A Monster and What Was Once a Man

PROLOGUE

Isaac

I don’t know how long it’s been.

There are no windows here, no clocks. I can’t rely on mealtimes; they’re giving me one or two meals a day, just to stay alive. The throbbing ache in my stomach never fails to remind me, and neither does my toothpick of a shadow, thrown onto the steel wall beside me by the little buzzing light bulb overhead.

I have just enough space to lie down straight in any direction. The only way in or out is the giant rectangle, carved out of the metal and bolted wonderfully; despite my efforts, it hasn’t budged since I got here, and they give me my food through a little flap at the bottom. It’s degrading, as is this whole situation.

I’ve calmed enough to give up on fruitless escape attempts. Instead, I try to work out why I’m here, not that knowing will make a blind bit of difference anyway. My mind keeps coming up empty, though; I must’ve been chosen randomly. It’s the only possible explanation.

My vital thoughts are interrupted by the loud clank of sliding bolts.

I wish I could jump to my feet, but I really haven’t got the energy; instead, sunken eyes dart to the door from my hunched position in the back corner.

Suddenly, a tall man looms over me.

His hands are tucked into neat brown trousers, paired with a basic white button-up and black tie. My unkempt dirty-blonde hair makes quite the comparison to his, which is carefully kept swept into waves of platinum blonde. Well, still, he’s not much to look at.

But my father has always been like that.

Dad?

Has he come to save me?

He must have seen the shock on my hollow face, because instead of a “hello” or “where have you been”, the first thing he says is:

“Isaac. I understand why you’re confused. I reckon part of it is from fatigue, and for that, I apologize. I’m told it’s better for the procedure, that your body will have a harder time rejecting the change, and since they’re under my mercy, I trust what they say.”

I try to process all the clues being thrown at me, but seeing my father before me has already thrown me way off.

He speaks again before I can respond, this time to someone else.

“Hold him down, please.”

A handful of blokes in white lab coats rush into the room behind my father, and before I know it, they’ve yanked me away from my corner. They pin me to the cold stone floor with white, trembling knuckles. I try to resist, but I only manage to get out a pathetic kick or two.

“Dad!” I call desperately, my voice cracking from weeks of disuse. “I ain’t done nothing!”

He looks down at me with the slightest hint of pity, which is worse.

“I know, son. But that’s the thing, you see; I need you to.”

“What?”

What?

He removes his hands from his pockets, and with them, a sharp needle filled with a milky-white liquid. He lifts it up to the feeble light, turning it in his hands like a prized possession.

“White. It symbolizes new beginnings, simplicity, clarity. I think it’s quite fitting. It’s truly beyond our time, I’ll give them that, perfect to the last detail.”

The closer he gets, the more I struggle and fail. My breath comes in short gasps as I buck and kick, and my father bends down to my eye level.

“It’s the only way,” he whispers.

And he plunges the needle into my neck.

As my vision begins to darken, the men loosen their grip and let me slump weakly to the cold ground. So, so cold.

Eyes drooping, I watch my father from where I slouch on the floor as he speaks again to the men in white. They listen with distasteful looks, but he ignores their aversion.

“It’s done. Let him know…to move on to…expect he’ll be…watched?” his voice drones. The men nod.

Strangely, I can’t quite make out everything he’s saying; the words sound warbled and distant.

“Good. Let me…significant adva…on’t want to st…any lo…”

He stops suddenly, leans back down, and whispers one last time as my eyes flutter closed. I can hear him this time, but the words sound muffled and echo around my head.

“Of course, Isaac, I’m grateful to you for your sacrifice,” he murmurs.

The darkness begins to smother me like a heavy fog. It calls to me from the edges of my drifting consciousness, lulling me to sleep.

“Thanks to you, I will be celebrated.”

* * *

PART ONE

Victor

The fifth body was different from the others.

It was drastically more gruesome, torn apart for the spilling of human blood. But I know it wasn’t pure anger that drove it to this; somewhere behind those unnatural eyes, it cowers from the fear of man. And, likewise, the inescapable need to feed.

It could have been the work of a rabid animal, but everyone knew better. It was only the first week since the attacks began, but already, sightings of it were posted all over the newspaper and cried out over the heads of hungry crowds at Trafalgar Square. Irritatingly, some of them were fabricated and tailored to suit a certain devil, but the message behind them was all the same. It had become quite the star in London, and soon, news of it would be all over the country.

Still, we were all left helpless as it prowled in the shadows of the city outskirts, with no trail to follow and no clue to solve.

* * *

PART TWO

Victor

Today marks the third week, and the body I’m looking at is the thirty-fifth.

I sit silently at the desk in my private office, blinds closed to the restless rhythm of London. A small bulb hangs above my head and stretches dark shadows across the walls and metal cabinets.

The picture in my hand is from one of five files. Their contents, once stacked neatly in beige folders, are scattered haphazardly before me. To make room, a disarray of lamps, random objects, and cold cases sit forgotten on the wooden floor, but I intend to clean it all later, after all this is over.

The biggest file belongs to the creature itself; its previous locations, victims, appearance, behaviour. It contains most of the ghastly photos. On top of all this, I’ve added all of my personal observations: suppressed impulse control, amplified primitive survival and feeding drives, severely heightened aggression. Despite not yet having encountered it in person, that much is clear.

The other files belong to four possible suspects for this strange case, which I’ve labelled clearly in red.

HH. An illegal cult feared even by the government, its name allegedly short for “Hope of Humanity”. It sounds endearing, but witnesses claimed they spend most of their time performing dark rituals in worship of the devil and recruiting clueless citizens. The unholy propaganda currently sweeping through London is the main reason for the suspicion, in case this creature was somehow created for its benefit.

Dr. Michael Byrne. A wanted man for illegal human experimentation in the pursuit of scientific progress. Looking at the gruesome pictures taken at his abandoned sites, the mad scientist is certainly dedicated to his cause. Due to further investigations, past interrogations, and the nature of his projects, he currently remains law enforcement’s leading suspect in this case, and many witnesses also seem to blame him after seeing the creature in person. Alternatively, I disagree with these accusations; however smart the man may be, I don’t think he could’ve accomplished something like this.

Government project. This one is filled with theories and rumours about a secret project led by our own government. Existence and progress uncertain. Intentions, unknown.

Natural causes. The theory of a strange animal that has been hidden in the corners of our world. However, this raises too many questions about how we weren’t aware of such a creature before now.

I wrote down every name that appeared in the reports. Every statement, every clue, every whispered rumour. Yet, nothing is connected; there’s no pattern. This unpredictability frightens me most; it isn’t picking and choosing, but simply satisfying its hunger.

As expected, it’s made London into a feeding zone.

The time has finally come for me to end this, but how will I kill this monster if I can’t find it?

Right on cue, a faint wail cuts through the silence, followed by a choir of screams and the thundering sound of a city on the run.

This is my chance.

Without wasting a second, I grab my brown trench coat, matching fedora, and beloved revolver. I check its cylinder and, sure enough, six gleaming rounds of silver bullets wait patiently. I’ll have to use them wisely; they aren’t easy to find, especially for a non-federal agent like me.

I explode out the front door and begin to make my way through the overcast city of screaming crowds and abandoned cars. As I run, the old red-brick buildings turn grey and daunting under the clouded sky, towering over the screaming people below. Still, I push on, desperately shoving my way through to the Square a couple blocks away.

I have a feeling that it'll be there.

When I arrive, the Square has gone completely mad with terror, swarming with hysterical men and women running in a disorienting flurry of colourful fabrics. The messy sight is accompanied with the sounds of shrill screaming, firing guns, and lost children.

It did astonish me how citizens still go to work and run errands, even after listening eagerly to horror stories from fear-stricken men. Though, I suppose, hearing of such a ghoulish monster made it seem more like a scary story to tell children in bed, or rather, a conspiracy theory meant to “make people realize the truth”. Either way, in the heart of the big city, tucked in the crowd, they had been safe from its reach.

But it’s quite clear that its existence, the actuality of the situation, refuses to be ignored. They run in different directions, but from one direction in particular.

About fifty metres in front of me, a grey figure hunches on all fours over a splattered red mess.

It twists and tugs violently as it noisily tears into innocent flesh.

While it feeds, it pays no attention to the handful of policemen a few metres away, who soon turn white as their bullets barely dent its ashen skin. However, I know something they don’t; pure silver has the ability to melt through its flesh. As I think this, the gun feels more comfortable in my hand.

As though it can hear my thoughts, it suddenly turns around to look at me.

I let out a shuddering breath.

It’s hideous.

A pair of unnaturally wide eyes stare back at me, bloodshot and milky-white. Its deformed grey face drips with dark blood, skin stretched too thin over a bony skull. The rest of it, like its face, is distorted in a strange way that I can’t explain.

Without warning, its milky pupils contract and its bloody mouth opens in a snarl. It twists and lunges in my direction, meal forgotten on ruined concrete slabs.

My breath catches and I force my body to move, sprinting back the way I came. My heart races in my ribcage.

How did it seem to recognize me?

I spot what looks like a hidden path between two apartment buildings and change course, but suddenly find myself turning into a dead-end alley. It’s empty, of course; who would be enough of an idiot to escape here?

I slam into the towering brick wall at the end and turn to face the way I came, back braced against the merciless barrier. There are no doors or ladders anywhere. I have no choice.

I watch as its shadow appears in the alley and stretches towards me.

I will make my fate, here and now.

* * *

PART THREE

Victor

A light drizzle of rain begins to curtain down from the grey clouds. In the Old Smoke, the cobblestone streets become treacherously slippery with mist, and a gloomy veil settles over the damp concrete buildings.

In front of me, the grotesque creature stands hunched over on two feet in the dark alley, its still silhouette outlined in the spitting rain. Rain drips down its staring face.

Across from it, I squint through the mist with my back braced against hard brick, standing just as still. Suffocating suspense blankets the space between us, making my hands tighten around the revolver until my knuckles pale. I slowly raise it until it points straight at its forehead. It blocks my only way out, and as the saying goes, ‘kill or be killed’.

“We meet again,” I hiss.

A guttural snarl escapes its bared teeth. One crooked foot shuffles forward, and I click off the safety so that it echoes through the alley. A silent threat.

I blink, and gasp.

It now stands two inches in front of my gun.

I draw a shaky breath as bulging eyes bore into me, and it wheezes through a gaping mouth. Up close, its skull is sickeningly misshapen and its limbs disturbingly long.

What a disgusting insult to Mother Nature.

Without warning, an ear-shattering screech rings in my ears, and as if it was loud enough to split the sky, the clouds above us thunder and begin to pour.

Like a starting pistol, it marks the beginning of our death match.

Without wasting a second, I move first.

It dodges my first bullet, and I take the chance to shift so that we’re braced against opposite walls.

I raise my gun again, water running down my seething face, and remind myself that I still have an advantage: the creature itself doesn’t know its silver weakness, and if I play it smart, I can use that in my favor.

My second shot rings in my ears, missing its torso by a hair.

We move again in the rain, circling each other like starved sharks.

It jumps at me before I can react, long limbs stretched towards my head, face twisted with rage. I fire a third shot but miss as it shoves my arm aside, knocking my gun to the ground. I grunt and land hard onto my back, losing my hat as well. However, it’s the least of my concerns.

Fingers digging into my shoulders make me buck and kick, splashing both of us with dirtied rainwater, but it’s no use. My hand reaches desperately for my gun and comes short. My breath comes in short gasps as I begin to panic.

“Shit!” I spit as I continue to struggle.

This is not how I die.

My adrenaline sets off an idea in my head, and I wriggle a bent leg between us. I aim a kick directly at its shrunken stomach, managing to push it away just long enough for me to shimmy towards the gun.

Drenched to the bone and lying on the cold, wet stone, I aim once again and fire, finally landing a mark on its left shoulder. A hole burns straight through its flesh and leaves a sizzling mess in its grey skin, making it shriek in pain.

As I slip and scramble to my feet, its crazed eyes turn to me again, brimming with fresh anger. Its pain gives me hope, but it lunges at me a second time, and speed is certainly not on my side.

Nonetheless, I stand my ground as it jumps onto me and rips wildly at my clothes, trying to reach warm flesh.

“Get the fuck off me, you wretched beast!”

Staggering back, I press the tip of the gun to its skin and fire a fifth bullet directly into its gut. It screams in agony but continues to desperately tear at my clothes until it finally reaches my stomach.

As it tries to tear my skin, pain tears through me. I yell out and writhe in agony; a mistake. It sees my reaction and becomes even more aggressive, and soon, thick, dark blood drips onto the stone. I’ve fallen to my knees, the weight bringing me back down to the cold ground.

What better time to use my last bullet?

Gasping in pain, I press the gun into the side of its neck and fire one last time. To my relief, it goes straight through the flesh, and splatters of dark red mix with the water running down my laughing face. Its eyes roll back in its head.

Finally.

It goes limp on top of me and I push the disgusting thing off. It slumps to the wet stone, making the puddles around us turn red. The body shudders one last time on the paved stone before finally going still.

I wait another moment before reaching into my coat. I pull out a pocket knife and hold it up in the rain, slowly approaching the body, and watch as water gracefully runs down its glinting edge.

I plunge the blade into its exposed neck.

Murderers must face the punishments of the law.

The knife is rather small, in my opinion, but I manage to cut through its flesh, slicing eagerly like a birthday boy would his cake. Blood spurts out and gushes out into the alley, staining my hands, but I push aside my repulsion. My hat lays forgotten on the ground.

I can still hear screams in the city. Soon, they will see what I’ve done.

They must be caught.

Once done, I grab the back of the detached head and victoriously lift the gruesome sight to the grey sky. Thick, red rain runs down its still-twisted face and oozes into the dark alley.

They must repent.

“Thank you, Isaac,” I murmur into a bloodied ear.

And I will be celebrated.