Nanowrimo - 19

I no longer fly in slumber. My imagination lost its strength long before my spirit. Dreams are not something one catalogs. They’re just markers on the journey. And just as one can travel along for miles and turn to wonder when the countryside suddenly became so dry, one day I wondered when I went from a windborne creature to runner and a swimmer. These boundaries look so definite on the maps drawn in retrospect, but I never see myself passing over them.

I run close to the ground, tall grass whipping at my face and feet spurred on to their fastest pace by the baying of hounds behind me. Men on horses seek only an afternoon of pleasure, riding about in the woods. Capturing the little red fox is merely a portion of the enjoyment they derive from getting out of the house and away from the women. For them my evasive moods are a puzzle and the dogs which torment me are the pawns sent out to do their bidding. Canine foot soldiers pursue the enemy through the countryside never realizing that the real threat to their soul and safety lies behind them, enthroned upon the horses. It’s cloaked in the political rhetoric of survival, but all war is merely a game the powerful play and there will always be wars, hunts, and those dogged pursuits to kill what is other or unknown until the day the powerful become supremely bored with the game of ages. Perhaps then they will simply go home and suck the life out of their own selves for once.

My legs are tiring. The dogs are sounding nearer. I zig zag through puddles and streams in attempts to throw them off. I’m gasping for air and can feel the blades of grass strike at the tongue hanging out of my mouth. I’m panting wildly but I refuse to stop. I refuse to give in to this misguided battle of beasts. At long last I see the small dark opening of a warren and dive in. The hounds bark and paw at the opening, still hoping to retrieve me, but I am quite beyond reach. Hunting trumpets call the beasts home leaving me, the little red refugee, in the dark.

As I return to the body in the bed from the fitful land of dreams the beastly teeth stay in my mouth. The urge is upon me even before I’ve woken up. I slide from the bed onto the floor, dripping with sweat and crawling on all fours. Around me the room spins like a bright red tunnel and I feel pulled along as if someone has put a hook into my belly and yanks me toward the prey like an unwilling catfish.

“Noooooo.” Is all the sound what comes out of my mouth. No, not now. I can’t do this now. Crawling down the stairs, panting and aching from a run, my mind is still mingled with the fox. “The fox is in the hen house… the fox is in the hen house,” keeps rolling through my brain like a taunt. I try to push myself backward on the steps and banisters but I’m unforgivably pulled downstairs. At the bottom I get a brief respite and the hot tunnel widens just big enough for just long enough for me to spy my iPod. I lunge at it, snatching it and stuffing the earphones into my ears quickly. My body rebels what it knows is coming next. It screams and lurches and yanks toward the door. My own fangs gnaw at my hand trying to stop it from turning the dials.

But I win. In seconds “The Fly” is blasting through my ears and the urge is losing its grasp just enough for me to stand upright and get to the kitchen. Pots and pans clatter their complaints that I so indelicately disturb their repose. But soon the skillet is on the stove and the bacon is on. Just the smell of it is making me pant. My teeth are still hanging out and my nerves writhe. Everything in my mind is saying “drink”. Every last cell in my body wants to drink. A drink would make all this struggle go away. Why, it’s been coming on more frequently. It used to be once a month or so, it’s almost daily, now.

“It’s not natural to starve yourself. Trust the urge! It’s there to keep you alive! It’s there to lessen the pain. You should let yourself feed.” A sinister voice whispers in my ear.

And once again I fight. I fight it all reaching for that one shred of humanity left in me. I listen to that one cell who rebels against the whole to say “NO!!!”

“No! I will not do it! I will not feed! I don’t WANT to stay alive! It’s my time to DIE!! If I feed all I will do is delay the inevitable reconning.” I shout into the air, into the tunnel constricting itself around me, pulling at me.

It comes back up in me in heaves and starts. By the time the bacon is done enough I need it so badly that I grab it from the frying pan with my bare hands and begin cramming the strips of meat, still sizzling and popping, into my mouth. Almost done, I breathe, almost done.

Just then a voice sounds from behind me. “You have an iPod!” I turn to see Eileen, who has arrived early to finish the paperwork that went neglected yesterday afternoon when we both became highly engrossed by my antiques.

And she beholds me, still wearing sweaty bed clothes, bacon grease dripping down my chin and holding the iPod aloft. And then I realize what else she sees. Behold, the fangs of the vampire and the clouded over eyes of one lost to another dimension. Her eyes lock on my face and I watch her puzzlement yield to horrified disbelief.

“You!”

It’s the only word she gets out. It’s the last word this mortal will utter on the earthly plane. In a second I’m on her. My teeth dig in with purpose and the sweet nectar rolls down my throat. She’s been eating doughnuts and coffee, had ham for dinner last night with mashed potatoes and creamed corn. The mélange makes a heady wine. Well before she’s fully dead I feel the high coming on. Out of possession of my own senses and better thinking I gulp all 3 liters down like a thirsty man at his first visit to an oasis.

When it’s done and the white body lay prone halfway between the living room and the kitchen my ecstasy is uncontrollable. With new vigor and strength pumping through them my limbs thrash and jump about. Their newfound power is exerted upon any object or surface that might wish to resist. The smashing feels good.

After an hour of the high, most of which I barely remember, I sit on the floor of the living room, surveying the damage. Everything, absolutely everything in the house is broken. Banisters, bookshelves, chairs all make heaps of tinder on the floor. The couches are torn open as if by a clawed beast. The windows are smashed. I look slowly over the piles of stuffing, fabric, books, busted wood, kettles whose handles have been ripped off, chards of glass that used to be fine pieces, ripped up paintings and the white heap of body that used to live and breathe and be Eileen. It slowly dawns on me what I’ve just done. And then I rest my head back to sob.

“There’s something that’s been in their blood since the 1950’s that produces these particularly violent states of post feed highs.” A voice says above me. I hear the clunking of heavy boots making their way through the debris.

“Jack”

“Some say its food additives. But I have another theory.”

“I was so afraid that you would kill. But then I did it. I did this horrible thing!”

“All the surviving superpowers after World War II performed extensive nuclear testing in the 1950’s. Thousands of bombs exploded in the atmosphere. The planet was a Petri dish for what perfect method would kill the best. All that nuclear activity changed the carbon in the atmosphere from C-12 to C-14. This essentially morphed the chemistry of a fundamental building block to all life on this planet. And now, here is part of the result.” He steps over an upturned coffee table and comes to crouch in front of me. The morning haze hits his face and in his eyes I see my own brilliant green color. “Some call it the nuclear high, which I must say is apt. It sure looks like a bomb went off in here.”

“I didn’t want to do this!” I’m simply sobbing uncontrollably and the words have to heave their way out of my throat. “I was so mad at you about Jones. I was so worried that you would kill. I was so worried for the people around here.”

“I know! I know.” He puts a hand up to my mouth to silence my blubbering ramble. “But it wasn’t me that brought you to this. It was your own nature. And your nature isn’t bad. Take into your own heart some of those sermons you reassure the congregation with.” As he says this I start bawling again. “Oh Mum.”

He leans forward and puts his arms around me. We settle there for a great while, just rocking back and forth.

“We have to go, now. He says eventually, releasing my hold. Get dressed. Pack a valise. We’re leaving.”

“Where on earth am I going to go? What do I do now?”

Just pack! He orders. And I bound up the stairs with an odd strength to collect a few things quickly. I pull an older bag from the back of the closet knowing that the police will instantly remark on the disappearance of a new one. For some reason I keep thinking of how I’ll talk around this, but it’s no use. Jack only started what I just did a perfectly good job of finishing. I can’t come back here, not anymore. Destroyed house or no, I’m the prime suspect, public enemy number one.

At the door I turn back. “Wait!”

“What IS it? Mum, we have to hurry up!”

I race back into the house and from the piles of wreckage where a bookshelf once was I retrieve a brown package, tied with string.

“What’s that?” Jack asks

“A gift for someone that I’ve been carrying.”

“Gods! The once born can be such packrats!”

“Well, there’s comfort in stuff, sometimes.”

He scoffs and jumps into the driver’s seat of my car. “Get in the back and get down. We don’t want someone spying you leaving.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, crouched behind him. “What do I do now?”

“You’re going to reinvent yourself, Mummy! You’ve been stable for too long!”

I feel the car skid around on the gravel. The stones crunch and hiss as if to say “go on now!”