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Mike follows him for hours. Until he's sure. Until he's sure he knows the scent, the laugh, the way he ducks through the shadows. There are a few of them with him, prowling through the alleyways, and he trails them all at a distance, knowing that he has no heartbeat for them to sense, no flowing blood for them to smell. They aren't all the same ones, he knows it. But this one.
This one.
He waits until the group breaks up, chuckling about their own hunts, their own plans to feed. The one in which he's most interested splits off and heads down a side street, hands in pockets, head down. Just another wanderer in the night. No one special. No one remarkable.
Mike presses his back against brick and inhales deeply - not out of need anymore but purpose. Inside the apartment directly above him there's a woman, older, slower, colder, but alive. Moving a little. Drunk. A few yards away a cat is creeping silently through the shadows. There are rats.
But for all intents and purposes they're alone.
The man in front of him - a man and not a man - pauses, tilts his head back. He appears to be middle-aged, rough around the edges - not poor exactly but a man who's worked hard all his life for not very much in return. The air is freezing, but there's no steam drifting up from his mouth and nose.
Mike steps into the light. "Hi."
The man turns, and Mike catches the look of surprise on his face giving way to a look of shocked realization, and that's all he gives the thing the chance to do before he lunges.
With his machete, there had been finesse. Not a great deal of it, but some skill, some pride taken in wielding a weapon effectively. He had placed importance on practice, on honing that effectiveness.
Now there are teeth.
Before that, there's a scuffle, and he knows it must look awkward and half drunken, to the point where anyone seeing it will be unlikely to make much of a thing out of it. Before, he couldn't have done this, but now he's strong beyond anything he could have achieved as a human, strong enough to get the thing in a reverse headlock and drag it back into an alley almost devoid of light, nothing but shadow.
"How the fuck," it manages to hiss, and Mike briefly considers answering. How he's alive, for a given value of life. How he's doing this. Why it mattered enough to him to set aside some time, expend some effort. Why this is a very meaningful experience in which he wants them both to share.
Then he tears its throat out.
The rest of it is a pleasant blur. It's surprisingly quiet - no screaming to do with no functioning vocal cords to do it with, and he loses himself in the easy, smooth rhythm of destroying a body that is, in most important respects, still indistinguishable from a human's. The blood tastes bad and he spits it out, but he expected that, and anyway the blood isn't the point. The point is that the thing is alive through it all, alive as he shatters its bones, as he curls its intestines around his fingers and pulls, as he rips and tears away whatever pieces he can get enough of a grip on. It's alive as he crouches over it, laughing, and it's alive as he pulls the flask from his pocket, uncaps it and pours.
Pushes to his feet and steps away.
He hasn't immobilized it, not fully, and it's crawling toward him as he backs up, reaching into his pocket for his lighter. Its mouth is moving, though he's smashed at least a few of its teeth in, and it's trying to say something through that black-slick ruin. Looking at it, he still doesn't feel any rage. No particular hatred. That's not to say that it isn't personal, but...
"Thanks," he murmurs.
The point is that it's alive when he sets it on fire and walks away.
No, he wouldn't have chosen this. This is far from ideal. But he's been a monster for over a year now, for a lot longer than that, and there's something about it that feels so...
Right.
But now it's time to go home. He's filthy. He needs to shower.
And he's hungry again.
This one.
He waits until the group breaks up, chuckling about their own hunts, their own plans to feed. The one in which he's most interested splits off and heads down a side street, hands in pockets, head down. Just another wanderer in the night. No one special. No one remarkable.
Mike presses his back against brick and inhales deeply - not out of need anymore but purpose. Inside the apartment directly above him there's a woman, older, slower, colder, but alive. Moving a little. Drunk. A few yards away a cat is creeping silently through the shadows. There are rats.
But for all intents and purposes they're alone.
The man in front of him - a man and not a man - pauses, tilts his head back. He appears to be middle-aged, rough around the edges - not poor exactly but a man who's worked hard all his life for not very much in return. The air is freezing, but there's no steam drifting up from his mouth and nose.
Mike steps into the light. "Hi."
The man turns, and Mike catches the look of surprise on his face giving way to a look of shocked realization, and that's all he gives the thing the chance to do before he lunges.
With his machete, there had been finesse. Not a great deal of it, but some skill, some pride taken in wielding a weapon effectively. He had placed importance on practice, on honing that effectiveness.
Now there are teeth.
Before that, there's a scuffle, and he knows it must look awkward and half drunken, to the point where anyone seeing it will be unlikely to make much of a thing out of it. Before, he couldn't have done this, but now he's strong beyond anything he could have achieved as a human, strong enough to get the thing in a reverse headlock and drag it back into an alley almost devoid of light, nothing but shadow.
"How the fuck," it manages to hiss, and Mike briefly considers answering. How he's alive, for a given value of life. How he's doing this. Why it mattered enough to him to set aside some time, expend some effort. Why this is a very meaningful experience in which he wants them both to share.
Then he tears its throat out.
The rest of it is a pleasant blur. It's surprisingly quiet - no screaming to do with no functioning vocal cords to do it with, and he loses himself in the easy, smooth rhythm of destroying a body that is, in most important respects, still indistinguishable from a human's. The blood tastes bad and he spits it out, but he expected that, and anyway the blood isn't the point. The point is that the thing is alive through it all, alive as he shatters its bones, as he curls its intestines around his fingers and pulls, as he rips and tears away whatever pieces he can get enough of a grip on. It's alive as he crouches over it, laughing, and it's alive as he pulls the flask from his pocket, uncaps it and pours.
Pushes to his feet and steps away.
He hasn't immobilized it, not fully, and it's crawling toward him as he backs up, reaching into his pocket for his lighter. Its mouth is moving, though he's smashed at least a few of its teeth in, and it's trying to say something through that black-slick ruin. Looking at it, he still doesn't feel any rage. No particular hatred. That's not to say that it isn't personal, but...
"Thanks," he murmurs.
The point is that it's alive when he sets it on fire and walks away.
No, he wouldn't have chosen this. This is far from ideal. But he's been a monster for over a year now, for a lot longer than that, and there's something about it that feels so...
Right.
But now it's time to go home. He's filthy. He needs to shower.
And he's hungry again.