by Darren Dash
There’s no river running through the city but there are plenty of canals. We find one with carefully tended flowerbeds on either bank, stretch out on a bench and stare at the stars. “Have you had a good night?” I ask.
“Beautiful,” Cheryl says, cuddling up closer. “You’re one of the sweetest lovers I’ve yet to enjoy.”
The compliment makes me smile and frown at the same time. In the end I choose not to pass comment and instead say, “This is a nice area, isn’t it?”
“Lovely,” she says. “I’ve never seen a canal by night. Normally I don’t venture far from home in the dark.” She sits up and leans forward for a clearer view. Touches her face wonderingly. “I can’t recall the last time I saw my reflection.”
“Where I come from,” I tell her, “we have mirrors – glass with a dark backing – which allow you to see yourself any time of the day or night.”
“Amazing,” Cheryl sighs, though I doubt she believes such things are real.
I wrap one of her braids around the fingers of my left hand, tug slightly, then seek her lips and kiss her. “Fancy a spot of moonlit skinny-dipping later?” I ask.
“What’s that?” she replies.
“It’s when you go for a swim with nothing on,” I explain.
“Oh,” she giggles, “I couldn’t do a thing like that, not with people watching. Besides, I never learnt to swim.”
“I could teach you,” I offer.
“No thanks,” she says.
“Don’t you trust me?” I pout.
“Not really,” she smiles.
I tickle her for teasing me, then kiss her again. “We’ll do this more often,” I promise, “pop out every six or seven nights for a walk and a meal.” I nuzzle her neck. “Maybe even a swim. I was never much of a walker before, but now I…”
She’s not listening.
“Cheryl?” I tug her hair again, smiling, but she doesn’t look at me. She’s staring at the water in the canal, her face starting to contort with terror. I lean forward to see what’s troubling her and blink with confusion. The water’s stained a deep red colour. “Is there a building on fire?” I ask, looking around, but I spot no flames. Besides, to discolour the water in this fashion, the fire would have to be directly upon us and I’d feel the heat.
Cheryl gets to her feet. Her hair unravels from my fingers. She raises her eyes and stares at the sky. I follow her example and gasp out loud.
It’s the moon.
The moon has turned crimson.
For long seconds we gaze with awe at the fiery lunar surface. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, as if the moon is actually burning, casting a rosy veil over the entire city. It’s not just the canal that’s red. So are Cheryl, the nearby buildings and the handful of people standing in sight, rooted to the spot as we are.
A howl shatters the eerie silence and Cheryl explodes into life. “Come on!” she cries. “We have to find a sandman.”
“What are you talking about?” I mumble. “What’s a –”
She grabs my hands, kisses them, then starts to run, dragging me along behind. “No time to explain,” she pants as I race to keep up. “If we don’t find a sandman, we’re dead.” Another howl pierces the red-limned night. I don’t know what the hell is happening but I trust Cheryl. If she says we have to run, I’ll run like the devil himself is after us.
We sprint along by the canal, Cheryl’s gaze darting left and right, searching for this sandman of hers. She ducks up a side street and we emerge onto a main road. What I see stops me dead in my tracks and for a short while nothing can move me, not even Cheryl, who pounds at my chest and begs me to flee.
A woman is writhing in the middle of the road. She’s torn off most of her clothes and ripped out much of her hair. Around her, people pour out of buildings like ants and scatter, screaming. The woman in the road is changing. Her face bulges beyond the bounds of human expression. Her nails lengthen. Her hands twist into claws. Her legs shorten and strengthen. Hair sprouts along the line of her backbone and across her shoulders. Her mouth widens and her teeth sharpen. Her face stretches, grows lupine. But if it’s a werewolf she’s becoming, it’s like none I’ve seen before. The creature she’s turning into is something unclassifiable. Her breasts wither. Her stomach bulges as if there’s something inside struggling to get out. The colour of her skin darkens. Her eyes light up, two yellow sparks in a sea of red. She throws back her head and howls at the blood red moon.
Then she attacks.
She pounces on an old woman, slower than the rest. The victim shrieks and tries warding off the beast with her hands, to no avail. The animal plunges its claws into the woman’s stomach and rips out her entrails, buries its snout in the cavity and chows down. The woman’s body thrashes wildly for a few seconds, then goes limp. The creature guzzles a while longer, then shoves the body out of its way and looks for another target.
It spots me.
Even as it races towards me on all fours, blood dripping from its lips, eyes fixed on my stomach, teeth gnashing together like blades, howling like a banshee, I can’t move. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I’m not con-ditioned to react. If I was a caveman, a primitive being, a creature of instinct, I might know how to defend myself, but I’m an educated man, civilized, cultured. Easy prey.
I see my death in front of me as the beast draws within range but still I can’t do anything to save myself. Then, as I’m struggling to recall the prayers I learnt when I was a child, a wire noose drops over the savage’s head and tightens round its throat. The beast’s eyes bulge. It twists towards the person manipulating the noose, only for the wire to tighten another few notches. The animal shudders, wheezes, then drops to the ground, dead.
Cheryl – who else would bother to save a fool such as I? – releases the noose’s handle, steps forward and slaps me hard across the face. “We can’t stay here,” she hisses. “You must come with me now. If you don’t follow, I’ll leave you. I love you, Newman, but I won’t die for you.”
I stare at her uncomprehendingly, then the words sink in. If I don’t follow, she’ll leave me alone, at the mercy of things like… My eyes flick to the dead animal, widen one final time with fear, then harden.
“Alright,” I say evenly. “It took me by surprise but I won’t be caught short again.” I pluck a noose from a nearby wall – I know now why there are so many spread about the city – and test it while Cheryl finds a replacement for hers.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Ready,” I grunt.
We advance.
We stick close to one another and hurry through the streets, Cheryl leading the way. I’ve seen fifteen or more of the animals running wild, howling and gorging on human blood and guts. We’ve avoided their attention so far – plenty of other targets at large – but it can only be a matter of time before another sets its sights on one or both of us. I want to duck into a building and hole up but Cheryl presses on, determined to find the being she refers to as the sandman.
“Why don’t we hide?” I ask as she pauses for breath.
She shakes her head. “They could sniff us out. Only a sandman can guarantee our safety.”
“What do the sandmen look like?” I ask.
“They’re… watch out!” she screams. I spin on my heels. There’s a man lying by a street lamp. He’s been injured, his left arm a bloody mess, torn to shreds. As I watch, his body pulses, then starts to change. He’s turning into one of the beasts.
Stepping forward, I emotionlessly slip the noose over his head and put an end to his suffering. This is the first human life I’ve ever taken but I don’t pause to consider the enormity of my actions. There’ll be time for that later if I get out of this alive.
“Bites transmit the disease?” I ask Cheryl as I grab another noose, and she nods. “But how does it start? Where did the creatures come from?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “The ones who turn first are always women, but as for how or why…” She shakes her head, pick
s a direction and runs. Cursing beneath my breath, I lumber after her, promising myself that if one of the beasts sinks its teeth into me, I’ll slip the noose over my head and spare somebody else the dirty job. I’d rather kill myself than turn into one of these hellish things.
My lungs and legs are starting to give up on me when Cheryl rounds a corner and shouts with glee. Catching up, I spot a figure in a long brown cloak, surrounded by four men with thick machetes. Cheryl hurries towards them and I follow warily, keeping a close eye on the men with the blades, trusting nobody.
The figure in the cloak is a woman. She smiles as we draw close. “Nice night,” she says as conversationally as you please.
My jaw drops but Cheryl manages to force a polite reply. “Yes, it’s lovely.”
The woman in the cloak holds up a small brown bag and shakes it teasingly. “I bet I know what you want. Sand, right?”
Cheryl smiles shakily and wheezes, “Right.”
The woman hoots merrily. “I knew it. But can you pay, little one, can you pay?”
Cheryl rifles through her purse. “I have… seventeen teeth,” she counts, then hands them over. “Newman?”
I plough through my pockets, saving the questions. “Eighteen… twenty-two… twenty-eight.” I pass them to the woman in the cloak.
“Forty-five,” the woman purrs, sliding the teeth from one hand to the other. A beast rounds the corner and leaps towards us, howling thirstily. One of the armed men steps forward and hacks off its head with a well-timed slice. “Forty-five,” the woman says again.
“Is it enough?” Cheryl asks nervously.
“You’re a couple short,” the woman replies solemnly, but when Cheryl’s face drops, she chuckles and tosses me the bag. “Just my little joke. Forty-five will be sufficient. This time.”
“Thank you,” Cheryl sobs, snatching the bag from me and bursting into tears of uncontainable joy.
“My pleasure,” the woman says, patting Cheryl on the head. “Come,” she snaps at the men with the machetes. “I have four more bags to dispense. Let’s move on. Our work here is done.”
The four men pack in tightly about her and they drift away slowly, fearlessly.
“Who the hell was that?” I croak.
“The sandman,” Cheryl says, laughing hysterically.
“Don’t you mean sandwoman?”
She snorts and thrusts the bag under my nose. “Look!”
“What is it?” I ask, opening the top of the bag and peering inside. “Sand?” I dip my fingers in and poke around. “Sand,” I snarl. “Is that all? Just sand?”
“‘Just sand,’ he says!” Cheryl laughs and snatches back the bag. “You wouldn’t survive long on your own, would you, Newman Riplan? Come.” She looks for a clear space in the middle of the road and leads me towards it. “Stand by my side.”
“But we’re in plain sight here,” I protest. “We’ll be –”
“Stand by my side!” she screams with such force that I wince. Grumbling, I step up beside her and wait for an animal to chance upon us and gobble us up. “Close your eyes,” Cheryl says, holding the bag of sand above our heads.
“Why?” I ask suspiciously, then shut them swiftly when her lips tighten angrily.
“Here goes,” I hear her say, then I feel sand pouring over my head, down my face and the back of my neck. Some trickles into my mouth and I spit it out. “Keep your eyes closed,” Cheryl shouts, and even though she’s next to me, she sounds far away. “Don’t open them. Don’t… there. Do you hear it?” A strange whistling sound fills the air. “Do you hear it?” Cheryl roars.
“Yes,” I roar back. “What is it?”
“The magic of the sandmen. Don’t open your eyes — you’ll be blinded for life if you do.” The noise increases and pierces my head like the mating calls of a thousand randy cats. Strong breezes rip up and down my body, inside and outside my clothes. The grains of sand lash my skin. It’s like I’m being stung with nettles, but when I try moving a hand to brush the sand away, I’m immobile.
“I can’t move!” I scream.
“It’s alright,” Cheryl replies. “Neither can I. This is natural. There’s no need to worry. It’ll be over soon. When the wind dies down…”
All of a sudden it stops, the wind and the whistling.
“Ah,” Cheryl sighs, no longer having to shout. “There we go.” She steps away from me and I sense her stretching her arms. “You can look now.”
I open my eyelids a crack, then wider. I stare at my surroundings, stunned beyond words, unable to think, let alone speak.
I’m naked, stripped to the bone, no sign of my clothes, not even a shred. The sand has disappeared too, trans-formed into a domed cage which stands about seven metres in diameter and three high. A cage made up of interlocking, vertical bars, no more than fifteen centimetres of a gap between each. The bars curve up over our heads and block us off from the harsh, deadly, outside world. And the bars look like they’re made of…
I walk across and touch a couple, to be certain. Yes. The bars are made of glass. It’s impossible. It’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense.
But then, in this city, what does?
Slumping to my haunches, I flick one of the bars with a fingernail, listen to the comforting ting, then sink to the floor and weep. Cheryl joins me and for a long time we remain in that huddled position, crying wordlessly, holding onto one another for support, listening to the howls and screams of the savage city beyond.
The sun’s blue when it rises in the morning. A glittering, vibrant, mountain lake blue. As bright as ever, as warming, the same size. But blue.
Outside the glass bars of the domed cage the road is littered with the bodies of the dead. Lykans – that’s what Cheryl calls the beasts – feed on them, carving them open and burrowing for scraps. One spots us and hurls itself at the cage. The bars shake and vibrate but hold firm. The lykan thrusts an arm through but gives up when it realises it can’t reach us. It returns to the corpses, pops a skull open, scrapes out a chunk of brain and tucks in.
When the lykans first attacked the cage, I was sure they’d break it, but they didn’t. According to Cheryl, they can’t. The magic of the sandmen is too strong. She’s taking this in her stride. Can’t understand why I’m so distressed.
“They’re just lykans, Newman,” she laughs.
“This has happened before?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says. “Many times.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” I snarl.
She shrugs. “It’s not something I think about, except when the moon turns.”
I ask how frequently the moon changes colour but she can’t answer that. “When it’s white, it’s white,” she says. “When it’s red, it’s red.”
“How long will it stay this way?”
“It varies. Sometimes a day or two, sometimes three or four.”
Three or four days… I stare through the bars. Most of the lykans have moved on to fresher pastures, but there are still enough of them lurking nearby to make leaving the cage a definite no-no.
“What are we going to eat?” I ask. “What will we drink?”
“Drones,” Cheryl says. “They’ll come out in their droves soon. We’ll call some over and feast at will.”
“And when the sun and moon revert to normal?” I ask. “What happens then? Do the lykans change back?”
Cheryl shakes her head. “No,” she says sadly. “You’re lost once you turn.”
“So what do we do about them?” I ask.
“They’ll be taken care of,” she promises but refuses to elaborate.
As Cheryl predicted, drones soon start passing by, oblivious to the marauding lykans, who pay them as little attention in return. Cheryl summons one to the cage. It sticks an arm through the bars and she chews the waxy flesh. Glances over her shoulder at me. “You want some of this or not?” she asks between mouthfuls.
I take a couple of steps forward and stare at the sappy interior which she’s exposed. I
study the drone’s expression-less face. Sigh. Drop to my knees and grab the other arm.
The blue sun descends and the red moon rises. The screams of the lykans and their victims have been dying away all day and now silence falls over the city, broken only occasionally by the startled shriek of a rumbled hider and the gleeful howl of a ravaging lykan.
A boy no more than eight or nine races down the middle of our road, leaping over corpses and abandoned cars. It looks like he’s making a beeline for us, to ask for help, but he swerves at the last second and continues past, barely sparing us a glance. About fifteen metres further on, a lykan leaps up from behind a mound of bodies, where it had been lying in wait.
“Look out!” I yell but it’s too late. The child goes down to one brisk, clawing strike and doesn’t even have time to scream.
I turn away from the miserable sight and stare bitterly at Cheryl.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, shifting uncomfortably as I glare at her.
“What’s wrong?” I explode. “We’ve just seen a child being torn to pieces by a once-human monstrosity, and you want to know what’s wrong?”
She shrugs. “The kid wasn’t fast enough to make it to safety. I didn’t know him. Why should it be any concern of mine?”
“Don’t you feel anything for your fellow human beings?” I snap.
“No,” she answers plainly. “I care about you because I’m in love with you. And I hope Franz and Kipp pull through because I like them. And there are a couple of people at work I’ll miss if they turn or are killed. But as for everyone else…” Again, the shrug. “What are they to me?”
“Jesus,” I snort. “I thought I was a cold fish but you people… you’re…” I shake my head with weary disgust. “Oh, just forget I spoke.”
I stare moodily at the scenes of carnage, then up at the red-rinsed moon. No point blaming Cheryl. This is just how the locals are. There’s no communal spirit. People are polite, obey the unwritten laws, pull together when they have to, but they don’t care about one another. Maybe it’s because they don’t have families. Perhaps emotions can’t fully develop in a society which prioritises the individual at the expense of…
