Burnt Blood: The Werewolf Within

Thirty Six

Our conversation and that recording left a sour taste in my mouth. I couldn't help twitching as we walked past the ghosts; the dripping blood and pool of guts in room two clung to my nose hairs. Dalton and Skip could be grateful they didn't see these grey things. I'm missing my content obliviousness, happily catching glimpses of Helen, believing I saw a memory. Thanks to the last recording, the cab driver that injects their passenger, I'm in limbo. What psychopath does that to a pregnant woman, anyway?

At first, Chris's appearance was a novelty, but what we were leaving behind belonged to a movie. I can only hope I won't see the dead all the time; it will make life more disturbing than it already is and far more confusing to those watching. It felt like a persecuting curse.

Shuffling out of the building, a swirl of cooler air meets us, whistling through my leaky shirt with grey clouds edging overhead; it's going to piss down any minute now. No sooner had we stepped out the door than I heard a loud click, as if the power had switched off. Skip limped across the road, staring into the distance; he knew where we had to go, which terrified him. I thought he'd become fresh milk white after the blood finally drained to his feet.

The metal slammed together, and Dalton jumped; the bags under his eyes drooped like deflated tyres; we were all feeling the strain. Skip was deeply agonising over what was to come, wrestling with a carnival of demons from the past. While the three of us wallowed in our respective relief to have survived, the world was none the wiser. Fairfield Road was a calm daydream.

Especially compared with what's coming. I'm staring at a pigeon ten feet to my left, blissfully pounding away at a slice of rotten bread, doing what it can to survive. I picture my head in the bread's place; the pigeon's beak is a hammer thumping the information into my brain. There's too much to try cramming in; it's been one revelation after the other without being able to stop and think.

We had been warned that everything would come full circle; I don't think any of us thought it would be so soon—Skip's aura hung like a noose around his neck, and he was a condemned man on death row. Edgy and abrupt, he snatches the keys out of my hand. Riling me up a little, insisting on driving, claiming to know a quicker route, and leaving Dalton and me staring at each other.

The old girl had been treated rough enough; now Skip was going to manhandle her in ways she didn't deserve. My hunch is Skip's agonising over Dalton's secret; I know I have been; the question is, can he forgive? Would he let the daughter's revelation be water drifting under the bridge? After all, the cockney prince wasn't to know; there were many moving parts by the sounds, and the stars didn't align that night. Meanwhile, Dalton was occupied, checking on me, making glances as we walked, perhaps doing some reflecting of his own.

I struggled; my mind spun like a blender churning around my memories. Everything I thought I knew could be bullshit or yet another misdirection to throw me off. Even second-guessing what we put in the ground five years ago. This guy had us in the crosshairs; I want to know why.

The searing heat as the bullets tore into me. Feeling the holes in my shirt, nothing but slight bruising remains; surviving a gunshot is fine. I can't say I'm in a rush to experience that again. Only to wake in pools of blood that weren't mine; the thought of it and the massacre still bothers me; how could one person control everything the way he is? How does he get everything to run like clockwork?

My stomach swirled, the claws sliding back and forth without control. Painless, without me trying to do it. The other side of me was revelling in my chaotic emotions while I sat in the back, feeling like a foreigner in my car, seeing the world from another view. Swerving a sharp left caused everything we've gathered to slide towards me—our nightmare collection, the box, goggles, bladed glove, the gun and a couple of recorders.