Predatory Blood

No such thing

Beep... Beep... Beep... It felt weird. Hearing the noises of a hospital monitor that showed if he was alive or not. Jackson never had to go to a Hospital before, at least, not in the state he was in. He would usually go for check-ups. One day he would be five-foot-four. The other year he would be Five-Foot six, and now he's all grown up-Five-foot eleven. A young, healthy rich boy with pride as his name now stuck on a hospital bed, so much for being healthy and full of pride. As he lied on his back for three days doing nothing but admiring the cast on his arm and watching TV, the young boy reflected on that night. What was that thing? Why was it so big? Why did it go for him? 
All these thoughts raced, but they were briefly interrupted by the television. 

"Weather reports say that this week will be in the high Nineties and the lower seventies heading up to Sunday. On this Fine Monday morning, we're expected to be on the lower sixties but transitioning to the eighties, and a few weeks off we'll have yet another beautiful full moon--"

Click Jackson didn't care much about the weather. Desperately trying to change the channel, he finally found something about cars and expensive showcases. Weather reports were too boring. 

His fine afternoon of watching TV was suddenly ruined by the nurse coming in to check up on him, telling him that he was ready enough to get out there and do some good. Jackson's mother soon walked in after the nurse, with his father not being present.  

"My son!" She said full of glee, "I'm glad you're recovering just fine!" She went to give him thousands of kisses, but Jackson quickly dismissed them 

"Yeah-Yeah, Yeah--I love you too and whatever--Nurse, get me outta' this would ya'?" The nurse quickly began to help the injured boy out of bed and to have his arm carefully placed against his chest. "It's best if you don't use this arm too much, keep it at this position until tonight, then remove the bandage and you should be fine." 

Jackson was already gone before she could even finish the sentence, luckily the words didn't fall on deaf ears and quickly were picked up by the mother.

Hours passed by as they finally drove home before having to do errands. Jackson was just happy he could get back on his laptop and communicate with his friends on how sick and awesome the fight was, on how he was super brave and kicked it right in the baby maker, but unfortunately, no one was online to hear such an awesome tale.

Instead, Jackson sat down and began to play his game. It's been days since he was able to just relax and use both his arms, despite his mother and the nurses' warning to just let it heal up. That's when it happened. 

Jackson suddenly began to sniff the air, rather strangely. He suddenly got off of his bed and began to move to the source of the smell. It traced him back to the fridge, and most importantly, the freezer. 

He was a little freaked out that he wanted to dig in there, but what shocked him more was his urge to eat the chicken in there without considering to cook it first. It just looked so tasty. The meat... so pure, so... thick.

He let out an audible gasp and pretty much slammed the door shut to the freezer. He could feel himself questioning everything that had just happened and ran upstairs. Once he was in his room, an incoming call began to ring from his computer. It was Stephanie. 

"Miller? Jackie? Hellooooo?" She announced her presence without taking into consideration that Jackie was digging around for his headset. "Jackie, I swear--if this is a prank I'm--"

"I'm here!" He announced, slightly annoyed. "I'm here. Finally. What is it?" He rudely asked. 

Stephanie rolled her eyes behind her screen and asked, "I just wanted to see if you were doing okay. You know, that arm didn't look pretty a while ago."

"it's fine." He answered, rubbing the cast on his arm. "I can move my fingers which is great. Can't do much else though... Hey, Stephanie...?"

She quickly glanced back to her screen, "Yeah, what's up, Jackie?"

"I just had a strange craving."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I just..." He paused, unsure if he could say such a thing. "I just thought of eating chicken. Y'know, raw chicken." 

She placed a finger on her chin. "That's strange. You could get a disease from that," she then added, "Don't those fancy books you read tell you that?" 

"Well, yeah but I wasn't thinking about that. Just how juicy it was," he explained with embarrassment arising from his voice "How... tasty." 

She stopped him mid-sentence and let out her suggestion, "Could it be that the creature that attacked you that night was a werewolf? My Grandpa' said..."

Jackie soon interrupted her with a growl, "Oh not this again," He announced, "I swear you tell this story every single time. Your grandpa was out huntin' and he saw a werewolf. You grandfather is nuttier than candy-bar shit, Steph." He absolutely didn't care about saying the truth, even if it was rude. He continued, "There are no such things as werewolves, how many times I've got to say this? I thought you would've said somethin' else, guess not." Afterwards, he let out a sigh and began to realize that he had snapped to her in a way he'd never snapped onto her before. 

She sat there silent, unsure of what to make of this situation.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me, Steph. Look, I'm sure I'm just really hungry. I mean, that hospital--I guess every hospital don't serve the greatest meals to dying people." He suggested, trying to apologize. "I really don't know what came over me just then, I mean now. I got upset, and I'm sorry."

Stephanie sighed as well, "It's okay. If I'm right though, you just showed a sign of being a werewolf. Very defensive. Maybe not over terr--"

"Goodbye, Stephanie. I have things to do." Before she could even say anything, Jackie hung up on her and slid over to his bed to lie down. "Werewolves" he repeated, "What a joke. Ain't no such thing as werewolves. 'Nor vampires. Or good lawyers." He rambled on, staring at his video game screen. 

"Ain't no such thing." He whispered to himself. Reassuring himself that she was just as nutty as her grandfather, why did he fall in love with such girls? It was a tough question to answer, but an answer would've been great right there and now. All he could do now was just think, think about the work he'd have to do once he got back from missing so many days.