Hybrid

by Wild Wolf Publishing

  “Yeah, dream on Nick”, Lizzy told me and then after a pause she said “Graphical? Is that even a word?”

  “Probably not in the context I used it but you know what I meant,” I laughed.

  We were instructed to make a start on the next piece of coursework. We would be making pop-up books on any subject we wanted, and now all the design work was out of the way it was time to begin making the actual product. I’d chosen to do mine on dinosaurs, another childhood obsession, and Lizzy had chosen to do hers on Disney’s Winnie the Pooh.

  Lizzy withdrew a pair of blunt scissors she carried in her pencil case for Graphics. She pinched the skin of her wrists and tried to cut the flesh, which always worried me even though I knew the blades were too blunt to actually do anything. They barely cut through paper.

  She was weird like that sometimes. I didn’t know why she did that or whether there was anything going on at home that made her act a bit melodramatic at times, since we never really talked about that kind of thing. After all, that’s what girls do, talk about all their problems. I might have hung around with girls but that didn’t mean I was one. As far as I knew she never tried to slit her wrists with anything sharp enough to actually do the job so mostly I just left her to it, assuming she wasn’t really serious about suicide.

  “Want me to fetch some scissors?” I asked her.

  “Please, these are useless,” she replied, giving up on her wrist.

  Once I’d grabbed all the tools we needed to get to work, I sat back at the desk and picked up a pair of school scissors, ready to attack the sheet of paper in front of me and do something vaguely creative.

  “You know you’re holding those scissors the wrong way again, right?” Lizzy asked me.

  I looked at my hand and realised I’d put my fingers through the smaller hole that was meant to be for my thumb, and my thumb through the bigger hole that was meant to be for my fingers.

  “I can’t believe you still do that. Some days I swear it’s like you don’t know how to be human. I know you love werewolves Nick, but there’s being a fan and then there’s being obsessed,” she said.

  That was something else I’d done all my life, though not on purpose. She was right: it was like some days I didn’t know how to be human. There were times when human activities even felt awkward, and that was before I’d been bitten. Once more I found myself wondering, if I was truly descended from wolves, whether that had something to do with my strange behaviour over the years. A lot of activities required of me as a human seemed to go against my instincts, like running on two legs. Even before I’d been bitten there were times when I felt it would be more comfortable to drop to all fours. I’d always assumed it was just wishful thinking but it seemed maybe there had been more to it. Of course I couldn’t tell Lizzy any of that, so I just laughed and agreed with her.

  After the lesson I spent lunch with Lizzy. We ate in the canteen together before heading back to her form, slower than usual because we were busy talking. I heard a loud sigh behind us and someone exclaimed “It’s like waiting for a bus!”

  The next thing I knew, two boys had pushed their way past us, shoving me into the wall. The last time this had happened in Year Ten it had angered me, though I’d kept the anger well hidden. Then minutes later I was doing my best to laugh it off with Lizzy, who again had been with me at the time. She’d asked me “Why do you let them push you around?” I’d shrugged and she’d let it drop. That day, however, the anger was uncontrollable.

  It broke free of its chains and escaped through my mouth in an animal roar of fury. A red haze descended over my eyes, a sea of blood, with the two boys the only clear things left in my sight. I was only dimly aware of the shocked look on Lizzy’s face, but I was very much aware of the mocking expressions on the faces of the two boys, who were laughing at my reaction. Their laughter cut through me like knives through my flesh, wounding, scarring, fuelling the hate. It made me bleed like I had throughout my childhood when they taunted and laughed and mocked, all of them, and I was suddenly sick of it. I growled and charged at them, their laughter soon turning to surprise and then to a smug confidence, and finally to horror when I was suddenly on one of them, moving too quick for them to react.

  One of them had short, dark brown hair but I can’t remember his face. He wasn’t particularly tall or bulky but he liked to shadow other bullies, where he could taunt his victims whilst remaining safe in the presence of his larger counterparts. The other I knew well, for he had been determined to make my life Hell since he first laid eyes on me in Year Seven. Like the stereotypical bully, he was an ugly son of a bitch built like a thug, and though he looked dim-witted he was surprisingly intelligent. His short hair was a dirty blonde, his eyes a blueish grey and cold, full of laughter and cruelty, set in a round face dotted with freckles. And he was the one I wanted to hurt most, make him pay not just for everything he had done to me, but for all those years suffering at the hands of bullies just like him.

  Before I knew what I was doing I had him by the throat, pinned to the wall, and my fist was drawn back ready to beat the crap out of him. And I would have done if it hadn’t been for Lizzy and the other boy trying to pull us apart. My grip was so tight I was choking him, and I didn’t take kindly to the interruption. Feeling Lizzy’s hands on my arm, trying to pull me away, I snarled and turned on her, ready to lash out. The anger melted away as soon as I saw the hurt look on her face that I would strike her. I looked back at Jamie and realised he was turning blue, struggling to breathe. I relaxed my grip and turned away indifferently, while Lizzy whispered in my ear “Have you gone mad? Aughtie’s coming! When I said don’t let them push you around I didn’t mean go this far. Jesus, Nick, you looked like you were going to kill him!”

  I didn’t answer and we hurried back to her form room in silence, before Aughtie could question any of us. She kept giving me worried looks through the remaining lunch hours, and I was glad when lunchtime ended and I could escape her. Deep down I knew she was only looking out for me, but I had enough problems without her worrying and starting to ask awkward questions. The brief encounter had been unlike me and she knew better than to believe my reassurances that everything was okay. I didn’t want to have to start avoiding her but it seemed like I might not have an option in future, unless I could learn to control myself better.

  Jamie was in a few of my lessons, including the two I had that afternoon, but he avoided me. He’d obviously been shaken by my sudden display of violence, though he tried his best to hide it from everyone else. By the end of Period Six I forgot the anger and the hate, locking them away in the dark place in my soul, my thoughts turning to Halloween as I filled with the excitement it brought.

  Later that night I’d changed into my skeleton outfit, complete with scythe, and was waiting for Fiona to call. A few young kids came trick or treating with their parents while I was waiting. Every time the door closed Mum and Amy kept going on about how cute they were. I sat there rolling my eyes, bored and wishing Fiona would hurry up.

  Movement on the edge of the carpet by the wall caught my eye as a spider scuttled along. Amy hated spiders and I was feeling mischievous that night, and in need of some fun while I waited for my friends.

  “Hey Amy!” I yelled. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  “So? I don’t care about anything you’ve got to show me, geek.”

  I’d caught the spider on my hand and it was running along my knuckles, trying to escape.

  “Oh no you don’t,” I muttered, and nudged it back over onto my palm. Finally it lay still, quivering. I closed my fist and ran upstairs.

  Amy was in her room and the door was closed so I knocked. She glared when she opened it to find it was me.

  “Trick or treat,” I said and opened up my hand. Exposed to the light, the spider started making a bid for freedom again.

  She screamed and ran into her room, slamming the door behind her. I forced my way in and she screamed again, running to the furthest corner and scrabb
ling up her bunk bed to be as far away from the spider as possible.

  “Mum! Tell Nick, he won’t leave me alone!” she screamed, while I doubled up with laughter.

  “Nick! What are you doing to your sister?” Mum shouted up.

  “Nothing, Mum,” I said innocently.

  Footsteps on the stairs and Mum came through the open door. Nobody ever believed me.

  “He’s got a spider, Mum,” Amy sobbed, bursting into fake tears.

  “Stop teasing your sister and get rid of it Nick,” she told me, handing me a tissue to kill it.

  “It’s got a big fat body, should squish nicely,” I said, and crushed it in the tissue, opening it back up to prove it was dead. “Look, you can see all the juices have come out.”

  “Nick, don’t. Do you always have to be so disgusting?” Mum asked.

  I pretended to look thoughtful for a moment before answering “Yup. Besides, it’s Halloween. Get into the spirit of things.”

  Mum rolled her eyes and walked out, bidding me to follow and leave Amy in peace. Minutes later there was a knock at the door. Fiona stood in the doorway with Jessica and her little sister Hannah, who I eyed with distaste.

  “You didn’t tell me there’d be kids,” I said. I hated kids. Hannah was dressed as a witch with a green face, wearing a pointy hat, a cape and carrying a broomstick. I could hear Amy’s exclamations of how cute she was in the background.

  “Sorry, Mum made me bring her along,” she told me.

  “I’ll put up with a kid just this once, but I hope you know this is seriously damaging to my image! The King of Horror can’t be seen with kids,” I said, using the title I’d come up with for myself for when I was to become famous. “Unless maybe he’s torturing them.”

  Mum overheard. “Oh Nick, don’t say such things.”

  “So what are you two meant to be?” I asked, ignoring Mum. Both were wearing their school uniform with shirts pulled out and ties hanging loose (the teachers were really strict about our uniform; shirts had to be tucked in otherwise we risked a comment and ties had to be fastened tight and to the right length), and they’d painted freckles all over their faces. They had their hair in pigtails.

  “Naughty school girls,” Fiona answered.

  “Well you didn’t need to dress up for that,” I laughed.

  After promising Mum I wouldn’t be too late home and that we’d stay together, we set off down the street.

  I had a great time, knocking on doors with the scythe which looked really effective, scaring young kids out with their parents and revelling in the praise for my costume, as people told me how cool it looked. Even an old lady thought it was a great costume, though most of the older residents didn’t celebrate Halloween. One miserable sod tried telling us he didn’t have anything to give us, so I wanted to play a trick on him but Fiona said we’d get into too much trouble, and I let it go.

  After a couple of hours of roaming the streets, we decided to head back to Fiona’s house. For one thing, we needed to get Hannah home. Fiona had promised her mum she’d have her back before eight.

  We were walking down Fiona’s street, eating the sweets we’d collected. Me and Fiona were walking together in front, Jessica and Hannah behind. Fiona was telling me excitedly about a dance tournament she had coming up in the next couple of months or so. I feigned polite interest and encouraged her that she was almost guaranteed first place, but I switched off when talk turned to her boyfriend and how she believed him to be the one. She’d already picked out her prom dress even though it was still months away and she had him making plans on their entrance. There was a prize for best entrance as well as the obvious title of Prom Queen, and I knew she would love to win either. Any girl would.

  We hadn’t gone far down the street when Hannah cried out from somewhere behind. We turned round to find her in a heap in the bushes, fighting to get up, her cape caught in the branches. I don’t know if it was all the sugar I’d eaten in the sweets, the excitement Halloween held, for me at least, or the wolf blood running in my veins, making me feel more alive in the darkness, but I burst out laughing and couldn’t stop, even after Fiona had untangled her little sister and we set off walking again.

  I had fallen behind, still laughing, when I happened to glance down the street and saw something to still my heart. The laughter died in my throat.

  Shadows moved at the end of the street and it was gone, but I knew what I had seen. I’d noticed a definite improvement in my night vision like I’d suspected there might be that day in the dimness of Aughtie’s room, and now my eyes could penetrate the darkness where human eyes could not.

  Uncertain, I stood thinking. We’d be safer at Fiona’s house, though if it was what I thought it had been Fiona could be in danger if we led it back to her family. For I was sure I had seen a human figure in the shadows. It had to be a Slayer; who else would be following us? Unless my eyes deceived me and it had been a large animal wandering the streets. Was I just being paranoid? I couldn’t take the risk. And if it had indeed been a Slayer and they knew I was the werewolf they’d been hunting on the night of my first full moon, they may well use Fiona and her family to get to me. I wouldn’t let that happen.

  The others looked back at me, realising I’d fallen behind. Before I could do anything, shadows moved down the side of the house nearest to the others. Another one? Almost too quick for me to follow, far too quick for human eyes, the thing struck. Glued to the spot, I could do little more than watch in horror as it held Hannah in a death grip. It was human in form but I knew then it was far from human.

  He looked like a pale man dressed like a goth, complete with full length black leather coat and leather boots, and long hair blacker than the night atop a face twisted with eternal hunger, almost bestial. His nose was slightly flatter than it should have been, like a bat’s, and his eyes burned with that hunger. His canines elongated as I watched until they extended over his bottom lip and came to a point halfway down his chin. Even his ears weren’t human; they were slightly pointed which again put me in mind of a bat. Time seemed to slow as I watched him open his mouth wide and lower his lips to the little girl’s neck to give her the kiss of death. His fangs pressed against the skin right where the jugular vein rested beneath, about to pierce it and plunge into the bloodstream to suck the precious life from her.

  The other humans still didn’t know what had happened. Suddenly a stranger had appeared in their midst and they still hadn’t recovered from the initial shock. I had, yet I still hadn’t moved, indecisiveness preventing me from reacting.

  At the first pinpoint of blood on her neck I knew I had to do something before he killed her. It quickly became a thin trickle as the fangs slid a little deeper, threatening to become a fountain if the wound wasn’t healed over soon. If it were any other kid I don’t know if I would have left them to the vampire, but as it was she was Fiona’s little sister and I had to do something. Didn’t I?

  No. I didn’t. The memory of the night I had been bitten had chosen to return to me and suddenly I remembered it clearer, the vampire’s attack bringing it all back to me, and I remembered my friends leaving me to die. And Fiona had been one of them. Why should I risk my life to save her sister? She’d left me to die. But could I live with myself if I did nothing while Hannah approached the point of death with every drop the vampire drew from her veins? I felt I didn’t owe Fiona anything since she’d run and left me to my fate, even if she was supposedly a friend. I could simply turn my back on the three of them and let the vampire gorge himself. It would be a tragedy, a little girl killed at so young an age, but these things happen. Predators feed on prey. It’s always been nature’s way, even if the predator in question was unnatural. And she had to die at some point anyway, mortal as she was. If I interfered the vampire may simply kill me and still feast on Hannah, since I doubted he would drink the blood of a werewolf when it was human prey he craved. Could I really leave her to die though? A little voice from the darkest depths of my soul kept screaming bu
t Fiona left you to die! I ignored it. Whatever I have become over the years, I wasn’t completely consumed by darkness so early in my lycanthropy, and the light was winning.

  I roared a challenge at the vampire. I didn’t really know what I was doing. Panic had driven me to distract him in any way I could, and it had been the first thing that came to my mind.

  The vampire’s head whipped up, anger at being disturbed when feeding etched into his bestial features. He snarled and I thought he really was going to kill me, but tossed Hannah aside like a rag doll, hissing “You!”

  I backed away, conscious of the blood leaking from the wounds in the young girl’s throat, knowing it had to be stopped. Fortunately I’d stopped the vampire before he’d made the wounds deep enough to be fatal.

  “Fiona, stop the bleeding!” I yelled before the vampire was on me. Fiona staggered backwards slightly as if I’d slapped her round the face and looked around dazedly. Finally she had the sense to tear a strip of material off her shirt and press it to her sister’s neck.

  The vampire pinned me to the ground by the throat. I struggled to free myself, thrashing around like a maddened animal, all to no avail. He was too strong, and though I landed a couple of blows on his arms and chest, he refused to move. I realised I was powerless to do anything if he decided to kill me and gave up fighting him, letting myself relax, waiting for death to come.

  “You,” he repeated.

  “Have we met?” I asked, studying his face. I was sure I’d remember a face like that.

  “Not in person, but I’ve heard so much about you,” he said, leering at me. “You spoilt everything. So young, so full of life, so sweet… She’s mine and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “You’ll have to kill me first.”

  “Maybe I will,” he replied.

  He tightened his grip on my throat. Breathing became harder and I started to choke. Instinctively I started to lash out again and thought I had caught him a lucky blow on the side of the head when he fell off me, but someone held out a hand to let me up and I realised it had been they who had saved me. I took the hand and they pulled me to my feet, coughing and gasping for breath. Once I’d recovered I looked at my rescuer and was surprised to find it was Lady Sarah.