The following months saw no progress on the case. Jules assured me that she would’ve updated me if there was anything to be updated on. Between the lack of updates, and the therapy, I had largely processed the events of the murder I had stumbled upon. The nightmares had started getting more and more spread out. The last one had been three and half weeks ago. And I was back to work. Finally. Tess had insisted that I take enough time off to properly make use of the therapy, but she had realized I was getting antsy without something to do. And no divorce cases. That I couldn't handle just yet. But there was enough white collar bullshit to keep me busy. Investigating potential corporate espionage. That kind of thing. This particular case was running late. It was dark when I drove home, and took the stairs to my floor. I shifted my bag, and flipped the corner of my jacket back. I dug my keys from my pocket. I singled out the apartment key by feel. Second one back, opposite the fob. My stomach growled, and I thought of spaghetti night. Tess would already have everything laid out, and we'd cook it together. Thoughts of pasta fled as my key hit the lock, and the door pushed open. Dead bolt still extended, but the frame around it shattered. I dropped my bag, and drew my gun. A monstrous thing. One that Tess had teased me over for years. Asked me what I was compensating for, as she gave me that look she did with the crooked grin.

"Tess?" I called out into the dark apartment. I flicked the light switch with my free hand. Nothing. Muffled sounds came from the dining room. I pulled my flashlight from my jacket pocket, and clicked it on, stepping into my home. What the fuck. A stranger stood over my wife. One hand around her throat, one hand raised to strike. One clawed hand. The fuck? Both looked at me. 

"Jane…help." My wife said, struggling for breath. 

The stranger tossed her aside like she weighed nothing. I pulled the trigger. The roar of the .45-70 cartridge likely woke the whole building. The stranger was fast, and the bullet passed by their head. They were on me in a step. The giant revolver was a great show of force, but was less useful in extreme close quarters. Whatever. One shot was enough for even the toughest person. I pulled the trigger again as their hand closed around my throat. I felt them jerk at the impact, but their grip didn't loosen. I pulled the trigger a third time as their mouth wrapped around my neck, and I felt the blood leaving my body. I fell. I didn’t feel the floor as I crashed against it. All I felt was cold. I should be feeling pain, right? Why wasn’t I hurting? Something parted my lips, and I tasted iron and copper. 

 

—*—

 

The detective stood. She was hungry. Ravenously so. Habit drew a stumbling step towards the kitchen from her. But no. That wasn't what she craved. Rhythmic pounding throbbed in her mind. Her vision blurred red. She sniffed the air. She smelled something— someone familiar. But it was a fleeting familiarity. Perfume worn by a past lover. Her gaze snapped to the figure on the floor before her. She heard cackling laughter from behind. But the hunger, she was too hungry to care about the sound behind. The figure before her scrambled back and the detective took an unsteady step forward. The figure made noise. Words. A name. Pleading. But the hunger throbbed, pushing thoughts aside. Nothing made sense. There was only the hunger. Warmth. Wet. Screams. Silence. 

 

—*—

 

I woke to the sound of sirens. I placed a hand on the floor to push myself to my feet, but my hand hit blood before it hit carpet. My head pounded. Worse than any hangover I've ever experienced. My line of work was sometimes dangerous, and I've been hit in the head before. But this? Hoo boy. When I found that stranger— FUCK. The stranger. 

"TESS?" I called into the darkness, mouth feeling like it was full of cotton, worse than the morning after a night of heavy drinking, "TESS? Are you—" My bloody hand flew to my mouth as I stifled a cry, "no…oh fuck, no." Tess was, well, the shape she was in explained the amount of blood on the—everything. Instinctively I reached a hand out to check for a pulse. My hand stopped half way when my brain caught up to the fact that she had no neck left to get a pulse from. 

"Tess, oh fuck. I'm so sorry. I should've been— I could have— shit. I could've done anything. I should've stopped that guy. I tried, Tess. I tried."

The sirens drew closer. I steeled my nerves. There was time for grieving later. I took in my surroundings. Whatever that fuck had done to Tess, he had made a mess of the apartment. I looked down at my own blood soaked clothes. And done a bang up job on their way out to make it look like I did it. I grabbed my revolver off the ground, and holstered it. The cops wouldn't give me a chance to explain, and no way I'd be able to track down the sick fuck myself from a cell. I wrapped my hand in a plastic bag, and stuffed a handful of clean clothes into the bag I had left by the door, and pulled my go-bag from the closet. I was hardly a prepper, but it never hurt to be cautious. Cops would be coming up the main stairs. I turned right out the door towards the back stairs. Worked out well. The stairs exited on the first floor by the manager's office. I had to be quick. The cops here were dumb as fuck, but even they could follow the trail of blood I left behind. I tried the handle. Locked. Private Investigator was an above board profession. But the boots on the ground reality was that people like me skirted the law when it suited. The lockpicks from the outside pocket of my bag opened the door easily. That was the hard part. The property owner had given me a deal on rent to set up CCTV on the building. I jiggled the mouse waking up the manager's computer. I clicked the "add new user" profile I had made when I set up the system, and put in my password. I plugged in a thumb drive, and copied the last six hours of footage. I listened at the door. Silence. Still. I pulled my thumb drive, and logged off. Donning my hat against the downpour, I stepped out the maintenance exit and into the night. 

 

—*—

 

I walked with no particular destination in mind. There would be an APB out for me by now. I needed shelter. Somewhere to recoup. Plan. My wandering brought me near the river. Well hey now. Tall silhouettes pierced the darkness. The silos. I couldn’t stay there long. Abandoned as they are, they were an urbex dream. But the tunnels below would keep me out of the rain. My flashlight revealed a padlocked trap door. A length of steel was enough to pry open the lock. Seemed dry enough. I carefully made my way down the ladder, closing the trap door behind me. I had no sleeping bag, so I simply sat with my back against a wall, and pulled my jacket tight around me. Having stopped moving, my brain finally had time to catch up with the rest of me and the death, murder, of my wife slammed into my heart like a truck. I choked back a sob. It didn't feel real. How could she be gone? Another sob wracked my body, and I tried to choke this one back as well, but there was no containing my grief. I wailed into the night, consumed by a sadness more profound than I had ever felt in my life. A sadness coloured by hate and rage. I would find the man who killed my wife. What I’d do to him when I found him? Well. Far as I was concerned, I was already wanted for murder. Might as well make the charge worthwhile. 

 

—*—

 

The nightmares were the worst they had ever been. A motel sat in a field of black. I had no control over myself. I was drawn to the stairs leading to the second floor. I tried to turn away, but the pull was inexorable. I resisted. Or tried. My hand was drawn to the handle. I tried to scream, but no sound passed my lips. The motel room had more blood than it did when I visited in reality. The walls were practically made of it. It was no longer Mrs. Renfrue tied to the bed, and eviscerated. It was Tess. And she was awake, despite the gaping empty chest cavity. She looked into, through my eyes. Into my soul. 

“You killed me,” she said, her voice coming from seemingly everywhere.

“No.” I told the body of my wife, “I didn’t— I couldn’t— I’d never—”

The rope binding Tess’ hand snapped. Her arm raised, and she pointed an accusatory finger at me, “Murderer.”

The single word cut as deep as any knife. Deeper. A wound on my psyche. “I—” Words failed me. Finally, whatever compulsion had pulled me into the room dropped. I fell to my knees. “I’m sorry,” was all I could muster. The words fell flat. Nothing I could say would atone for what I had done. Tess stood. Her chest cavity spilled blood over my hands. 

“Murderer,” she repeated. “Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.”

The chant continued. She continued to bleed. The room slowly filled. On my hands and knees as I was, I was soon up to my elbows in thick red viscera. I sobbed under the weight of her accusations. Unable to stand. The blood passed my shoulders. 

“Murderer,” my wife’s chant continued, drowned out and made faint by the blood smothering my ears. 

While the sound was drowned, I was not. Death was the easy way out, and I was afforded no such mercy. 

 

—*—

 

I woke for the second time covered in blood. Though this time it faded along with the nightmare. I checked my watch. The fuck? It was almost 20:00? I had broken into the silos around 03:00. Had I slept for seventeen fucking hours? I wiped the tears from my eyes. My therapist would hate me for it, but there was time for grief later. Bottle everything up for now. Get my shit sorted. I thought about the man, his hand around Tess’ throat; get revenge. I’d worry about grieving then. But first things first. I was fucking famished. I thought about my last meal. It was— Fuck. Breakfast the day prior. No wonder I was hungry. I hoisted my bag, and climbed the ladder out of the tunnels. It only creaked a bit. This deep in the industrial district was a food desert. I had ditched my phone long ago, so lacking Google Maps, I pulled the paper map out of my bag. I wasn’t really feeling White Castle, but I was hungry, and it was just across the highway.

The place was as empty as I had hoped. Not a lot of foot traffic around here. The inside was poorly lit, and the floor very clearly hadn’t been mopped in ages. I approached the counter, eyeing up the menu.

“You look dead,” the teen behind the counter told me.

“Well fuck you very much,” I replied, “it’s been a rough night.” I slapped a twenty dollar bill on the counter and ordered the combo. I took the bag and left. Minimizing my time inside would make it harder for the kid to provide a description if anyone asked. There was an empty lot across the way with bush cover from the road. I sat on the curb edging the cracked parking lot, and opened the bag. Peeling back the wrapper, I bit. I gagged. I choked. I stumbled forward and vomited. Oh fuck. The lot was poorly lit, but the amount of blood in my vomit was unmistakable. I tried to wash out my mouth with my drink, but Pepsi was, in fact, not okay, and I threw it up as fast as I could get it down. Fuck. What the fuck was wrong with me? I let out a mirthless laugh. My wife was just murdered in front of me, and now I’m vomiting up blood. Just fucking great. I tossed the remains of the burger into the bag, and crumpled it. Despite the vomit, I was somehow even hungrier now, and the fast food sure as fuck wasn’t cutting it. I glanced at the puddle of blood at my feet, and really needed to figure that out. I rubbed at the back of my neck. Hospital was certainly not an option. Maybe I could hit a walk in clinic in the morning? Until then, I wasn’t going to waste the night. Hoping I wouldn’t keel over from whatever it was that was making me vomit like that, I returned to my hideaway under the silos. Thankfully, I didn’t need wi-fi to review the CCTV I snagged from the apartment, but I would need to charge up somewhere soon. I found the entrance cameras, found my exit, and started scrubbing backwards. Huh. A few people in and out, but no one that looked like the guy that killed Tess. Odd. Was he maybe a resident there? But Tess and I had lived there for years, and we knew most of the other residents. It wasn’t a terribly large building. I shifted on my ass, trying to get more comfortable. I really needed to work on getting a chair down here, or something. I pulled up the footage from a different camera. This one covered the side of the building, and had a better view of the street than it did of the building. There. What was that? Across the street. About twenty minutes before I got home. I had to replay the section several times, and in the end I had to go frame by frame. Two or three frames there showed a human shape crossing the road. That meant, well, this guy would’ve been fast. Inhumanly so. Must’ve been a camera glitch. But with a time and a starting point, I pulled up another camera. From the parking lot pointing towards the building. Again, the guy was only in two or three frames, but there he was. Attached to the side of the building. Clambering up the brickwork. What the fuck? I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood. I felt my hunger spike, but I pushed it down. I checked my watch. Shit. Almost dawn. Might as well stay up. Be first through the door at a clinic, and crash after that.

 

—*—

 

Well. My sleep schedule was well and truly fucked. I had closed my laptop and shut my eyes for just a moment. And now it was dusk again. And I still hadn’t eaten. Not a great idea to make a habit of going to the same place for food, especially so close to my hiding hole so I crossed the river, and found a taco bell. It was a repeat of the night prior. A single bite emptied my stomach. Or it would’ve if there was anything left in there. Mostly dry heaving when trying to choke back my crunchwrap supreme. There was barely even any blood in it! Small miracles, I guess? But I couldn’t wait until the morning to try for a clinic again. My go bag had one of those shitty old flip phones. No sim card, but didn’t need one of those for 911. When the line connected to the dispatcher, I yelled “OH GOD SHE’S DYING SEND HELP! EMPTY LOT ACROSS FROM TACO BELL 24th AND WESTERN.” I clicked the phone shut, and laid on the ground next to the bit of blood and bile I left on the ground. I shut my eyes and hoped they wouldn’t dispatch more than a single ambulance. 

 

—*—

 

Props to the EMS. They showed up quick. I cracked my eyes open and watched through my eyelashes as the passenger paramedic leapt from the Ambulance before it had fully stopped. She raced over. I felt her press fingers to my neck. 

She whirled, and yelled “MAC! No pulse, grab the AED!”

The fuck? I was awake. I had a pulse. I definitely had a pulse. The paramedic grabbed my shirt and ripped it open. I drew my gun, and pressed the barrel under her ribs, “at least buy a girl dinner first, before you go ripping my shirt off.” The Paramedic screamed. I grabbed her vest to keep her from running off, as her partner, Mac apparently, rounded the ambulance and slid to a halt as he saw my gun, “you!” I called, “stop. Drop your radio. Don’t call out.” I pressed the barrel of the gun a little deeper as I turned back to the first Paramedic, “you too.”

“Don’t hurt us— Please.”

“Not going to. Just can’t go to the hospital.” 

Mac spoke, “so you’re holding us up because, what? The hospital won’t take your insurance?”

“Sure. Amongst other reasons. Point is. I need help. I’m desperate here.”

The Paramedic who still had hands on the two sides of my shirt took in a deep breath, “how can we help?” 

Mac started, “Fuck thi—”

“Mac. Stop. We help people. She said she wouldn’t hurt us.”

I read the Paramedic’s name badge, “Heather. Thank you. I owe you one.”

“Just keep your word, okay?”

I nodded. “I’m in rough shape.”

Mac muttered, “you look fucking dead.”

I glowered, but Heather spoke before I could comment, “bedside manner aside, Mac is right. I’ve never seen someone looking like you and still talking. You haven’t taken a breath since you poked me with your gun, you know.”

Suddenly aware, I made a conscious effort to breathe, “I haven’t eaten in three days. Can’t keep anything down. No food. No water. Anything.”

“Three days?” She frowned, thinking, “Mac, grab some saline. We need to re-hydrate her.” 

Muttered complaints aside, Mac obliged. 

The paramedic’s pulse was visible through the skin of her neck.

“Miss?” Heather asked.

It thundered in my ears. I could smell it. Her blood. I was hungry. Famished.

“Miss?” she asked again, with a hint of urgency. 

I realized I had zoned out, “what?”

“You’re staring.”

I shook my head to clear it. “Sorry.” 

Mac passed Heather a small syringe, and set a cooler next to her. He flipped the lid open, and my head snapped to look into the container. Mac pulled a bag of clear fluid from the cooler. Something inside me stirred. As in my nightmare, I had no control as my hand flew into the cooler and pulled free a red bag. I raised it to my mouth, and I bit. I tasted plastic. At first. What followed was the sweetest nectar I had ever tasted. The liquid slid down my throat. My hunger was, well, not sated. But I was no longer famished. I pulled more red from the bag.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Heather shouted and she fell back, scrambling to get away from me.

“JESUS CHRIST,” Mac echoed Heather’s sentiment. 

Suddenly I realized what it was I was doing. I—What? I had drained a bag of blood. And I liked it. Loved it. I— The look of horror both Heather and Mac gave me was— it cut. They were scared. Of me. I could be intimidating when the situation called for it. But they saw a monster. I scrambled to my feet. Took a step to run away. Paused. I grabbed the cooler and ran. 

 

—*—

 

Back in my hiding hole. I shuddered. What the fuck was happening to me? I stared at the floor. The three empty blood bags. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop myself from drinking the bags. Tearing them open. Licking every last drop from the bag. By and large, I had quit alcohol cold turkey. Which wasn’t to say I had never had cravings for it. I had them frequently, but save the odd temporary slip I had control of those cravings through force of will. The need I felt for blood made those pale in comparison. I sat with my back against the wall. The now empty cooler sat open on the floor against the far wall where I had thrown it. I was scared. I hadn’t been able to stop myself. I didn’t fear much, but losing control was at the forefront of my fears. Shit, I once drove 30 some hours because a commercial flight meant putting control in the hands of some stranger pilot. Now I was losing control of my own mind. I thought of Tess. I spoke aloud to the darkness, “Love. I’ll find the guy that killed you. I swear. I just— I need to get a grip first.” I paused, “I miss you.” I hoped wherever Tess was, if there was an afterlife, I hoped she heard me. I hoped she understood.