Under a Silent Moon

4

Chapter Four: Just Another Body

ZACK

The iron grip at the base of my stomach clenches and twists, lurching me forward. You'd think that by now, after six months of this bullshit, I would have adapted to the abhorrent pain that plagues my body on the daily. There's a familiarity with it now in the sense that I know what the ache is demanding of me. If I don't feed soon, there will be dire consequences. I learned that the hard way.

I shift uncomfortably in the shadows under a covey of trees near the center of Grasshill Park. There's a certain wild titillation that comes with the advent of a kill. But tagging along close by is the very real notion that this is my life now--a life of lurking and hiding and consuming raw flesh. The thought of eating undercooked steak used to send a wave of nausea through me. Now the idea of bloody meat onsets salivation. 

Before my transition, I wasn't much of a hunter. I didn't relish at the idea of killing animals. But now, crouched in the park, hungrily eyeing my prey as it grazes nearby, the fact that this thing is alive and may even have a soul barely filters through my mind. All I can focus on is some innate, ravenous instinct that drives me to kill without mercy. Only six months ago, if I was hungry, I may have become a little aggravated or tired. Now when I feel the hunger, it's like every other thought and emotion melts away into oblivion and I can't focus on anything else until the intense craving is satisfied.

From behind my eyes, I can feel a sensation twist my features into something inhuman. It isn't something I've ever experienced in my mortal life, and it sort of terrifies me.

Before I can pounce, the doe lifts her head up, mid-chew. She eyes an oncoming threat and trots away. I curse under my breath, scanning for the cause of her departure. A group of teenagers are coming along the trail. Before they're even remotely close to me I can smell the alcohol in the air--the first time I've smelled the sickly sweet aroma since the night I was turned. I rise up from my hiding place to creep back into the thicker parts of the woods that line the perimeter of the park, but my feet ignore the command.

It would be easy to lure one of the unsuspecting teens into the trees and snap their neck. Depending on their level of inebriation, it wouldn't be much of a challenge to claim the lot of them as my prey. Just on cue, my human instincts come knocking at the door of my civility, reminding me that murdering a person--let alone a group of them--is not in the cards for me. It isn't who I am. Then again, it's hard to remember who I used to be let alone figure out who I am now.

My family is very religious. We go (went) to church every Sunday up until my disappearance. Although one can never be sure, I was always comforted by the thought of a higher power watching over us and guiding us through life until we reach our end. This belief was never something I had questioned much before, it had simply been a certainty in my life.

But, now.

Now I'm a creature of the night, no longer living, only surviving. I've lost my family, my friends, my life altogether, and what did I do to deserve this? There are much worse people out there than me, a seventeen-year-old guy just trying to make it through high school. There are murderers, rapists, pedophiles. Real-life monsters that are very human. All I did was go to a bar to drink underage and this is my eternal punishment?

Although I'd love to curse God's name, I force the vile thoughts from my mind. What's the use, anyhow? I'm already damned.

I climb a nearby tree and perch on a branch that dangles above the path the teenagers are encroaching on. One of the girls pushes the other into the bushes below me, laughs, and takes another swig of some amber liquid sloshing around in a glass bottle. Her friend in the bushes jubilantly screeches something at her and hastily joins the group back on the dirt trail. I missed an opportunity, one that was virtually handed to me wrapped in a bow. My sanity thanks me. My stomach, not so much.

I'm so consumed by my cravings these past six months that I haven't truly had the opportunity to think about my family. I'd venture to guess that my dad is furious. I've basically missed the entirety of the school year and therefore probably lost my scholarship. I wish I could tell him that I haven't run away, that I didn't get involved in a gang or drugs or anything like that. I hope he knows me well enough to know I wouldn't bail on school for a day, let alone half a year. Although I haven't seen my dad since my transition, his disappointment is palpable in the air, suffocating me.

My six-year-old sister, Julia, is probably unbelievably confused. Every night, we read a story before heading to bed. When we would stumble upon a word that she didn't recognize, she would pause and slowly sound it out, her eyes promptly flitting to my face. I would smile at her like she had just accomplished the most impressive feat I've ever heard. I'll admit that on occasion it would be frustrating how long it would take us to read a considerably short story because of her frequent pauses, but never would I speak these private thoughts aloud. It would have destroyed her.

I wonder if Dad reads with her now.

Shaking the image of Julia's big brown eyes from my head, I refocus on what's undeniably essential right now--survival.

My elongated canines--fangs, if you will--ache. I haven't fed in over 24 hours and my body is becoming desperate. Even the thought of feeding on myself passes through my subconscious but I rebel against that macabre notion.

I've been a lurker for the past six months, living in the woods, the park, and the most cliche place of all for someone like me--the local cemetery. It isn't that I feel closer with "my people" there (whatever that means), it's just that it's a quiet place with seldom temptations. However, at times, the temptation is difficult to abstain from. It would be quick and easy to take a life and bury the body somewhere nearby. I notice that the cemetery's visitors often come alone to grieve--no witnesses. And nobody would question the freshly upturned soil. Just another body.

But, I would know. And I fear that if my hunger won't eat me alive, my guilt would.