Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (35 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

The rest of that night is a blur, scattered in snippets, lost in a haze of drunken dreams.

I remember the bar’s bathroom, the cold tiles against my knees, the hard toilet seat against my arms.

I remember staggering to the bus stop. A man held me, stopping me from toppling to the ground. He did a bad job. I stumbled and hit the side of my face against the graffiti-marked glass.

I remember the smile from the man from upstairs with his hands on my hips. “I’m sorry,” he said to me with his deep voice. I remember the feeling on his hard chest against my face. I remember him laying in his bed, reciting the lyrics to Come Sail Away, the thick muscles of his arms flexing as he held me, played with my hair, caressed my body, undressed me—sadly, a dream.

I remember those bony hands guiding me towards my apartment and the smell of cheap cologne. I drunkenly broke away from his grasp towards my door, but he stopped me, spun me around, and looked into my eyes. The memory of his face is a blur—blurry yellow teeth, awkward blurry body. A warm plume of humid breath against my skin. The smell of garlic yam fries, cheap beer, and cheaper cigarettes. I remember his lips against mine—thin, dry—aggressive, like a suckerfish gasping for air. I remember throwing up all over the suckerfish’s chest.

I remember the man from upstairs, his strong arms holding me tight. He rolled on top of me and spread my arms out, pinning them at my sides. I remember his laugh, and his stubble tickling my chin as we kissed. His bulge pressed against my inner-thigh. His heart beat against my chest—another dream, unfortunately.

The next morning, my brain throbbed against my skull. The sun was a twenty thousand watt stage light, blasting through my window, through my closed eyelids.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

My phone alarm was shouting at me from a hidden location. It was louder than I knew possible, as if it had been plugged into the speaker system at a Who concert.

The smell a hint of cigarettes and cheap scotch still lingered on my body. I could still taste those papery lips—cheap beer and garlic yam fries…

I ran to the bathroom and hugged the cool porcelain. Never again.

My TV had been left on, still displaying the message: Are you still watching? It was time to make my decision.

No.

I would not like to watch my life slowly spiral down the toilet, to a place with all the shit and piss and used car emporiums and summers at Morgan Insurance. I’m not some helpless bug in the gutter, trapped inside a candy wrapper.

I put on the news as I dug through my closet. Hidden under a pile of dresses I never wore was my hiking bag. It was nearly a decade old, and so was the tag that was still on it. I going to fly to India after school, take the train across the country, and hike the mountains of Nepal. My first big adventure, the first of many.

I chickened out. The trip would have eaten up all my savings. I would have been left with nothing.

News playing in the background, I cut off the tag. Maybe I couldn’t afford Nepal, but that wouldn’t stop me from having an adventure.

I stuffed the hiking bag with everything I could think to stuff it with. My throbbing head was only a minor inconvenience that morning. If anything, it was the final motivation I needed to finally go out and do something—anything.

As I stuffed my bag, I listened to the news.

A local farmer was convinced aliens had been visiting his fields. He stared into the lens of the camera and yelled, unsure of whether or not the camera could hear him.

“Do they come down in flying saucers?” asked the interviewer.

“Flying—what are you on about?” the farmer said.

“Have you seen their spaceships?”

“No, there ain’t no damn saucers or teapots or any of that nonsense.”

“How do you know that these people are aliens?”

“Have you been listening to a damn word? They aren’t no people! They’re aliens. I’ve seen three of ‘em. One of ‘em looked like a big old cat. Big old black cat, like you see at the zoo. Yellow eyes, black fur, and big old teeth—like a panther cat. Saw another one the other day. Looked just like a man—all covered in orange hair. Son of a bitch must have been eight-feet tall.”

“Like an orangutan?”

“An orangu-what now?” I turned the TV off.

Bag packed, I left. My usual bus stopped across the street, filled to capacity with empty, expressionless souls. The little nook between the two businessmen where I would normally cram my body would stay vacant. The bus rumbled away and the street became quiet.

I started towards the great forest behind Ilium.

CHAPTER FIVE

INTO THE WILD

I had no plan.

I had no idea what I wanted to accomplish out into those woods. It was an impulse—an impulse I’d pushed away for years. Something called to me, and I don’t mean a voice, or some radio transmission.

Everyone’s heard the voice: the voice that said to put the Sea Monkeys in the microwave; the voice that told us to dig for treasure under the rosebushes.

There had to be adventure still in the world. Not just timeshares in Tampa, investment portfolios, benefits packages, three-speed vacuum cleaners, r fixed-interest rate mortgages, Christmas bonuses, suburbs, white picket fences, HBO subscriptions, IKEA summer catalogues, ergonomic chairs, Meatloaf Mondays and Taco Tuesdays…

I refused to believe that Ilium was it. There had to be more out there—and who knows? Maybe it was on the other side of those mountain?

The woods were cold and the treetops made the cloudy sky invisible. Gobs of rainwater fell from drooping branches, splashing into the ankle-deep mud. Heavy plumes of grey mist lingered between the ancient oak trunks.

Songbirds sang to the metronome of the groaning trees. Occasional breaks in the treetops gave me direction; able to see the peaks of the distant mountains, I knew I was still headed in the right direction. The woods became silent, the rain stopped. Suddenly dry, I knew I’d ventured far from Ilium.

My first major obstacle came in the form of a steep ledge. Carefully, I planted my feet down on the thick roots that protruded from the mossy dirt, and I climbed up to a sunny clearing. I could feel the sun’s rays lift the moisture from my clothes—the first sunlight I’d seen in months.

To the north I could see the mountains, to the south, the grey smudge of rain and pollution of Ilium. Tall smokestacks made Ilium resemble the Titanic—rotting and rusting on the ocean floor, while the ghosts of her passengers still aimlessly walked the sunken halls.

In my bag I packed a bag of rice, a flashlight, two boxes of meal-replacement bars, a sleeping bag, two water bottles, a small tent, some toiletries, and a change of clothes. Sitting on in the clearing, I pulled out a meal-replacement bar.

I didn’t rest long. With my snack finished, I continued racing the sun.

Past the clearing, a deep valley divided me from my destination. There was no way around it. Carefully, I scaled down the steep rocky ledge into the ancient depths.

The valley was damp, dark, and silent—no singing birds, no babbling brooks. Dead and dying trees arched and lurched overhead—contorted skeletons, frozen in the eternal night of the forgotten piece of wilderness. Only my thoughts were audible between the groaning of the dying valley.

The valley had no shortage of obstacles, including small, deep valleys of its own, difficult to navigate as their ledges were coated in slippery mud. Slipping, I caught onto a root. My bag wasn’t so lucky. It plummeted down, into the dark depths.

Finding my way into the pit was a challenge. Finding my bag was the real challenge. My eyes took fifteen minutes to adjust before I could find my fallen belongings. Somehow, my bag lodged itself between two rotten logs. I reached for it. As I did, something with more legs than I cared to count scurried across my hand.

“Jesus!” I screamed.

Reaching for my bag a second time, I noticed a small red welt on my hand. At first it was itchy, then it became sore. I didn’t think much of it—I didn’t feel anything bite me, after all. Maybe my hand brushed up against a patch of poison ivy at some point.

Out of the pit, I continued towards my destination. Then, I saw a familiar, contorted tree—then another, then another. Was I going in circles?

My head became light and my skin became cold. My heart fluttered. I didn’t know which way the mountains were. I didn't know which way Ilium was.

I stumbled; my legs were weak. My knees hit the mossy forest floor and a sharp pain shot through my body. Through hazy eyes, I looked down at the little red welt on my hand.

It was now a swollen violet lump, throbbing, infected.

My face hit the ground and the forest receded into a black abyss.