DARK SOULS (Dark Souls Series) (10 page)

The restaurant was within walking distance from Cream of the Cup, and I hurriedly set off on foot as soon as I waved good-bye to Andrea, making a hard left that nearly made me trip on my own feet when I saw Macy and Liz talking close at the intersection, waiting for the light to turn. I was determined to hide my discomfort from Macy and everyone else, and I hoped that they hadn’t just seen my graceless dive into an alleyway.

I half-sped, half-stumbled to my next job, my right hand bracing against the smog-dusted brick walls for balance as I forced my feet forward.

Once I reached my destination, I had pulled it together enough to at least slightly pass for normal. A cold sweat had come over me again, soaking through my clothes as it covered by body. The front of my blue shirt looked like I had just run a fifteen-mile marathon. A large dark blue V of sweat was forming rapidly on my shirtfront. 

I looked inside and saw that the evening crowd was going to be manageable in the small restaurant, as it was already almost seven and only a few tables were occupied. Pulling the door open, I walked into the smell of fresh baked bread.

I’ve always loved the smell of fresh bread, whatever kind, and Butterfield was always filled with the aroma. Usually that smell brought me a sense of safety, of warm comfort.

Now, however, I didn’t feel safe. I felt nauseous.

“Em, good, you’re here!”

I heard the voice coming from the kitchen through the small open window into the dining room. Ettie Butterfield pushed through the flapping kitchen doors and made her way to me, wiping her hands on a towel before she enveloped me in a large hug.

“How are ya, hun?” She pressed back, her hands still on my shoulders as her soft hazel eyes took in the state of me. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a long day at Cream
.
”

She nodded in understanding, pushing her spectacles up onto her head and creating a large halo of short graying curls around them. “The life of the service industry. I get it. Come on back, I have a plate warming for you before you start.”

She put her arm around my shoulders, squeezing me affectionately as she led me to the kitchen and smiled at the few patrons that were quietly eating dinner.

I’d been working for Ettie for about a two and a half years now, and considered her more of a mother hen to me than a boss. Before Macy and I became close, she was often the one I would turn to with problems, from everything to paying rent to dating. As she ushered me onto the kitchen stool and urged me to eat, I was again reminded that Ettie had been more of a mother to me than my own ever would be.

Because I loved Ettie, I forced down her famous meatloaf and mashed potatoes, trying hard not to gag at the white and brown globs as they entered my mouth. She watched me carefully as she assisted her head chef with the meals, every now and then saying, “Put some meat on those bones, girl!” whenever she saw I was slowing down.

When she was distracted enough to stop looking back at me, I subtly dumped three quarters of my meal into the trash beside me, wiping my mouth with my hand and ordering myself not to puke.

Standing up, I went to the staff bathroom and changed into a simple blue cap-sleeved dress to go with Ettie’s theme of warm yellows and cool blues.

I was shaky, but I was able to make it through the dinner rush, because it was Monday and there wasn’t really one. Ettie’s restaurant sat about thirty people, and despite her success, she refused to expand, preferring instead to keep it “quaint and warm.” As the soft lamplights on the butter yellow walls cascaded over the dark mahogany tables, I understood Ettie’s desire to keep this place soft and comforting.

By eleven o’clock, I was wiping down the tables as Ettie banked the small hearth in the corner, readying herself to close up for the night. Only one patron remained, eating quietly at a side table and flipping through a magazine.

Ettie gave her a small glance before coming up to me. “You okay to close down? My granddaughter’s sick with the flu, and I’d really like to stop by, drop off some of my chicken soup.”

I waved my hand at her, hoping it wasn’t trembling as noticeably as I thought it was. “Sure, no problem.” I gestured to the girl. “I’ll take care of her.”

“You’re a star, sweetheart.” She gave me an affectionate pat on the shoulder before grabbing her jacket from the coatrack and shutting the blinds to the front windows on her way out. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

Once she left, I finally let my body go, exhausted from forcing it stiff, from pushing it to be normal. I collapsed onto the chair beside me, resting my head in my hand as the other clutched the damp hand towel in my lap.

Taking deep breaths, I tried to calm my racing heart and roiling belly, mentally pep-talking my body into allowing me to stay here, to just get through ten more minutes before I could kick the girl out and go home to bed.

Sustenance.

The thought shot through my mind so sharply that I jerked my chin up, my eyes skimming over the domes of light on the yellow walls as if a shrouded figure were about to curl out of the shadows. My stomach clenched at the word. My eyes settled on the girl, still hunched-over at the table on the far left, a figure that was so deep in the shadows that I could barely make out her features. Through the candlelight I guessed that she was approximately my age, but she was reading so furiously that she was bent over her magazine on the mahogany table. Her legs were curled underneath her and she hummed quietly under her breath and flipped through the pages.

My vision sharpened. I suddenly saw her clearly, with her lank brown hair hanging in oily strings across her face. Her forehead shined with grease in the light, and I could count each and every pimple on her forehead. Her body was slim and bony, her red oversized sweatshirt doing nothing to hide her emaciated state. I could hear her breath, slow but labored, and my eyes skittered to her neck, watching as her pulse beat rapidly underneath her skin.

I knew the instant she sensed me, as her breath hitched in her throat and she glanced up. She squinted and slowly rose up from her seat.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Oh...no. Sorry. I’m sorry,” I said lamely and looked away, ashamed at being caught staring. “We’re closing in about ten minutes.”

“Fine.” Pacified, she sat back down again and dug her face back into her magazine, dismissing me.

Despite my best attempts to obey my own sharp mental commands, my body refused to listen and my eyes instantly shot back to her and latched onto her neck. I couldn’t look away. For the life of me, I could not look away.

“Do you have some sort of problem?”

She was glaring at me now and didn’t even bother to hide the disgust in her voice as she watched me, her dirty fingers curled over her magazine protectively.

“I...no. I’m sorry,” I said again, panic rising within me.

My heart began to race and my breaths came out of me short and tight. My muscles had tensed again, so hard that my body was beginning to tremble with the effort. My clothes were once again becoming sweat-soaked as I tried to maintain control.

“Then stop staring at me.”  

I continued to stare. My breath heaved out of me, getting heavier and louder with every inhale and exhale. I braced both hands on the edge of the table to keep my upper body from falling out of the chair.

Or that was what I thought I was doing. With the way my legs had coiled underneath me and with the sharp points of my elbows shooting up toward the ceiling, I was forced to come to the impossible conclusion that I was bracing myself to leap somewhere. To leap at her.

I tried to snap myself out of it. I really did. But it was as if an animal had taken over my body, an animal that lived for only one purpose, one goal.

Food.

Then I did something that even in my most agitated state as a child, even during my most defensive moments against my mother, I had never, ever done.

I lifted my lips up over my teeth and snarled at her.

I expected her to jerk back in shock, her eyes wide with fear before she ran far, far away from me. But I really should have known by now, especially due to my current circumstances, that I should stop expecting the expected.

She didn’t cower in fear, nor did she glance away in disgust before hurriedly rushing out the wooden restaurant doors. The girl actually snarled
back
at me.

“You’re actually doing this? You actually want to fight me?” She straightened in her seat.

As if in answer, my eyes landed on her neck. I was so appalled and confused with myself that I couldn’t think of one thing to say to her. All I wanted was to eat. All I wanted was for this hunger to go away. I continued to try and fight against this need, because I knew then that if I didn’t, if I crumbled and gave into this urge, I would hurt her. I wanted to hurt her.

“Run,” I said through clenched teeth, sweat starting to drip into my eyes.

“What?” Apprehension finally crossed her face.

“Just...run. Please.”

Bloodlust coated my vision.

I cried out as the pain of my internal battle became too much. I needed food. I
needed
the sustenance. I knew I was caving, slowly but inevitably.

I gave in.

I sprung up to leap at her, but I was completely taken by surprise when her face changed from staged apprehension to furious hate. She shot up from her chair and leaned over the table at me, her teeth bared.  Her eyes, originally a light blue when she first looked at me, transformed into a black, pupil-less gaze. The whites of her eyes were completely erased. It was like looking in to the eyes of a shark; a dark, empty abyss. Eyes that I had seen before. She smiled, showing a row of jagged, uneven fangs.

“Oh god, not again,” I said, her horrid appearance freezing me in place. “This can’t be happening again.”

It was too late once I realized my mistake. I had spent too much precious time trying to fight against the overwhelming urges that rushed through me. That delay, coupled with witnessing a harmless girl morph into a mutant thing, caused me to hesitate for too long, to stay frozen in a vulnerable position for too much time. She didn’t need to process or fight anything. She knew exactly what she was and what she wanted, and in less than a millisecond she curled her legs underneath her, and like an insect, smacked into me, knocking my chair back and onto the floor. I heard the crack of the chair legs as they snapped in half. She remained on top of me, her legs locking into the sides of my torso and her elongated fingernails digging sharply into my arms, confining me. She lunged closer, putting her face within mere inches of mine and making a sound that I could only describe as a low-pitched mewing, as if she were savoring me, taking me in with her eyes. I waited for her to dart out her tongue and taste me, but none came. I dared a glance at her mouth, and was greeted by cavernous blackness. I realized that she didn’t lick me because she didn’t have anything to lick
with.
She had no tongue.

I struggled against her, trying to free myself from her startlingly strong grasp despite her emaciated state. She remained as firm as concrete, barely even twitching as I battled underneath her grip. Her eyes refused to meet mine; they were too busy roaming around my face, on my hair, my ears, and my neck.

“Hey! Hey!” I tried to get her attention, to get her to focus on my eyes. Even though I had struggled with playing mind-games on the bodega guy this morning, I still managed to influence him eventually. Hopefully, enough of whatever that stuff was remained so that I could compel this thing to get off me.

Her talons began to cut through the shoulder sleeves of my dress, digging into me and drawing blood. I felt the pop of my skin as her nails started cutting through and I moaned in pain, unable to contain my cries. I felt so weak, I felt so starved that I wasn’t sure how much longer I could fight her.

A stroke of luck came the instant her nails sank deep enough that the skin of her fingers touched my skin, and she shrieked and rolled off me. She landed a few feet away with her knees bent and legs apart in a crouched position, balancing on her toes. Her arms rested alongside her body, her talons scraping against the floor.

I was still on my back and somehow, despite her toppling me to the ground, I remained in a seated position on the chair, though my back was now resting against the floor. I fell to my side, dislodging myself from the broken chair and attempting to stand. She remained in her unnatural position, her head cocking sickeningly to the side, and I had a déjà vu moment: she looked exactly like Rob when he had turned into a monster.

It all came back to me in an instant. Rob, the brick wall he slammed me into, the hissing questions coming out of his aberrantly large mouth and rimmed with yellow, jutting teeth. 

“
What are you?
” this one said, the words slithering out of her mouth in uneven syllables.

I wanted to respond in kind, asking “What are
you
?” but strangely, I couldn’t form the words. I also noticed that my stomach had mysteriously stopped its constant clenching and lay eerily quiet.

I knew what it wanted. I could vaguely remember what had happened to me when I faced off with the monster in Rob. I acknowledged the next action I would be taking, resigned. It was my only choice. 

I locked eyes with her. This girl—thing—didn’t put up much of a fight, probably because she was just as confused with me as I was with her. I quieted my mind, allowing the dark heat to grow larger inside me, to fire through me and take me over. It was the only way I knew how to survive this creature. This deeper, fiercer part of me knew what to do and I gave into it, this time anticipating the roaring heat coursing through my body and rushing through my ears, drowning out all sound.

Her fangs parted as my eyes looked deep into her soul, her own giant black orbs resting on mine.

“
They said your kind no longer existed
,” she said, her lips moving slimily over and under her jagged fangs as she attempted to speak. Her lips dripped with black rivulets of blood when she curled them back into position.