The Product Line (Book 1): Product (15 page)

With only fifteen feet left before it is upon him, he accepts that this will be his end, and relinquishes any control that he might have had to his instincts.

Tayvon’s body hurls itself into the air and grasps onto the structural supports above. He pulls himself high above the passing train, which zooms by beneath him, screeching like a banshee as it slides across the metal rails and pulls a long column of heated air behind it. At this impossibility, his conscious mind simply gives up.

***

A deep rumbling sound rouses Tayvon from his haze. He is in control of his body again, the bliss has faded from him and with it the uncontrollable thirst.

Tayvon surveys what is around him. He is perched precariously above the subway tracks, impossibly balanced in the beams of the support structure. The rumbling is the sound of an approaching train, which slides by underneath his location at breakneck pace.

In a panic Tayvon lifts his shirt remembering that he was shot and likely dying. Instead of a hole there is perfect unblemished skin. His arm, which was shredded to pieces, is also completely healed. Tayvon removes his shirt, which is now stiff and dark brown in color from all the dried blood, a firm reminder that the events of the previous day were indeed real.

Tayvon wipes at his mouth, brushing the caked-on blood rimming his face, and picks congealed pieces out of his chin hair and sideburns. He inspects the rest of his body. His earrings have been forced out of his ear and the holes have closed up. On his shirt appears to be dried ink, mirroring the tattoos that formerly resided in those locations, as if the ink itself was forced right out of the skin. No keloids or scars. No evidence of any of his childhood injuries. It’s as if he has a brand new body—a strong one too, as he realizes that he is still squatting over subway train tracks without even the hint of fatigue in his muscles.

--What the…

Bright columns of sunlight streak in from a handful of places in the superstructure above. One such column extends a few feet in front of him. Its glow is so bright he finds himself drawn to it. He can’t believe that it is only light and not something more, something enticingly angelic. He easily slides his body over onto another beam and reaches out to touch the light, expecting it to have mass and form.

When his hand slips underneath it is met instantly with intense pain, as if he has grabbed a hot dish straight from the oven. He recoils to assess the damage, of which there is none—simply the lingering burn in his skin, no blisters or bubbling flesh, which he would have expected from such an intense pain.

Tayvon drops from the support beams to the railway below, landing gracefully on the ground with hardly a sound. He stretches out, feeling this new strength coursing through him, and decides to test if the way he feels is actually the way he feels. Refreshed, strong, weightless. He starts running down the tracks, taking care to avoid the third rail, and can tell that his pace is incredibly fast. After a few minutes of sprinting he realizes that he doesn’t feel any fatigue. His muscles feel new and fresh and his lungs easily take in air and pump oxygen to his limbs. His whole bodily system feels supercharged and alive.

The excitement about his apparent new powers stops briefly as he begins to further consider the carnage of the previous night. He can only hang on to brief glimpses with any real clarity, but what there is to remember is horrifying. The sense memories of eating people, biting into their flesh and drinking them down, screams and terror. Tayvon is in no way unfamiliar with brutality, but certainly there is a line between being a tough guy and being what would in all ways be considered a serial killer. It was like he was rabid, unable to stop himself, unable to find himself in his actions. Weighing the equal parts of excitement and fear about this new condition would have been tough, if he does not have such remarkable experience with simply bottling up his emotions.
Small price to pay,
he rationalizes, and puts his guilt and conscience to bed.

He takes a few longer strides before pushing himself to jump back up onto the overhead rails. He moves like a graceful cat through the tunnel and propels himself forward and up as if gravity has no effect on him. The speed and rate of his rise through the air is so rapid that he has to grab the underside of a support rail to prevent himself from crashing into the ceiling of the tunnel. In the process, his forearm slides against a jagged piece of metal, and Tayvon is awash in a pain so fierce that he can’t imagine it possible. He squats on the railing cradling his forearm against his chest, watching as a thick stream of blood courses out from his arm. The smell is enticing but also repellent, as if his most favorite meal has been left out to spoil and sour.

Another train starts to make its way down the tracks, the more consistent subway traffic providing clear evidence that the morning has come and the workday has begun for so many of the city’s inhabitants. As the train slides underneath him, big drops of blood fall onto the roof of the speeding train, splashing in slow motion on the dingy gray metal. Then before his eyes the deep gash in his arm starts to knit itself back together. The loose flaps of separated skin start to open and close like a fish gasping for its final breath. After a few gasps, the wound closes altogether, and when Tayvon wipes the congealed dried blood from his arm there is no evidence of the laceration, just healthy perfect skin.

--Ha.

He lets out a large toothy grin. He cannot help but smile. He has spent his whole life as the son of a junkie whore, every night wishing he was something more, wishing to be something special—to be a big man. He wanted to matter. Now, whatever this is, this change, it’s brought him a gift. Some kind of X-Men superpower shit. It’s exciting, No matter what tomorrow brings, he knows one thing: that from this point forward, he is going to matter.

Chapter 18

Antonios has spent the last few days making his way across the countryside of Romania, moving at night and guided by the stars toward Constanja, the Black Sea port for Romanian shipping. During the night he runs as swiftly as his feet will carry him towards the south-east. He moves like a blur of smoke in the dim light of the moon. During the day he finds shelter in rocky formations, or buried under loose soil, anything that can protect him from the burn of the sun.

A compulsion to feed is coming over him. What started a day before as an ember has started to grow into a small fire. He knows that this will only become worse unless he takes in more blood. He knows it as he now knows so many things. His mind is working in a new way now—no longer are his the inexperienced thoughts of a child.

His only option is to find something else to feed on, be it man or beast. In an effort to replenish himself without once again having to hurt someone, he decides instead to take a moment to track down a rabbit that he has become acutely aware of. Never a strong hunter and lacking a bow or rifle, he knows that this pursuit could be time-consuming. Other than the clothes on his back, which were stolen from the dead, and the small dull blade in his pocket he is rather ill equipped for a hunt.

Regardless, he starts to focus on the sounds of the rabbit. Its tiny heart beats rapidly against the background of forest noises. The calls of nocturnal wildlife give way to the sound of the rabbit’s movement. He can hear quite clearly each tiny foot as it gingerly makes contact with the ground, its delicate hops as it moves along the forest ground foraging for food.

Rather than grabbing up a stone or stick to try to throw at the rabbit, Antonios decides to pounce from above. Once he gauges the distance to the rabbit he takes a small running start and hurls himself toward the rabbit, a clear thirty-foot jump. He lands on the rabbit with his palms forward and snatches it up by its neck. The rabbit struggles, trying desperately to free itself from his grasp. Antonios squeezes the base of its neck and crushes its spine. The animal drops limp in his hand, its limbs unusable, its heart still beating furiously as fear clutches its being.

Rabbit has always been one of his favorite meals. Antonios loved the flavor of the winter stew his mother would prepare—its combination of leeks, herbs, potatoes and fresh rabbit was fragrant and delicious—but he lacks the tools to create fire as well as the ingredients and recipe to fashion a stew. Forgetting about the blade in his pocket and eager to quench the fire in his belly, he tears a small rip in the animal’s throat. The skin splits easily between his fingers as if he were gently tugging the page of a book. Once the skin is opened and blood is bubbling out, he latches his mouth on to the wound and drinks deeply.

The flavor is horrifying, as if each drop is made of human waste. The blissful joy of feeding that he was expecting is instead replaced with a painful wrenching of his stomach and the emptying of bile and blood onto the ground in front of him. His heart races as it pumps, searing beats of angry blood into his head. This pain is punishment for his unwillingness to feed from the proper source.

When his body has stopped convulsing and the congealed and jellied evidence of the animal’s blood has completely left his system Antonios is faced with a new panic. He must feed, and the only thing that can possibly sate his hunger is the blood of men. The whispers bubble up inside his mind.

You must feed.

You must eat or you will perish.

He knows that he must eat, that there is a finality to his existence if he does not find blood soon. So he scans the horizon looking for anything that might indicate the presence of people. In the distance smoke billows into the night sky and orange firelight glows, though he imagines that the light is far less bright than his eyes perceive it to be. He sets his mind to one purpose. Feeding.

His feet carry him swiftly along the grass and through the trees. He floats downhill from the tree-line and moves silently toward the encampment. As he gets close enough to see the men, but still much farther away than their eyes allow to see out into the woods, he begins to assess the situation. His child’s mind is all but gone. He has the body of a man and the instincts of a killer, but still feels the cries of his loving mother in the back of his mind. Begging for him to remain a “good boy”.

No matter the requests her memory puts on him, he must feed. Somehow he knows that something terrible will happen if he does not. So he instead begins to form a plan. These men will eventually tire and take to sleep. He will use that opportunity to take one, steal him away from the group and hopefully keep the killing somewhat humane. Almost equal to his desire to feed is his desire to live, and though he believes in his core that he is responsible for the extermination of the remainder of his village, he does not yet have the confidence that should exist with his masculine frame.

So he waits.

He listens.

As his heightened hearing pulls the sounds out from their conversation, what he notices almost immediately is that these men are not from Romania. Their language is different, their skin is darker, and they have a scent, a smell of oil and musk. Furriers perhaps? Traders. Their horses are lined with pelts and other goods and they have an ample reserve of weaponry, either for hunting or defending their goods.

He does not understand their words, but begins to listen intently as they talk, his mind making associations with their movements—where they look when they make sounds, what they signal to, what statements prompt laughter or anger.

The jumbled sounds of an unfamiliar language begin to melt away and give rise to a new awareness that Antonios is starting to understand their words. He quietly mouths the breathless words himself as he listens in on them.

--Banek, you would be lucky if a woman opened the door for you, lest her thighs be spread.

The others both laugh. Banek stands up.

--My cock has made its way ’twixt many thighs.

The third man tears off a piece of salted dried meat in his mouth and while laughing adds his thoughts to the mix.

--Aye, a few bits of silver can open many a thing.

All three men laugh at the comment and nod in agreement. Banek loudly announces that he must relieve himself and turns to away to urinate.

--Hmm, perhaps the goat has turned.

He touches his stomach and lets out a rather foul burp.

--Aye, take to the woods a bit, I do not want to spend another night taking breath from shit-filled air!

--I agree. Into the woods with you.

--And keep your noise down upon return. I am through for the night.

Banek makes a gruff sound and is then taken by a pang of urgency and walks into the woods towards Antonios’ location.

This is Antonios’ chance, his best opportunity to steal this Banek character away from his compatriots. He will not have much time, nor will he want to kill the man so close to the others. No, he will need to subdue the man and take him far away from the others, so that should he end up in some sort of blood rage as he did before the others’ lives will be spared.

Antonios stalks closer toward the man, his feet moving quickly but falling with a sound as soft as leaves dropping from the branches above. As he gets closer the urge inside him starts to burn, compelling him to simply pull back the man’s head and chew into his throat. He can feel the man’s heartbeat on the hairs of his arm and hear the gentle rhythmic whooshing of blood throughout his body.
This man, this food, it should be eaten now,
he thinks. But his thought is immediately followed by the memory of his mother and her eyes when watching that demon kill her.

Is that what he has become now, a demon? Some awful bloodthirsty monster? Some wretched creature unable to stop itself from killing…

He remembers Eliska’s eyes and how sad they looked when they set her ablaze. He recalls that she did not look like an evil demon or monster until her life was so close to ending, then the demon came out.
Perhaps,
he thinks,
it is this that makes the evil manifest, a closeness to death. Everything needs to eat in order to sustain life. If I do not eat, then I too will near death and perhaps loose the demon inside me.