The Hallway

Part 5

A half asleep Derek swore he heard a scream from the hallway outside, but wasn't sure if it was in a dream or not. He tossed and turned, unable to rest even for a minute. He didn't know what was keeping him up, whether it be nerves or one of those random nights of sleeplessness. After giving up on trying to sleep, he stood up and paced quietly in the couch area as to not wake Teddy. During this time, he heard another scream echoing down the hallway outside the door. This time he was concerned, and was tempted to go look and help whoever needed it. He listened for any more noises, but they had stopped altogether. A moment later, he heard footsteps coming down the hallway in the direction of their rooms. A rattling noise at his door startled him. Someone was trying to get in! In the thought process he had right now, all he did was back up to where the room's bathroom was located until the rattling ceased and the footsteps departed. When he heard no more of the sounds, he wanted to stay back in case of danger, but in his sleep-deprived logic, he carefully opened the door, stepped out, and closed it as noiselessly as he could.

Nothing in the hall was overly unusual. The atmosphere had the taint of past use on it, but that was how hotels usually were. He made his way down the hallway before seeing a crumpled body on the floor up against the wall. The person looked familiar, and the wide, glaring brown eyes gave away who it was soon enough. Derek rushed to the place where his bandmate Nathan lay to find a sight most disturbing.

Nathan, motionless, was curled up in a pool of blood that had partially soaked into the carpet floor. There were sources of blood from his back and his knee. What had Derek's attention the most was a large grouping of slashes and punctures covering the side of his neck, still dripping with sticky red down the voiceless throat. He noticed a deep, relatively fresh wound that was directly on the back of his neck. Derek backed up in disgust and horror, covered his mouth, and blinked uneasily. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. His bandmate, friend, and brother-like figure, dead in his own blood on a hotel floor.

Footsteps again. Derek jumped at the arrival of the approaching stranger, who walked from far away with a guilty conscience, it seemed. A second later, he thought he recognized him. As he got even closer and stopped just a few feet away, he looked up at Derek, his face betraying his identity.

"Jake..?" he said, looking him up and down. Part of his shirt was dark with wetness, with some odd staining on it. He looked like he'd just seen a ghost and appeared to be mentally hung up on something. "Are you okay?"

He tilted his head to the side and shrugged. Derek pointed at the body in the dark puddle near the two, Jake glancing in the direction of the gesture in a strangely passive manner. He grunted in recognition of the corpse, seeming to not care much.

"Did you see- it's- Nate-" Derek said, stuttering and still pointing at it in disbelief. Jacob still was casual with conduct, examining the scene. Derek, trying to get him to show some emotion or care, said, "This is heartbreaking."

Jake simply nodded. Derek stared at him. The weird attitude was back but he wasn't about to jump to conclusions.

"What's wrong?" he said, somewhat forcefully. As if sensing the intent of his tone, Jacob widened his eyes and pursed his lips tighter. Derek repeated the phrase twice more, Jacob shaking his head in response to both.

"I don't know," Jake finally said quickly, holding something back in his mouth. He sharply inhaled through his nose, and a second after issued a croaking noise. He tried to cough, mouth still closed, and he turned to the side away from the dead body, avoiding Derek. He knelt on the floor, still muffling a coughing fit when he accidentally opened his mouth, spraying red fluid onto the opposite wall and the same substance falling out of his mouth and down his chin. He paused, then gave a grotesque retch, convulsing as another small amount of the fluid splattered onto the floor. Hands and knees on the ground and shaking, he stayed there for a moment before standing up. Clearing his throat and facing Derek again, the blond gave a mixed expression of worry and shock. The liquid ran down to his shirt, the cloth soaking it up, and the remaining trickles of red streaming from his mouth distracted Derek.

"I'm being serious, we have to get you to a hospital if that was your own blood you coughed up," he said, realizing the consequence of his word choice as Jacob looked back at the body on the floor. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that. You know what I meant."

"Sure," he said airily, still casually staring down. He sighed and put his hands in his pockets, mumbling something under his breath.

"Can you repeat that?" Derek said.

"Not sure if I have to go to the hospital, though," Jacob said. He met Derek's eyes, then motioned his head in the direction of the corpse. "You said, 'if that was your own blood you coughed up.'"

Derek became confused, until Jacob gave an insincere, toothy smile, teeth stained a visible red, four prominent pointed ones visible. The next moment a small click was heard and Derek looked for the source, which was a very bloody switchblade Jacob suddenly held. He lunged at him, dark eyes merciless. However, Derek matched the speed of the action with a dodge, then ran down the length of the hallway, outdistancing Jacob. In a daze, he banged on the doors while he sprinted, hoping to catch someone's attention. Soon he stopped, breathing hard, resting on a door. After knocking and running for what he supposed was a minute or so, no one had emerged from their room, not even the far away Josh and Teddy. Derek looked to his right, where a window lay a few feet away, the three-quarter moon shining in the sky. It was at this moment that he realized something. The hotel had been picky about putting people into rooms and was trying to fill it from the bottom up.

"There's no one else on the floor," he whispered fearfully.

He turned to his left to see Jacob, winded but determined. He took the blade and plunged it into Derek's gut, making him cry out and hunch over. Jacob used this opportunity to swipe his foot at his ankles before he could brace himself on the wall, collapsing him to the ground. Derek held a trembling hand over the wound, already bleeding into his shirt and pulsing to the touch. Jacob got on his knees in front of him, glaring into his eyes again before bringing his hand up again, diverting his vision, and stabbing through Derek's kneecap. He screamed loudly, his other hand flailing to grasp the wound, but was braced back by Jacob's hand. He now had the handle of the knife situated carefully in his teeth. After restricting his arm, he took the knife out of his mouth and, Derek's head conveniently turned, made a cut identical to the one he did to Nathan right down the side of his neck. He bit harshly into Derek, causing him to yell for help. At this, Jacob tore away from him, normally neatly styled hair brushing messily across his forehead, mouth open and fangs bright red with fresh blood, deep red eyes boring into Derek's tear-stained face.

Derek breathed uneasily, feeling slightly dizzy. He prayed that Jacob would've stopped to take mercy here. A flash of humanity darted across his face just as Derek thought it. For a moment everything was nearly calm, tears still streaming from Derek's eyes because of the excruciating pain he was experiencing. In a second, Jacob pulled Derek forward by the head, and the blade sunk into the back of his neck, near his head. The pain continued for a while longer, as Derek felt, but he was slipping away slowly as he had to sit and feel Jacob tearing a part of him open, draining him of blood with knife and fang.

Jacob morbidly savored the metallic taste of his vital fluid, sucking up whatever droplet surfaced. He worked out a lot more of the fluid by cutting deeper into his neck, occasionally catching a spurting artery messily spraying onto his face. Stopping to breathe, mouth and chin coated and dripping with blood, he stared at the paralyzed victim. He had only begun on this one. He made another deep cut just beneath the first one, more blood oozing forth. Lowering his mouth over it, his fangs sinking in around it, he tore off the skin surrounding the cut and spit the graft of it onto the ground. The wound bled out more so, Jacob going back to lap up the warm liquid still pulsing from the slowly dying man. Even beyond the final moments of his victim's life, he leeched off of the blood dripping out from the neck onto the floor.