Symphony of Blood, A Hank Mondale Supernatural Case (17 page)

The song played on. The orchestra of bloodlust demanded to be heard. It took many years to make some kind of sense out of human mannerisms and facial cues; even longer to gather what little understanding It had of human speech. But their music…from day one, It heard music playing, and It understood. As just a tiny hatchling, born in a crawlspace in the basement of a music school, It could feel the tones and textures resonating through its very essence. From the day it was born, It heard music whenever it was hungry. Music and hunger were virtually synonymous.

Music: It was the one positive contribution humans had to offer, other than their flesh and blood.

Each crawl-step It took towards the man took enormous effort: baby-steps once smooth like the twirling dancers It had seen in its youth devolved into clunky, giant leaps. Anticipating the taste of human blood reverberated through its guts like deep-tuned cellos, gently stroked in unison by bows strung with horse hair.

The man suddenly began to stir, and desperation overtook anticipation. The hunger sang louder, and rang higher and played faster, like violins plucked staccato at a frantic pace.

Once still, the man now writhed around in the dirt and leaves. He grunted and groaned, but seemed unable to get up.

It dug its thin elbows deep into the earth, using them like shovels. It wiggled and shimmied, toothpick front arms, muscular back legs and taut torso working as a team, in order to close in on its prey. Its stomach still churned and lungs wheezed. It had nothing left to give. With nourishment just feet away, It searched for any last morsel of energy; its will to live boosting just enough adrenaline through its veins to ignore the pain and weakness and push on the last few crab-steps.

The man, still lying on his side, tilted his head just enough for them to make eye contact.

Its heart and the man’s heart both beat a frenzied pace like pounding timpani. The man was trying to get up. It was trying to reach the man before he could rise. Both of them were spent.

The man groaned and twisted and started to crawl away. With kettledrums beating in its head, It found one last burst of energy, and It collapsed atop the man.

The man yelled, a loud but unintelligible howl—pain and fear combined as one.

Cupping the man’s head with its arms, It faced the man, and forced his mouth wide open. A dry, gritty forked tongue extended from its mouth, plunging down the man’s throat. It tapped the tonsils but its mission was far below. Traveling through the esophagus it landed in the stomach where it immediately tasted the sweetness of
half digested
cotton candy followed by the bitterness of a hotdog and mustard.

It closed its eyes inhaling through its nose and tongue simultaneously while sucking in with delight. The tingling in its legs was finally subsiding; its strength was rapidly returning. Raw energy converted to power instantaneously.

Once the stomach was fully emptied, It worked the tongue further into the man’s intestines. All the contents were inhaled through the tips of its tongue: bile from the liver; juices from the pancreas—nothing went to waste. Half developed stool from the colon was devoured as were all the contents of the rectum.

The tongue popped out the other side and licked the hairs beneath his anus, but the meal was not near complete. After the gastrointestinal tract, It went to work on all the body fluids. Blood, of course; all the veins and arteries were emptied. But the reproductive system was also quite tasty. There was nothing on the human body that the digestive juices generated from its tongue couldn’t break down. The lungs, the heart, even the appendix was slurped up and consumed.

The eyeballs, the brain, even the hairs on his head, all represented sustenance. And It never wasted. The man was a big meal, but It was slow and deliberate, and It would make use of every cell in his body.

Eventually, It would even break down the bones. Although that process could go on until the darkness turned to light. It was in no rush.

The symphony stopped abruptly, and It quickly turned around. Something was near. Someone was watching. It wasn’t alone with the prey. It was so swept up in the feeding that It ignored its other senses. But now It was alert, and it was sure it wasn’t alone.

With its strength and composure returned, its senses were heightened. It smelled her: hair paint, heavy fake sweet scent masking a natural light sweat, smelly film under her arms and a creamy coating on her skin.

It was the girl. She’d returned. But It didn’t smell the other two; the large men weren’t with her.

It walked, its two legs now strong and secure, towards the scent, its eyes scouring deep into the brush. She was there, but It couldn’t see her. Until the woods moved before it. She was hunched behind a bush, and she took off as It approached. It followed, needing to catch her before she reached the others. It was strong from the feed, but still couldn’t risk a confrontation with the two large human males. They were probably not far off. If she screamed, they’d probably hear.

It had to catch her.

It ran, its leg muscles like springboards generating giant leaping steps. It stretched its arms like elastic using them to steady itself; they scraped the ground and helped It maintain balance with each jump. It was trying to gain ground, but she was quick and determined. She took three or four small, quick steps to its every leap. It pushed and pushed, but the price it paid in energy was great. The meal was a hearty one, but it needed to last. It couldn’t afford to chase much longer.

In the end, it didn’t matter, as she reached the clearing first. It quickly wove a human mask, not an intricate one, it wasn’t necessary. Just a generic middle-aged man, with a large black hat to cover its head, and dark sunglasses to cover its eyes. It tucked in its tail.

She looked back. Had she witnessed the transformation? It couldn’t be sure. But she was a threat. Every minute she lived with the knowledge of what It was created a tremendous danger.

She walked past the soft house—ducking under the stakes that kept it up—and into the crowd. It followed. The two men were sitting at a wooden table, eating food that reeked of the grease it had been cooked in. She said something to them, It wasn’t sure exactly what, but it was clear she wasn’t happy.

The three of them got up and walked away from the crowd. It followed, despite being worried that she might point It out to the men.

She spoke into a small disk that she held in her hand, her other arm whirled around wildly. The three of them walked down a hill and into an area where the soft green ground was browned, and many wheeled boxes sat. The brown-skinned man got into a large black wheeled box and the wheeled box came alive. She shivered and looked back repeatedly. The wheeled box began to move, then stopped so the large pale man could open a door. She looked backwards, once over each shoulder, then stepped up inside the wheeled box. Without a backward glance, the pale man stepped in behind her.

It would need to track her. It would pick up her scent later. After it was done. For now, It was returning to the woods to finish its meal. It would need as much energy as it could possibly store up.

* *

The scent was fresh. Her unique blend of aromas—hair paint, fake sweet scent, human sweat—was hers and hers alone.

It wouldn’t be easy to follow her. The humans traveled in wheeled boxes that rumbled so loud and moved so fast. It would simply walk.

It was accustomed to walking. Walking took time, but It had time. Time, patience and discipline were all It had. And It had each in abundance.

The girl’s trail led away from the wooded area with the soft ground and towards hard earth that was filled with wheeled boxes, going backwards and forwards rapidly. Before walking among them, It needed cover.

Crouching in the woods just before the hard ground, It developed a gray receding hairline on a round head, and gruff, unshaven skin for a face. It knew from past experience that men with ripped and torn clothes and sloppy appearances rarely were acknowledged by other human beings, much less hassled. So when It traveled long distances on foot, It often took on this appearance.

The boxes shot by, some with four wheels, others larger with eight or ten wheels and some with too many wheels to count. It stayed to the side of the hard ground the best it could. Finally, It reached an area where there was no green ground to the side of the hard ground. Having no other alternative, It walked onto the hard ground towards a large structure that carried the boxes high over the water.

A man in blue pants and a matching shirt with markings on the chest ran towards him, his face twisted, his fingers waving wildly.

“What the fuck are you doing, asshole?”

It wasn’t exactly sure how to answer the question; the words were spit from the man’s mouth so rapidly. But it was clear the man of authority didn’t like him stepping onto the hard ground.

“What’s your problem? Can you speak?” The man’s pale face was reddened and clearly demanded a reply.

“Need to get across,” It said, trying to make its natural, low and scratchy voice resemble a human’s voice. He looked past the man, not down, but not directly in the eye.

The man seemed to take offense to this. “Look at me!”

The man grabbed for its chin, and It leaned back before he actually made contact, then their eyes met. No matter how well constructed the camouflage was, its eyes, at close range were always a weakness. A human who paid attention could always spot the redness in the middle of the eye.

“Damn,” the man in blue clothing said, “Have you been drinking tonight?”

It shrugged, trying to look as submissive as possible. It was sure the man wanted submission.

“You smoke dope tonight?”

“No smoke dope,” It replied. It was sure “smoke dope” was bad.

“Whatever. Take the footbridge.” The man in blue clothing pointed to a separate section of the structure. Humans wearing fancy jackets were walking towards It, and others in soft-looking suits were running on a brown path that turned to hard ground as they entered the span. “You’re
gonna
get yourself killed, buddy. You can’t walk across here.”

“I take footbridge.”

“Yep. Take the footbridge.”

The man in blue clothing walked away. It got off the hard ground, and followed the running humans in the soft-looking suits to the footbridge. The humans in the fancy jackets, one male carrying a case and two females with large bags slung over their shoulders, seemed to look at It with anger in their eyes, but they left It alone.

Once on the other side of the footbridge, It picked up the girl’s scent again. It followed the scent to a manmade tree. It walked up to the entrance and pulled at the door, but it wouldn’t open.

A man in a suit, long overcoat, and fancy-looking hat came to the door and opened it.

“May I help you?” he asked.

It tilted its head to the side, not sure what to say.

“You aren’t welcome here. I don’t have any change for you. Please leave now,” the man said, then closed the door and walked back to the desk where he’d been sitting. On the desk sat a newspaper and a white cup with smoke flowing from it.

It walked away from the manmade tree and down an alleyway that separated the trees. The tree next to it was also tall and solid-looking, but it was colored a slightly faded yellow.

There were no humans in sight, and It didn’t smell or sense any either. It huddled behind a large smelly can and dropped to its knees. The red hot ball had set fully, and the cover of darkness was its comfortable friend. It shut its eyes tight, then opened them to reveal a soft shade of blue. It whirled its shoulders around in circles—like the giant wheels it had seen the young humans ride on—and they thinned from those of a middle aged man, to a thinner, bonier form. It licked its lips, and they curved, filled and reddened. It twitched its nose, and it pointed out while the nostrils thinned and the gray hairs curled and withered away. It grew perky balls on its chest while its potbelly shrank and leveled out. Its ass curved. Secretions gushed out from its pores to replicate a flowery but subtle fake sweet scent.

When It stood up from behind the smelly can, It was a woman, attractive and in her forties, with a fancy jacket like the women on the footbridge wore.

Changing shape always took a lot of energy. It had eaten well, taking the time to digest the entire young male; It left no scraps to be found by worms, much less humans. Still, it was best to keep its reserves up. When necessary, It had the ability to survive for long periods of time without eating, but in order to be at its best, and strongest, It needed to eat frequently.

It walked down the alley and returned to the street, wiggling its feminine hips slightly, the way It had seen human women do. Its high heels clicked the hard ground, and It noticed two men in fancy jackets looking, almost gawking in its direction.

It looked down at the hard ground and away from the men; they quickly read the lack of interest and walked on. They wouldn’t do. It needed a lone target, and preferred a woman or child to a full-grown man. It toned down its walk slightly so as to draw less attention from the males.

A woman walking a small brown dog caught its eye. She looked in her early fifties, well put together but aging. She wore dark red pants with a matching top and oversized stones around her neck and fingers. She stopped in front of a tree—a single eight-foot tree enclosed in a small square of dirt within the hard ground—and the dog lifted its leg and peed. When the dog finished, the woman walked towards the yellow manmade tree.