Blinking in confusion, Walden looked around to examine his father’s expression and determine whether he was serious. He should have known better than to question that, as Proteus had never been one to jest, but seeing the cold calculation in his eyes left no room for doubt.
“But Father, I don’t need t—”
“I didn’t ask. You do need to, Walden. You need to start embracing who and what you are, and when you do, you’ll start to enjoy it.”
Walden stared blankly at his father for another long moment, and then he tore his eyes away, looking to the woman. He knew he had no choice. The intoxicating aroma of blood hung around them, and it combined with the duress applied by his father coaxed Walden at last from his stillness. He leaned forward to return his lips to the human’s throat and shut off his mind as he began drawing blood again. He was left with only the sweet intoxication of what he was doing. Because of him, this woman was steadily drifting into oblivion, and because of her, he was already feeling reborn. The strength that had depleted since he last fed was returning to his body, and her energy was melding with his own to bring him into what felt almost like a new state of being.
Losing himself in the ecstasy of the moment, he reached out to grip her arm, his claw-like nails digging into her flesh. The added pain served to help her fight her way past the stupor in which Proteus had left her and the copious loss of blood enough to seek her voice.
“Please… No… Have… family…”
Walden was unprepared. The appeal to his morality and last-ditch plea for her life alarmed him, and though the majority of his mind pushed him to continue and satisfy himself, a small portion of his thoughts moved in dissent. The part of him that was a scared little boy thought again of his mother and how horrified she would be if she could see him now. He jerked backward to get away from the human, wanting to stop before he killed her, but in the harsh fervor of the movement, his teeth tugged at her throat and ripped her flesh.
With one last ragged breath, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She stared at the ceiling as her throat gurgled sickeningly, and Walden knew he had done this.
She was dead because of him.
Numb and positively ill with self-loathing, he sat motionless on the wooden floor until his father told him it was time to leave.
Returning home was like a departure into a new world. The Sinclair house was nothing like the shack; the furniture was spotless and perfectly ordered, and photographs hung on the walls to identify it as a space belonging to a family. It should have been a comfort to behold, but it only mocked him. Walden blocked the sight of the space maintained beautifully by his mother from his mind. It was too clean, too good for him to mar with his presence after what he had just done. He started down the hall, hoping to spend the remainder of the night in solitude.
“Walden?”
The boy halted in his tracks, fists balling as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. She would know what he had done. She always knew; it was like she saw straight through him. He didn’t want to look at her, because to do so would be to face her disappointment and to break her heart.
“Hi, Mum.”
Arms enclosed him in warmth, and Walden returned her embrace as tightly as he could. Calpurnia was kind and full of love while Proteus was cold and distant, and she was often the only positive thing in the boy’s life.
Walden opened his eyes, and as he raised his head to look at her, his mother’s shoulder-length blond hair brushed his face. She watched him with worried eyes and the carefully-constructed neutral expression he knew meant she was studying him. After a short moment, her eyes narrowed.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Walden lied. He tried to smile at her, but he could feel that the expression fell flat.
His mother looked away to glare fiercely at his father, who was still standing behind Walden.
“What did you do?”
“Me?” Proteus’s voice was hard, and Walden heard him step toward them. “I did nothing, Calpurnia. Why don’t you ask our son what he did?”
Calpurnia did not look away from her husband, though her grip on her son’s back tightened the smallest bit. “What did you make him do?” she demanded.
Seeing this side of Calpurnia alarmed Walden nearly as much as the acts he had performed in the shack. His mother was not an aggressive woman, and as far as he could tell, she had never voiced a disagreement with his father for the duration of their marriage. Not until he was put in danger. The first time Walden had ever heard her raise her voice at Proteus was the day she found out he had brought the boy along to the shack to watch him torture a human. Walden had been sent to his room immediately, and he had heard the impact of his father’s hand on his mother’s face from upstairs. He knew Calpurnia’s continued intervention in the matter would only bring worse repercussions on her.
Sure enough, Proteus stepped forward again to lay his hand firmly on Walden’s shoulder. “You should be proud,” he said. “Walden’s killed his first human.”
Walden did not want to see his mother’s reaction. Calpurnia hated what they all had to do to survive, and she killed only when it was absolutely necessary to keep herself alive and continue to provide for her children. Proteus, however, took the notion of a Born vampire’s high standing in their society to mean that he could kill, maim, and torture as he pleased. Calpurnia had not wanted Walden to have to embrace his nature until it was absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, Proteus had already begun to expose the boy regularly to large amounts of blood, and Walden had begun to feel the change within himself. He had started to need the blood.
Calpurnia was staring fixedly behind Walden, her mouth set in a thin line.
“What?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, and Walden watched her fury build and take over her expression. “How could you?” she demanded of Proteus. Walden would never have done something like this of his own will.
“Now let’s not make a scene,” said Proteus smoothly. He lifted his hand slightly to pat Walden’s shoulder, and the boy flinched.
Calpurnia winced at her son’s reaction, and she drew in a deep breath. “Walden, please go upstairs.”
The boy froze. He did not want to be sent away. He was certain that if he left the room, something terrible would happen. His mother was furious, and his father would not take to that kindly.
“But Mum, shouldn’t, um… shouldn’t we eat supper?” Walden was grasping at straws for a reason to stay.
“Meg’s upstairs,” said Calpurnia firmly. “Go see her. We’ll deal with supper later.” Walden watched her in terrified silence for a moment longer, and she glanced away from Proteus at last to meet her son’s eyes. Her own gaze softened, and she gave him the smallest smile. “It’s okay, Walden. We’ll come get you soon.”
Walden nodded stiffly, not believing her. He turned his head to look to his father with one last desperate appeal, and Proteus stared still at his wife.
“Go.”
Walden’s arms tightened around his mother in one last quick embrace, and then he ran for the stairs. If he was being forced to leave, he wanted to be gone before he could hear more than he had to. This proved useless, as the shouting began before he had reached the third step.
“Don’t you speak to me that way in front of Walden!”
“How could you do that to your son? He’s a child!”
“He’s a vampire!”
“He’s too young! I know how you kill—a little boy doesn’t need to see someone dismembered!”
Walden rushed into his sister’s room and slammed the door, leaning against it and covering his ears. He shut his eyes and took deep breaths, trying to tune out his parents and keep himself from breaking down. After several long minutes, he opened his eyes. Meg sat in her bed with a doll abandoned in her lap, watching him with sad eyes. She glanced occasionally to the door, and Walden knew she was listening.
He sighed heavily, feeling much older than eight as he walked across the room to embr
ace his little sister.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“What if it isn’t?”
There was silence, and at last Walden pulled back to kiss Meg on the cheek. “It will be. Get some rest. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Meg nodded, trying to smile as tears brimmed in her eyes. “Thanks, Wally. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Walden watched as Meg lay down, hugging her doll close and shutting her eyes. He sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall facing the door and trying not to flinch when he heard something hit the ground downstairs.
“Look what you made me do! Did you really think I would let you interfere? You’re weak, Calpurnia! Always have been!”
“Stay put, Meg. No matter what happens. I’ll be back soon, and I’ll stay with you.”
Walden stumbled to his feet and opened the door. He paused for a moment to crouch on the landing, hiding behind a bannister to watch what was unfolding below. His mother lay on the floor clutching her bleeding head, and her dress was torn in lines that could have been left by nothing apart from a vampire’s claws.
“I’m not weak, Proteus.” Though her pain was evident, Calpurnia’s voice was even, and she slowly worked her way to her feet again. “I’m just not a raving lunatic, unlike you.”
Proteus rushed forward, hand closing around her neck as he slammed her backward into the wall with such force that the mirror hanging beside them fell from its hook and shattered on the polished floor.
“Raving lunatic? Is that a challenge, sweetheart?”
“Father, stop! Let go of her!” Walden was unsure when he had gotten to his feet again, so absorbed had he been in watching his parents, but now he sprinted down the steps toward them.
Proteus drew back his free arm and swung at Walden hard, knocking the boy off his feet and into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway before he crumpled on the ground, unable to lift his head.
“Walden!” cried Calpurnia.
Two blurred shapes passed through Walden’s line of vision, and he watched as Proteus dragged Calpurnia out of the hall and into the living room. He noticed the trail of blood left on the floor in their wake, and in the last moment before he lost consciousness, he thought of the woman in the shack.
Walden awoke with a throbbing headache and a stiff neck, unsure when he had fallen asleep but very aware of the odd angle it had been in. The pale light of morning streamed in the windows, and Walden forced himself to his feet, stretching. He took a step forward and listened carefully, but only the silence of the still house greeted him. Was no one else awake?
He treaded carefully across the hall, ears straining, and began to explore. The sound of muffled weeping reached his ears, and he hurried toward the living room, expecting to find his mother fretting over what had transpired the previous night. Walden’s mind scrambled to prepare what he would tell her: You did the right thing. I agree, Mum, I shouldn’t have had to go with him. It’s not your fault.
“Mum?”
Walden paused in the doorway. He frowned when he saw no one upon first glance; the chairs and couches were vacant, and the room was cold and foreboding. Something caught his eye at last on the floor. Slowly, painfully, Walden forced his eyes to drift downward. They landed on the coffee table and continued to the tan carpet below.
“No.”
He stared at the pale hand lying on the floor beside the table, the diamond ring on one finger nearly blinding him in the glare from the window as he stepped forward, shaking his head in denial. As Walden rounded the corner of the coffee table, his eyes roved up the arm adjoined to the hand, and then he saw her face, pale and peaceful.
“Mum?”
Walden dropped to his knees beside her, taking her cold hand in both of his. He sat perfectly still for what felt like years, and then he began to process the weeping. He tore his eyes from his mother’s face to see Meg leaning over her, shoulders shaking with her sobs. For the first time, Walden noticed the blood saturating Calpurnia’s shirt from a wound in her chest, and he knew exactly what had happened. She had been killed the only way one of her kind could—a wound to the heart. The tear in the material above the gash was made, without a doubt in Walden’s mind, by his father’s knife.
Walden clung to his mother’s lifeless hand with one of his while the other pulled Meg into a hug as for the first time since before he had visited the shack, he allowed himself to weep. His mother had been the light in the darkness of his father, and as he vowed to avenge the stealing of that light if it was his last action in this world, Walden knew he was more like her than like Proteus.
Monsters didn’t cry.
Lifting his gaze to the doorway, Walden set his jaw in determination. His father would not win.
THE END
Mandi Jourdan studies English/Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is translating the Harry Potter books into a series of plays in the style of Shakespeare, one of which was performed in Fall 2016, while another will be staged in Spring 2017. Her prose has appeared in four anthologies by Sinister Saints Press, Coming Around Again by the Central Arkansas Speculative Fiction Writers Group, Quickfic, Beyond Science Fiction Digital Magazine, 9Tales, Theme of Absence, the 2015 and 2016 editions of Grassroots Literary Magazine, and the Kaskaskia College Scroll. She has a story forthcoming in Digital Science Fiction. She can be found on Amazon and on Twitter (@MandiJourdan).
A SLOW METABOLISM by Simon McHardy
Jacob Oram leaned on the crooked, wooden fence and observed the old woman thoughtfully. He had arrived in Greytown only a month ago but in his search for work, he had walked past the derelict property on the corner of Main and Tennyson Streets several times daily. The old woman was always on the porch, her considerable bulk squeezed on to a wooden bench, the arms of which had cracked and splintered off, staring into the wilderness of her overgrown garden. She looked as unkempt as the house and its grounds. A mass of grey hair flowed on to the porch where it slipped between the floor planks and rooted itself in the dust, whilst overhead strands of her hair were tangled in a branch, which had slipped under the eaves and was growing through the kitchen window. She was dressed in a billowing, soiled, smock, which rose and fell on her gigantic bosom with each labored breath.
Jacob had waved to her several times. She had never acknowledged the greeting but remained still and silent. Jacob's thoughts drifted to his grandmother whose sight had failed her during the last years. How she had loved his visits, her work-wrinkled hands clasping his as he recounted his activities of the week. The residents of Greytown were hospitable and friendly to newcomers so it seemed likely the old woman was sight impaired. ‘That’s old Maizy,’ a voice explained behind him, 'you won’t get anything out of her.'
Jacob turned to see a spry, elderly man, ‘Name's Bill,’ the old man said grinning, ‘Strange one that one, always been like that and I’ve been in Greytown my entire life; she just sits there day in day out staring at that there jungle, watching the weeds grow and the butterflies fuck, never moves. Jim Parker, her neighbour, says she is still sittin' out there at ten o’clock when he pulls his bedroom curtains and then when he opens them at sun up.’
‘I find that hard to swallow’, Jacob laughed.' Especially with the winters you get up here.'
‘Can’t blame you for your doubt, kid,’ Bill replied. 'You’re not from around here are you? I’m the town barber and I’ve not seen you before and I’ve sure never cut your hair.’ The look of distaste spread over Bill’s face as he surveyed the tussles of matted hair on the young man’s head.
‘I’ve only been here a short time, I’ve been trying to get work down at the wharf, but none of the boats are hiring at the moment.’
‘Greytown's been slowly dying for the last twenty years, ever since the fishing all but dried up, many townsfolk have moved on, but a few have stayed like old Maizy and myself.'
Jacob cast his eyes back to the old lady, 'Is she all right?' he asked th
e concern evident on his face.
‘I don’t know,’ Bill grunted, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I’ve never talked to her.’
‘Does she get help from the folk in town?'
‘People keep to themselves in Greytown, always have, always will. Besides she looks happy enough,' Bill replied smiling.
Jacob thought of his grandmother in her final years, how much she had needed the family’s help. ‘Sitting on a porch all day and night, that doesn’t sound too healthy to me, people in this town may not have a conscience, but I do. Jacob stalked off across the street. Bill leaned forward on Maizy’s fence and began to whistle tunelessly as he watched Jacob walk away.
The crumbling path to Maizy’s porch was choked with weeds and overshadowed by grass that grew above Jacob's shoulders; he could just make out the porch's rusted iron roof as he stumbled forward. The smell of Maizy greeted him before he could see her, a pungent aroma that smelt of rancid tallow and the unmistakable stench of human excrement.
‘Are you okay?’ Jacob called as he ascended the decaying stairs. The eyes, which he had presumed sightless, were rolling in their sockets, watching him. Her head was still facing forward as he continued, ‘I’ve seen you sitting out here every time I walk by and thought it would be nice to check to see if you are all right.’ The old woman released a prolonged wheeze that crackled like dry kindling in a fire. ‘You’re not okay are you?’ Jacob observed taking another step forward. The foul odour intensified and he fought the urge to vomit as saliva welled into his mouth and throat. Her huge face looked like a yellow balloon stuffed to bursting point with fat pieces of meat. Jesus, how could the townsfolk leave a fellow human being in this state?
Her rubbery lips quivered and tried to part but they had gummed up, the tongue, dry like a sun- baked worm, broke through appearing at the edge of her bottom lip where it dragged itself to the far side successfully opening the crevice. She wheezed again, there were words in her breath. He leaned in to catch them, 'I neeeeed you.’
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