In the Shadows

by Jill Nolan

  “What? Wait! Don’t—”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth as I feel the quick slice of the blade across my left forearm. I suppress a cry at the surprising sharpness of the pain. That did not feel small or shallow. My arm aches, and I can feel my blood flowing down my arm.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

  I want to say it out loud; I actually try to force it out, but I can’t. If I’m too aggressive, they might decide to kill me…if the vampire doesn’t kill us all first.

  I hear footsteps walking away, but my main focus is on my bleeding arm. At least he didn’t cut my dominant arm? I just can’t muster up any gratitude.

  I try to ignore all of my pain and focus on freeing my hands from the rope. My hands are bloody and sweaty and shaky, making it almost impossible to work the rope.

  After what feels like hours, though is probably closer to one hour, I give up, almost crying in frustration. I’m fucked. There’s no fucking way they’ll even come close to killing him, not after what I saw him do. I can’t end up like the last guy.

  Stop. Stop thinking about it.

  But I can’t, and I’m picturing the horrific scene again – blood everywhere, throat savagely ripped open, face twisted in pain, a look of pure terror in his dead eyes, and a winged monster from hell standing above him.

  I’m afraid, so afraid.

  I have to calm down. I take a few deep breaths, thinking about what those assholes did to me, what they're making me suffer through, and I get angry. I hold onto that anger, because it's so much better than the fear.

  Fuck this. I'm not dying like this, tied to a fucking tree, bleeding, left to get my neck ripped open by that flying demon creature. Or, get shot from a stray bullet from one of these assholes.

  Time is running out. Night is here, consuming me, blanketing everything in darkness, even the stars are hidden behind clouds.

  I refocus on freeing myself, finding a new determination, to not let them win, to not let them use me in this way.

  As soon as I feel like I've made the tiniest amount of progress, I hear someone coming towards me. It sounds like there's only one of them. He stops behind the tree, where I can't see him.

  "I'm sorry about this. I'm going to cut you lose. Just run. Straight ahead. Don't look back." It sounds like the nice one.

  I feel extreme relief as the rope falls away from my wrists.

  "Run!" he urges.

  And I do. I'm too scared to look back, so I don't. I just focus on getting as far away from that nightmare as fast as I can, frantically searching for a light, a road, someone who could help me. I keep my ears open for sounds behind me, always feeling like I’m hearing sounds of pursuit, but there are no shouts or yelling. The animals must be active.

  The clouds covering the night sky, though ominous, seem to be reflecting light from town, giving me just barely enough light to navigate through the forest. With all of my aches and pains, I don't exactly feel light on my feet, but I am still fairly quick and quiet, the pine needles softening my footsteps.

  I don’t know how long I've been running through the darkness, before I have to slow to a walk. I’m still weak from the drugging, lack of dinner, and loss of blood...at least, it looks like I've lost quite a bit. I've never had a cut this large before, never seen so much blood on the outside of my body. My long sleeve shirt is soaking with it.

  I realize that it doesn’t matter that I may have escaped my captors; I’m still stuck in the dark forest with my forearm slit and a hungry vampire on the loose. I need to find a house and quickly.

  I find a tree that I can climb up. I climb as high as I can, gritting my teeth every time a branch brushes my cut. I search the area for a house, seeing lights far ahead, in roughly the same direction I was already traveling. I memorize the direction I need to travel to get to it and hope I am able to walk in a straight line to reach it.

  I climb down to a lower branch and sit, figuring I should at least try to cover my wound to stop the bleeding. The blood looks like it's begun to clot but could open up if I attempt to clean the blood off. I take off my long-sleeved shirt, leaving me in just my undershirt. The long-sleeved shirt is so thin, it's fairly easy to rip off the sleeve drenched in blood using my teeth. I toss the sleeve down and use the rest of the shirt to tie around my forearm. I probably should have done this immediately after escaping, but I was a little preoccupied...with escaping.

  I take a deep breath, knowing it'll probably hurt to get from this branch to the ground. When I glance up, I notice something fly through the sky. To the human eye, it looks like a bat...until I see the unnatural blurring of the clouds around it.

  They were right.

  He is coming for me.

  He is coming to kill me.

  I talked. I shouldn’t have talked. He’s going to silence me now. I’ll never speak again. I'll never be again.

  I lose sight of the creature, wondering if maybe I was seeing things, maybe it really was just a bat, or maybe he just happened to fly over me while on his way to drain someone else of blood.

  I'm frozen in place, holding on to some small shred of hope that he'll pass me by, until I hear the familiar swoosh of giant wings. I frantically search for the creature to no avail.

  Wingbeat.

  Wingbeat, closer this time.

  Wingbeat, followed by a breeze.

  Silence.

  The silence is deafening, heavy with foreboding. Most of my body is frozen as icy fear works its way through me, but my head continues to swivel in search of the monster.

  Where is he?

  Where is he?

  A scream penetrates the silence. It starts in horror, morphs into agony, and is cut off abruptly.

  The end of the scream is immediately followed by deafening gunshots coming from all directions.

  Purple beams of light cross the area below me, like blacklight flashlights. With each shot, there is a flash of white light. The combination produces a strobe light effect, allowing me to see the scene below in fragments.

  Men are hidden in a semi-circle about 20 yards from the tree I’m in.

  Are those my kidnappers?

  Ear-piercing shots. A flash of the monster. Another scream of terror and pain.

  A purple beam falls to the ground.

  They followed me here?

  A man goes airborne. Bullets tear through him, altering his course.

  Another purple beam falls.

  Was this their plan all along?

  More screams, harder to hear over the gun shots and the ringing in my ears.

  Less flashes of white light, less guns being fired. Most of the purple beams are shining uselessly on the ground, illuminating random pieces of forest floor.

  Only a few are left.

  They’re all going to die.

  We’re all going to die.

  My eyes dart constantly all around the area, trying to keep track of the vampire, but he's impossibly fast.

  There’s a flash of darkness in front of me, but it’s too quick to keep my eyes on.

  The man closest to me screams. When I turn, he’s already falling to the ground, and the vampire is flying away.

  Another purple beam falls to the ground, it’s owner dropping with barely a sound.

  A few more bullets are fired, all from the same gun: the last man left. And then the last man is running away. He doesn’t get far. I hear a scream which turns into whimpering which turns into…nothing; just the ringing in my ears.

  I’m going to die.

  Paralyzed, I sit in the tree, looking in the direction of his last kill, pathetically hoping that he won't find me, willing myself to be invisible.

  I strain my eyes trying to find him in the darkness, while at the same time wondering if I want to see what’s coming for me. Through the ringing in my ears, I realize that one man is still alive. He’s moaning in pain.

  I look toward the sound. I find the still-living
man on his stomach, trying to wrap himself around to get to his leg. When I look at the leg, I see that it’s bent at an unnatural angle…and then I see the bone sticking out.

  I turn my gaze from the man when there's movement in my peripherals.

  Too quick, I see a figure flying at me. My arms go up in self-defense, I shut my eyes, and scream in expectation of pain and the end.

  Chapter 16

  I feel a body slam into mine and arms wrap around my torso. I’m swooped out of the tree, my legs dangling uselessly in the air. I scream again as I’m flown straight towards the sky.

  He throws me from his arms. I hover in the air for a second before I feel gravity take over, pulling me down, down. I’m freefalling, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I plummet to the earth, awaiting the shattering of my body and my untimely death.

  All of a sudden, I feel his arms back around me, one under my knees, the other around my back, once again shooting for the sky. I twist my upper body and wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to him, so he can’t just let go of me again. I would even wrap my legs around him if I could. If he drops my legs, there’s no way I’d be able to hang from his neck for long.

  I feel his arms tighten around me, almost in a gesture of safety, but it’s probably just him playing with his food. There’s no way he lets me live.

  For a few minutes, I don’t think, I just hold on to him for dear life, waiting for him to throw me to my death. But he doesn’t. His arms hold me securely to his chest. Awareness begins to seep back in. He’s taking me somewhere. Where is he taking me? What is he going to do to me?

  I look at my arms. My arms are around this half-naked vampire with my face is pressed against his. His arms hold me against his body as we fly. Well, technically, he’s flying. His body is almost parallel to the ground, while I’m on my side. If I were to fall, I’d land in the same curled up position I always sleep in, on the same side, too.

  Even though it feels so strange to be practically hugging the monster that just killed a bunch of men in mere minutes, I can't let go. I can't even loosen the grip my hands have on each of my elbows for fear that I’ll plummet to the ground below. Ironically, I’m now clinging to him for life, a life I thought he would have taken by now.

  What is his plan? What will he do to me?

  We move slightly up and down in the air as he beats his powerful wings. I wonder if I am offsetting his balance. His wings are dark gray and leathery and look something like bat wings. They seem to connect to his shoulder blades. The base of each wing is bigger than my bicep and all muscle. I watch in fascination at the mechanism of the wings as they carry us through the sky.

  His skin is a grayish color, lighter than his wings. His hair is dark, wavyish, and goes down the nape of his neck.

  I move my focus to my hands and arms that are covered in blood. But not all of it is dry. I turn my arm to examine my cut, noticing how shaky my hands are as soon as they lose something solid to hang on to. I find that my cut has opened up, fresh blood blooming on the shirt that's wrapped around my arm. There’s fresh blood on my other arm too; I have a feeling it isn’t mine.

  I can also feel a sick, warm wetness where my body is pressed to his chest. I didn’t get a good look at him, but my guess is he’s covered in blood. I shiver at the thought of all the blood and all the bodies the blood came from, but it doesn’t faze me as much as it probably should. Maybe because blood has never bothered me before; maybe because I'm still alive and that seems like the most important thing; or maybe I’m just barely processing everything that’s happening.

  I shift my gaze upward at the clouds, wondering what he’s going to do with me, since he hasn’t killed me yet. If he’s not going to drop me, I can probably release his neck. The longer my life goes unthreatened, the more uncomfortably aware I am of our bodies touching. If he is going to drop me, well, he’s probably strong enough to break my grip anyway.

  The gash on my forearm hurts like a bitch. I reacted so quickly to the threat of falling, I must have injured it further at some point. And my swollen eye. I try to ignore how bad that hurts. It probably didn’t help when I smashed my face against his in panic.

  I move my injured arm from around his neck, which relieves the painful pressure I had been placing on it. I turn my body enough that I can look down at the earth below and place my head in the crook of his neck. From this position, I still can't see his face; I'm too afraid of what I might find there. I don’t know what to do with my hurt arm, so I just tuck it against my bloodied chest, trying not to touch him. I wish I didn't have to have my other arm around him, but I think I would topple out of his arms without it.

  I look at the small section of his naked blood-spattered chest that is visible. Underneath the blood, it looks like there are multiple long scars crossing his chest. There's a hole in his shoulder slowly seeping blood, occasionally dripping down to the earth below. He must have gotten shot. The bullet hole is almost an inch in diameter. I imagine sticking my finger in the wound to force him to drop me. Of course, this would only work once we’re closer to the ground. I can keep it as an option, in case there’s an opportunity to get away.

  His chest is highly muscled, as are the arms around me. His bicep, which is flexed as he holds me, must be bigger than two of my biceps put together. My eyes are drawn back to those scars. My body seems to be covering up where they end, but from what I can see, it looks like claw marks, like a bear slashed him open.

  I focus on the hands holding me, the hands that just ended the lives of at least seven men. Or was it his teeth that did that? A combination of the two?

  The scene plays back in fragments, each time the gunshots or shifting purple beams lit up the area enough to see, I saw flashes of what actually happened. But mostly, it was just lights and gunshots, shadows moving and screams.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block it out. I'm at the mercy of this creature now. I don’t know where he's taking me, but considering what I just witnessed, it can’t be anywhere good.

  I look down on the earth, trying to preoccupy myself with the view, trying to ignore the churning in my stomach. I force myself to admire the scenery below. Who knows, it may be the last thing I see.

  Okay, I can't think like that. He hasn't killed me yet.

  Is that worse? There are things worse than death...

  No, no, no. I can't think of that now. Don't think about it.

  I bring my focus to the wind on my face and in my hair, letting it serve as white noise to my thoughts.

  Admittedly, it’s strangely exhilarating. We’ve got to be flying higher than the Sears Tower. We pass over mostly forest and farmland, dotted with houses, segmented by roads. I can see the river to the right and downtown Dells in the distance. Unfortunately, no amount of pretty scenery is enough to push the screams and bodies and blood from my mind.

  He begins to fly lower and lower, which probably means that our flight is coming to an end. My stomach churns again, and I try to remember to breath.

  We’re slowing down as we’re coming up to a house. Hope spreads through me as I realize we’re at my cabin. He brought me home. But why? To let me go or to kill me and stage it? Maybe he doesn't know that I told those men anything.

  With one big pump of his wings, he stops our forward motion, just inside the tree line, far from the house and the outdoor lights. We free fall, and I panic, holding on to him tighter. With another big pump of his wings, we stop falling and his feet land lightly on the ground, despite having me in his arms. My body is tense, primed to run as soon as he puts me down.

  Instead of letting my legs fall free like I expected, he sets me on the ground, with himself between me and the cabin. I look up at the massive winged monster in front of me who is mostly hidden in shadows. I can see his general shape, how he towers over me, how each wing is about the same size as his height for at least a twelve-foot wingspan. I can't make out much more than that in the darkness.

  He bends down on one knee, leaning ove
r me.

  What is he going to do to me?

  For the first time, I really look at him, at his face. Or, at least, I try to. His face is still shadowed and his dark shaggy hair is blocking some of his face. I try to find his eyes, but they just look like giant black pits, because no light is reaching them. I can just barely make out unnatural ridges from the start of each eyebrow to the corners of his forehead, disappearing under his hair.

  He’s not just a person with wings; he’s something else entirely. Definitely not human. Some kind of cross between a young Dracula and a less greasy Buffy vampire.

  He is much too close for comfort, especially when he reaches for my face. He gently pushes my chin up, so my eyes can meet his, or at least, where I imagine his eyes to be in those eye socket shadows. He seems to study me for a second. I wonder what he sees, what he’s looking for.

  He releases my chin and reaches for my hurt arm. He stops abruptly and looks at his hands, his very bloody hands. I wonder if he literally has blood on his hands from every man he just killed.

  He takes off my makeshift bandage, using it to wipe the blood off his hands. He inspects my arm, gently twisting it this way and that. He takes in the giant slice meant to attract him, he takes in the rope burns from being tied up, and the myriad of bruises from the attack. I can't see most of these injuries, but I can feel each and every one.

  He pulls on my wrist, bringing my hand up to his mouth – is he going to bite me? I try to snatch my hand back, but his grip just gets tighter. He meets my eyes, and slowly, as if he’s coaxing a wild animal, he pulls my arm toward him. I keep trying to pull it back, but he doesn’t allow it.

  I’m starting to panic. Am I dessert? Is he just savoring me?

  When the gash on my arm is below his mouth, his head dips down. His eyes are still on mine, and they probably see the terror and uncertainty I’m experiencing.

  Surprisingly, his mouth stays closed. He simply inhales deeply over the wound. I stare in confusion, and the corner of his mouth lifts up just barely, like he’s amused at my reaction.