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A large object like a flash of black
lightning ran out of the mist-shrouded graveyard and into
the path of Dr. Brandon Royce’s pick-up truck. He heard the
sound of flesh against metal. The object flew into the air
on impact, slammed against the truck’s windshield in a heap,
then seemed to relax onto the road. The dented vehicle
bounced as it ran over the victim.
Brandon gripped the steering wheel,
pressing the brake down hard before the truck skidded to a
halt. If the thing he hit was dead and it was human then
Brandon would be questioned by the police. If it was alive,
he would have to somehow transport the person, get him help
somewhere, and be on his way quickly without revealing where
he was going and why he’d been in the seedy section of town.
He sat there for a few seconds catching his breath, and left
the motor running as he got out of the truck.
The street smelled of decay and ash.
There were homeless humans here, with balding scalps and
withered features, huddled around flames leaping up from
metal cans. They turned to stare at Brandon as he walked
toward the black mass bunched up in a puddle on the macadam.
It was clearly a creature of the night whose fur was just
starting to sprout. As Brandon lifted away the victim’s
tattered wool coat to check for a pulse he noticed oozing
brown bumps covering the exposed skin. They looked almost
like blood-filled beetles sucking on a host. Had the
accident caused this? Was this a condition the creature
already had? Brandon was used to the hair-cloaked bodies of
sick and maimed shape shifters and wolf beings that came to
his clinic. But he’d never seen bumps such as these,
bloodied at that.
“My God, is he all right?” Brandon
looked up to see a woman wrapped in blankets, her mangy dog
sniffing the rumpled creature in the puddle. Her breath
smelled of rotten liquor and onions and she clutched a
garbage bag hung over her sloping back.
“He’s fine,” Brandon told her. “I’ll
take care of him.”
“We should call an ambulance so he can
get help,” she screeched. “Ambulance, ambulance!” She took a
closer look at the creature and her eyes got wide, her
throat releasing a guttural cry. She must have noticed the
raised nodules on the creature’s skin, his contorted body,
the hair multiplying minute by minute and growing into
masses of dark, thick nests that spilled over the creature’s
shirt collar and pant legs.
Brandon stood up, his face only inches
from the woman’s fearful one. He knew that traditional human
medicine would do nothing for this creature. He had his own
methods, those serving beasts no human would touch. But this
woman wouldn’t understand. She was human, after all.
Brandon took the woman aside, away from
where the creature lay. “I know him,” Brandon lied. “I’m a
relative. I know where to take him to get help.”
The woman stared at him for what seemed
like minutes, tilting her head from one side to the other in
an effort to either evaluate his sincerity or focus out of
her drunken haze. “Okay. Get him help. But do it now before
I call the police.” The woman’s dog inched closer to the
creature, its body tense and at the ready. The woman became
agitated and confused as the dog’s staccato cries grew more
urgent.
“Olivia, stop that. Leave him alone.”
The creature moaned and the dog jumped
back, its mangy body quivering. Brandon tried to grab the
insistent canine but then stopped, feeling that the creature
demanded nourishment until Brandon could get it to safety.
Just then the creature erupted, perhaps spurred on by the
dog’s scent or maybe the realization of the predicament it
was in. Its eyes bulged and its mouth gaped open to reveal
sharp fangs dripping with saliva, a creature whose hunger
surpassed its pain and disease. The dog strained, determined
to get closer. The creature lifted its head, its body still
limp on the pavement, and with a groan clamped down on the
dog’s neck, lifting the animal’s body up in the air with its
mouth and shaking it.
The woman screamed, pulling at her hair
with gnarled fingers. Brandon could hear the creature
drinking, a gurgling sound emanating from its throat as the
red fluid satisfied its desire. Brandon allowed it to drink,
understanding its needs on this night of full moon, hoping
that the dog’s blood would give it strength. Brandon felt
the creature’s yearning and then its satisfaction and once
it drained the blood, it released the dog’s lifeless form
and turned to Brandon with a look of pleading.
Brandon knew it needed more, that a dog
weighing 30 or 35 pounds was not enough to keep the creature
sated through the night. While the woman cried, Brandon
lifted the creature, who he found to be surprisingly light,
and placed him onto the back of the truck. Then he heard a
commotion behind him. He turned to see a group stumbling out
onto the street from the graveyard. They were humans, not
creatures of the night, out for a good time and making
trouble. They clutched beer bottles and clubs, wore leather
jackets with silver chains dangling from the pockets. They
noticed Brandon and the woman, then saw the figure in the
truck.
“There’s that fucker. That’s where he
is. Getting a ride, huh?” yelled one.
“A-ha,” roared another. “Let’s go have
us some more fun.”
The rowdy bunch began running towards
the truck. Brandon got behind the wheel, started up the
engine, and took off, the tires screeching into the almost
silent night. In his side mirror, Brandon watched as the
group of young humans tried to catch up, but stopped when
the distance widened, their fists raised in protest. Nearby
the homeless woman was bent over her dog that lay in the
street like a wet rag. She looked in the direction of the
escaping truck, her mouth forming a scream. Brandon turned
the corner down a gravel-covered road, driving toward the
flickering lights of a dark mansion hidden in the distance
by jumbles of trees and hulks of thorny shrubs. He prayed
that someone would be there to open the gate.
<hr>
Officer Tyler Blake balanced himself on
his haunches, stared into the puddle and tried to imagine a
body laying here one minute and then gone the next, whisked
away by the driver who was either drunk, driving too fast,
or who just didn’t care who he hit.
“He drove off with him that way,” the
woman said catching her breath, pointing to the left with
one hand while her dead dog lay cradled in her other arm. “I
begged him to call an ambulance, but he didn’t. Said he was
related. That thing, that devil he ran over had these
horrible blisters all over his body. Then he killed my
Olivia.”
Tyler stood up and looped his thumbs
into his holster. “What did the driver look like?”
The woman gave Tyler a description that
conjured up images of some mad scientist with white wild
hair, scruffy beard, wearing a crooked tie and a
light-colored smock.
“A smock? Like something a house
painter might wear?”
“No,” the woman said, her face wet with
tears. “Like a dentist or doctor.”
“And the truck?”
“It was black. Maybe tan. My eyes are
bad. It’s dark here. Always dark.”
Tyler took a step back, away from the
woman’s bad breath and despair. He nodded and scribbled
something on his pad. “Hmm,” was all he could think of to
say. He looked in the direction the woman had pointed. A
gang of boys leaned against a building and grinned in his
direction, mocking him.
Tyler knew what he had to do, yet
trembled at the thought. The story the woman told sounded
similar to the chilling tales he heard when he started on
the force three years before. Stories of that place down the
dirt road and high up on the mountain, whose lights turned
on at nightfall, of people coming out, people that looked
like any of the townspeople, going to work, looking
perfectly normal, but somehow not, because he heard that no
one ever saw these people after dark. Everyone here thought
they knew everyone else, but no one knew “them.”
Tyler had a plan to bring honor to the
badge on his chest. Sure he could check the boys’
identifications, test them for alcohol and drugs, arrest
them if they were underage. That was the sort of arrest he
had been doing for years. A textbook sort of arrest that any
police academy graduate could do without even thinking too
hard about it. At least he would have something to show for
coming out on this moonlit night to a part of town that the
hard-working citizens here would rather toss in a paper bag
and burn. But Tyler wanted to shed some sweat, do some real
investigative work, and unravel the town’s greatest mystery.
He’d promised himself that one day he’d have a story to
impress some naive police wannabe. This was the one.
Sometimes you had to break the rules to get respect.
Tyler returned to the woman who cuddled
her dead pet over her shoulder. “Okay, ma’am,” he said, his
voice in its deepest register. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring
these people to justice.”
“That devil killed my precious Olivia.
He wasn’t normal. The driver wasn’t normal. I could see it
in his eyes.”
Tyler pushed his shoulders back trying
to look official. He wrote down the woman’s name: Gertrude
Brooks, address none.
“You stay here,” Tyler told her. “I’ll
have animal control come get the dog.”
The woman’s sobs grew louder. “No. I
won’t have them take my Olivia away. She needs me.” As she
grasped both arms around the dog’s wilted body, a whisky
bottle dropped from her belongings and clanged to the
ground.
Tyler had better things to do than
argue with a drunken bag lady. He decided to drive to that
spooky-looking place by himself. He’d be the hero and bask
in the accolades of his fellow officers. The mayor would
honor him; give him a key to the city. Perhaps he’d be
promoted or made a captain. He smiled at the thought.
Tyler hiked his pants up over his
bulging belly, stuck his hands in his pockets, and sauntered
over to his patrol car. He made sure no one saw his hands
shaking.
<hr>
Brandon yelled for Nurse Cassiel as the
wrought iron gate shut behind him. Within seconds she came
running, pushing a stretcher whose wheels creaked and
complained over the cobblestone path.
“Where were you, Dr. Royce? We’ve been
waiting for an hour.”
He didn’t have time to go into every
minute detail, something Nurse Cassiel would have loved for
him to do. Perhaps he would tell her about the accident
while they examined their new patient. The two hoisted the
creature onto the stretcher and wheeled it toward the
clinic’s entrance.
“We need to get him into surgery right
away,” Brandon said. “I’m not certain of its species. It has
vampire characteristics, yet its form is very different from
others we’ve seen come into the clinic. I did witness it
feeding on the blood of live flesh, a dog.”
Nurse Cassiel didn’t waste any time as
she began her examination, moving quickly along with the
stretcher as it streaked toward the ivy-covered clinic.
Despite her malformed facial features and noticeable limp,
she was a mutated ghoul of high intelligence with no hunger
cravings for humans. The sparkle in her eyes defied her
gaunt expression and receding hairline. Treating the
lycanthropes, freaks, skinwalkers, vampires, and golems was
as much of a passion for her as it was for Brandon. Brandon
depended upon her to keep him on schedule and see the most
dire patients first.
Brandon and Nurse Cassiel rolled the
stretcher over the threshold and headed toward the operating
room. Once inside, Brandon’s eyes adjusted to the filtered
light in the hallway where he was able to get a better look
at the creature. It was large, wide-shouldered, although
bent over now from injuries suffered in the accident. His
narrow copper eyes contained the same pleading look that
Brandon had noticed when the creature lay injured in the
street, yet the fury he’d shown when the dog’s blood became
his evening meal caused a cold sensation inside of Brandon.
Dense, coarse hair now covered most of the creature’s body.
Here and there, bare spots revealed those blood-filled
nodules atop prickly scales. This was an unfamiliar creature
with a malady Brandon had never seen before. He couldn’t
tell Nurse Cassiel of his apprehension because he feared she
might refuse to treat the creature or even touch him.
Perhaps the disease might spread and endanger his other
patients - patients who slipped out of the tombs and dark
alleys of this human city and into his clinic to be treated
for infection, flu, catarrh, a broken arm or leg. They knew
that Brandon’s clinic had the remedies - ointments, animal
skins, magical concoctions that soothed them until the next
full moon. Yes, he had the homemade mixtures, the passion to
heal those of the supernatural world. But he didn’t know if
he had anything that would treat this.
Nurse Cassiel flinched when the tip of
her gloved finger stroked an area that contained the
protruding mesas of flesh, causing the creature to thrash
about. “Well, what do we have here, doctor? Never saw
anything quite like this before.”
His nurse’s reaction quelled Brandon’s
fears that she might shy away from treating the being now in
their care. “Yes, I wanted to tell you about these. We’ll
have to be careful. Make sure anyone around the creature is
wearing gloves and a clinic gown. After the diagnosis, we’ll
discuss treatment, isolate him in a room, and do what we
can. First, let’s steer clear of the waiting area just in
case.”
The two veered in unison and guided the
stretcher down another hallway, away from the patient areas.
The creature’s ears twitched upon hearing distant roars of
pain coming from one of the out-patient rooms. He became
agitated, tossing and turning, wailing from his injuries.
Brandon and Nurse Cassiel held him down while continuing to
move the stretcher forward. Suddenly, the creature’s power
surged through Brandon almost causing him to lose his
footing as they made it through the operating room entry.
Nurse Mordia, in the midst of taking the blood pressure of
an expectant vampiress with slitted orange eyes and
foot-long painted fingernails, whirled around as the
creature’s wails filled the room.
“I’m almost through, Dr. Royce.”
“Get out now,” Brandon commanded. “We
have an emergency here.”
Nurse Mordia’s body stiffened. Her
deformed face showed its displeasure. Without a word, she
removed her patient’s arm cuff and led the hissing vampiress
out the door.
Nurse Cassiel gave their new patient a
light sedative while Brandon strapped restraints across the
creature’s body. Together they examined the plump lesions,
which seemed to be growing in size amid a finer coat of fur.
“I think I’ve seen this before in the
human specie,” said Nurse Cassiel. “It’s called pyogenic
granuloma. It can spread in the bloodstream. Get nasty.”
“But this creature is clearly not
human,” Brandon said. “This must be something new, and
anything new can’t be spread from humans to supernatural
beings until many generations elapse and chromosomes weaken
with inbreeding.”
“He might be of two worlds. A fusion
lycanthrope, perhaps.”
If that’s the case,” mused Brandon, “he
may have a human mentality...”
Brandon’s body shivered. A creature
with a human brain that drank animal blood. With lupine ears
and human legs and arms. With fields of hair, a muzzle and
fangs. With a disease that needed a quick cure before it
spread. This was a creature whose transformation was
complete, who was half-man and half-wolf.
“What is your name?” Brandon asked him.
He saw a glint of knowing in the creature’s copper eyes.
“Your name,” Brandon repeated.
The creature’s uttered something in a
soft voice. With a puff of air, the creature whispered,
“Lucas.”
“Lucas, where are you from? How did you
get here?”
“From far...away,” he groaned. “My
cravings, my will...got...me here. I...needed...drink.”
“Do you know how you got these
lesions?”
In a sluggish drawl, Lucas told him
about his small village whose human population had exited,
leaving the supernatural beings to search for other food
sources. Those who feasted on newly dead corpses were able
to sustain themselves for a short time before desperation
forced them search elsewhere for nourishment. Some returned,
bringing with them infections they had caught during their
journeys.
“I’m guessing that you ran into trouble
at the graveyard,” said Brandon, “and then you ran into me.”
Lucas nodded and grimaced.
“My name is Dr. Royce,” he said, trying
to give the creature comfort. “You’re in my clinic. I’m a
human, but I treat and cure the illnesses of supernatural
beings. You’re safe here.”
Lucas smiled. “Thank you,” he managed
to say.
“The human form of the disease is
usually treated by excising the skin growths,” Nurse Cassiel
explained. “I doubt if that sort of thing would work in the
supernatural world.”
“I say we mix some potions,” said
Brandon. “We can treat it as a bad infection.”
“You might be right, doctor. I have a
feeling that Ipecal would work.”
“Let’s also try an elixir of radish
root and cyan.”
Working against time, the two boiled
the ingredients over a burner, stirring them with a silver
ladle. The emerald-colored potion filled the room with an
acrid vile odor that caused their eyes to tear. The creature
would need all its strength to change back to a human at
daybreak. This disease had put the creature in such a
weakened state that he might not survive the rigors of a
transformation.
Once the concoction was mixed, Nurse
Cassiel gently placed the potion onto Lucas’ oozing growths.
He screamed in agony.
“Sorry, Lucas,” Brandon said. “But we
believe this will cure you.”
But their uncertainties rose as the
creature appeared to get listless. Fistfuls of hair fell out
and his face went slack. Nurse Cassiel put some crimson
tonic in a small dish and Brandon placed it under the
creature’s nose.
Then Nurse Mordia burst through the
operating room doors, her face ashen “Dr. Royce, there’s a
police officer here!”
“That’s impossible!” Nurse Cassiel
said. “Did he see your face?”
“No. I was just coming out of the
outpatient area when I spotted him. I spoke to him through a
crack in the door.”
In his haste to help Lucas, Brandon
must have forgotten to lock the gate behind him while he was
waiting for Cassiel to arrive with the stretcher. “I’ll go
speak with him.”
“He’s making demands,” Nurse Mordia
said. “He’ll shut us down, maybe bring other humans here to
destroy our work. Humans are all...” She stopped, watching
Brandon’s changing expression. She continued with downcast
eyes. “I’m sorry, Dr. Royce.”
“It’s all right, Mordia,” he said with
slight smile. “Yes, we can be unreasonable. Cassiel, stay
here with Lucas. I’ll be right back.”
Brandon’s heart pounded as he walked
down the long hall. Patients hid behind closed doors,
resisting the temptation of human flesh as per Brandon’s
past warnings. Brandon found the officer at the end of the
hallway.
“Are you the head doctor here?” asked
Tyler, his hands touching his holster.
Despite the man’s bravado, Brandon
noticed the uncertainty in his voice, his quaking belly, a
glimmer of terror in his eyes. “I am the only doctor and you
are trespassing on my property.”
“I’m Officer Tyler Blake. If this is a
hospital then it’s public property. If it isn’t, then what
sort of business are you running here?”
“I heal the sick. Now leave.”
“And your name?”
“Dr. Brandon Royce.”
Tyler cleared his throat and got out
his pad and pen. “Dr. Royce, my real reason for being here
is that I’m investigating an accident. A witness said a man
fitting your description hit a moving object, a man, took
him away and drove off toward this place. There’s a dented
truck out front. Where have you been tonight?”
“I’ve been here,” Brandon said.
Tyler scribbled down the information.
“You’ll have to come with me to the station for questioning,
Dr. Royce.”
Tyler reached for the handcuffs hanging
on his belt and reached for Brandon’s wrists. He looked at
Brandon, perhaps hoping he wouldn’t have to use force but
willing to do so if it came to that. Suddenly, Tyler’s eyes
changed direction, staring in horror down the hallway.
Brandon whirled around, watching as Nurse Cassiel stood near
the operating room doorway. Between them stood Lucas, his
thick fur and penetrating fangs shimmering beneath the soft
lights. A majestic power, charging through the creature’s
body, emanated like an electric shock that almost knocked a
spellbound Brandon to the floor. The energy filled every
pore of Brandon’s flesh with gratification. The potion had
erased Lucas’ disease and his mammoth power had re-knitted
his bones and repaired his fractures.
As Tyler tried to scream, Lucas’ energy
slammed Brandon against the wall, clearing the way to his
prey. As Lucas passed by, Brandon felt the surges of thirst
and hunger within the creature, his yearning not only for
graveyard corpses and defenseless animals, but the lifeblood
of the living. Yet the human part of Lucas knew not to
inflict harm on those that helped him live, even if that
someone was human.
The creature grabbed Tyler’s shoulders
and raised him into the air. The officer’s body hung there,
rigid and terror-stricken, as Lucas pulled Tyler towards
him. Lucas gripped the man’s head and snapped it to the
side, the cracking sound of crushed bones echoing down the
hall, causing Brandon to cringe as the creature’s fangs
jutted out and ripped into Tyler’s neck. Lucas sopped up the
blood that flowed out and into him, giving him sustenance.
Once he finished, he dropped Tyler to the ground and turned
to Brandon and Nurse Cassiel. Lucas’ expression softened as
blood trickled from his fangs, dripping to the floor where
it formed red dots. He ran to the nearest window, opened it,
and stretched out his arms at the moon. Brandon heard a
whooshing sound as two large wings gently unfurled from the
creature’s back, black and rust-colored plumage that
measured 30 feet or more from tip to tip.
Of course, Brandon thought to himself.
That’s how this creature had traveled so many miles from his
village, not by rushing through bramble and woods as most
vampires do, but by skyrocketing through the heavens,
nearest a moon that mentors its transformation and lifts the
soul of one who straddles two worlds.
Lucas balanced on the sill and howled
into the darkness. Others like him in forests and back
alleys howled back. But there were no others exactly like
him. Not as majestic, as spirited, as nourished. There was
no time to waste. Daybreak, like death, could arrive at any
moment.
Lucas bounced back on his thighs and
then flew out the window, almost ensnaring a wing on the
ledge before he freed it. Brandon watched as Lucas floated
on sheets of wind, feeling the creature’s weightlessness,
his newfound freedom. Brandon raced to the window and
gripped the sill. He stood there knowing this revived
resplendent being would once again stalk the night air. |
