Alice Henderson - Voracious

Biting down hard, she shook her head, tearing a gash in his neck. But she didn’t let go, though parts of his skin and muscle tore off in her mouth. She swallowed them. Sucking powerfully, she drew his blood into her mouth, taking full, deep swallows of the hot liquid.

He twisted beneath her, tried to angle his neck away, but she clung on, taking in gulp after gulp, resisting the urge to vomit.

He pushed at her, the bony spike withdrawing back into his body, re-forming into his rib cage. She sank her teeth in tighter, sucking and consuming as much blood from his veins as she could physically swallow.

He shoved her away. Her teeth took a large swath of skin with them as she stumbled backward. Bringing her hand up to her mouth, she shoved the skin inside and chewed it, forcing the hot, meaty mass down her throat.

A dizzying warmth spread through her body, a tingling fire that swept over the pain and drowned it out completely. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed, spilling onto the floor. The warmth spread, singing to her in a chorus of sweet voices, extending to every part of her being.

She could no longer see. Her vision made out only a brilliant glow, and she lay in ecstasy as the song filled her body, entered her bloodstream, her breath, the synapses of her brain. She closed her eyes.

And visions filled her head.

Beyond the magnificent gates of the Sumerian city, the olive-skinned young man standing above the strange, dark void, seeing the flash of movement, something wet and sinuous, down in the depths. Reaching in to touch it and hit with a fiery light that knocked him hundreds of feet through the air…

Awakening, later, no longer human, but a thing that could change shape…

Wandering, lost and alone through a desert, starving…

Stumbling upon a band of nomads and falling into a feeding frenzy, ripping them apart and devouring the soft insides, drinking their water, stealing their clothes…

Later, stunned that the memories and experiences of the nomads were now his own, the knowledge of desert survival and so much more, he becomes addicted, desiring to eat more, vowing to eat more…

Learning to control the changes, to heal superficial and grievous wounds alike, to appear as anyone the creature desires, to manifest weapons from his very body…

Madeline’s eyes snapped open. She rose to her feet.

Power surged through her. With every pulse of her heart, the creature’s blood coursed through her veins. And with each heartbeat, her body touched that blood. Her psychometric gift could feel everything about the creature, all of its experiences and memories, all of its abilities. She knew every terrifying and wondrous detail. Knew so much that she didn’t know where she ended and the creature began.

Every muscle in her body tightened with that knowledge, her mind focused on the creature across the room. She lowered her head and brought her arms up. Healing surged through her, closing her wounds in a single instant.

Still standing against the wall, the chair embedded deeply in his body, Stefan struggled. He gripped the chair’s seat and pushed forcefully, freeing the legs from the wall. He tossed the chair to the side and stepped forward.

Two long, gleaming spikes emerged from his arms, ending in vicious points.

Madeline didn’t move. She no longer knew fear, only power and purpose. Focusing the fiery energy singing within her, she lifted her hands higher, breathing out, flesh transforming instantaneously to reflective silver, the metal sweeping down her entire body until she was solely comprised of the deadly alloy.

As the creature swung one speared arm, she ducked to the side and thrust her hands forward. Each metallic finger detached, hurling into him at high velocity, disappearing deep within his flesh.

He staggered back, one arm spike returning to flesh as his concentration severed.

Fresh metallic fingers surged out, replacing the old. She extended an arm up and summoned a sharp saber, its hilt and her hand joining in a single mass. She lunged forward, driving the sword into his belly. He howled in agony, stumbling backward. Her hand severed from the blade, leaving it embedded inside him.

She summoned a second, matching sword, and as Stefan’s body crashed onto the floor, she drove the blade into his chest, crunching through ribs until she struck the wooden floor beneath. Her hand separated from the blade.

Stefan twisted on the ground, screaming. His body passed through torturous changes, forming into victims past, then lumps of bone and sinew, then arms flailing in a bloated mass of bleeding tissue, finally returning to his original form once again. Then he fell still, one tremendous disk eye forming and blinking in shock. It withered and returned to a human eye as he gulped for air. A single tear pooled and spilled down his face. And then he was gone.

The metal in her body receded, revealing flesh once more. She looked down at herself, her body completely healed, untouched. No hole in the chest. No ragged wound in the abdomen. Even her knee was perfect.

She rushed over to Noah, who still hung on the wall. He looked up at her with tearing eyes, intense pain clenching his jaw shut.

Carefully, she cupped her hands under his arms and lifted him up off the hook, amazed at her own strength, but at the same time already knowing she had it. She could feel every ability of the creature just waiting for her to use it.

Gently she laid Noah on the bed. The creature had stripped all the skin off his chest, but Noah’s back and face luckily suffered only superficial cuts. Blood seeped into the linens as he lay back on the sheets.

Tenderly she moved each strip of skin back to its original place while Noah cried out and shuddered in agony.

“Just lie there,” she told him when she was done, “and you’ll heal.” She kissed him on the lips. “Just like always.”

Before her eyes, the skin began to knit back together over the muscle beneath. She sat down next to him on the bed, holding his hand. In an hour, though the cuts were still deep and evident, the skin had completely reattached itself. In another hour, the cuts were only deep red lines in his skin. Wolves began to sing in the darkened forest beyond.

In the third hour, he reached up and curled his hand behind her head, pulling her down to kiss him.

Noah and Madeline dragged the creature’s body out to the middle of a meadow and dug a deep hole, working through the small hours of the night. They dumped him inside it, still full of metallic spears, and threw dirt over him. Then they rolled several large stones on top of the location to mark it in case they ever needed to go back.

But both of them hoped they’d never have to.

Then they climbed into George’s car and drove back down to West Glacier, talking excitedly and holding hands the entire way. Noah didn’t know what to do with his life now. He was free, and so giddy about it that a few times his bouncing in the passenger seat almost made Madeline drive off the road.

She felt the world differently now; new abilities within her waited to be explored, and she looked back on the experience in the cabin with a mind full of wonder.

At the gas station in West Glacier, they found George sitting miffed on the hood of Madeline’s Rabbit.

It was 4 a.m.

“There weren’t any vacancies in any hotels around here, you know,” he snarled, but only after he hugged her so tightly she thought her ribs would break for the second time that night.

Noah and George shook hands, and she convinced Noah to return to Mothershead with them.

“Why not?” he said, throwing his arms around her and kissing her. “We can do anything we want!”

They climbed back into the Toyota, George driving this time. As she got into the passenger seat, George looked over at her and said, “You seem different.”