Drawing Blood

Chapter Thirty-seven

There were several things which poured through my head in that moment. Several things, which I kept to myself. It's funny, but thinking about it now, I recognise there is no manual; there are no instructions on how to respond in such a situation. When you find yourself confronted, as I had been, your mind becomes an idiot, and your logical side takes a leave of absence. Where it goes is a mystery. When it goes, you realise just how much you relied upon it.

Panic sets in. You freeze on the spot. The tiny hairs on you arm, elevate. Your mouth opens, before closing again. You forget what was asked of you. You forget what was said. It takes a few seconds before your brain acknowledges the need to do something important. It takes a few seconds before it begins to do it's job. It sifts through all the files inside your head, scanning your memories and previous interactions in the hope it can find a template, one your mouth can relate to. It does so in a hurry. And until it finds something suitable, like a blueprint, you can only sit there and wait. The time passes. The other person grows impatient, drums their fingers on their thighs. You try and form something comprehensible, self-conscious under their gaze. And when there is nothing, when you have nothing, they become all too aware you are hiding from them.

I have gone on to explain this to Luke sometimes, when I am lost in the depths of guilt and despair. He has always maintained there was nothing I could have said or done to save the journalist. He has forever said I was not to blame for his death. But my feelings would always tell me different. It's like they knew I could have warned him. They knew I could have done more to stop him making an example of himself.

When they would go on to discover Chris' body, torn to shreds, and left open for all to see, it would be my own motives I would question. It would be my own thoughts I would examine. That idiot brain of mine would be punished, and I would spend hours tormenting myself; replaying the conversation I had with him, on that park bench, until I was certain I was the cause. Why didn't I just inform him of the danger he was in, I would berate myself. Why didn't I just order him to leave town, and never look back? The outcome would always be the same. I ought to have begged him to run, to go and hide, to never seek out the truth again. I ought to have helped him. I never wanted him dead. I still say that to this day. But, if truth be known, it was out of my hands. Luke was right. Chris had kicked over a stone which should have been left untouched. He had poked the hornets nest with a pen, instead of a stick. But I never told him. I never told him to stop poking. Instead, I remained there in silence, waiting and wishing my idiot brain would throw me a lifeline.

Chris continued to speak to me as though I were listening. I could not tell you what he said. I heard only snippets of names, and the odd words here and there. There was a scar on his cheek, I saw. A small one. I stared at that in the hope I'd be able to think of a clever response. It was all I could do under the circumstances. It was all I could manage. That scar seemed pale under the dying sun, I thought. It looked old, as though he'd had it for many years. Had he not been sitting there, next to me, I would not have seen it. I would not have cared. Perhaps, as boys would, he had played too rough with the others, I told myself. Perhaps, he had been part of the rugby club at university. Most likely though, and more importantly, he had been on the receiving end of somebody's anger. "You're crazy," I whispered when he finally took a breath.

"Maybe I am," he surmised. "But I know Dan wasn't crazy. And I think you know exactly what I'm talking about..."

It's strange how I still hold on to that memory. Even after all these years, I can summon it as though I were still there. I can still see that scar on his cheek. I can still hear my own voice, hushed and breathless when I spoke to him again. "You think there are such things as werewolves?"

I wanted to laugh, to show him how absurd he was. However, the words all but died in my throat. He responded to this by telling me he didn't mean it in the film sense. Werewolves didn't go around sprouting hair, roaming the countryside, and howling at the full moon, he concluded. What he had meant, he said: was that werewolves were real, they were living amongst us, and they killed us for fun. He shifted in his seat after that little announcement, crossing his legs, making himself more at ease. I went on to look at my hands in my lap. I remember feeling trapped. I remember feeling the need to gain some distance between us. "You have to agree with me, Rose," he went on, "There is a lot of evidence pointing towards some very strange behaviour..."