As I walked back downstairs I heard her breathing growing heavier and smiled to myself. She was already drifting into sleep. The house was mine. I could watch anything I wanted without being disturbed.
I sat back on the sofa and started watching the film where I left off.
It had just gone ten to eleven when I heard a scratching sound at the front door. I stiffened, wondering what the hell it could be. It sounded like something, possibly a large animal, trying to get in. My imagination turned against me, conjuring up images of zombies crashing through the glass panes on either side of the doorway and ripping their way through the internal door, ripping away what was left of the thin piece of wood that was the only remaining barrier between them and me. Then I reminded myself I was the monster, so why was I worrying? I was the one who was meant to be scratching at people’s doors. I realised it was probably just a tree branch or something clawing at the door in the wind, so I relaxed and thought nothing more of it, until another sound came to me above the howling winds.
What was that? I could have sworn I heard something that wasn’t caused by the wind. And then it became more noticeable, a distinct knocking on the patio door, loud enough to be heard above the sounds of the storm. There was something out there that didn’t belong in our garden. Something was lurking in the dark, something that wasn’t troubled by the harsh weather. And it was waiting just on the other side of the glass.
Heart beating faster, I threw back the curtains to reveal... nothing. The night was as black as ever, impenetrable without some faint light for my eyes to see by. I might have better night vision than any human, but I still needed some kind of light to see by, and there was no moon, no stars. There was only that blackness, deep enough to drown in. We had an outside light but when I tried the switch nothing happened: the bulb had gone. I decided I must have imagined the noises and closed the curtains again, going back to the film.
Minutes later the knocking came again. I froze and the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand on end. There was definitely something out there. And the most terrifying thing was, it could be anything. I of all men knew that. It wasn’t an animal. Animals didn’t knock on the glass like that. It was either a fellow member of the undead, or a human. But what was a human doing out at this time of night, in this weather? And why would they be in our garden? Could it be a Slayer? Or some other enemy that Lady Sarah hadn’t told me about? I didn’t know. I couldn’t see anything when I looked out again, no matter how hard I strained my eyes.
The third time the noise came it was much louder.
A loud thump and I was sure the glass must have shuddered under the strain. I was on my feet for the third time and threw back the curtains a final time. A bolt of lightning flashed overhead, bright as day. It illuminated the thing that was lurking in the darkness and I fell back with a cry of horror.
The lightning died and the thing was hidden by darkness, until another flash revealed it again. And there, pressed against the glass, was the mutilated corpse of what appeared to be a man.
Another flash and this time, now I was over the initial shock, I came forward to examine the corpse that had been thrust against the door. Most of the skin had been removed from the face so that the muscle beneath showed, and even the bone was visible in some places. I wasn’t sure if it had been disfigured to make it unrecognisable, from torture, or to scare me.
I stared into that mutilated face, and dull eyes stared back, but what really caught my attention most was the victim's teeth. The lips, and the flesh just above and below the lips, had been completely cut off so that the whole of the gums were visible and the teeth became more obvious. My eyes were drawn to the long canines. I’d thought I was looking at a man, but he was not human. He was a vampire. Or rather had been a vampire before they took his life, reducing him to just another corpse.
All went dark again and I could hear the body sliding down the pane of glass. The next flash of lightning revealed the blood smeared over the glass where the cadaver had slid down a little way, and I began to notice more about the vampire's corpse, which was naked to show the wounds he had suffered.
A network of wounds surrounded his body; some were mere flesh wounds, others deeper and damaging the internal organs beneath. I noted that part of his chest had been cut away to reveal his heart, which had a hole in it where a stake had been driven through, and his muscles were clearly visible in many places, like partway along what remained of his arms and legs. Some of the muscle itself had been hacked away from the lower half of each of the limbs. The feet and hands had been cut off. He was also missing most of his manhood. And I knew all of this was probably done while he was alive, since vampires can survive torture for longer. He would have even survived such extensive damage, if it weren’t for the damage to his heart. And then with the next lightning flash a piece of metal caught the light and my heart stopped. A pendent with a strange symbol on it, and yes, next to it, there was the fang, where it had always been. Vince! First Lizzy, and now they’d taken Vince too. I tried not to think about what they might have done to Lizzy. At least she was human; there was only so much she would have had to endure before she died. She couldn’t suffer as long as Vince had.
There was no doubt in my mind who was responsible. When I first saw the body I’d thought the Slayers wanted to scare me, and they’d succeeded. It was more the shock that had got to me rather than horror. After everything I’d seen and done I was beyond horror. But when I was over the shock the anger bubbled up, until the second shock hit me with the realisation of who this corpse was, and I felt numb. I could still feel the rage building somewhere inside, but for the most part I was numb. They’d killed two of my friends. Who was next? Family? And what did they want from me? My life? They could have that, it was in ruins anyway. Why not just shoot me? Could it be that they thought I had information? Maybe that’s why they’d tortured Vince so badly, but if he didn’t give them anything they’d be looking for someone else to question. Whatever the reason, it seemed they were making a point that they knew where I lived. I decided the mutilated corpse was probably meant as a message, or rather a warning, amongst other things. And I knew how I was going to respond to that message. I would have revenge for his and Lizzy’s deaths.
I couldn’t leave Vince’s body there in that state. A part of me refused to believe it was really him. Just days ago I’d seen him, spoken to him. Did Lady Sarah know he was missing yet? I needed to tell her, but first Vince deserved a decent burial. And I had to remove the corpse before my parents came home, since it wasn’t exactly something I could explain to them. But I was aware there was a chance the Slayers could still be out there somewhere. What if it wasn’t a message at all, but a trap which I was about to walk right into?
I hesitated, unsure what to do. They’d already taken two of my friends. If I was stupid enough to go out into the night they could take me too. Was it worth the risk of capture by the Slayers, or was it better to risk my parent’s wrath? Dad would try and blame it on me. There was no reasoning with him through a bad year. It would be my fault and I’d probably be grounded again. Not to mention they would send for the police and it would raise further suspicions, even if the Slayers intervened. It seemed I must choose between my life or my freedom, a tough choice.
Rain lashed against my face so hard it hurt. Within minutes I was soaked to the bone. It dripped off my face and my hair, the ends of my fingers, the strings on my jacket. I squinted my eyes to protect them from the rain and waited for another lightning strike. I was blind out there. There was still no natural light to see by and none of the neighbour’s outside lights seemed to be working either. The glow from the street lights round the front was not powerful enough to reach the back garden. And the rain drove away any scents the wolf could have used to help us find our way around, as well as rendering my acute hearing all but useless. Even when the thunder wasn’t growling above, the other elements combined made it hard to hear anything else. I might as well have been human; my he
ightened senses were of so little use that night. Finally the lightning came and I approached what remained of Vincent Desmodontidae.
Darkness fell once more and I was left to grope the body in the dark, which sounds somewhat perverse but there was nothing sexual about it. Even if I’d really been interested in the dead like I had so often joked about, I wouldn’t have wanted a male corpse.
I got a grip on a pair of limbs. Whether they were arms or legs it was hard to say with the mutilations. He’d been dead at least a day because he’d already gone cold. I felt something moving in the flesh, probably maggots. That spurred me into action. I dragged the corpse backwards, nearly tripping at the edge of the garden that formed a kind of a step up from the patio. I slipped twice in the mud.
The next lightning flash showed I had reached the end of the garden. It would have been easier to dig a grave in wolf form, but that would mean I had to feed and hunting would be hard in such harsh weather, not to mention time consuming and I only had so long before my parents returned. I let my nails become claws and struggled to make a hole deep enough for the corpse, trying hard not to think about who it was. I was lucky it was raining so hard, otherwise I’d have had to wash the blood away too. And it made digging easier in the soft earth. It wasn’t long before I was able to climb out and roll the corpse into the hole. Somehow I managed to snag part of it on the hedge that formed a borderline between our garden and the fields. I fought to pull it free and fell back into the grave with the corpse on top of me. The impact made me curse without thinking. Phantom Slayers moving through the darkness silenced me. The phantoms I thought I could see weren’t really there, it was just my eyes straining to see something in the blackness. But that didn’t mean I was alone.
When I climbed out for the second time I stood, dripping things thicker than blood. After I’d filled in the grave I made my way back to the house. I didn’t like leaving Vince in an unmarked grave, but it was the best I could do for him in the circumstances. Besides, he was just as dead, either way. He didn’t give a damn. He was beyond caring, and even if his spirit lived on in some other place, he wouldn’t be visiting his own grave, so what was the point in marking it and leaving flowers? He wouldn’t appreciate them.
Once inside, I slammed the door shut and locked it. Then I stood for a while, soaking from the rain, covered in blood and dirt, my back pressed to the door and panting heavily, relieved to be back inside and safe. Or at least it gave me the illusion of being safe. If they really wanted to, I knew there were enough Slayers out there to force their way inside to get at me, and they’d hurt anyone who got in their way.
And while I stood there I thought of Vince and Lizzy and their cruel fates. There was no grief, just anger. A year ago I’d have been devastated at Lizzy’s fate. She’d been one of my closest friends. But I’d changed since then, and it seemed there was no longer room for anything other than anger, though maybe there was sadness somewhere inside that small part of who I used to be, the part that had survived long enough to make an appearance at the leaving assembly. Maybe there were other emotions, all lost in the anger and the numbness that had taken over my soul. If I even had a soul anymore.
Mum and Dad found me slumped against the door, lost in my own thoughts. That was as close to mourning as I ever came for those two lives. Mum believed me when I said I’d been out to bury a dead animal before it upset Amy. Dad refused to talk to me. So it was Mum who helped me clean up before I went to bed. No surprises there.
The horror lay buried at the end of the garden, but I couldn’t keep the nightmares away. It was as if the horror called to them, reaching out with cold, bloody fingers, dragging me into the darkness of my mind. A new nightmare started, one I’d never had before, and all I could do was ride it.
I was inside a large building, walking down a corridor. I hadn’t been there before but it felt like some kind of a prison. Official looking men in military style uniforms stood outside a door, looking straight ahead. They were armed and could have stopped me if they’d wanted, but the guards took no notice of me. I went through the door and I knew in the dream they couldn’t see or hear me. There was a girl tied to a chair inside, head bowed in despair as if she’d given up hope of being rescued.
Aughtie stood in the room with her, sharpening some kind of tool. It looked like a torture device, and when I looked back at the girl I realised that was exactly what it was. She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and I could see her bare arms were covered in cuts and bruises. It looked like somebody had been beating the shit out of her, and now they were going to try the torture device. But I couldn’t let them do that. I didn’t know who the girl was but I couldn’t just let them hurt her for no reason. Maybe she was a criminal, but no prison I knew of allowed this kind of thing to go on, at least not in the UK. So it probably wasn’t a prison, and she could be an innocent.
The girl didn’t even look up when Aughtie started walking towards her, brandishing the torture device threateningly, and I couldn’t take it any longer.
“No!” I yelled.
At first I didn’t think they could hear me. Aughtie certainly couldn’t, and neither could the guards outside, but the girl finally looked up, a mixture of pleading and hope in her blue eyes staring at me through a thick curtain of bushy light brown hair, and I realised I did know her. The hair hid most of her face, but I still recognised her.
“Lizzy?” I whispered, unable to believe it.
Then flames swallowed up her face and the dream changed, and that’s when it really became a nightmare. Lizzy was suddenly reaching to me through flames. Then we were on a battlefield. No, I was on a battlefield. Lizzy had vanished. Zombies surrounded me and other things I had no name for. I tried to make sense of the sudden change of environment. The zombies were fighting humans, Slayers I presumed. And Aughtie pushed her way through to me. She could see me now. I don’t know what happened next, she was just suddenly there in front of me, raising a sword. The next thing I knew, I felt a great pain in my chest and time seemed to slow down, though it was never real to begin with. I looked down at my body to see the sword submerged in it. Aughtie began to laugh as I fell to my knees, hands clutching at the cold metal in vain, trying to pull it out, blood staining my bare skin. I opened my mouth as if to speak, but only more blood came out. The dream world turned black, my life draining away…
I woke clutching my chest. The dream had been so real it was as if I could feel real pain where the sword had pierced my heart. And Lizzy, I felt sure she was real. I remembered what Lady Sarah had told me of dreams and I knew what it meant.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Beast Breaks Loose
“Lizzy’s alive,” I said.
“What?” Lady Sarah asked, distracted. I’d found her feeding in a dark alley, her fangs buried deep into a boy not much older than I was back then. She’d looked to be enjoying it more than the boy; her face full of pleasure and hunger and something else inhuman, while the boy had clearly been terrified, but she’d done something to him, so that he couldn’t scream. Even as he lay bleeding to death he couldn’t scream.
“Lizzy’s alive,” I repeated.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, and I have to save her. She’d do the same for me.”
“No. If the Slayers have kept her alive, it is a trap. Wait until we have gathered the others, then if she is still alive we will go for her.”
“What if it isn’t a trap? She may not have that long,” I argued.
“She does not know about our world?” I shook my head. “Then she has no valuable information to give them, thus there is no other reason for them to keep her alive. You will be killed if you go alone.”
I opened my mouth to argue but she held up a hand to stop me and I let her continue. “You are no good to her dead. Give me a couple more days to contact the others, then we will take those that wish to fight and there will be enough of us to rescue your friend.”
I still wasn’t convinced. I’d never been good a
t waiting and there was no way I was going to wait around for the Slayers to kill Lizzy. But I didn’t tell the vampire that.
“Lady Sarah, there’s something else. Lizzy’s not the only one they took.” I told her about Vince’s grim fate. The boy started to convulse, unnoticed by the two of us.
“No, it cannot be,” she whispered, staring into space, shocked. “He cannot be gone.”
“Are you okay?” I asked. I knew it was a stupid question but I didn’t know what else to say.
She drew in a deep breath and pulled herself together, though I knew Vince’s death was affecting her more than she’d ever let on. Maybe she’d even cry for him when I left. I didn’t know how close they’d been, but on some level she was deeply shaken by his passing. “I will be alright. Is there anything else I need to know?”
I hesitated. I’d planned to tell her about the rest of the dream, but after the way she’d taken the news about Vince, I didn’t want to give her any more shocks for the night. Still, she needed to know. “Lizzy’s alive, but that’s not all. Even if I wait until we are ready for battle, if I save her, it means I’ll die.”
That’s what the dream meant. But it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t leave Lizzy to the Slayers. I wouldn’t let them do to her what they’d done to Vince. I’d tried to protect her from being dragged into this mess and I’d failed. But unlike me she could still get out. I was in it now until I died. She was still human and hopefully still ignorant of our existence; if she got out now she had a life to go back to. I couldn’t stay in the human world any longer. Her life was worth more than mine in the circumstances.
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