The Product Line (Book 1): Product

by Ian McCain

  Eventually a visit to his manor is required for the execution of some documents and other business interactions. Reports quickly spread regarding the handsome nephew of Lord Baylor who is now looking over his estate and affairs, a pleasant young man who will be watching in his uncle’s stead while his uncle apparently recovers from illness with family in the south.

  The story is completely plausible, save for the detail about Lord Baylor having a family member who will be willing to assist the detestable man. Some know of his sister, but most work hard to remain as detached from the details of his life as possible. His business partner in their mutual shipping business confirms the identity of Antonios as Lord Baylor’s nephew, lest he risk the boy’s wrath, or his speaking with the authorities regarding Baylor and his murderous past.

  Lord Baylor’s nephew Antonios looks after his affairs for almost a month before he conveys the sad news that Lord Baylor did not survive his illness, nor did Antonios’ mother and her family who have been looking after him.

  In the time that follows the news of Lord Baylor’s passing Antonios is able to take charge of their family business and increase its holdings significantly. He is outwardly a meek, mild-mannered young man, but carries himself as an older soul and is certainly far shrewder than most initially believed.

  The women who make his acquaintance believe him quite charming, though they can tell that his desires lie not with the fairer sex, perhaps not with anything at all. He is rarely seen during the daytime, and keeps rather odd hours, preferring to travel during overcast days or at night.

  Knowing that his ability to assimilate depends on the perception of his normalcy, he does his best to remain present but not approachable. He integrates into the community, making a presence at social engagements as London itself is experiencing a bloom in its cultural life. He begins using much of his “inheritance” donating to charitable events—in fact, he even begins to once again attend evening Mass at one of the only non-Anglican churches near Lord Baylor’s estate, finding it far easier to hide his true intentions behind a veil of generosity and propriety.

  It is at this church that Antonios begins to interact with a genial and decidedly caring priest, unencumbered with the customary pomp and hypocrisy Antonios has often seen throughout religious institutions. The priest is old and clearly dying of some sort of disease of the lungs, perhaps consumption or some other pulmonary deficiency. His breaths are often labored, but the words behind them are true and honest.

  Antonios is quite taken with the old man. He imagines him as a handsome younger man free from illness. They could perhaps have at some point been friends or lovers, were their life’s trajectories to have followed different courses. The priest is forthright, headstrong, and generous with others. Antonios likes this and in the following months, as the priest’s health continues to decline, Antonios decides that it will suit his needs further if he perhaps has associations of this nature with others. Friends.

  Though he does well maintaining his ruse, the true purpose of his time in London is yielding great rewards. Antonios has learned volumes about his condition. Lord Baylor has proven to be a truly interesting subject for study.

  Antonios is eventually forced to relocate him and his entire brick entombment to the warehouse that has been repurposed as a containment area for others. Some Antonios has infected as a means to grow his numbers and create a buffer of followers willing to submit to his demands. Others he keeps there as a sort of crop, there to sate his own thirst and that of his newly created.

  He has discovered what he calls the Regula of the condition, or more simply the rules. A set of natural laws that seem to govern the condition itself and a series of self-imposed rules that his newly infected family will need to adhere to. He does eventually turn several others, ones he does not keep confined as he does Lord Baylor. Ones he believes capable of helping him in his efforts—old men on the verge of death, wanting nothing more than a chance to do it again, to return to life and youth.

  These are the first of his acolytes, the ones who trade their souls for his “dark gift,” as he calls it. The deal that is struck is that they will pledge their unwavering service, in exchange for a long life and privilege.

  Antonios has to kill several newly infected before he establishes the Regula. They are not able to control their thirst and it is too dangerous to let them simply roam the city so strong and so hungry. Even though he harbors affection for them, he knows that they are more than anything a way to learn about the condition.

  In his collection of old souls he has gathered a number of distinguished fellows. Gareth used to be a wheelchair-stricken old man who, having been afflicted with polio as a child, spent the majority of his life confined to street corners begging for food and alms. He is reborn a fair-skinned young man with piercing blue eyes and blond hair. He is strong and vibrant when gifted with youth and health.

  Along with the cripple there is Silas, a young soldier, or more accurately what remains of a soldier. The man was horribly disfigured in battle during the Anglo-Burmese War, but has not been granted the dignity of death. He has little more than one functioning arm and was discarded like spoilt food upon his return to Britain. He too is blessed to be restored to wholeness, vitality spilling out from him.

  In addition to the old and the injured Antonios also chooses to bring the dark gift to his new friend, the sickly old priest. He showed Antonios great kindness when he believed that Antonios was the grieving nephew of Lord Baylor. The old priest does not know the exact nature of the deal being struck and chooses instead to believe in the perceived moral fiber of the man conveying knowledge of his “cure.”

  Antonios claims to the priest that he has been able to secure a remedy for what ails him, a way to restore his health so that he might help others. He makes no demands of him beyond that. Reluctantly the priest accepts the deal that has been struck.

  Of all Antonios’ children the priest is his favorite, but as with any favorite child, they cause much more hurt when they disappoint. The priest’s trouble with accepting the true nature of his condition and reluctance to feed until the hunger becomes overwhelming is of growing concern to Antonios.

  All infected find great strengths and abilities. However, try as he may, Antonios is not able to produce any capable of passing on the gift to others. Though they are imbued with the same strength and hunger, they are not capable of passing on the Dark Gift.

  Antonios struggles with this for a long time, wondering how it is that only he can pass on the condition. Then he realizes an important factor. His age. He was but a boy when he was first exposed. He grew almost overnight into a man. Perhaps that is the element.

  So, in the night, he gathers up two street children. Julia and Charles are a sister and brother who have pickpocketed and stolen their way through most of London to stay alive. They cannot be more than ten and twelve years old respectively, but neither knows their exact age having spent their formative years living on the streets and running from orphanages.

  Antonios recalls the horrors of his own change and does not want to make the transition any more upsetting than necessary. His reputation as a generous young man has spread and even the lowliest of street urchin knows of him. This is how he is able to gain their confidence. He first brings them to Lord Baylor’s estate, where he plies them with food and wine, fully expecting them to steal from him and try to run out as soon as their bellies are full. This proves to be exactly their plan.

  Antonios has learned after his first few attempts at creating others that he does not have to cut into the cheek or cause significant harm to impart the dark gift, but simply expose them to his blood. In fact, the blood itself retains its potency for a long time. Adding just a few drops of water to blood that has dried months before is more than enough to impart the gift. So, as part of this new experiment, he merely includes his blood in the wine that they drink as well as a powerful sedative potent enough to at least forestall their plans of robbing him and running away.


  He watches as they slumber through the night and into the morning, leaning over them in the hopes of witnessing a transformation. At daybreak he begins to witness the first indication of changes taking hold. First the two children start to writhe about and moan in pain as if gripped by some powerful fever-dreams. Then their bones begin to crackle and stretch, pulling their limbs into their adult shape and length. Charles’ face grows and stretches, forming a strong angular jaw shadowed with hair. His musculature doubles in size. Julia’s form grows long and beautiful, highlighted by the appearance of breasts under her tautly pulled shirt.

  At almost the same time both rouse from their slumber, assaulted by their expanded senses. Their eyes open wide, the irises lined in deep magenta, just as it is with Antonios. He looks at them closely, seeing the crimson-kissed globes of their eyes filled with the fear of a child. Their adult bodies betray their juvenile minds and fears.

  --Children, please stay calm. I mean you no harm.

  They are so unfamiliar with their bodies and shocked at the sight of each other’s changed bodies that they retreat from one another. The boy, now changed to a man, calls out.

  --Where is Julia?

  The unknown woman next to him responds.

  --I am Julia… Charles?

  --But how?

  They look at the changes to their form, taking in the fact that their consciousness is housed in a body that is completely unfamiliar, yet recognizing each other through their new visages.

  Antonios holds his palms up, offering a look of sincerity and openness.

  --I will share with you all that I know. Please do not be afraid.

  ***

  Antonios’ supposition is correct. The children, or more accurately the former children, are like him. They are able to create others. They are able to impart the dark gift to others. They are strong and smart and deeply conniving, but he views them as his children. He views all of them as his children, save one: Lord Baylor.

  Antonios has filled his warehouse with a vast supply of the downtrodden: drunkards, loners, beggars, and gypsies. Those who will not be missed too dearly and whose thoughts will be kept pleasantly dulled with the aid of morphine.

  It is hard, however, to keep them alive and still provide enough food for his children. It is true that he has found a way to have food on demand without raising suspicion or requiring constant movement, but it is harder still to keep the food alive. Wounds are constantly getting infected and most of them are too weak to do anything beyond giving up and accepting death. He knows that in the long term this plan will not last.

  This makes him increasingly curious about one thing. What will happen if they do not feed, if he does not feed? What will happen to any of them? He recalls Eliska—how she was tortured and nearly killed and how it was not until she neared death that the demon was truly loosed. He wonders if this fate exists for all of them. He has gone without feeding before, he has felt how the hunger can twist one’s will, but can it also change one’s being? Perhaps it is because it was viewed through the eyes of a child, or perhaps it is because of the pain and loss associated with the attack, but he recalls that Eliska in her scorched form was more than just a woman, she was indeed a demon: a monster who no longer seemed to hold any humanity. This is curious to him.

  So having his lab rat nearby, he begins to starve Lord Baylor. He cuts into him and bleeds him and then withholds the nourishing blood so easily dispensed from the captives in the warehouse. Watching closely as the hunger grows inside him, he can hear the changes deep within Lord Baylor’s belly, the churning of organs and tightening of the viscera as it pushes him to feed. Antonios knows the pain, the cramps that it can cause, how the hunger twists your insides, wringing out every bit of pain possible until you find a source of blood.

  The priest protests this action as inhumane. What they are doing is wrong and the work of the devil. Antonios quickly puts him in his place and explains that Lord Baylor is to suffer so that they will not.

  --Consider him the sacrificial lamb if you must.

  Lord Baylor has long before accepted that he is damned to perpetual suffering, and he has endured pain like none other at the hands of Antonios. But this hunger, this need to feed is crippling. He can see the sinister delight in Antonios’ eyes as he waits to see how this shall play out.

  ***

  It is well into the night when Lord Baylor first starts showing any signs that he is somehow changing. It begins with him simply rocking his exposed torso back and forth, as if in the throes of madness. With each movement the skin on his torso is being shredded by the rough mortar and brickwork surrounding him. Then he lets out a loud breathy exhale that gives way to rapid panting and drooling.

  --Please. Kill me. Please!

  After a few minutes the clear laces of saliva sliding down the edges of his mouth begin to turn pink and then bright red as blood pours out from his mouth. His voice turns raspy as if his vocal cords have been raked with coarse rock.

  --Blood. Give it to me!

  Antonios watches intently.

  Nearly thirty minutes into his convulsing and cramping, Lord Baylor’s eyes start to fill with blood, as if wine has been added to cream. Moments later they are a reddish-black. Trying to observe as much as possible, Antonios draws closer and closer.

  As he comes within just a few inches of Lord Baylor’s grasp a scream, a horrible pain-filled yell comes from Lord Baylor as he drips congealing blood from his mouth. Then Lord Baylor wheels his arm around, slashing into Antonios’ face with jagged nails. The wound is deep, but seals itself up instantly, leaving only a thin trail of red as evidence that it was ever there. Antonios signals to the others to help him hold down Lord Baylor, not wanting to risk any additional injury.

  He has seen this iteration of the demon before. This is the monster inside all of them. This is the monster that the blood of others keeps caged.

  With the others helping to hold still the thrashing Lord Baylor, Antonios uses a glass jar to gather up some of the blood-filled drool as Lord Baylor spits and leans toward him, frantically trying to bite into him. Even while restrained Lord Baylor is able to fight desperately to free himself.

  Antonios wedges a wooden block into Lord Baylor’s mouth as it lashes out snapping at him and, with the aid of some of the others, is able to look deep into Lord Baylor’s mouth. The inside is filled with sores, weeping a steady stream of blood into his mouth. Lord Baylor lets out another scream, now painfully high-pitched, and starts to bite down through the thick wooden block in his mouth, splintering and cracking his teeth while his jaw chomps down. Then the cracked and loosened teeth are pushed out by newer longer teeth, each one coming to a barbed razor-sharp point.

  Finally Antonios looks at the hands of the demon, and just as he remembers seeing as a child, the nail bed is split and thick yellowed nails have erupted out from them, more like talons. They are covered in blood from Antonio’s cheek. As Lord Baylor struggles against his restraints, Antonios is able to study, and indeed learns a great deal in the minutes following Lord Baylor’s turning.

  The last question that Antonios has is whether or not feeding will restore him. He has the others walk away and send him one of the people who have not recently been drunk from. They are pulled from their cage in the midst of their morphine-filled haze and given over to the demon.

  It turns out that feeding does not restore him to his former normal self. Though he sucks dry one of the people in the Farm, devouring his neck like a ripe peach, it has no effect other than to seemingly enrage him further. This is the first time that Antonios is shocked. He suspects that the outcome will be unpleasant and although he is not entirely surprised when the madness reaches its fever pitch, he is indeed taken by surprise when Lord Baylor starts to struggle against his entombment.

  Perhaps it has been loosened over time, perhaps his strength is simply that much greater when in this state of enraged fury, but Lord Baylor throws off the mortar and brickwork that have been enshrining h
im for months. It unleashes an explosion of foul and acrid scents, the scent of human waste and sweat and rot gathered over such a long time.

  As a group they all run toward him and try desperately to subdue him, but it is too late. This iteration of Lord Baylor is stronger and faster than all of them. Even with all their great strength and larger numbers they are unable to capture him. Those who get close are easily tossed away. He scurries up the walls like an insect before climbing out the ventilation hatch of the warehouse. All of them follow him out into the night but he is too quick.

  In the distance they can hear the screams of other men as this monstrous version of Lord Baylor lays waste to all that he encounters, murdering and feeding on everyone he comes across in an unquenchable blood lust.

  Antonios has discovered a great many things from Lord Baylor. He has learned about the dark gift, what it does, how it works and how it could be spread. Antonios has learned that he can make others like himself and children who are infected are also able to make others. He knows now that the disease is able to restore anyone to a perfect state of health. Limbs can be regrown, damage to brain and organs can be repaired. He has learned also that the blood of the enraged can impart the dark gift. The container of blood that he was able to procure from Lord Baylor’s blood-filled spittle is as potent as Antonios’ blood straight from the vein. This lets him know that somewhere in the city, the monster that is feeding on people is also creating more like them, more infected people blessed or perhaps cursed with this dark gift.

  Born into all of us is an innate knowledge of what needs must be fulfilled to support life. Failing to drink water or eat food will eventually result in frailty and death no matter the extent of one’s will and personal resolve otherwise. All along that path from health to starvation we are aware of the need to eat. The need to drink blood is no different, except perhaps that the consequence of failing to drink blood results in the opposite of frailty—it results in a furious rage. It is indeed a bit of a quandary.