Spiked

[Ludub]

Well here's something to do of a lazy Sunday, other than 'sharpen your spike'! lol!  Hope you all enjoy this one!

WARNING: ADULT THEMES & SEXUAL CONTENT!

 

Chapter 11

 

Tuesday morning, just before sunrise…

Brody gently slid the bedroom window open and climbed inside as quietly as he could. He stopped and listened to the sounds of the house for a moment, registering the thumping heartbeats now surrounding him, and trying to figure out if anyone was awake. He counted: one, two, three, four, five… all accounted for, even Buddy. They all seemed quite slow and steady, so he figured that they must all be asleep. He gave a little sigh of relief as he turned and slid the window closed behind him and then pulled the curtains across. This would do for now, he thought, but he knew that he was going to have to find a more suitable place to sleep, and soon! A vampire couldn’t sleep so close to a source of light with only linen curtains to protect him! He would have to find a basement or a cupboard that he could lock from the inside.

Suddenly there was a little click and the room was filled with light! Someone had turned on the bedside lamp! He spun around to see who it was.

“Where have you been?” asked Justin. He was lying on the bed fully clothed and squinting up at him in a sleepy sort of way. He’d obviously been waiting for him.

“That’s none of your business!” snapped Brody. He was a little startled to find him in the room. He’d thought from the sound of his heartbeat that he was on the other side of that wall. “What are you doing in my room?!” he demanded to know.

“I just came to look in on you” sighed Justin, “We were worried about you, Brodes… Y’know… after…”

“After I told you I was a vampire?” replied Brody “After that?”

“Yeah, mate…” said Justin, with a little tilt of the head, “Don’t you know how worried you’ve had us?! Why would you sneak out like that?!”

“Uhhh… maybe cos I’m a vampire!” laughed Brody, as he went and sat down on the chair beside his desk, “That’s kind of what vampires do… go out late at night and drink people’s blood!” He figured if they’d already decided he was crazy, then he might as well play along!

“Brody!” sighed Justin, “Can you stop this, please?!”

“Stop what?” he shrugged in reply, “Stop telling you the truth?!”

“Stop this nonsense!” groaned Justin, “You know there’s no such thing as vampires! You know that!”

“Fine, Justin!” he said, with a sarcastic little smirk, “There’s no such thing as vampires…”

“There isn’t!” repeated Justin, now sitting on the edge of the bed, “Just think for a minute, mate… Just think about what you’re saying… You know that it isn’t true!”

“I said ‘fine’” laughed Brody, “I said that vampires don’t exist… What more do you want from me?!”

“I want to believe that you believe that” sighed Justin.

“You can’t believe in something that you don’t” said Brody, “And you can’t not believe in something that you do… so I guess, we’re gonna have to agree to disagree!”

“Urrrrhhhhh! Brody?!” groaned Justin, “How can you be this…. this…?!”

“This what?!” asked Brody. He could see how frustrated this whole thing was making Justin. On the one hand, he felt bad for scaring and worrying his family like this, but on the other, he couldn’t help finding it a little amusing. Justin looked like he was about to explode.

“I don’t know” sighed Justin, “You just don’t seem like ‘you’…”

He gave an involuntary little laugh. Justin had no idea how big an understatement that was!

“I feel like… like I lost my brother on that beach” said Justin, “I feel like I got someone else back on Sunday… He looks a lot like Brody… but he’s not him.”

“Maybe cos he’s a vampire?!” asked Brody with a little smile. He knew that no matter how many times he said it, Justin just wasn’t going to believe it. There was something very freeing about not being believed.

“Brody! This is wearing really thin!” complained Justin, “Mate, I know something terrible happened to you on Friday… and I think maybe it’s too hard for you to deal with… so… so, you’ve come up with this ‘vampire’ thing… to I don’t know… like some sort of crutch?”

“You think I’m in denial?” he asked, with a raise of his eyebrows.

“I think maybe you really believe this whole vampire thing” said Justin, “But deep down, you know it’s not true… You know that.”

“Or I’m actually a vampire?” laughed Brody, “…and I’m looking at you right now and thinking how tasty your blood would be to drink…”

Justin gave him a withering look and ignored what he saw as an empty threat.

“Maybe this room is filled with the smell of your blood and it’s taking everything I have not to bite you right now?”

“Can you just stop?!” snapped Justin.

“I’m just trying to tell you how I feel, Justin…”

“Brody, you need to stop this!” he said, “We’re here for you and we want to help you through this… But you have to let us help you…”

“Okay… then maybe you could get Tori to run out to the haematology department” replied Brody, “…and get me a nice pint of O negative?”

“Seriously, Brody?!” snapped Justin. His patience was wearing thin.

“What?!” laughed Brody, as he spun himself around on the desk chair, “I’m just being honest with you… You said I could talk to you about anything at all!”

“I meant the… the…”

“The rape?” asked Brody, in a mock whisper.

Justin sat and looked at him for a moment. Had they just had a breakthrough?! Had he finally admitted it?!

“The rape that didn’t happen?” continued Brody, “The rape that you and Tori seem a little bit obsessed with, frankly? I mean, what is that anyway?”

“The hospital said you had…” replied Justin, pausing to find the right words. He wasn’t comfortable with this stuff at all. Right now, he needed Tori to come in and put it in ‘doctor speak’. Where was she when he needed her?!

“You know me and Kris… we did some things…” said Brody.

“It was more than that” said Justin, as a redness crept up his neck.

Brody sat waiting. He wondered at the flush in Justin’s face. He could actually hear his heart kicking up a gear and the blood rushing to the capillaries in his face. Why was he so embarrassed?

“They said…” he continued.

“Justin, will you just spit it out?!” sighed Brody.

“They said there were obvious signs of sexual assault.” he said, doing his best to look him in the eye, “They said there was… some bleeding…”

Brody rolled his eyes and looked away. Things had gotten a bit rougher with Kris than he would have liked, so he wasn’t all that surprised by that.

“So…” Justin began to say.

“So… that’s none of your business!” snapped Brody.

“I just want you to talk to me!” pleaded Justin.

“And yet…” sighed Brody, “When I do, you don’t want to listen!”

“I’m listening, mate… but you need to start making some sense!”

Brody gave a little snort and turned to look at him. His big brown eyes looked so hurt and worry-filled. He hated to think how he would look at him when he came to realise that all this ‘vampire’ stuff was true. That he really was a blood-sucking creature of the night?! He didn’t want him to look at him with fear in his eyes, or horror, or disgust. He wanted to hold on to this moment for as long as possible. To have a brother for as long as he possibly could!

“Maybe you don’t feel comfortable talking to me and Tori?” suggested Justin, “Maybe you’d be better seeing a counsellor… or maybe going to a group counselling session with other people…”

“Other rape victims?” asked Brody, looking down at the ground. Maybe he’d have to play along for Justin and Tori’s sake?

“Yeah, mate…” said Justin, with a little sigh of relief, “Other people, just like you who’ve been through it.”

He stared at his feet.  A terrible thought had flashed through his mind and he was a little ashamed of himself. How could he be thinking of his stomach at a time like this?! What kind of person heard ‘group counselling’ and thought ‘lots of tasty young people to eat!’ A vampire! That’s who! That’s who thought these things! He could just see them now with all their baggage! Young and vulnerable and easy to get to!

“It might help?” suggested Justin, “You might find it easier to talk to…”

“Okay… I’ll do it” he sighed, “I’ll go… if it makes you and Tori happy…” He could almost smell the blood now!

“Oh, my god! Mate!” gasped Justin, “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me!”

“Okay… but it has to be at night” he said.

Justin looked at him and shook his head. He obviously hadn’t given up on this whole vampire thing but ‘one step at a time’, he thought to himself, ‘one step at a time!’ He gave him a little smile and came over to give him a little pat on the shoulder. “Okay, mate… I’ll set it up!”

 

Thursday night…

“I’m sorry” he whispered quietly, as he lay her head down gently on the wooden bench, “I wish I didn’t need this… I wish it didn’t have to be like this.” He knelt down beside the young blonde girl, and listened to her slow and even breathing. She was out cold but at least she was still alive! He hadn’t taken too much this time. This time he’d been careful. He’d listened carefully to her heart and known just the right moment to pull back. He was getting good at this… He was getting things under control! He grimaced a little as he looked at the little puncture wounds on her throat, and the paleness of her face under the moonlight. She looked small and fragile to him now. Like a child… It hit him then, a sudden pang of guilt! This was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s friend… and he had stolen from her. Not her money, or her property, but something so much more precious! He gently stroked her hair behind her ear to see her face better. She was grubby from living rough and her hair was tangled and unkempt. He knew that she probably smelled a little too. She was thin and unhappy looking, but with a little more care and attention, he knew that she could be beautiful. She was beautiful now in an uncared for and tragic sort of way. He’d seen her soul when he’d taken her. All her hopes and dreams, all her joy and all her pain. He’d seen everything! She’d shown it all to him… all of it! He’d seen her past and her present and he knew why she was living this life. This life on the run… There’d been fights, and things had been said in the heat of the moment that shouldn’t have been. Her parents had been angry, and feeling powerless… and she had been a teenage girl trying to find her own way in the world, and railing against those who were trying to protect her.  That same old story! She’d run away then and she’d been running ever since. Angry and frightened, and so full of resentment! But he knew that things didn’t have to be this way for her. There were people out there that cared about her, good people that she’d left behind. As he gazed at her now, he began to wonder if there was some way that he could help her? If he could repay her in some way? Maybe he could find her family? Maybe he could get her back to them? He looked around to make sure that there was no-one watching, before starting to go through her pockets. There in the pocket of her hoodie was a small tattered wallet and inside he found a photo ID card. “Hannah Walters” he muttered under his breath, “119 Vincent Drive…” Hannah hadn’t been the name that she’d given at the counselling session. She’d called herself Amy!

“Mmmm” she murmured, as she moved a little on the bench, “I’m cold…” Of course, she was cold! He’d drained nearly half her blood!

“Okay, Hannah” he said, as he made a mental note of her full name and address and then slid the card back inside the wallet. “Let’s get you some help then” he said to her, as he stuffed the wallet back into the pocket of her hoodie and got to his feet. He gazed down at her for a moment, wondering what had passed through her mind in that terrifying moment that he’d taken her. Had she been just as frightened as he was? Had she looked at him and seen the same monster that he had seen when he’d looked at Morten? What did ‘vampire’ Brody even look like?! It wasn’t like he could look in a mirror, so he had no way of knowing!

He bent down and picked a large stone up off the ground. He glanced around him again to make sure that he wasn’t being watched but gave a little laugh when he realised that he and the poor runaway girl were the only living souls still out and about. The beachfront was completely dead. It was about 3am on a Thursday night and everyone was in bed. There was a particularly expensive looking car parked nearby. “Bingo!” he said to himself, when he saw the flash of the little red alarm light inside. He needed an alarm loud enough to draw attention, and a car expensive enough for the owner to come running quickly. This one fit the bill perfectly. He threw the stone as hard as he could at the car’s front windshield and gave a little smirk when the glass shattered. He’d discovered that vandalism, without the threat of being caught, was quite the rush. He had no reflection and it seemed that he didn’t show up on camera either! Suddenly the alarm was sounding loudly, and lights were being turned on here, there, and everywhere. “Time to make myself scarce” he said to himself, as he quickly walked away.

He half walked, half jogged, to a position a safe distance away and then turned to watch. A man in a pair of boxer shorts shuffled outside in a sleepy sort of way and pointed his key fob at the car to turn the alarm off. He didn’t look at all pleased when he saw the state of his front windshield. “****, **** ****!” he heard him roar, as he turned a full 360 degrees to see if he could spot the culprits. He failed to see the young woman lying sprawled on the bench only a few feet away! “C’mon?!” mumbled Brody, “Just look!” A moment later, the man was joined by his wife, who was hastily pulling on a silk dressing gown and looking flustered. He watched as the man held his arms out in an angry sort of way, gesticulating wildly at his wife, as though the damage to his car was somehow her fault. She began to shout back at him, and the two fell into what must have been a tried and tested routine of mutual blame involving a lot of expletives. Suddenly, another man appeared, and an argument began between him and the owner of the car, presumably over the noise level of the alarm and the fighting that had then followed it. They shouted and they roared, and they made rude hand gestures. ‘Just look!’ mumbled Brody, as he tried to plant the suggestion in the mind of the man’s wife, ‘Turn around and look at the bench!’ Suddenly, the woman let out a little gasp that was almost a scream and began to point at the body of the young runaway lying on the bench. They all ran to her! She’d been found! He watched as the man in the boxer shorts ran back inside the beach chalet and reappeared a moment later with his mobile phone pressed to his ear. He distinctly heard the word ‘ambulance’.

“Bye Hannah” he said under his breath, as he turned and walked away. He felt a strange sense of satisfaction that he couldn’t quite explain. In some ways, he felt guilty for having drunk her blood, but he knew deep down that he had very little control over that. Drinking blood was what vampires did, wasn’t it?! He couldn’t help what he was now, and it wasn’t like it had been his choice!  He couldn’t control his need for blood. What he could control was how he went about things. He wasn’t going to be a killer! He was going to look after his victims! He was going to do his best to retain some sense of his humanity! He wasn’t going to be a monster! But above all, he wasn’t going to be Morten!

‘Time to go home’ he thought to himself, as he began to head towards his house.

As though appearing on cue, he heard that all too familiar Norwegian voice in his head, and he saw a flash of white as a blonde man suddenly blocked his path. “I told you that you had one week” he growled at him, as he stood in his way, “Tick tock, Brody! I warned you what would happen if you disobeyed me… Time is almost up!”

Edited August 6, 2017 by Ludub

[Ludub]

As I said guys, sorry the big delay between chapters! Hope you like this new one!

WARNING: ADULT THEMES & VIOLENCE

 

Chapter 12

 

Back to Saturday night (after Morten left the drug den) …

 

Brody sat huddled on the sodden mattress, staring all around him, and waiting for Morten to return. To say that he was dazed and confused would be a massive understatement. He genuinely couldn’t figure out what had just happened. Was it real, or had he somehow taken leave of his senses and imagined the whole thing?! How could he be a vampire, he asked himself?! How could he have done this terrible thing?! He’d drunk that poor girl’s blood and nearly killed her! He’d actually sunk his teeth into the neck of that dirty and pathetic young girl and drunk her blood… but more than that, he’d continued to drink her blood even though he’d known that he was killing her! He’d ignored her silent pleas. Ignored that voice in his head that asked him over and over to stop! Begged him to stop before he killed her. He’d even ignored Morten when he’d ordered him to let her go! He’d wanted to do it. He’d wanted to kill her. In that moment, he would happily have let her die if it meant that he could have what he wanted… To possess her. To take all that she had to give. To take it all! But what did that mean for him? Was he a monster?! Was he a cold-blooded killer that would stop at nothing? Had he lost all humanity?! Because this just wasn’t something that humans did! and it definitely wasn’t something that Brody Morgan would do! So, what the hell was wrong with him?!

“Heyyyy, maaaate?” slurred a young boy, who had stumbled his way across the room in that zombie-like way that heroin addicts have about them. He looked like he was half-asleep and being dragged along by someone not very skilled at puppetry. “Do you have any… any gear?” he asked, in a slurred sort of way, “Can you… can you hhhhhelp me out?” He was scratching at an open wound on his arm and barely able to keep his eyes open.

“Huh?!” asked Brody, looking up at him in surprise. The boy was filthy in a way that was almost Dickensian, with massive holes in his clothes, and bare feet so dirty it was clear that he hadn’t washed for months. He knew that he must stink to high heaven of body odour and dirt, but all he could smell was hot sweet blood. He could see a vein pulsing in his neck too. He wanted to bite him!

“I’m just asssssking, man… have you got any… you know?” asked the young boy, as he picked a little absently at the scab on his elbow.

“No… I uh…” said Brody, getting to his feet and taking a step backwards, “I don’t do that stuff…” He knew that it wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge. He wanted to bite him so badly! The more he breathed in his scent, the more he wanted to drink his blood. He could already tell that his would taste different to the young girl’s that he had just drunk. More of a spicy flavour than sweet. He could smell it, almost taste it, as it wafted towards him now. It was like smelling a plate of particularly enticing food. Very hard to resist. He took another step backwards in an effort to remove temptation from his reach. This wasn’t what he wanted! He didn’t want to be a killer!

“Whatarrrr you doing here then?” asked the boy, taking a step towards him and eyeing the backpack on the floor.

“Nothing” said Brody, “I’m just waiting…”

“Waitinnnnnnnng for what?” asked the boy, as he glanced towards the door. A small flash of paranoia passed over his face.

 “I uh…” stammered Brody, as he tried his best to drag his eyes away from that ‘oh, so juicy’ looking vein in the kid’s neck, “I… uh… Someone brought me here… I’m waiting for them to get back…”

The boy glanced up at him with a look of suspicion. He obviously didn’t believe him and wanted to go through that bag in case he was hiding his stash there. Everyone in this place was on something. It wasn’t like you’d just stumble in for a look around and have a sit down. The place was rat and flea-infested and full of junkies. There were needles everywhere! No-one would end up in a place like this if they had any other choice! Of course, he was using! Everyone was! “What about money?” he asked, as he gazed at Brody’s strange ‘old man’ clothes. Anyone that didn’t look like a hobo had to have some money on them somewhere, and Brody looked like he’d just come from a golf club! “Can you give me some monnnnnney?” he asked, “I just need a hit… somethinnnng to take the edge off… You know what it’s like…”

“I don’t have any money” said Brody, as he turned the pockets of his trousers out to emphasise the point. It was true. He didn’t have a penny to his name.

“What’s in the bag?” asked the boy, as he suddenly made a grab for it.

“That’s not yours!” said Brody, snatching it away from him. For some reason, he felt like he should safeguard the girl’s stuff. He may have nearly killed her, and drunk half of her blood, but letting someone steal her meagre possessions seemed like a bridge too far!

“Come on!” moaned the boy, “I just wannnnna look!”

“It’s not yours!” repeated Brody, as he held it out of his reach behind his back, “You can’t have it!”

The boy suddenly produced a knife and made a slashing motion in his direction that was so clumsy, it was almost in slow motion. Brody tried to step out of the way but tripped over the mattress and staggered back towards the knife-wielding kid. The two of them ended up on the floor with him on top of the boy.

“****!” exclaimed the boy, as Brody pulled away from him. The knife had made a large cut in his arm and blood was streaming out at an alarming rate. “Oh ****!” he shouted, as he watched in a mesmerised sort of way. He was too shocked to do anything about it.

Brody stared down at it, and licked his lips as he watched the hot sticky blood running like treacle across the boy’s flesh. This was too much! He could hear the beat of the boy’s heart as it thumped in his chest. ‘Thump, thump, thump, it went, picking up momentum… He was obviously starting to panic.

“Call someone!” pleaded the boy, as he finally came to his senses and clamped his hand across the wound. “Please?!” he begged, “You need to get help!”

Brody couldn’t take his eyes off the blood that was now spilling through the boy’s fingers and dripping onto the floor. He had never wanted anything more! In a sudden flurry of movement, he had the young boy pinned to the floor, and had sunk his teeth deep into the flesh of his already bloody arm. The boy let out a loud scream, but was quickly silenced as Brody covered his mouth with an iron fast grip. He kicked and he bucked but all to no avail. Brody had preternatural strength now so holding him still wasn’t difficult.

“Mmmmmmhhhhhrrrrrmmmmmmm!” screamed the boy, staring at him in pure terror as he watched him rip at the blood vessels in his arm. Tears were pouring from his eyes as he stared at the monster now devouring him. ‘Please?!’ he heard him say inside his head, ‘I don’t want to die! I’ll be good, I’ll get clean… Please don’t kill me!’

‘It’s all fine’ he told him, as the blood coursed over his tongue, ‘Just relax… I’m not going to kill you’ He held him to the ground with his hand clamped across his mouth, and pulled and pulled at the blood with great urgency. He’d been right about the taste. It was different! Spicier and more ‘meaty’ than the girl’s had been. His ‘chef’ instincts were telling him that everyone must have a very different flavour! He couldn’t wait to try them all! He could feel that the end was nearing for his victim but he couldn’t stop now. Not now that he’d started. It wasn’t that he was hungry, it was just so exhilarating to feel the life drain out of him! To feel their hearts beating in unison and see inside his head. He could see that the boy was from a wealthy background. Private school education, and all the money that he could want, but no love or attention from his high-flying parents. He’d started taking drugs to get their attention but his need had gotten out of control and he’d burnt all his bridges now. He was alone and so very very sad! ‘Just give into it’ he told him, as he bucked violently just one more time, ‘There’s no use fighting it…’

The blood was still coming thick and fast, but the boy’s terrified heart was starting to slow and his skinny little body had gone completely limp. He wasn’t struggling anymore! ‘Am I really going to do this?!’ he asked himself, as he glanced at the dazed and tear-stained face of his victim, ‘Am I going to be this monster?! Am I going to kill someone…?’

“No!” shouted a loud and other-worldly kind of voice, “Let him go!” There was a flash of white in his peripheral vision and he knew that he was back. It was Morten! He knew it immediately!

“Let him go now!” roared Morten.

Pure fear made him comply immediately. He didn’t want him choking him again like he had the last time, or following through on his threats. He reluctantly let go of the boy and pulled away from him.

“I told you to wait for me!” growled Morten, as he shoved him out of the way and kneeled down to check the boy still lying on the ground. “I told you to wait!” he repeated, “I’ve just spent an hour sorting out your other mess and now you’ve created another one!”

“Sorry” mumbled Brody, as he stared at his victim. The boy had gone a pale blue sort of colour but he did seem to still be breathing. At least he hadn’t killed this one either! “I didn’t… I wasn’t going to…” he stammered, but he knew that his thoughts were betraying him. He had intended to kill him and Morten knew it!

“Not him” said Morten as he raised the boy into a sitting position and then swiftly broke his neck his with a sickening crunch noise, “You don’t kill someone until I tell you to.” He lay the drained and broken body down on the mattress and covered him with an old blanket. “They won’t find him for a day or two” he said, as he turned to a thoroughly shocked looking Brody, “At least not till the smell gets too much to ignore…”

Brody was standing there with his mouth hanging open. Somehow, drinking his blood to the point of death had seemed acceptable to him, whereas snapping his neck like a twig had a brutality to it that he hadn’t been prepared for! He felt sick to his stomach!

“Come on?” said Morten, as he got to his feet and motioned with his head for him to follow. He began to lead him towards the door.

Brody obediently trailed behind him and picked his way through the debris on the floor and the bits of random furniture blocking the way. Before he knew it, they were standing outside in a darkened alleyway. It was the middle of the night and there wasn’t a soul around.

“You need to go home” said Morten, as he dangled a set of car keys in front of his face. “Park it near your house and I’ll come pick it up tomorrow… I have some things I need to take care of.”

“Home?!” exclaimed Brody, “I can’t go home… Not like this! …What if they realise?!”

“You do what I say!” threatened Morten, “You go home and you get your affairs in order.”

“My what?!” asked Brody, as he tried to concentrate, “What are you talking about?!” He was still reeling from the fact that they’d just walked away from a murder scene, and he was at least partially responsible for someone’s death. His mind and his heart were racing! He was horrified!

“You have a week” Morten said to him, as he fixed him with a cold stare, “A week to say goodbye to your human life…”

“My human life?” repeated Brody. He really wasn’t following this. “A week to say goodbye… Morten… I?”

“I’m going to give you one week” nodded Morten, “One week to say goodbye to the life that you knew… and to choose…”

“Choose?!” asked Brody, “Choose what?!” This was all getting very strange. First he’d lured him here and given him a sort of blood prostitute, and now he was sending him home to say his fond farewells. To say goodbye to the family that he loved. Surely this couldn’t be real?! He was going to wake up any moment… right?

“I’m going to let you choose” smiled Morten. He obviously thought this whole thing quite amusing. “You get to choose which one of your siblings you want to kill?”

“What?!” gasped Brody, “…but… but why?!” How could he be expected to kill one of his family?! One of the people that he loved?!

“Because I tell you to” said Morten, regarding him with lizard-like empathy, “And because you’ll never be truly mine if you can go back to them… You have to make them fear you and hate you… If you kill one of your siblings, you can never go back.”

“I’ll stay! I’ll stay with you!” promised Brody, “I won’t go near them ever again… I’ll be dead to them!”

“No” he said, with a cruel little laugh, “They need to be dead to you.” He put his arm around his shoulder and gave him a squeeze in a way that might have been affable, but was actually on the bone-crushing side. “And just in case you get any bright ideas” he warned, “If you don’t kill one of them by this time next week, I’ll kill them all and make you watch!”

[Ludub]

Alright folks, so here's the next chapter... Hope you like it.

 

Chapter 13

 

Friday morning about 6am…

 

“What?!” gasped Justin, as he sat bolt upright in the bed with his heart racing “Brody?! What’s going on?!” Brody had come storming into his room, flicking on the light, and allowing the door to bang against the wall. As he stared across the room now with bleary eyes, he could see him busily tearing all the clothes out of his wardrobe and piling them in a suitcase. He was just lifting them out with the hangers still inside, and dumping them inside. He looked red eyed and frantic.

“You have to leave!” shouted Brody, in a panicked sort of voice, “All of you! You have to get out of here now! He’s coming for you! I can’t stop him!” He went to the drawers and started tipping them out too.

“W-What?!” stammered a scared looking Justin, “What are you talking about?! Who’s coming?! Is it the syndicate?!” He was up on his feet and already pulling his shorts on. Years of running had his reflexes trained and ready to go. He could be up and out of his bed in seconds with adrenalin driving him on. If that’s what this was, they’d be out in the car and on the go within about 5 minutes. None of them had ever known when they might have to get up and run in the middle of the night. They were all pros at doing a midnight flit!

“Just pack!” Brody shouted at him. He threw another bundle of clothes in the suitcase and then charging out past him. Justin stared at the suitcase for a moment. This didn’t make any sense! He followed him out into the hallway and watched him throw Mason’s door open. What the hell was going on?! He decided to get Tori and ran to her room but she was already up and flung her door open just as he got there.

“Justin?!” she asked, wide-eyed and startled looking, “What’s going on?! What’s all the banging about?!” It was obvious from the fact that she’d already thrown on shorts and top that old instincts had kicked in for her too. She was ready to run if she needed to!

“Brody?!” shouted Mason from inside his room, “What the hell?!” He hadn’t been as quick to wake. Long hours at the hospital and the restaurant over the last couple of days had him wiped.

They both ran back up the hallway to look into Mason’s room. Brody had pulled all of Mason’s clothes out of the wardrobe and thrown them on his bed, and the two of them were fighting over the suitcase that he was trying to pull out from under the bed. It was like a very odd version of tug of war.

“You have to go!” roared Brody, in an exasperated sort of way, “I can’t protect you if you stay here!”

“Not until you tell us what’s happening!” shouted Mason, as he managed to pull the suitcase out of Brody’s hand and fell back onto his bed. “You’re not making any sense!”

“I can’t tell you!” shouted Brody, as he turned to look at the startled faces in the doorway. Raffy and a growling Buddy had now joined them. They all looked confused and frightened.

“Brody! We’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s wrong!” said Justin, holding his hands up in a ‘you need to calm down’ kind of way. They’d spent too long building new lives in this town and things were finally looking good for them. He wasn’t about to give that up anytime soon. Not without a decent explanation!

“You’re not going to believe me!” he whined, “I can spend the next couple of hours trying to convince you… or you can get in the car and trust that I’m trying to protect you!” He began to pack Mason’s suitcase for him in a frantic kind of way.

“Brody?” said Tori, “We’re just trying to understand…” She looked at her watch. “I mean, it’s 6.15 in the morning and you come in here, tearing the place apart… What are we meant to think?!” Something about this whole thing didn’t seem right. Something was telling her that this wasn’t about the syndicate.

“You’re in danger!” he yelled at her, “He’s coming for you! If I don’t… If I don’t do what he wants me to do, he’s going to kill you… and I can’t have that happen! …I just can’t!”

“Wait? What?!” asked Mason, as he stared at him in fear, “Who are you talking about?! Who’s coming?!” It seemed like he’d spent his whole life running from some unknown danger. He didn’t remember much of his life before his parent’s death. It was like he’d just edited it out and replaced it with a life full of fear and danger. But things had been different here. At least, in the last few months! He’d begun to let himself relax. Begun to think that they could have a life here. Surely this couldn’t be happening again?! Not now?! “Brody?! You have to tell us!” he shouted at him, “Who are you talking about?!”

Brody let out a loud huff of frustration and began pulling at his hair. He knew that they weren’t going to believe him even if he told them the truth, and that they’d just think he was crazy. But he needed them to run! He needed them to get in that car and go! This might be the only opportunity that they ever got to get away. It was 6.15am and the sun was already starting to rise. Morten would have to sleep now. They’d have 12 hours. They needed to get on the road and put as much distance between them before nightfall. Before he came for them! It was the only way!

“It’s the syndicate” he blurted out, “There’s a guy… He’s coming to get you! You have to leave!”

“What?!” gasped Raffy, as she clung to Justin out of fear, “I thought you said that was over now?! That they got those guys!” As much as she loved her newfound family, she was a little frightened by their past. She didn’t want to get killed just for being with them!

“They did” said Justin, staring across the room at Brody with obvious fear in his eyes, “We thought they did!” He held Raffy a little tighter in an effort to reassure her.

“Who told you?!” asked Tori, swinging into action mode on the off-chance that Brody was telling the truth, “We need to tell the Feds what’s happening! I’m not being driven away again! Not now!” Definitely not now that she had a chance with Ash, she thought to herself! Not now that she had a chance of a life again!

“You have to go!” shouted Brody, starting to pack Mason’s case for him again, “You have to get away first… You can call the Feds later!”

“Come on, Brody!” she said, “You know the procedure as well as I do!” They’d always been told to call in any suspected danger to their caseworker and follow instructions. As tempting as it was to just get in the car and drive, there was always a chance that you could be driving straight into danger! They all knew better than that!

“We don’t have time!” he argued, “You need to get on the road and just keep going! You have to go while it’s bright outside!” He looked at the window. There was a gap between the curtains that let a little light in. He couldn’t help wincing when he saw how bright it was out there. He wasn’t vampire enough to burst into flames, but it would certainly hurt, and if he were to step outside now he’d have one hell of a sunburn within minutes. He didn’t want to even think about it!

“Hang on! Hang on!” said Justin, still using that cautious kind of ‘you’ve lost it, haven’t you?’ voice with him, “You keep saying ‘you’? ‘You have to go’? Why not ‘we’?! …You think you aren’t coming with us?!”

“I can’t come” he said, shaking his head. He kept looking at the light seeping in around Mason’s curtains. Everything in his body was telling him to sleep. To find somewhere dark and go to sleep. Being awake like this just wasn’t natural!

“What do you mean, you’re not coming?!” cried Raffy. She loved Brody and she didn’t want him left behind! She’d lost enough family without having to say goodbye to him too!

“I can’t come with you” he repeated, “I made this mess, it’s my fault… I have to stay here and face the music.”

“Okay, Brodes, seriously?” said Tori, walking towards him slowly with her hands held up, “You need to take some deep breaths and think about what you’re saying.” She was pretty sure now that he was having some sort of meltdown, something like a psychotic break. She didn’t want to make too sudden a movement and set him off in case he got violent! “You need to explain what’s going on in your head… If you don’t, we can’t help you.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” offered Mason, following Tori’s lead and patting the bed for him to sit down beside him, “Come on, mate? Let’s talk about this…”

“Urrrrhhhh!” he groaned, “I don’t have time for this!” Why weren’t they running?! In the old days, it wouldn’t have taken much to spook them!

“Mate, we’re not getting in that car until we understand what the danger is…” said Justin, hugging Raffy to him and holding a very hostile Buddy at bay with his leg. He couldn’t help wondering why the dog had taken such a disliking to Brody over the last few weeks. Was it just that he was acting so out of character? Could he sense the change?! “You need to tell us what’s going on…” he said.

Brody shook his head in an exasperated way. They weren’t buying the Syndicate story and who could blame them? With Renee locked up and the Feds assuring them that they were safe now, it seemed unlikely. He probably wouldn’t have believed them either… Maybe he’d have to bite the bullet and let them see the ‘real’ him?! Maybe it was time?!

He gave a heavy sigh. “I tried to tell you before” he said quietly, “I tried to tell you but you just wouldn’t believe me… and now… now I have no choice…”

“Brody?” sighed Justin, “What are you talking about?” This was getting annoying. Why couldn’t he just tell them what was going on?!

“I tried to tell you I was a vampire” he said, staring at them in a defiant sort of way, “but you just laughed at me…”

“A vampire?!” gasped Raffy.

“Yes, a vampire” he said, almost proudly.

Raffy looked around at all her older siblings with a look of pure shock on her face, and then suddenly burst out laughing. This was ridiculous!

“I am a vampire!” he insisted. He really didn’t like being laughed at! “I don’t care whether you want to believe me or not… I’m a vampire, and the one that made me is coming here to kill you if you don’t leave… You have to go now!”

“Brody, come on?!” reasoned Justin, “I thought we’d got past this?! …Your counselling’s been going so well?!” He gave a sympathetic little head tilt. “I mean, I thought you’d started to move past this whole thing?”

“Past being a vampire?” he asked with an exasperated little snort, “It’s not really something you just get past…”

“Brody!” exclaimed Tori, as she put her face in her hands. She really didn’t know what they were doing to do about this!

“What?!” he replied, “I’m telling you the truth!”

“Mate, you know…” Justin started to say.

“That vampires aren’t real?!” exclaimed Brody, “Tell that to Morten when he gets here! He’s gonna rip you limb from limb!”

Raffy had stopped laughing, having seen how serious this thing was, and was clinging even more tightly to Justin.

“Why did no-one tell me about this?” asked Mason, throwing a look of disapproval at both Justin and Tori. His medical training had begun to kick into gear having just done a module on post-traumatic mental illness. He was pretty sure that Brody was looney-tunes.

“We were dealing with it” said Tori, although she could see that they’d done a pretty poor job of it so far!

“Doesn’t look like it!” said Mason, as he began to move towards Brody. He was using the calm and measured movements he’d seen all the doctors using with volatile patients. “Come on, Brodes?” he said, in his best doctor voice, “Why don’t we just have a sit down?”

“Okay” said Brody, rolling his eyes at him as he watched him approach.  He could see them all staring at him with such worried frowns and he knew that they all thought he was having a mental breakdown. How wrong they were! And how quickly their concern would turn to terror! “Okay… but I didn’t want to have to do this” he said, “Just remember that you’ve driven me to it!”

“Do what?” said Mason, as he tentatively took hold of his arm.

“This!” he said, as he moved with preternatural speed and exposed his vampire fangs. He took hold of Mason’s head and tilted it violently to get at his neck.

“Arrrrgggghhhhhh!” screamed Mason, as Brody sunk his teeth into his flesh. A look of shock crept across his face as he realised that Brody was drinking his blood. That he really was a vampire and that he was feeding on him! How could this be happening?! “Please, stop?!” he wheezed, as he pulled at Brody’s hands, “Please, Brody?! Stop!” It hurt! It hurt so much! His heart was thump thump thumping at a frightening rate and all he could feel was this terrible pull like his life was draining away. He’d never been so frightened! He tried to wrench himself away from his brother’s grip but it was no use! Despite all the hours that he’d spent in the gym, and all his exaggerated muscles, he was no match for a vampire. It was all just for show! No matter what he tried, he just couldn’t break free!

‘Now do you believe me?’ said Brody, planting the words in his head telepathically, ‘Now do you see what I am?!’  He glanced across at Justin, half expecting him to charge at him and try to save Mason but he was just standing there with his mouth hanging open! Tori and Raffy were frozen stock-still too! Even Buddy seemed stunned!

As Mason’s blood flowed over his tongue, he began to wonder if he’d be able to stop. He hadn’t wanted to do this! But here he was…and Mason’s blood was delicious. Maybe it was all those juices that he drank, or maybe it was the protein shakes? He tasted good! But what if he couldn’t stop?! What if he ended up doing exactly what Morten wanted?! What if he actually killed Mason?! What would that make him?!

‘Please don’t!’ pleaded Mason, with a little whimper as tears welled in his eyes, ‘Please Brody?! Don’t?!’

[Ludub]

Okay, so here's the next chapter. Hope you like it!

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 14

 

Later that night…

 

Brody sat at the table in the kitchen waiting for that door to open. Waiting for Morten to come and see what he’d done. The sun had set some time ago, so he knew that it wouldn’t be long now. He’d be here soon. He was coming! Somewhere deep inside him, he could feel his presence already, feel him drawing nearer. He wondered if they were connected in some way. Linked telepathically because he was the one that had made him? Just how connected were they, he asked himself. Did he know where he was? Did he know what he’d done? Did he know what he was doing now? More importantly, could he read his thoughts?!

“Get it together, Brodes!” he said to himself out loud. He was feeling physically sick from guilt, and he knew that had he been human, his heart would have been thumping in his chest. He probably would have been crying too. But he wasn’t human. Not anymore. It was strange to feel panicky but not to have that old familiar feeling of a racing heart. His heart didn’t beat fast anymore, not of its own accord anyway. He’d begun to get used to its slower pace over the last week, and somehow resigned himself to the fact that it would eventually stop. That it would cease to beat completely. That this thump thump thump that had been a constant for his entire life would suddenly stop, and that he would continue on without it. That he didn’t need a heart to live… like the Tin Man. It was a very strange thought! The only time it beat fast now was when he was drinking blood, and that was only because it was keeping pace with that of his terrified victim. Each feed had made it that bit slower, bringing him ever closer to his final destiny of being a fully-fledged vampire. Over the last couple of days, he’d been down to only a couple of beats a minute. Thump... thump…. Thump… It was a little eerie sometimes waiting for the next one and wondering if it was ever going to come.  

He glanced down at the bodies on the ground for a moment and then abruptly turned away. He didn’t want to look! He didn’t want to look at them, but he was finding it very hard not to, because the smell of blood kept drifting in his direction and swirling around his nostrils enticingly. They were soaked in it! And large quantities of it had pooled on the floor and seeped across the grouting between the tiles. It was everywhere… and it was making him hungry! ‘How can I be hungry?!’ he scolded himself, ‘How can I be hungry at a time like this?!’ His stomach was full of blood already. He had no need for any more… but the hunger was always there no matter how much he drank. It was always gnawing at him, telling him to drink until he burst. He couldn’t control it!

He lifted his head for a moment when he saw headlights pulling up outside. Had Morten come in a car, he wondered?! That seemed like a very unlikely entrance for a vampire. Surely not?! Morten was probably going to swoop down like some sort of bat, or maybe just materialise out of nothing! He was a three-hundred-year-old vampire after all! ‘He wouldn’t just arrive in a car!’ he snorted to himself, ‘As if!’

He gave a sigh and shook his head when he realised that it was just the next door neighbours. He heard the car doors close, and then their laughter as they made their way indoors. He envied them their happy human Friday night, so blissfully unaware of the horrific scene now unfolding only one door away. They didn’t know that there were four bodies soaked in rapidly congealing blood just lying on the floor here. They didn’t know that something terrible had happened here this morning. Something that he’d never be able to forgive himself for! They didn’t know that the young man with the beard next door had accidentally become a vampire last week and gradually become a monster too. They didn’t know any of that! What they knew, was that they had Chicken Chow Mein and Sweet and Sour Pork in a bag in their hands, and a bottle of Chardonnay chilling in the fridge. They also knew that X-Factor was on tonight and that that young girl from Brisbane was probably going to get put out. Above all, they knew that, in all likelihood, they’d get up tomorrow and get to enjoy being human for another day. He missed it already, and it had only been a week! There was no blood and gore in their world! No death and misery! They weren’t sitting here waiting for a blood-thirsty, blackmailing vampire to make an appearance. And the worst part was, they had no idea how lucky they were!

He stared down at the body by his feet and gave a little shudder. His eyes were open but the life had left them quite some time ago. They’d already taken on that strange pale colour that all corpses get. He gazed down at him, and then glanced at the other three. Would he ever get used to that lifeless stare of theirs? To the vacant expression on their faces?! Would he ever get used to dealing with dead human bodies?! He didn’t think so!

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. He jumped a little when he heard it and got hurriedly to his feet. Was Morten knocking?!

He made his way quickly to the door and stood for a moment, trying to steady his nerves, before pulling it open.

“Brodes!” exclaimed Phoebe, as she took a step forward to come inside, “Where’s Justin?! I’ve been trying to call…”

“Woah, woah, woah!” said Brody, stepping into her path and stopping her in her tracks, “You can’t come in!” He held his body in front of her in the way that people do when they’re herding cattle. It was clear that she wasn’t welcome.

“What do you mean, I can’t come in?!” giggled Phoebe, in a confused and nervous sort of way, “I practically live here… Of course, I’m coming in!” She tried to push him out of her way but he wouldn’t budge. It was like trying to move a brick wall. “Brody?!” she whined at him, “What the...?!”

“You’re not coming in!” he growled at her, as he pushed her out the door and did his best to block her view. He didn’t want her seeing what was on the kitchen floor!

“Brody?! What are you doing?!” she pleaded with him, but he gave her a shove backwards and she staggered back down the steps. “Brodes?!” she gasped, as she put her hand to her bruised chest. He’d pushed her a little too hard and hurt her without meaning to. He didn’t know his own strength anymore!

“Sorry” he said, frowning down at her from the doorway, “But you can’t come in right now, Pheebs…”

“What’s going on?!” she asked, looking up at him with newfound concern and suspicion. Justin had said that he was acting strangely, but this was more than strange. He was barely recognisable! She began to crane her head a little to try to see into the house. What if he’d done something bad?! “What have you done?!” she asked.

“Nothing” he said, planting the word in her head as though it was her own, “Nothing’s happening… Brody just wants some privacy… Nothing strange about that.”

She frowned a little as though she was fighting with her own internal monologue. She was swinging back and forth between thinking there was something wrong, and dismissing the whole thing as an overreaction. ‘Brody has every right to his privacy’ a voice inside her head said, ‘Stop being such a busy body!’ It really didn’t sound like something she’d normally think, but who’s going to argue with their own internal voice?!

“Maybe you should go now?” he said to her in a leading sort of way, “Maybe you should go and find Kat, and have a few glasses of wine?” This whole mind-control thing was getting easier and easier by the day. “Justin will call you later…” he told her, “There’s nothing to worry about.”

She began to smile in a much more relaxed way and nodded more to herself than to him. “I uh… I guess I’ll go” she said, as she turned to walk away, “Just… tell Justin to call me when you see him, yeah?”

“Course!” he said, with a little smile. He watched her go, making sure that she got in her car and drove away, before closing the door again. He was pretty sure that she hadn’t seen them but, in any case, it would take a while for the mind control to wear off… and by then it would all be sorted.

“Nicely done” said that all too familiar voice, “You’re really getting the hang of it, aren’t you?”

“Wuh… what…” stammered Brody, as he spun around and saw his ‘Maker’ standing in the kitchen, “How… How did you get in?!”

“I came in the back door” said Morten, “You really should think about locking your doors, you know? For people who were in Witness Protection all those years, you have very lax security!”

“I mean, how did you come in” he asked, keeping a safe distance, “Without being invited?”

“That’s a myth” said Morten, “Same as garlic and Holy water… although pointy things through your heart… That’s true.” He smiled a little as he kicked one of the bodies in the head with his foot and then looked back up at Brody. “I’m impressed” he said, with a little smile, “I said to kill one of them… I never thought you’d kill all four!”

“They didn’t give me a choice” he said, staring down at the bodies in a sad sort of way, “It was me or them…”

“That’s how it will always be…” sighed Morten, “Humans will never accept us… Not even family. Mine didn’t… I have been hunted through the centuries… For three-hundred years people have tried to kill me…” He looked at the grey and lifeless faces of the bodies on the floor, and the puncture marks on their necks, and gave a little smirk. “You can’t really blame them, can you?!”

Brody looked down at the body that Morten had just kicked, it was the one with dark hair. He desperately tried to avoid eye contact but the eyes of the corpse seemed to judge him, as though it was saying ‘You did this to me! How can you live with yourself?!”

Morten followed his gaze to the blood-soaked body on the floor and gave a little tut. “You’re a very messy eater, you know? You waste a lot of blood… We will have to work on this… It’s harder to hide the evidence if there is blood everywhere!”

“Hide the evidence?!” he asked, with a look of surprise, “You mean, hide the bodies?!”

“How often have you heard of people being killed by vampires?” asked Morten, with a look that said ‘Aw, bless! You’re not the sharpest tool in the box, are you?!’ “How often have there been news reports that a body has been exsanguinated? That someone has been drained of blood?” He looked down at the body of a woman lying crumpled on the floor. “Your sister is a doctor… Has she ever mentioned a case of suspected ‘vampire-bite’?”

“No… I uh…” said Brody, “I guess not…”

“No… you haven’t” agreed Morten, “You haven’t… because responsible vampires clear up after themselves… We take out the trash… We get rid of the bodies… We don’t ruin the party for the others.”

“The others?” said Brody.

“Yes… you do not think we are the only ones?” he said, with a smug little smile, “I make my money from other vampires… I provide willing necks for a price.”

Brody stared at him on horror. He was some sort of pimp. A pimp for vampires?!

“What?!” laughed Morten, “You have sampled my wares… but now you will help me to recruit my workers.”

“So… so that’s why… why you made me?” asked Brody. He still hadn’t had a decent explanation from him. He didn’t know why he’d been chosen.

“No…” smiled Morten, “I found you… interesting.”

“Interesting?!” he snapped at him, “You ruined my life… and made me do… this… because you found me ‘interesting’?!

Morten just shrugged. “What can I say?” he laughed, “You caught my attention!”

“Great!” said Brody, as he slumped down in one of the chairs. He’d expected some deeper explanation than this. Some greater purpose. Not just the whim of some 300-year-old teenager!

“Take it as a compliment!” he said, “You’re the first in 300 years that has interested me…”

“Yeah... great” he mumbled.

Morten looked down at the circle of bodies laid out on the floor and gave a little giggle. “And you haven’t disappointed!” he said, “This is even better than I expected!”

 “So…?” asked Brody, staring in disgust at the bodies Morten seemed so pleased with, “What do we do with them? I mean, do we bury them?”

Morten gave a little snort and shook his head. “Ah, little one” he said, in a teasing sort of tone, “You have much to learn! …You are lucky that you have me to teach you… something that I did not have!” He bent over and picked one of the bodies up, throwing it easily over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, so the head was hanging down his back. He nodded for Brody to pick up one of the female bodies.

“Where are we taking them?” asked Brody, as he did what he was told. He shuddered a little when his hands made contact with the cold waxen flesh. This was his first time touching a dead body. One that was cold and stiff with rigour mortis. He really didn’t think he’d get used to this!

“You will soon find out” said Morten, as he began to lead him towards the back door, “Come with me!”

[Ludub]

Okay folks, here's the next chapter. Sorry about the big delay!

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES & VIOLENCE!!!!

 

Chapter 15

 

Brody winced as he watched the last of the severed heads bounce across the concrete floor like a bowling bowl. It bounced a couple of times, with the most sickening sound, before being set upon by snarling hungry dogs. They tore at the mop of curly hair as though their lives depended on it, snapping and snarling, and fighting for every last scrap. He wrinkled his nose and looked away when he saw one of the dogs carrying a foot in its slobbering jaw. If he’d been human, he might have vomited right on the spot. Even in his vampire form, he was very squeamish when it came to dismembered body parts. He didn’t want to look.

“Oooh, did you see that one bounce?!” laughed Morten, as he wiped his bloody hands on his butcher’s apron. “I never get tired of that!”

Brody shook his head at him in disgust. “This isn’t funny!” he growled, grimacing again as he glanced at the remnants of a ribcage on the floor of the kennel. Two dogs were fighting over what he took to be a thigh bone and growling angrily at each other. “You made me hurt my family!” he yelled, turning to glare at him, “My own flesh and blood! The people I love…loved! You made me hurt them… You made me….” His eyes began to tear up a little and he turned away from him as his voice broke a little. “You made me lose my family…” he whispered, “You made me!”

“I did not make you do this” said Morten, rolling his eyes in a mocking sort of way, “You choose to kill your whole family… I only told you to kill one.”

Brody turned and stared at him with a look of pure hatred. “You knew what would happen once I started” he said, through gritted teeth, “You knew, didn’t you?”

“That is why you impress me” he replied as he went back to hacking at the last remaining body on his butcher’s block. It was that of a male, but the head was missing now, as were the arms and legs. He swung his cleaver down with enormous force and there was a spatter of blood as the blade broke through the flesh of the heavily muscled torso and splintered some of the bones inside. “You have big appetite! You eat like you are starving… You will make a good vampire… eventually…” He swung the blade down a couple more times and then wiped at the blood on his face. He was coated in it!

Brody winced as he watched the body on the block gradually reduced to more manageable hunks of meat. He wondered how on earth it had ever come to this. Only a week ago, he’d been worried about staffing his restaurant and whether he’d get a good review or not. Now he was in a filthy squalid basement, covered in human blood, and watching a vampire throw human body parts to a pack of hungry dogs!

“What?!” chuckled Morten, as he looked at the horrified expression on Brody’s face, “You’re a vampire now… You will have to get used to cleaning up your mess! …I show you this time, but next time, you do it yourself!”  With that, he picked up a couple of hunks of human meat and threw it over the fence to the waiting dogs. There were around 30 animals inside and they hadn’t been fed in weeks. The meat didn’t even hit the ground this time before a number of them began playing tug of war with it. They growled and they snarled and they tore it to shreds.

Brody retched a little and turned away. “I can’t deal with this” he said under his breath, “I don’t understand this… I just don’t understand how this happened…”

“How what happened?” asked Morten as he began to throw the last chunks of meat over the fence.

“How did this happen?!” he asked, “Why did you choose me?!” He held his arms out to indicate his own body. “Why did you make me a vampire?!”

“This is not important” said Morten, with a sly little smile, “What matters is what you do now… That you make me proud.”

“That I make you proud?!” he exclaimed. He glanced at the dogs still making their way through the last scraps of meat. Who knew that four human bodies could be disposed of so quickly and efficiently? There really wasn’t much left!

“Yes… You learn to be a good vampire” said Morten, nodding at him to pick up a bucket of soapy water and bring it to him.

He didn’t want to obey but there was a look in his eye that said he wasn’t in the mood for insolence. He was scared of him. He gave a sigh and stooped to pick up the bucket. There was an overpowering stench of bleach. He carried it over and held it out for him to take.

“I gave you a gift, Brody” he said, as he began to slosh the bleach over the butchers block to wash away the blood and small bits of human gore. “I can only give this gift once… and I chose you… after 300 years… It is an honour!”

“So, no pressure then?” muttered Brody.

Morten glanced at him and gave a little smile. He liked this one. He picked up and wire brush and handed it to him. “You clean it… It was your mess to take care of!”

Brody reluctantly took the brush out of his hand and began to scrub back and forth. As a chef, he knew that this was not the correct way to clean a butchers’ block but he was too shell-shocked to care.

Morten walked over to the cage and looked inside. “You know how many people have met this fate since I became a vampire?” he asked. The dogs kept a wary distance from him but growled and raised their hackles in a defensive sort of way. He was their master but he certainly wasn’t their friend. “For over 300 years I have been taking lives… I tried all different ways to hide them… I buried them, I burned them, I even tried to sink them in the sea… Someone always finds them… I came up with the dogs some time ago… Fast, efficient… clean…”

Brody looked up at him, with his hands covered with pink bleachy froth, and gave him a look of disdain. Nothing about this seemed ‘clean’. They both looked like they’d just stepped out of a scene from the Walking Dead. They were soaked in blood!

“Well… cleaner than some other methods” he laughed. “And you have to admit” he said nodding to the dogs inside the pen, “They made short work of those big bulky brothers of yours!”

“Don’t talk about my family!” snapped Brody.

“Okay, okay” he chuckled, “I get it… It’s hard to say goodbye… but trust me… You will move on soon… and then you will forget about them.”

“Have you forgotten your family?” he demanded to know.

“I don’t even remember my brothers’ names” he sighed.

“Bull****” mumbled Brody.

“No, I’m telling you the truth” he said, with a sad little shrug, “It was over 300 years ago… and I have eaten so many people since… melded minds with so many, absorbed their stories… I don’t know which memories are mine and which are stolen…”

“That’s depressing” said Brody, as he turned his attention back to cleaning the block. Pink soapy suds were running across the floor to an open drain. He tried to imagine a time when he wouldn’t remember Justin, and Tori, and Mason, or little Raffy… It just wasn’t possible! He’d always remember them! They were his family. The people that had loved and cared for him his entire life. The people that he’d turned to when he’d needed help. And they’d always been there for him, no matter what! And how had he repaid them?! Biting Mason had been the point of no return! He could still see the look of horror on their faces! The fear and disgust! He didn’t think he’d ever get it out of his head! He couldn’t stop picturing the look of pure hatred on Mason’s face when he’d finally released him. His legs had given out from under him, so weak from lack of blood, and that muscly little body of his had crashed to the floor. It was then that he’d seen it. That look! The anger in his eyes. The fear! He’d seen himself for the monster that he was as though seeing through his brother’s eyes. He was monstrous! He was grotesque! A thing of the night that feasted on his family! His own flesh and blood! How could he ever forgive himself?!

Morten gave a little snort and walked over to the pile of clothing that he’d removed from the bodies. It was all beachwear and pyjamas. He lifted a small friendship bracelet off the top of the pile and looked at it. It was all blues and pinks and intricately woven with small blue beads. Someone had put a lot of love and attention into making it. He smiled as he looked at it. He liked these little keepsakes from his kills. The little things that reminded him of the fragile nature of human life. He held it up for Brody to see. “Maybe you keep this?” he asked, “Remember them by?”

Brody looked up at it and quickly snatched it from his hand. “You’re sick, you know that?!”

He just gave a little snort and walked over to the tap by the wall. There was a hose attached. He turned it on and began to wash the pink suds towards the drain. Brody watched it flow away with a look of pure misery on his face. ‘I’ll never get used to this!’ he told himself.

“Let’s go have a drink!” smiled Morten, as he replaced the hose and took off his butcher’s apron. He washed his face with a wet washcloth and then his hands and arms, and then nodded for Brody to do the same. He watched as Brody meticulously washed all the blood from both arms and scrubbed at his hands like he’d been taught to do at chef school. Once he was clean, Morten smiled at him and put his arm around his shoulder. “I have many necks for you to choose from!” he chuckled, “They are waiting for us upstairs… But I think I know the one that you might choose!”

Brody allowed him to lead him up the stairs. As disgusted as he was with what he’d done this morning, the truth was that he was hungry. He needed fresh, hot blood, and lots of it! He could already smell it. Morten’s stable of young and vulnerable drug addicts and runaways just chock full of delicious salty blood. Ready for the taking! He was salivating just like one of the dogs below ground. He would have let Morten lead him anywhere as long as there was a neck to bite at the end of it.

They came to a heavy metal door with a bolt across it and Morten easily slid it back and then pushed the door open. “Welcome to my higher end facility… for the more discerning customer” he laughed. It looked like a nice sort of boutique hotel, with mood lighting and lots of dark wood. It was a tasteful mix of traditional and modern décor. All fashionably shabby chic. Young humans of all shapes and sizes milled around and made chit chat with impossibly pale and strange looking individuals that he took to be vampires.

“Are they…?” Brody asked, a little hesitantly. He hadn’t been around other vampires before, and he was a little scared.

“Yes… they are” said Morten, turning to look at him. “Awww… Isn’t that sweet?! My smart-mouth little chef is scared of his vampire friends?”

“No, I’m not” said Brody, doing his best to look confident. Inside he was panicking though. ‘What if one of them can hear me?!’ he said to himself, ‘What if they can tell?!’ To his great relief, Morten didn’t seem to be able to. He gazed around at all the others and noted how young they all looked. Of course, appearances were obviously deceiving because it all depended on what age they’d been when they were ‘made’. He seemed to be one of the older ones.

“It’s okay” said Morten with a sarcastic little smile, “Daddy Morten will look after you!”

Brody looked at him and gave a little snort. How had he suddenly become the child in all of this?! Morten looked like a teenager!

“Come with me” he said, as he steered him towards a darker room with a bar at the far end. “I think one of my newer menu options will definitely interest you!” With that, he pushed him towards a young man with brown hair. He had his back to him. “Offer yourself!” said Morten, giving the chair that the young man was sitting on a kick.

Brody gave an audible gasp when the man stood up and turned around. “Kris?!” he exclaimed, with a look of utter shock.

“I thought you’d like this one!” laughed Morten, “I made him take your cherry… Now you can take his!”

Kris stood there with glazed looking eyes. He was obviously heavily medicated and didn’t even seem to be looking at him. That’s when he noticed that his hands were cuffed behind his back and he had a chain around his ankle.

“What the…?” said Brody, turning to look at Morten in shock and disgust. He hadn’t even registered the comment about taking his cherry. He was just too shocked to even process it.

“A present” said Morten, “I watched the two of you that night… together… It was a thing of beauty!”

“A what?!” grimaced Brody.

“How you gave yourself to him… How you told yourself that it was normal… That it was something that all people do… The internal conflict…”

“You’re sick!” he said, staring at him in horror.

“And you were the most confused man I have ever come across” he laughed, “Even before I got in your head…”

“Got in my head?!” gasped Brody. It was all becoming clear.

“I like to play with people sometimes… I like to make them do things… To torture them…” he smirked, “But you… You didn’t take much persuasion… You were already torturing yourself! It was fascinating!”

Brody glanced back at Kris who was just standing there swaying. “And you… you made him do it too?” he asked, “I mean… is he even gay?!”

“Oh, no, he’s gay alright!” laughed Morten, “That was all him!”

Brody grimaced and looked away.

“Well, isn’t that sweet?!” giggled Morten, “You didn’t seem so shy last week!”

“So, I’m just another one of your playthings?” asked Brody, “Something to manipulate and toy with?!”

“If the shoe fits” said Morten, “You were interesting… but you should be happy about that! …If you’d been any less interesting, you’d be dog food!”

“So, what do you want from me?” he asked, with a defeated sort of sigh. He’d obviously fallen into the clutches of a total madman and he had no idea how he was going to get himself out. There was always an element of menace in everything that Morten said, and he knew how strong he was from that first time that he’d pinned him to the floor. He knew that he was no match for him strength wise! He could still make dogfood of him if he wanted to!

Morten grabbed Kris by the hair and yanked his head back to expose his neck. “I want to see you bite him!” he said, “I want you to drink him to the point of no return… and to see yourself through his eyes… To feel through him…!”

“You’re so sick!” gasped Brody, as he began to back away, “That’s disgusting!”

“That may be” laughed Morten, “But you will do what you’re told!”

[Ludub]

Thanks again everyone for the kind comments, and really sorry that I haven't updated for so long. Hope you enjoy this one!

WARNING: ADULT THEMES!

 

Chapter 16

 

“Do it” said Morten, as a crowd of other vampires began to gather around them. He was holding Kris with his neck exposed right under Brody’s nose. “Do it…” he insisted, “You have to prove yourself.”

Brody felt a rising sense of panic as he realised that all eyes were on him. Vampires seemed to have appeared from nowhere, making their way in from neighbouring rooms, and forming a circle around them. Men and women of all shapes and sizes, dressed in every style possible, with pale skin and fangs. They were hissing and growling orders at him and jostling him every time he tried to move away. All he could feel was their cold and unfeeling eyes on him. They were making him feel very threatened!

“Do it!” hissed one of the female vampires. She gave him a shove in the middle of the back. “Bite him!” she ordered.

He looked at the pulsing vein in the side of Kris’ neck. He could already hear and smell the blood, and all he really wanted to do was sink his teeth into it. The blood was calling to him… Calling his name with every beat of his heart. It was incessant. Like a beep-beep-beeping that reverberated through him… but he didn’t want this! He didn’t want to kill him!

Morten stared at him with about as much empathy as a lizard. “Did you think you had me fooled?” he asked, “That little pantomime you put on earlier?”

“What?!” he gasped, as he looked around at the faces surrounding him, “What do you mean?!”

“Did you think that I can’t hear your heart beating?!” growled Morten, “Did you think that I don’t know how long a body has been dead? Where did you get them from? The local morgue?”

“But…” he started to say, “But…we…”

“I played along” said Morten, “I played along with your little charade because it amused me… and because the dogs needed fed… but I warned you what would happen if you didn’t do what I said…”

“I did!” he said, sounding breathless and frightened, “I did what you asked… I killed them.”

“No” he said, with a sarcastic little smile, “You didn’t.”

“But you saw them!” he pleaded, “You saw them on my kitchen floor… we cut them up!” He began to back away, but he backed into some of the vampires behind him that were closing in. “I killed my family for you!” he whined.

Morten made a sort of tutting sound and shook his head at him. “I think we both know that isn’t true!” he teased, “You haven’t killed anyone!”

Right then, there was a muffled scream, and Tori and Raffy were pushed through the crowds of vampires with their hands cuffed behind their backs. They were both looked terrified and puffy-eyed from crying. A second later, Mason and Justin were dragged forward and pushed to their knees in front of him. They all had gags in their mouths.

 “Now” said Morten, “I think we can dispense with the silly… with your silly little lies…”

“What are you going to do to them?!” gasped Brody, as he made a move to try to help them, but two vampires behind him grabbed his arms.

“Me?!” laughed Morten, “I’m not going to do anything to them!”

Brody looked at him in horror and then at his four trembling siblings on the floor. They were staring up at him with such fear in their eyes. Such horror. He couldn’t blame them really. To them, he was just as much a monster as any of the vampires in this room. He’d promised to keep them safe, and yet here they were, kneeling in a room full of blood-suckers and being offered up like human sacrifices. Even if he managed to get them out of this mess, how would they ever forgive him for this?! How would they ever look at him as one of them?! They wouldn’t! He glanced at Raffy and thought his heart might break. Of all of them, she was the one that got to him the most. She was so young, so fragile, so scared… and she was sobbing her little heart out. He felt his blood boil. “I’m not doing it!” he snarled at Morten, “There’s nothing in the world that would make me kill one of them!”

Morten raised his eyebrows at him in a ‘we’ll see about that’ kind of way. He looked at Kris, who he was still holding by the hair at the back of his head, and gave a little smirk. “I think we’ll get rid of this one” he said, as he shoved him towards some of the other vampires. They grabbed his arms and dragged him away across the room. There was a loud crunch noise a moment later and he guessed that they’d snapped his neck just like that boy the other night.

“There” said Morten, “Now you have less choice…”

“I’m not drinking from my family!” he snarled, as he made another desperate attempt to free himself. He growled and grunted as he tried to get away from the vampires behind him, but he was quickly subdued. There were just too many of them!

“Stop fighting it!” scolded Morten, “It’s no use, Brody… You know that you’re hungry… You can feel it, can’t you? The hunger… the thirst.” He nodded down at Justin and Mason. “You can hear their heartbeats, can’t you? You hear them…” He walked behind Mason and leaned down to put a hand on his chest. He began to beat along with Mason’s heartbeat. “It’s like music” he said, “Listen to it… Brody… You know you can hear it… ‘eat me, eat me, eat me…’

“Shut up!” shouted Brody, as he refused to look. It was true. The blood was calling to him. He could smell it thick in the air!

“Eat me, eat me, eat me!” chanted the vampires in the circle around him, taunting him and teasing him.

He glanced down at Mason. He was shaking and tears were flooding down his cheeks but he was staring at the floor.

“Maybe you’d prefer something a little more… ‘meaty’?” asked Morten, as he took hold of Justin’s hair and wrenched his head back, “This one would be my choice.”

“Phwuck oooh!” groaned a bruised and bloodied Justin as he tried to get free. He couldn’t speak clearly with the gag in his mouth. He was clearly frightened, but he was putting on a good show of being tougher than he really was.

Brody stared at the bulging vein in Justin’s neck. He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. He could smell Justin’s fear and anger, pungent in the air, like being at a barbecue and smelling the burgers on the grill. He’d never wanted to bite anyone more! ‘What are you even thinking?!’ he asked himself in horror, ‘That’s your brother there! You are not eating your brother!’ He shook his head as though to wake himself up. “I’m not doing it!” he growled at Morten, “I don’t care what you do to me, I’m not killing my family!”

The vampires behind him pushed him forward and pressed hard on his shoulders to make him kneel.  They held his arms bent up behind his back. He couldn’t move, no matter how much he struggled against them. “I’m sorry!” he said, as he came face to face with Justin, “I’m so sorry!”

Justin didn’t look at him. He was actively avoiding eye contact.

He glanced at Mason. He wasn’t really looking at him now either. He seemed quite slumped and dull-eyed, like he’d already been drained. Tori seemed to be watching him in a very worried way.

“Come on, now” coaxed Morten, as he tilted Justin’s head a little more, “Just a little mouthful? Sink your teeth in… You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten...”

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to do it! “No!” he growled up at him, “You can’t make me!”

“Oh, I think I can!” laughed Morten, as one of the other vampires stepped into the circle with a glass full of blood. Morten razzled Mason’s hair in the way that you would a dog and grinned from ear to ear. He stepped forward and nodded at the vampires behind. “Hold him” he said.

“What?! No!” screamed Brody. Some of the vampires behind dragged his head back and forced his mouth open. He nearly choked as they began to pour the blood in his mouth.

With that, he found himself being lifted in the air and carried along by a crowd of vampires. He wriggled, and kicked and squirmed, but they wouldn’t let him go. All he could see above him was bright strip-lighting as they carried him along corridor after corridor.  The light was hurting his eyes but he was scared to close them because he didn’t know where they were taking him. “No!” he screamed, “Let me go!” They carried him into a brightly lit room and laid him out on a bed. A multitude of hands held him down and dark figures loomed over him and had him completely surrounded. “Noooooo!!!” he screamed again, as they pulled at his arms and legs and strapped them down, “Nooooooo!! Pleeeeeeeaasse!” He wriggled and bucked but it was no use. He couldn’t break free. He was completely restrained.

Morten appeared in the room a moment later, but now he was wearing green scrubs like a surgeon, and had a mask over his mouth and nose. Cold blue eyes stared down at him. “Please don’t do this!” pleaded Brody, although he had no idea what he intended to do. He looked around in horror as he realised that this was an operating room. There were strange looking bits of machinery everywhere. The vampires were all wearing surgical scrubs and there was a tray beside him with all sorts of scary looking torture implements on it. He was terrified! “What?!” he gasped, “What are you doing to me?!”

“Don’t worry” said Morten, as he stood over him, “We’re going to take good care of you.”

“Please don’t!” he begged as he lay there trembling. He was surrounded by vampires, but one of them produced a massive needle and stuck it in the back of his hand. It was a cannula. He winced as it went in and then looked up at the drip that it was attached to. There was blood in there! “What?!” he gasped, as a terrible thought ran through his mind, “Is that Justin’s blood?!”

A female vampire shook her head at him, and then produced another syringe. “Okay… we need you to count backwards starting at 10.” Hands appeared from behind his head and put a mask over his face. He tried to hold his breath. He was sure that they were trying to gas him! He just couldn’t understand why they were doing this. Was this a way to force him into full ‘vampirehood’? Would this stop his heart? Or were they just going to kill him?!

He turned his head to look at one of the trays beside him. There was a drill and a huge selection of screws laid out on surgical paper. “What… what are you ddddoing to me?!” he began to slur. His body felt heavy and he was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

“Okay, here we go” said the vampire as she injected something into his cannula, “We’ll see you when you wake up.”

“Noooo!” he groaned, as a strange cold tingling feeling rushed up his arm and then his spinal column. It was a horrible sensation, like ice-cold water being flushed through his veins… With a terrible sense of defeat, he figured that they must be putting him to sleep, in the way that you would a dog. He was going to die for real now. It was all going to be over… Then everything went black.

[Ludub]

Thanks everyone! Really glad you're enjoying the story! Hope you like this new chapter!

 

Chapter 17

 

“Brody?” said an echoey voice as his eyes began to flicker open, “Brody, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes for me?”

“Mmmm” he moaned, as he began to come round. He felt heavy and strange, and his head hurt.

“Brody? Come on?” said the voice, “Can you open your eyes for me?” Every word seemed to echo and bounce around his head rather painfully. “Brody?” said the voice again, “Open your eyes!”

He finally opened them but he gave a terrible jump when he saw that it was Morten’s face in front of him. “Get away from me!” he shouted, as he cowered in the bed, “What did you do to me?!” He was particularly frightened because he found that he couldn’t move. He was still tied down!

“Brody, you’re in the hospital” said Morten, patting his arm and speaking in a patient and calm sort of voice, “You’ve been very ill… Very confused… We had to operate.”

“What’s happened to your accent?!” he asked rather accusingly, “Why are you talking like that?!” Morten had a rather pronounced Kiwi accent now, and not the Norwegian accent that he was used to. He also looked a lot older.

“Brody” sighed Morten, “My name is Dr Morton… Dr David Morton… We’ve been over this… I am not Norwegian… I have never been to Norway… and I can assure you that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a vampire! …I’m a surgeon in the Northern Districts Hospital… A neurosurgeon.”

“Stop lying!” roared Brody as he pulled at the straps on his wrists, “I’m not falling for it… whatever this is… whatever trick you’re pulling!” He looked down and saw that his wrists were tied to the rails of the bed and he was wearing what looked like cheap white boxing gloves. “What did you do to me?!” he demanded, as he pulled violently at the restraints, “Let me go!”

“We had to operate” explained Morton, as he put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him gently down on the mattress, “We had to do a craniotomy…”

“A what?!” he gasped, with a look of pure horror on his face. A memory of the operating theatre flashed through his mind. They’d been getting ready to torture and mutilate him before they’d put him to sleep. The word ‘craniotomy’ did not sound like something good!

“A craniotomy” repeated Morton, “You have a piece of skull missing…” He indicated with his finger a horseshoe kind of shape on his own scalp. “We had to take a piece out to relieve the pressure…” he continued, “That’s why your hands are restrained… we couldn’t have you touching your head in your confused state.”

Brody looked up, rolling his eyes upwards, as though he might be able to see what he was talking about. As though he’d be able to see the top of his own head! He glanced back at Morton with narrowed eyes. What kind of sick bastards would remove part of your skull and then just sit there taunting you about it?! Had they been eating his brain or something?!

“It’s a procedure we carry out when the pressure inside your skull is too high” explained Morton, “You had a bleed that was causing your brain to press against the inside of your skull… If we hadn’t intervened, you wouldn’t have survived… Quite frankly, you’re very lucky that you’re here at all!”

“You expect me to believe this?!” said Brody, “After everything you’ve done… and all the mind games!”

Morton blew a big puff of air out slowly. “I can only tell you what’s real, Brody… The rest is up to you.” He tilted his head at him in a sympathetic way. “Do you really believe all this vampire stuff?” he asked, “I mean, which scenario sounds more realistic? That you somehow became a vampire and went around drinking people’s blood… or that you had a head injury and all of this has been a hallucination?”

Brody just sat and stared at him. He knew which one he wanted to be true. If he wasn’t a vampire, then maybe Justin and the others were all still alive? Maybe he’d never actually hurt anyone? Maybe everything could go back to being normal? He began to nod in a way that said he was beginning to accept it. “A… a brain haemorrhage?” he asked.

Morton nodded in a solemn sort of way. “Gave everyone a scare” he said, “You really shouldn’t have run away from hospital… and I would have expected your sister to recognise the signs a lot sooner!”

“I didn’t give her the chance” he muttered.

“She should have brought you in as soon as you started claiming to be a vampire” he said, “After the kind of trauma you’d suffered, she should have suspected a head injury…”

“It’s not her fault” said Brody, sounding a little defensive. He didn’t like anyone criticising Tori!

“She’s the head of emergency” said Morton, “She should have called you an ambulance there and then, and had you forcibly admitted… You were a danger to yourself, as well as to others!”

“What?! What’d I do?!” he asked.

“Assaulted a good number of the hospital staff” replied Morton, “Among other things…”

“Are they okay?” he asked, looking shamefaced and worried.

“Nothing they haven’t dealt with before” he said, with a little snort, “But you screaming the place down and insisting that everyone was a vampire?! …Well, that was a new one!”

He flushed a little red. If he could have, he would have covered his face with his hands.

“Calmed down now?” asked Morton, patting one of Brody’s gloved hands, “Do you think I can undo these?”

He nodded in a hopeful sort of way. He wanted to know what they’d done to him. He needed to feel what they’d done to him.

“I’m trusting you” said Morton, as he untied his wrists and then removed the gloves for him.

His hands immediately shot up to his scalp and he gave a gasp when he felt the rows and rows of staples holding his shaved scalp together, and the fact that his head now caved in in the section where there was no skull. It was like someone had smashed one side of his head in with a sledge hammer! He winced with pain as he ran his fingers over the scar.

“Ah-ah! No touching!” warned Morton, as he gently pulled his hand away, “There’s no protection there… and you don’t want to get an infection, believe me.”

Brody looked at his hands and then up at Morton in a worried sort of way. What had they done to him?

Morton produced a small mirror and held it out to him so he could see himself.

He exhaled sharply when he saw his own head. It was shaved on one side only, with a train-track of staples in a horseshoe shape. His appearance was shocking, but he was more surprised that he could see himself at all. He remembered looking in a mirror not so long ago and not having a reflection.

“Don’t know many vampires that can use mirrors” said Morton, with a sarcastic little smirk.

Brody frowned. The last week had just been too real for it all to have been a hallucination. He could remember biting people. He could remember the taste of blood. This had to be some kind of trick. He glanced up at Morton suspiciously. He had to be controlling his mind in some way and distorting the way that he saw things? “I don’t believe you” he said, as he looked around the hospital room, “This has to be a trick! You’re just messing with me.”

“Brody…” sighed Morton, as he started the speech again, “Like I said… You’ve been very confused… You had a brain haemorrhage and it caused you to hallucinate… To think that you were someone else… That I was someone else… You believed you were a vampire when you know that that’s not possible.”

Brody glanced towards the doorway. “Where’s my family?!” he demanded, “What did you do to them?!” He still didn’t believe him. He was pretty sure that this was one of the hospital rooms that the vampires had taken him to. “Where are they?!” he asked.

“Your family is fine” said Morton, “Your brothers and sister were just here… They’ve gone to the cafeteria to get some food.” He gave him a little smile. “Your family’s been here… for weeks… They’ve hardly left your side.”

He gave a little snort of derision. Did he think he was stupid?! This was obviously part of some elaborate plan to mess with his head. He looked down at the mirror in his hands again and wondered how he’d got this to work. What kind of trickery or mind-manipulation was involved here? How could he have a reflection when he knew that that was impossible? And looking at the scar on his scalp, he wondered what they’d done to him. Had they put something inside there? Or had they taken something out? Or was the scar an illusion too?

Morton shook his head and got to his feet. He walked over to the window and then turned to look at him. “You really think I’m a vampire?” he asked, as he began to pull the string on the blinds, “If I was, would I be able to do this?!” With that, he yanked the blind up and bright white light flooded in from outside.

Brody winced, and held his hands up to shield himself, as the room filled with sunlight. He clamped his eyes shut as he waited for his skin to burn. After a moment or two, when that hadn’t happened, he opened his eyes again. What was going on?!

“See?” said Morton, as he walked back over to his bed and put his hand gently on his arm, “Do you believe me now?”

He nodded slowly as he sat there bathed in sunlight. Surely, this was a level of trickery that even ‘Morten’ wouldn’t be able to pull off?!

“Your sister thought it was some kind of post-traumatic psychosis…” sighed Morton, “…but it turned out that you had an aneurysm… probably caused by the assault.”

“The assault?” he asked, looking more than a little dubious. He was beginning to question everything. Had something happened that he’d somehow blocked from his memory?! Something worse than being bitten by a vampire?!

“The assault” said Morton, with his head tilted in pity, “…You don’t remember?”

He gave a little shrug. He didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore. Until a few minutes ago, he’d been absolutely convinced that he was a blood-sucking vampire, but now he was sitting here basking in the sunshine, and all he could think was ‘Am I crazy?!’ He didn’t have a memory of that night that didn’t involve vampires, so if that wasn’t true, then he had no idea what had happened. “I… I don’t remember” he stammered.

“Brody… You were found unconscious on the beach” said Morton, “You’d been assaulted… and they’d… they’d used a taser gun on you… We think you must have had a blow to the head.”

He furrowed his brow as he tried to remember. As far as he knew, he’d left Kris at the hotel, but what happened after that was completely blank. How could he have forgotten?! How could he have wiped what sounded like a very violent attack completely from his memory?! Was it because it was too traumatic to remember?! “What…” he asked, with a fearful look, “What… what did they do to me?” He genuinely didn’t know.

Morton gave him a sympathetic little head tilt. “I think maybe we’ll have a talk about that a little later” he said, “When you’re feeling a little better.”

“But I…” he began to say.

“Hey!” called Justin, interrupting as he stuck his head in through the door, “Look who’s awake!”

“Trust you to wake up when we’ve just popped out for a feed!” teased Tori, as she made her way over to the bed and sat down on the side. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for days!”

He stared at them in a wary sort of way. Why were they being so nice to him after what he’d done?!

“Looks like my cue to go” said Morton, as he got to his feet, “I’ll leave you with your family… We’ll have another chat later, Brody.”

Mason stepped out of the way to let him go, and then stood leaning against the wall a short distance away. He had a bandage on his neck.

Brody glanced over at him. “Did… did I do that?” he asked, in a shamefaced sort of way. He thought he looked a little hostile.

“It doesn’t matter” said Mason, “You didn’t know what you were doing.” There was a hint of anger in his voice though, and he was keeping a safe distance from him.

“Yeah, mate” said Justin, “All that matters now is that you’re getting better…”

“But… but I…” stammered Brody, as he continued to look at Mason’s bandage, “I bit you?!”

“Yeah” said Mason, putting his hand up to the bandage, “You thought you were drinking my blood… Proving you were a vampire or something?” He pulled the bandage away quite carefully to reveal a very human bitemark. He clearly didn’t have any fangs!

“Oh god! I’m so sorry!” groaned Brody. He covered his face with his hands. He was so embarrassed!

“Hey” said Justin, squeezing Brody’s foot through the sheets, “You didn’t know what you were doing! You were sick… You have nothing to feel guilty about!”

Mason glanced at Justin and set his jaw in an angry sort of way. It didn’t go unnoticed by Brody. “So… I’m really not a vampire?” he asked, looking at them with an embarrassed and guilty sort of expression.

“No… Brodes” said Tori, with a nervous little laugh, “You’re not.”

“And I… I had a brain haemorrhage?” he asked.

“Yeah, mate, you did” said Justin, “But they caught it in time.”

“Not before I went crazy though” he sighed a little glumly, “Not before I attacked my brother… and tried to drink his blood!” He looked up at Mason with an apologetic little head shake, “I mean …How nuts did you think I was?!”

“Pretty crazy” agreed Mason, as he covered the bandage on his neck protectively.

“You’re okay now though” said Tori, as she took his hand and held it in her own, “Back to normal.”

He gave a little snort. How could he ever feel normal again?! He’d spent a week thinking that he was a vampire and thirsting after human blood. “So… what did I do?” he asked, “I mean… I know what I think happened… but I think you’re gonna have to fill in the blanks for me…”

“Nothing for you to worry about right now” said Justin, exchanging a worried glance with Tori, “Let’s just concentrate on getting you better!”

“Yeah…” said Mason, “…but the police want to speak to you.”

“What?!” gasped Brody, “Why?!”

Justin threw Mason a scathing sort of look that said ‘You didn’t have to do this now!’ and then looked back at Brody with a forced smile on his face. “It’s fine mate” he said, patting his foot again in a soothing sort of way, “They just need to ask you a few questions.”

“Why?!” asked Brody, sitting upright in the bed, “What did I do?!”

[Ludub]

Thank you all so much for the comments, and a massive apology for the delay in posting this. I've been very busy the last few weeks. Really hope you enjoy this one!

 

WARNING: VERY ADULT THEMES & SEXUAL CONTENT

 

 

Chapter 18

 

Brody stared at the laptop screen on the wheeled table in front of him and shook his head in dismay. He couldn’t really believe what he was seeing. Video, after murky video, played out in front of him. They showed him attacking young beachgoers and biting them on their necks! The sad fact, was that he could remember each and every one of his victims, and what they’d tasted like. How each one had had a slightly different flavour to their blood. Some more ‘iron-y’ and metallic. Others sweet and spicy. The young girl from the counselling group had had an almost fruity taste. He could remember the sensation of their warm, almost sticky blood, coursing over his tongue. How delicious it had been! The mere thought of it now made him feel physically sick, but he couldn’t help wondering at how real it had seemed at the time. How could he have imagined something so vivid?! So strange?! So outside the realms of his own experience?! Where had the vampire fantasy even come from?!

He looked at Justin a little pleadingly, as though he might somehow be able to make this whole thing go away. “I can’t believe this is real!” he groaned.

“It’s okay, mate” said Justin, as he perched on the side of his bed. He’d been allowed to stay with him for moral support, because he’d waived his right to a lawyer.

“How is this okay?!” he snapped back at him, “I mean… Look, Justin! Look at what I did to those poor kids!”

Justin just patted his knee in a way that was supposed to be comforting. What could he really say?! Once one of the kids had filed a police report, the whole thing had just snowballed! More and more kids had turned up to report a crazy man that went around biting people. They’d made him sound like some sort of rabid animal! So much so, that he’d had to be tested for rabies! As the numbers grew, they’d begun to wonder how many there would be! Had he bitten half the Bay?! It hadn't helped that he'd chosen an area with so many CCTV cameras as his hunting ground. He and Tori felt especially guilty. He wondered how they’d failed to see what was right under their noses? How had they not seen how ill he’d been?! How had they failed him so badly?!

“Oh, God!” gasped Brody, as a new video started, “I remember this one!”

The video on the screen showed him approaching a young boy on the beachfront. It was video from a CCTV camera mounted on one of the streetlamps not too far away. It had captured everything!  The scruffy teen couldn’t have been more than 17 years old and he was clearly waiting for someone and looking at his phone in an impatient sort of way. He saw himself approach the boy and strike up what looked like an awkward conversation, almost as though he was asking for directions. Suddenly, and without warning, he pounced, grabbing the boy by the front of his shirt and biting down hard on the side of his neck. The boy had screamed and tried to pull away quite violently but he wouldn’t let go. He remembered this sudden urge, this insatiable desire for blood! He’d felt as though he might die if he didn’t have it! …Except he wasn’t a vampire… He was just a man, with normal human teeth, and he didn’t have preternatural strength! The boy had struggled, before finally freeing himself and pushing him away with a violent shove. “**** you!” he was seen to mouth, while covering the wound on his neck, and turning to run away. Brody looked up at Sgt McCarthy, who’d come to interview him and shook his head in wonder. “I don’t know what to say” he said quietly, “I remember that kid… but in my mind, I drank his blood and then I left him peacefully sleeping there… I don’t remember him running away.”

“Mmm-hmm” said McCarthy, furrowing his brow at him.  He’d heard a lot of excuses in his time, but ‘I thought I was a vampire’ was a new one on him. Still, he had the word of the neurosurgeon that he’d suffered a psychotic episode as a result of a head injury, and that it wasn’t unusual for people to hallucinate all sorts of things. Medical opinion seemed to go in his favour. As much as he would have liked to dismiss it as total nonsense, the young man did seem sincere, and in light of the violence that he’d suffered himself, he was more inclined to be sympathetic.

“You didn’t know what you were doing” said Justin, with a sympathetic little head tilt, “You were off your head… They’ll understand!”

“Actually, Mr Morgan” said McCarthy, “I’m not so sure about that.”

“What d’ya mean?!” demanded Justin, “You know what the doctors have said… He had a brain bleed… He wasn’t thinking straight!”

“That may be the case” said McCarthy, “But we have five young men and women who’ve been seriously assaulted… It’ll be up to the DPP to decide if we take this any further.”

“Are they okay?” asked Brody, “I mean… Did I hurt them really badly?”

“Well… They’re relatively superficial wounds” he said, with a pitying sort of half-smile, “But it’s more the matter of the trauma… the psychological impact of an assault like this… One of the victims is too scared to leave the house.”

Brody frowned in a pained sort of way and shook his head. “Could I speak to her? …To them?” he asked, glancing up at McCarthy and the young Constable accompanying him, “I mean… Can I just try to explain? …Let them know I’m not a threat… That I didn’t mean to hurt them.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea” said McCarthy, “…I’m not sure that it would be appropriate… in light of the investigation”

“But maybe it’d help?” he said.

“I don’t think…” he began to say.

“Can’t I at least apologise?!”  he pleaded, with teary looking eyes, “I mean… I didn’t want to hurt anyone! That’s not who I am!”

“Please?!” asked Justin.

McCarthy gave a heavy sigh and glanced at Constable Murphy. This was certainly an unusual case. It wasn’t every day that a suspect holds their hands up and says ‘It was me. I did it’ He wasn’t disputing the attacks at all. He was taking full responsibility, albeit with extenuating circumstances. Maybe an exception could be made? “Maybe we can let you write a letter of apology” said McCarthy, “But I’ll have to check procedure…”

Brody nodded and looked back at the screen. There was a still from another video that they’d made him watch. It was of his attack on the young girl from the counselling group. She’d slipped over trying to get away from him and managed to knock herself out. Luckily, because he’d set the car alarm off outside the beachside apartments, she’d gotten to hospital and been seen to quite quickly. He was seen looking directly at the camera with a cheeky sort of grin on his face, before lobbing a rock at the windscreen of the car. There couldn’t be any denying it! It was so very obviously him. “And the couple with the car?” he asked, “Are…are they pressing charges?”

“Vandalism” said McCarthy, with a curt little nod, “Damage to private property… That along with the 5 counts of assault… We may need you to come down to the station when you’re feeling a little stronger.”

“Okay” he said, looking more than a little glum. They’d given him a list of his victim’s names. ‘Hannah Walters, Alison Campbell, Jarrod Colletti, Dion Ward, and Hunter King. That last one had come as a surprise to him, because he didn’t actually remember attacking him. Maybe there were even more victims out there than they realised?! Maybe he’d gone on some sort of ‘feeding’ rampage?! Maybe there would be even more charges to face?

“Wait to see what the DPP says” said McCarthy, as he got up and closed the lid on the laptop, “I’ll put in a good word for you… given the circumstances.”

“Thanks” he said, staring down at the bedsheets. He’d never felt more ashamed of himself in his life.

McCarthy sat back down in the chair beside the bed and put his hands together in a sort of steeple shape. He glanced at Justin a little tensely. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

“Sgt McCarthy needs to interview you about… about something else” said Justin.

“Oh God!” gasped Brody, “What else did I do?!” Was this nightmare ever going to end?!

“No, mate” said Justin, “It’s not what you did…”

“I need to talk to you” said McCarthy, before clearing his throat a little nervously, “I need to ask you about Kris Novotny.”

Brody looked at him in confusion for a moment and then glanced at Justin. “Not this again!” he groaned, “I told you…”

“Brody… He’s a rapist!” blurted Justin.

“Justin…” he started to say, getting ready to refute his claims.

“He’s been arrested” said Justin, “They’ve charged him!”

Brody looked at him in surprise. “But I never…”

“Not because of you…” said Justin, “He uh… He attacked a guy in Sydney… Left him so badly beaten, he’s blind in one eye… Then a couple of other guys came forward…”

Brody stared at him in shock and then turned to look at McCarthy for confirmation. McCarthy just nodded.

“Someone ran a story about him” said Justin, “After the incident in Salt… Then guys just started coming out of the woodwork… Looks like it’s something he does…”

“He’s been charged with 3 counts of rape, and 4 counts of assault and battery” said Constable Murphy.

“Someone else has come forward this morning” said McCarthy, “Another chef…”

He stared down at the bedsheets and shook his head.

“So, I guess” said McCarthy, tilting his head at him, “I guess, what we need to know is, what happened between you… because from what we’ve been told, it seems unlikely that your encounter with Mr Novotny was consensual. You had injuries consistent with sexual assault…”

“Yeah…” said Justin, giving his shoulder a little squeeze, “Apparently he spiked the other guys’ drinks… so you’re not the only one he’s done this to.”

McCarthy gave a sad little nod and pointed to his neck to indicate the faded taser burns. “He likes to stun his victims.” he added, “but he was obviously getting cocky… leaving you on the beach like that.”

“Can you tell them what happened?” asked Justin.

Brody gave a little shrug and continued to frown down at his bedsheets. He was racking his brain, but he genuinely didn’t remember.

“Brody?” said McCarthy, “We will need to get a statement from you.”

“I don’t remember” he said a little bitterly, “I mean… as far as I remember, I left Kris at the hotel… I’d broken the bathroom window to get out… and then I just left him there… and that’s when Morten came to get me.”

“Morten?” asked McCarthy.

“He was the vampire that Brody thought bit him” said Justin, in a tired sort of way, “He doesn’t exist.”

Brody glanced up at him in a wounded sort of way. He knew how crazy the whole thing must seem now but it had been very real for him. He cast his mind back to the beach and tried to picture Morten standing there now, but for some reason, he couldn’t see his face. Where once it had been so clear, now it was a black blur. He was just a dark and slightly shapeless figure.

“Brody” said McCarthy in a sympathetic and soft tone of voice, “We checked with the hotel… The window in that bathroom was never broken.”

“What?!” he gasped, looking up at him in shock, “But… but that can’t be true… I… I smashed it…”

“No… you didn’t” said Constable Murphy, “There’s no broken glass anywhere. The window is still intact.”

“Then you must have the wrong room” he said.

McCarthy shook his head. “The door to the bathroom was broken and splintered… Someone had kicked it in… and there was blood on the floor and on the bath…”

“And some… well, some semen” said Murphy looking a little uncomfortable.

Brody stared down at the sheets and began to breathe an awful lot faster. A memory had started to flash through his mind.

He was being dragged along the beach by his legs and all he could see was a dark figure ahead of him. He didn’t know who it was. He felt dizzy and confused. It was late at night, and he could see the stars above him, but they were blurred like in a time-delayed photograph. It hurt to keep his eyes open. He hurt. He knew that he was bleeding and bruised, and that the skin on his neck was burning for some reason. He was scared.

“We had the blood tested” said McCarthy, “I’m afraid, it is yours… and the semen is Mr Novotny’s…”

 “When you were admitted…” said Murphy, “You refused a sexual assault examination… but your file does show that you had extensive bruising to your lower back… and that… well, that you were… bleeding…”

He began to grip the sheets in his hands and really start to hyperventilate.

“Brodes, it’s okay!” said Justin, getting to his feet and looking at him in concern.

He was staring in a way that said he was no longer in the room. His mind had gone somewhere else. They guessed that he must be having a flashback.

He’d got away! He’d managed to free himself and made a run for the bathroom. Why he hadn’t run for the door, he wasn’t quite sure. His mind was foggy and confused, and his legs were weak and wobbly. The bathroom had just seemed closer… He threw cold water in his face in the hope that it might somehow counteract the effect of whatever drugs he’d been given. That he might start to be able to think straight? He shuddered when he thought about what had just happened in there. He felt physically sick! Had it been rape? Had he consented? He wasn’t sure… He didn’t even know how he’d got here. The last thing that he remembered was having a glass of wine back at the restaurant and talking to Justin. How had he ended up in a hotel room with another man? How had that happened?!

He stood there, shaking, and looking at his own bleary reflection in the mirror. Flashes from tonight began to flood though his mind. He remembered watching himself through the window. Watching what that man in there was doing to him. Watching from a distance, as though he wasn’t the one being taken violently from behind. Had he left his own body while it was happening? Had he somehow had an out of body experience?!

‘Get it together, Brodes! …You got yourself into this mess, you can get yourself out! …Just get dressed and leave… and do it NOW!’

As he bent down, to pick up his clothes, he was startled by a loud bang on the bathroom door. Kris was outside! “Are you in there?!” he yelled, as he began to batter and batter on it, “Why the **** are you hiding in there?! …You don’t hide from me! You hear?!” He began to kick the base of the door, as though he was trying to kick it open. “Get the **** out here now!” roared Kris, “Get that little ass of yours out here now or I’ll whip you till you bleed!” It didn’t sound like his voice. It was more like he was mimicking the voice of an older man.

He stared around him in horror, as he realised that he was trapped. There was only a small window above the shower but he didn’t know If he’d be able to reach it. He turned to look at the top of the toilet cistern, wondering if he could use the lid to smash it, just as the door smashed open. He turned, just in time for Kris to punch him in the face. He staggered backwards and just as he got his feeting again, he saw Kris come at him with a small black object…

“I think he’s having a panic attack” said McCarthy, nodding to Murphy to go and call a doctor. Murphy got up and went out into the hallway. He and Justin were both on their feet now, looking down at him as he went a strange shade of blue.

He began to come to. His whole body was being shunted forward, over and over, as he lay half over the bath. A man’s hand had hold of his hair and was yanking him backwards with every vicious thrust. He felt paralysed, as though none of his limbs would work anymore, but the pain was very real. He couldn’t stop what was happening. He couldn’t even speak. There was blood trickling its way across the enamel towards the plughole. Dark and red, and very obviously his… His nose was bleeding really badly. It was actually flooding down the back of his throat, and into his mouth. He was almost choking on it. That iron-y taste was strong and unpleasant, but he desperately tried to focus on it, instead of the pain. He tried to tell himself that he liked the taste of blood. His chef’s mind went to work, and he focused his attention on the different taste ‘notes’ in his own blood. He began treating it in the same way that he would a fine wine or a new ingredient for the restaurant. It was a strange thing to do but he needed something to distract him… Anything… Because there was one thought repeating itself over and over in his head, ‘I’m going to die now… He’s going to kill me.’

“Brody?!” said Nate, as he appeared in the room and began to shoo the others away from him. He could see that Brody was in the full throes of a panic attack, and having a police sergeant standing over him asking questions was definitely not going to help. “I think you all need to wait outside” he said, as he held his arms out to shepherd them into the hallway. Once they were outside, he closed the door, and pulled the blinds down so that they couldn’t see in.

He came over and pulled up a chair beside him. “Brody” he said, in a soft voice, “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Brody shook his head and made a strange sort of twisted grimace as he tried not to cry. He was still breathing really fast. A whirlwind of memories was flooding through his mind, overwriting the ones he’d held onto so tightly for the last few weeks. He’d created a vampire fantasy to cover a truth so terrible that he hadn’t wanted to deal with it. How pathetic was that?! “I can’t!” he wheezed out, between frantic breaths.

“Okay… well” said Nate, “We’ll just sit here then… until you calm down… Just try to slow your breathing for me…” He took hold of his wrist to check his pulse. “You’re safe here” he said, “Just take a breath and try to hold it…”

After a while, he began to breathe a little more regularly and gave Nate an embarrassed little half-smile through his tears.

“Do you want to tell me what was happening?” asked Nate.

Brody hugged his arms around his chest and shook his head. “Can you send Justin back in?” he asked.

“Okay” said Nate, “If that’s what you want… I’m going to tell Sgt McCarthy no more questions for today.”

“Thanks” said Brody, with a grateful little smile.

Nate opened the door and beckoned for Justin to come back in. “Just… take it easy on him” he said, as he stepped outside and closed the door again.

Justin looked a little nervous. “Are… are you okay?” he asked, as he made his way over to the bed.

Brody shook his head and stared down at the bedcovers again. He didn’t know how to say it.

Justin sat down on the side of the bed and tentatively put his arm around his shoulder so his head was leaning against his chest. “You know you can tell me anything… right?”

Brody began to cry again but wiped angrily at his own tears.

Justin gave a heavy sigh and hugged him a little closer. “We’re right, aren’t we?” he asked, “He hurt you… didn’t he?”

Brody gave a sort of whimpered cry as he began to really sob. He buried his face in his brother’s chest and held onto him tight as his whole body began to shake. “He raped me” he sobbed, almost unintelligibly, “He raped me”

“I know” sighed Justin, as he held him in his arms and rocked him gently back and forth, “I know, mate… We’ll get you through this.”

 

THE END.

 

 

 

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Edited October 11, 2018 by QUIET ACHIEVER