid of the pale stranger’s tutelage.
Afterword
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About the Author
William Cook is the author of the popular psychological thriller, Blood Related and editor of Fresh Fear: An Anthology of Macabre Horror. He is also the author of Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales and the poetry collection, Corpus Delicti, along with two non-fiction books: Gaze Into The Abyss: The Poetry of Jim Morrison and Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors. Father to four daughters, William lives in New Zealand with his wife and family. Always seeking to better his life and writing, he strives to produce the best quality books on interesting subjects that will satisfy his growing audience. Member of the Australian Horror Writers Association, SpecFicNZ & the SFFANZ.
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Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales
Dreams of Thanatos: Collected Macabre Tales is a collection of short horror fiction from William Cook, the author of the novel Blood Related. Supernatural demons, murderers and ghosts roam these pages although the most horrifying aspect Cook describes, is the dark soul of humanity. Included in this collection of fifteen stories is a novelette (Dead and Buried) and the origin story (‘Legacy: The Eternal Now and Thereafter’) behind the novel, Blood Related.
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