by Tia Wilson
“Liquefaction,” Doctor Clancy said.
Tulimak slapped his thigh and grinned broadly at Grace, “That’s the one. Liquefaction. You know what that is?” he asked looking over at Grace.
“I can guess,” she said.
“I suppose you can. It still wouldn’t prepare you for seeing it in person. The mans organs began to turn into a thick soup within minutes of taking a dose of the bile. We were spraying down this room for weeks,” Tulimak said enjoying it as Grace squirmed in her chair. “Don’t worry. We burnt the chair he died on, there was no cleaning him off that. Are we ready?” he said turning to the doctor.
“As ever,” the doctor said and removed a small glass vial from his jacket pocket. “This is a weakened dose and nothing to be afraid of,” the doctor said screwing off the cap. Attached to the lid was a small dropper and it was filled with liquid with a greenish tint.
Tulimak put his hand on Graces shoulder and dug his fingers into her flesh and said, “One drop on the tongue and it will be all done. If you try anything funny Slattery will put a bullet through your friends skull. Isn’t that right,” Tulimak said motioning over to Slattery.
“Nothing would make me happier than reducing the numbers of the black bear clan,” Slattery said with a manic grin on his face.
“He’s always been a go getter our Slattery. I wouldn’t do anything to upset him,” Tulimak said and dug his fingers in harder, “now stick out your tongue” he ordered Grace.
Grace let out a low moan of pain as Tulimak's fingers dug into her flesh. She looked wildly at each man in the tiled room, Slattery grinning as he pressed his gun against Annes temple, the doctor licking his lips as he approached with the glass vial of poisonous bile and Tulimak standing tall above her and looking at her with a cruel smirk on his face. This is how it is going to end for me Grace thought as the utter desperation of the situation hit her like a punch to the stomach. I am never going to see Tom again and feel safe in his arms. Grace cursed the evil men standing around her and felt crushed and broken by their evil deeds. “Will you let my friend go if I’m the one that you want,” Grace said in desperation.
Tulimak relaxed the pressure on her shoulder and said, “Sure. We can do that. Once we extract some more bile from her, she is free to go. I’m a man of my word.” Tulimak smiled down at her, an elongated canine jutting out over his bottom lip.
You’re the real monster Grace thought as she looked up into his face, the broken creatures that brought us here were misguided by a desire for home. You are nothing but a cruel warped beast who obviously gets joy out of hurting others she thought as she looked into the dark pools of his eyes. Grace was never a violent person but her mind was filled with images of killing Tulimak the first chance she got. She could feel his power and menace this close to him, it felt like being in a zoo and only a sheet separated you from a tiger or other large predator. You knew if given a chance the animal would rip you apart. Only now there was no safety barrier between them and every cell in Graces body protested at his closeness to her. Grace had been in trouble before, a guy in a bar had started to get too hands on with her and she had to push him away, he was then dragged outside and taken care of by two huge bouncers. She had been afraid in that situation, being close to Tulimak was completely different. She felt paralysed with fear and at the same time she wanted to destroy Tulimak, a very human desire to kill something we didn’t understand but could feel in our gut.
Grace closed her eyes and stuck out her tongue and focused on the first time she saw Tom at the cafe. How cocky he was walking straight up to her and introducing himself. I will see you again she thought to herself as she heard the Doctor walk up beside her.
A cool drop of liquid fell on Graces tongue and she instinctively withdrew it and swallowed. She opened her eyes and the three men had taken a step back and they watched her with eager expressions.
The drop on her tongue tingled and Grace could taste a faint flavour of vanilla. She swallowed again and her throat felt dry and scratchy. Grace threw her head back and started to gasp for air as her throat seemed to snap shut to a pinhole. She tried to breath and all she could manage were high pitched whistling gasps. She looked around wildly and the men stood and observed her. She began to convulse in the chair her body wracked by painful jolts. She strained against her cuffs as she thrashed about and her hand broke free from the loosened strap. Her hand flew to her neck as she scratched painfully at her skin leaving long bloody trails. Help me she tried to scream and nothing but a breathless screech came from between her purple lips.
Pain flooded ever nerve in her body each surge reaching untold heights than the one before. Tears streamed from her eyes and she looked at the ceiling as her body was fried with pain. I am going to die she thought as everything around her began to fade. The bones in her body felt like they were on fire and then melting into molten metal and burning her from the inside out. I can’t take it anymore, I want to die she thought as the pain increased to hellish levels. My body is going to tear itself apart was Graces last thought. Her whole body went rigid, her free arm shooting out stiffly in front of her. Her left eardrum burst and blood ran down her neck. She stayed frozen rigid like a grotesque wax work for a couple of seconds and then all power left her body. She slumped in the chair, her head hanging to the side with her eyes open and unseeing. No breath escaped her lips, no blood pumped in her veins.
7
Nathaniel
An owl hooted in the distance and Nathaniel's eyes snapped open. He lay still and listened to the forest around him. Everything was silent. He stroked his wife's arm and she began to stir against him. They lay concealed in a thicket of low bushes, holding each other as they had slept. “It’s time,” he whispered into his wife's ear and she started to stretch out beside him.
They had both fed to satiation when they tracked down and killed a young deer that had got separated from its mother. With full stomachs they had found the first good hiding place and crawled on their bellies far into the tangle of low bushes and fell into their first restorative sleep since waking from hibernation.
They lay beside each other holding hands and both listened to the forest. There was only one sound that they were listening for and that was the clumsy pounding walk of a human. Even when they thought they were being completely silent, shifters could usually hear them in a forest environment. No other creature on the planet could move as quickly and silently as an adult shifter as they moved through the wilderness. Humans seemed like drunks fools in comparison to the balletic precision of a shifter crossing a forest or woodland.
The husband and wife crawled through the thicket of scratching and tangled branches and stood up in the chill night air. Their clothes had been ripped in several places as they left their hiding places, and holes in the rotten fabric exposed portions of their skin. They looked each other over and smiled. He knew how they both looked, like two creatures that had slept for decades beneath the soil. They would need to clean up and change clothes if they wanted to leave the woods and find a new home. Nathaniel looked at his wife and even under the layer of caked on mud streaking her body, her slicked back hair hard with embedded clay and her rotten dress hanging off her in rags, he still thought she was beautiful. He could see how the old stories of vampires or zombies had first started up. His culture was full of stories of shifters going into the earth for long hibernations and then waking up and being spotted by a human. Over time these myths transmuted into tales of the dead rising, or blood sucking vampires out for revenge. These mistakes worked in bear kinds favour and kept their presence mostly secret from the human world.
Nathaniel nodded at his wife and they both took off at a run. He could feel the power in his muscles returning as his eyes picked out the best path to take in the gloom. They moved swiftly through the forest, their ears attuned to the sounds of the forest around them. He flexed his arms as he ran feeling the iron tightness in his muscles return. He would need to feed several more times before he could transf
orm safely, the longer you stayed in the ground the more dangerous your first transformation could be.
They slowed and then stopped as they drew near to the tree line. They hunkered down and watched the houses for movement. The house across from the dividing stream was completely dark. On the back wall of the house a small red light that was attached to a white metal box blinked on and off.
The house that they were targeting had no lights on downstairs and the single upstairs window that faced the back garden had a faint flickering glow coming from behind the pulled down shade. Nathaniel sniffed the air. It was faint, nothing more than an after image like a camera flash when you close your eyes, but he could pick up a trace of the scent from today. He looked at Melissa and nodded. Nathaniel pulled off his one rotten shoe he was still wearing and dropped it on the ground. Melissa copied and took off her flat shoes, one of them coming apart in her hand as she slipped out of them. Nathaniel's clothes ripped off him with very little effort and he dropped them in a pile. The cold air prickled his skin on his naked dirt streaked body. Melissa shrugged off her clothes and threw them on top of the other rotten and torn rags.
They both stood side by side completely naked watching the house from the woods. They didn’t feel the cold against their skin the way a human would and the cool night air felt more like a pleasurable tickle than something to be protected from.
A light switched on upstairs in the hall. A man walked past the window without looking out, his hair stuck up in clumps at the back of his head. He disappeared as he entered the only room on that floor with light coming out of it. Then a few seconds later he left, crossed the hall, switched the light off and returned to his room. Nathaniel and Melissa watched the room with the flickering light and after a few minutes it went out. The house was now completely dark
They moved with speed across the open lawn. A bright white light came on when they were half way across bathing the whole lawn in light. The two froze. Nathaniel stared up at the light, the house was a black shape behind the dazzling rays. He listened for movement, ready to turn and run back to the woods at the first sound. He heard nothing. The light went off and it clicked as the bulb cooled. They ran to the back door and lay against the side of the house and listened. A low hum of electronics came from inside the house. Everything else was silent. Nathaniel sniffed the air, the family didn’t own a dog. He tried the handle to the back door. It was locked. Melissa went to the kitchen window and tried to open it. The window opened outwards with a click.
She climbed in and stood in the middle of the kitchen sniffing the air. Nathaniel watched her through the glass back door, she looked beautiful, a creature of the night surrounded by the clean lines of a modern kitchen. The key was in the backdoor, she opened it and Nathaniel entered. He felt the unease he always felt when somewhere strange and enclosed. They headed towards the stairs leaving a trail of muddy foot prints on the tiled kitchen floor.
They climbed the stairs and stood in the hall. Nathaniel looked down, he was standing on plush carpet, he couldn’t remember the last time he had walked on it. Their image was reflected back at them from the large window in the hall looking out across the back lawn and towards the dark shape of the forest. They looked at themselves, two dirt streaked pale faces looked back. They smiled at each other and listened. Three rooms in total. The closest room someone was emitting a deep rumbling snore, accompanied by a lower register nasal whine. No sound came from the next room. It wasn’t the sound from the room across the hall they were interested in, it was the odour that lead them to the door. Nathaniel could feel his whole face tingle as he breathed in the scent. He closed his eyes and let it entangle him in its web as images of wild bears basking in the sun beside a stream full of spawning trout flashed in his mind.
He opened his eyes and refocused. He stood back and motioned to Melissa. She opened the door and stepped into the room closing the door behind her. Nathaniel crossed to the stairs and stood outside the parents room listening for any change in breathing. The snoring continued. He heard a jolt of furniture and something small hit the carpeted floor in the room Melissa had entered. He tensed his body and waited to react at the slightest change in the parents breathing. They continued to sleep deeply.
The door across the hallway opened and Melissa had the boy in her arms. She had her hand clamped over his mouth and his eyes were wide with fear. Her other arm was around his waist holding him tight against her. She had her teeth pressed against the side of the boys cheek. Most humans tended to shut up very quickly if you threatened them with have their eye ripped out by a pair of snapping jaws.
She crossed the hall and padded down the stairs. Nathaniel smelt the acrid stench of urine as she passed by. He gave her time to get to the back door. The parents continued to sleep deeply. Melissa was waiting outside for him as he closed the back door with a low click behind him. Tears were streaming down the boys cheek, and he knew from the glee in his wife's eyes that she could taste them. She closed her mouth and looked at the boy, deep impressions of her teeth left a semi circle below his eye, she was careful not to break his skin. The boy looked at the bearded and naked man before him and tried to shout. Nothing but a pathetic whimper escaped through Melissa's fingers. They looked across the lawn, within seconds they would be back in the safety of the forest.
The boys eyes swivelled about as if he was trying to will them to stay close to his house. They turned and ran across the lawn. The light came on behind them. They did not slow down as they cast long thin shadows ahead of them. Melissa reached the forest first and Nathaniel was right behind her. They split up and headed in opposite directions, winding and taking a random route through the woods. They did not want to be followed. Thirty minutes later they met at the designated spot, a tree that had fallen over in a storm and was covered in moss and soft with rot.
The couple allowed each other a smile as they went deeper into the woods to wake their hibernating children and introduce them to their new brother.
8
The Mongrels
“I don’t trust him,” said Clarence Boyd as he paced back and forth the length of the one room metal hut they were staying in for the night. “His father, maybe we could have worked with him. Tulimak isn’t right in the head, you seen how he looked at us when we entered the compound. He didn’t exactly give us the grand welcome you expected.”
“Enough,” Nasak said as he traced his fingers across the jagged scars that ran like a patchwork of seams through his hair and across the top of his skull. He ran his thick fingers through the jet black thicket of his beard and looked over at Clarence. “We don’t have to trust him for long. All we need is to find out where the clan now lives and once we do, it is time to begin the real work. The girl, the prophecy it’s all a distraction. I don’t believe it any more than I believe that Tulimak will let us live in peace side by side with our long lost family. It is time for a regime change and in the new world of reconciliation there is no place for someone like him who still believes the mongrels are second class citizens. We belong with our brothers and sisters, not eking out a living fearing capture and experimentation. You know this more than anyone in the group,” Nasak said his voice softening.
Six hours ago Nasak and his closest ally had driven up to the gates of the compound with Grace and Anne drugged in the back. The initial meeting with Tulimak went as well as to be expected and now they had been asked to wait the night in one of the old workers accommodations on the edge of the compound.
“I don’t think I could have gone on any longer when you first found me,” Clarence said. He stopped pacing and sat on the metal framed bed in the corner of the room. Nasak sat across from him stroking his beard and watching his friend. The sharing of stories was part of the tradition of the mongrel tribe. Everyone got the chance to share there story of how they finally found some kind of peace with members of their own kind. The story telling sessions where part bonding experiences and part therapy. Nasak nodded his head as Clarence spoke and he knew t
hat his leader wanted him to go on. Story telling eased the mongrel spirit.
“I was sixteen,” Clarence said as he began his story, “when I was first initiated and found to be a lesser animal. You know how those first few months are. Disconnected from everyone you know and love, dealing with your new afflictions and most days wishing you were dead, but never having the guts to actually go through with it. I was one of the luckier ones and could nearly get away with living side by side with the humans.”
Nasak nodded his head as Clarence spoke. The retelling of their origins always had a relaxing effect on the mongrels, the shared pain brought the group together and fostered a close bond between all of them. Nasak remembered when he first meet Clarence. Apart from slight damage to his left ear he looked almost normal. That was until he took off his shirt and turned around. The length of his back was covered with open sores where boney protuberances from his spinal column broke through the skin. If allowed to continue to grow they started to twist his body into painful positions until eventually he would become so twisted and misshapen that he couldn’t stand up anymore.
“I wandered out of the forest and hitched my way to one of the soot covered industrial towns of the north. I hadn’t started to transform at this stage. My back always felt tender and the skin along my spine always burned to the touch, compared to some other mongrels I saw at the initiation I thought I had got off easily. I fell in with a bunch of kids my age, you know the kind, the ones you cross to the other side of the road when you see them approaching en masse. The group was a mix of skaters, anarchists, drop outs and the lost, all looking for a way out from the confines of society or more usually a hellish home life. I fit in straight away. The others could see I was hurting, that I’d been through something terrible. Nobody pushed for answers, I was one of them, part of a family who accepted me for who I was. I deluded myself that if I ever actually told one of them where I had came from that they would still accept me,” Clarence said looking over at Nasak.
