Thaw - An Original Character Story
Smoke curls up into the air in looping, elegant swirls; a bitter scent and smoldering ash at the tip of the cigarette it comes from. The room is small, practically a one-roomed hut, and bare but for where every piece of furniture has been shoved in front of the old, worn oak door in a fit of adrenaline he can’t repeat now. It won’t keep the beast out for long, he knows this, but it buys him some time to think.
The smell of blood almost overpowers the acrid smell of smoke and nicotine. It spills into the air, thick and sickly sweet-settles heavily into his lungs and makes him gasp for air he feels like he’ll never get. A single candle illuminates the rough walls of the cramped bungalow, throwing shadows against the rough-hewn paneling that resemble the monsters that lurk only in the minds of the depraved.
He leans back against the wall farthest from the barricaded door, a shotgun lying in the dirt by his calf and his hands pressing tightly against the wound on his thigh. It’s still bleeding, red staining his skin and turning the dirt beneath him into mud.
“Fuck,” he hisses, his voice tight and raspy from pain. He grits his teeth and grinds them together, the sound echoing in his skull and pushing him closer to insanity. Not that he hasn’t already become insane-he’s pretty sure he’s gone off his rocker. And to think, the day had started out so normally, too.
All he’d wanted was a weekend away-a few days to camp out in the woods by Brimham rocks, free of civilization and raging ex-wives. Well, just one ex-wife actually. His. He’d just wanted some stress-free alone time so he could rest and relax before her lawyers stripped him of everything on Monday.
Apparently, that had been too much to ask. Now he’s huddled in an abandoned cabin, his last candle burning down to nothing as he tries to muffle his panic and steady his breathing. It’s not working, is probably actually just making him worse, but he tries anyway. Anything to keep him from being noticed, though the candle probably negates any attempts he’s making to hide.
Something snorts outside. He presses a bloody hand against his mouth and prays it’s just some harmless wild animal. Blood coats his lips, the copper-rust stench clogging his nostrils. His stomach lurches in response, and his heart thumps painfully in his chest. His vision starts to go blurry.
There’s scratching at the door, and a soft growl fills the panicked silence he’s surrounded himself in. Whatever the beast is, it doesn’t sound happy. It growls again, louder this time, and he chokes on a strangled whimper.
The candlelight flickers and dies, throwing his world into darkness but for the cherry-red glow of the cigarette. Soon, even that’s gone when he stubs it out with the only foot he can use. The scent probably attracted whatever’s outside, but he hadn’t been thinking about that consequence at the time. Outside, the moon is nearly full, but no light breaks through the thick covering of trees. No one knows where he is-he’s miles from his campsite. They won’t realize he’s missing until a few days after he’s meant to come home. By then, it’ll be far, far too late for him.
Wind whistles through the cracks in the cabin, swirling around him and making him shake as it wiggles its way down his collar and trails icy fingers down his spine. He’d packed for warmth, but the night has been far harsher to him than he deems reasonable for what’s happened. It’s like any cliché horror movie, a man out all by himself being chased down by some rabid monster. It’s not fair.
He hears the beast moving around outside the door, which rattles slightly as it’s pushed against the furniture blocking its path. At least he can rest assured knowing it’ll hold long enough for him to grab the shotgun he brought along. He’s been paranoid for a long time, so he’d hauled it along as insurance in case something like this happened. He almost wants to shout in triumph that at least he has some sense, making all the people who scoffed at him wrong, but that’s not exactly the best idea right now. Not with some large animal prowling around just outside, testing the strength of his barricade before snarling. The sound of claws biting into old wood makes him jerk in fear, and he has to bite his tongue hard to make sure that no sound escapes him.
He hadn’t gotten a good look at the thing that had bitten him. All he’d seen in the night was a pair of glowing yellow eyes. All he’d heard was the heavy sound of something running towards him before leaping into the air and tackling him to the ground. Whatever it had been, it was enormous, and teeth had sunken into his thigh just as easily as a knife would cut into butter that was softened by room temperature.
His leg throbs at the memory of it, and he can’t stop the soft hiss that escapes past his clenched teeth. The thing outside stills, and then it growls before he hears it move away. It can’t be that easy. It’s probably just gone to find more of whatever it is so they can help to rip him apart. Maybe it’s a cougar. Or something. Maybe it escaped from a zoo, or someone brought it here illegally to hunt it for sport. Thoughts race through his brain, tumbling over one another in their haste to be at the forefront of his mind.
No sooner has he started to relax then something throws itself at the door, scrabbling furiously to try and get in. The tables and chairs shift and drag against the dirt, digging grooves into the soft floor as they start to move. Unable to help himself, he screams and grabs the shotgun, slamming the safety off before aiming at the door. If it gets in, he’s going to shoot the thing before it reaches him. It might not kill it, but it will at least be a last-ditch effort before he’s ripped apart limb by limb and probably devoured.
“Go away!” he shouts, trying to sound as fierce as he can. It doesn’t help that his voice wavers; that his hands are shaking so badly that he almost drops his gun. He swallows thickly, his adam’s apple bobbing, and bites at his bloody lips. The taste leaks into his mouth, coating his tongue and every surface and making him feel like he’s about to be sick.
Suddenly, whatever’s outside stills. There’s a second of silence, and then a roar. He screams again, pushing himself back as hard as he can against the wall, but nothing tries to get in a second time. There’s a sound outside, then a snarl, and suddenly the night explodes with yowls and screeches as whatever’s outside starts to fight something else. Maybe another creature came along, and now they’re fighting over who gets to eat him.
This is not the way he wanted his life to end. He’s only thirty, for God’s sake-not that he really believes in god despite being raised Catholic-and he knows he has so much more life ahead of him. First, there’s getting over Marie, and then there’s finding another wife. There’s another marriage that won’t end in disaster, and maybe a kid or two that will think he’s the greatest dad in the world. Nowhere in his plans is there anything about getting eaten by some rabid beast that escaped from the zoo.
Whatever’s going on outside, it dies down just as quickly as it starts, leaving him panting and shaking and freezing as the wind continues to rush around him through the small openings where wood has started to separate on the walls, and now where the door is propped open a good inch or two, letting in barely any light. What little heat there was in the cabin is now gone, replaced by chill and wind. He shivers in his windbreaker, which is doing nothing to break the wind, and tucks his chin down against his chest as he watches the door with wide, frightened brown eyes. He feels like a child that hides under the bed from the monsters in his closet. It’s almost scarily accurate. The thought alone is enough to make him hug his rifle against his body, curling into as small a ball as possible while still sitting. Maybe he’s lucky, and one beast killed the other before running off.
That, of course, is when the window explodes inwards in a shower of glass shards.
He screams, of course he does. He also tries to aim at whatever just jumped through the only window the cabin has, but there’s glass falling everywhere, including on him, and a particularly sharp piece cuts a small line down his cheek that he feels blood bead from. He makes a pained noise, but doesn’t lower the shotgun. His eyes strain in the darkness, trying to see what he’s aiming at, but there’s just blackness and shadows, and something else that’s breathing heavier than he is.
“Are you alright?”
That... is a human voice. That’s definitely a human voice. He almost whimpers in relief, because oh my God, that’s a human voice. No beast, no monster, just a flesh-and-bones human like himself.
“Oh my god,” he pants, struggling to stand up by pushing his back against the wall and trying to get his legs underneath him. “Oh my god, how did you find me here? Who are you?” His savior, obviously, but that’s not really the point. The point is that he’s saved, and that’s enough to make him almost want to cry. He hasn’t cried in years.
“A friend,” is what the other man says, crossing the limited space between them and putting a hand against his back as he helps him to stand. “That looks really bad. I heard noise from my campsite and came to see what was going on. Whatever those things were, they were running off when I got here. I figured something or someone was inside, but I couldn’t get in through the door. So, I used the window.”
It’s hard to see his rescuer’s face in the darkness. What little light does illuminate him only shows high, sharp cheekbones and a hawkish nose. There are no glowing eyes, no nothing, and it sends a shudder through him as he sags against the other man. Strong arms support him, nothing but steel hidden under corded muscle and skin that’s covered by a heavier coat than he has. Heat rolls off of the other man in waves, and he wants to weep for joy because it’s burrowing through the ice that has become his body and finally, finally, he’s beginning to feel warm.
“I don’t think many other people would have thought to use the window,” he slurs, and that gets a chuckle from the other man. The world is starting to go hazy, and he thinks he might be suffering from bloodloss. He feels lightheaded, and dizzy, and a whole host of other unpleasant things. His stomach churns unhappily. “I don’t feel so good.” His thigh burns where he was bitten, the sensation coiling through his veins and making him break out in a sweat. It burns like poison, like acid, and he bites his lip as he tries to stifle a definitely not masculine whimper. He already feels enough like a damsel in distress-no need to exacerbate the feeling.
“You’re probably suffering from blood loss. I don’t think we have time to get all of the stuff out of the way of the door. Do you think you’d be able to get through the window? I’ll help you as much as I can.” The man sounds so serious, like it’s either get through the window or die. Maybe that really is an option. Maybe he’ll die if he stays here, with the fire burning through his veins as it makes its way toward his heart.
“The window?” He looks at the broken glass that lines the edges of the destroyed window and feels his stomach swoop. At some point tonight, he’s probably going to be violently sick all over his savior. “I don’t know if I can make it through that. Looks pretty damn dangerous to me.” God, everything hurts. The window is a good half-way up the wall, which means it would come up to his chest, and that just seems like far too high for him to be lifting his injured leg.
“We have no choice.” And that’s all the warning he gets before he’s being picked up like some sack of potatoes. He shouts in surprise and pain, the sudden movement making his leg throb. His pants are soaked in his blood, and the cold air is making them stiff, which just makes it worse when the blood dries in the hair on his legs and pulls.
“Jesus! Put me down!” In no way does he squeak that out. There’s just no way he could. It sounds suspiciously like a squeak, though, his voice going high and cracking. He tries to push away, to stand on his own, but the other man is surprisingly strong. The guy would have to be, to pick him up so easily. No grown man should be able to pick up another grown man, even if one of those grown men feels like he might be a body builder. It’s just not practical, and it ruins the entire meaning of the bro code.
Now he sounds like a petulant teenager in his own head. He really must be suffering from bloodloss. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t even realize that he’s through the window until his feet touch the leaf litter outside. As soon as his left foot touches the ground, his leg gives out on him and he has to slam a hand against the wall so he won’t go face first into the dirt. Why do the Brimham rocks have to be so cold in early May? At least there’s no snow on the ground, though the bitter wind isn’t helping him feel any better.
There’s a thump behind him, and then strong hands are supporting him and lifting him so that not all of his weight is on his injured leg. “I’ve got you, man,” his savoir says quietly, but in the unusual silence of the forest around them, he might as well be screaming for as loud as he sounds. There’s not even a bird chirping; not even an owl hooting. It’s eerie, and obviously creepy, and it scares him more than a little bit.
“’S wrong with the forest?” His words slur, thick and hardly understandable. There’s no response from the man helping him stumble through the trees, avoiding all of the fallen trunks and rocks that he would never be able to see on his own. It’s strange, but he’s too out of it to really say anything. Maybe he’ll bring it up later. Or maybe the other man is just that familiar with the area. It’s possible. He used to know the field beside his childhood home like the back of his hand-every rock hidden by thick, swaying grasses and every mouse nest and snake’s hole.
They barely go fifty yards before they have to stop so he can rest. His body feels like one giant bruise, which wouldn’t surprise him if it was, considering how hard the beast had tackled him and how hard he’d hit the ground. Still, it’s an unpleasant feeling, and he can’t go even three steps before his leg gives out on him and his new traveling companion has to steady him before he goes face-first into a tree. He does not want to go face first into a tree.
A broad, strong hand slides down his back, the action comforting and understanding. “Take your time. Whatever those things were, I think they’re good and gone for now. Probably escaped from a zoo or something. They almost looked like mountain lions, to me.”
“Stop reading my mind.” He doesn’t mean to say it, but he can’t really be held accountable for what comes out of his mouth when he’s suffering from bloodloss and feels like he’s dying. Is this even what dying feels like? If it is, then he never wants to die, because that would suck. And now he’s using words like suck in his own head, which makes him want to giggle and immediately look for a dictionary at the same time. You’re not a teenager anymore, Christian Robert Bokkus. Stop thinking like one right now.
“What?” His savoir sounds confused. He doesn’t say anything back, though, and once he feels like he can breathe properly, even if it’s only a little bit, they start to walk again. Of course, he barely takes three steps before his leg gives out on him. His face doesn’t collide against a tree, but he does make some kind of emasculating garbling whine before he just passes out.
“Why did you bring him here?” A female stands over him, looking at something on the other side of him; her eyes glowing some kind of golden green color. That’s how he knows he’s dreaming, because no one has eyes that color unless they wear contacts. Maybe she’s wearing contacts. “It’s not safe!”
“Do not tell me what is safe for my own house,” someone growls back, and wow, that sounds kind of like the guy who jumped through a window to save him. Except he sounds different now-like he’s angry instead of concerned. It changes his voice completely. “I couldn’t exactly take him to a hospital. Not like this. It’s almost full moon anyway, and you know how the first moon affects them.”
Wow, he must be having crazy dreams. Either that or the people in his dreams are crazy, because wow, what are they talking about? And what does the full moon have to do with anything? He wants to wake up now. He wants to wake up because his leg feels like it’s being cut off with a blunt saw, and the thin blanket that covers him itches, and this dream sucks. And he just thought the word suck again, which really isn’t helping him at all right now, because he stopped being a teenager twelve years ago. Thirty-two year old men do not think words like suck.
“Dante, you’ve never had anyone turn in your house before. You’re not prepared for it. He’ll rip the place apart, and the noise-”
“Will distract no one. The community knows that he is here, just like they know that Jaseph was the one to turn him. And I take your insult against my skills personally. He’s barely a cub, and no danger to anyone. His mind is still incredibly young despite the fact that he’s an adult. I haven’t seen someone like him in a long time.”
When the woman speaks again, her eyes are a normal hazel color; her voice is soft and sympathetic. “You haven’t seen someone like him since Thor, you mean.”
A snarl rips through the air, and the woman jerks as though it were a physical blow. He doesn’t jump, though he feels like maybe he should. Maybe he should be freaking out and calling the cops, because these people are obviously crazy and now they’ve taken him hostage. Except this is a dream, so it doesn’t matter, and wow he really needs to learn reality from fantasy.
He’s always had a problem doing that, though. And he would really, really like to wake up now...
The room smells like sickness and blood. His body feels like it’s burning up, the thin sheet covering him sticking to his bare chest in a way that he feels should be disgusting and wrong. His vision is blurry when he opens his eyes, so he can barely see the figure standing over him until they lean down closer. Then the world rights itself and he’s staring into a pair of the darkest blue eyes he’s ever seen. He recognizes those high cheekbones, though, and that nose, and he’s reaching out before comprehending what he’s doing and gripping the man’s wrist.
“You saved me,” he whispers, only his words come out slurred and hoarse and tinged with confusion. “Where am I?”
“In my house,” the man replies. He doesn’t say anything about the way a complete stranger is clinging to his wrist with sticky palms. “You passed out in the forest and I brought you here.”
“Hospital?” It’s a weak rasp. He feels like a kitten could kick his ass right now.
“My house was closer.” His savior leans down further until his breath brushes over slick, sweaty skin. He wants to move away, feels like he should, but when he shifts even slightly he lets out a noise of pain and clenches his eyes shut tightly. God life sucks right now. Actually, he’s not a Theology major, and doesn’t even believe in God, so it’s better to just say that the universe sucks as a whole, and it hates him.
“This really seems like it should warrant a hospital trip.” He doesn’t have the energy to try and be persuasive. He just really doesn’t. What he does have is a body that feels like its fighting a high fever, and the burning pain of his leg that feels like it might be infected. Isn’t it too soon to tell that, though? Even if he did stumble and tumble through the woods and get all kinds of nasty gunk in the wound while he was fleeing for his life before he stumbled across the cabin. He is never going to go to Brimham rocks again. Not even to reclaim his gear. It can rot out there for all he cares. Animals can defile his tent and mark it as their territory if they want to. Which, by the way, is gross, but at the same time, no longer his problem.
“I can’t risk taking you to the hospital,” the man sighs, and he whines pathetically. He can’t be bothered to speak anymore right now. Speaking takes too much effort, and he doesn’t have the strength to even draw in proper breaths. There is no way he’s going to attempt speaking again.
“What’s your name?” Or maybe he is, because he’s stupid and he’s burning up from a fever. Rationality kind of goes out the window then. He tugs weakly on the wrist he’s holding onto, because he forgot he was holding onto it. The contact is nice. It reminds him that he’s not alone. Even though he already knew that, because there’s a man leaning over him and staring at him with some pretty intense eyes.
“Dante.”
“Cool, cool. I dreamed about you. You said your name was Dante in my dream, too. Weird, huh? Can I go swimming? I’d really like to go swimming. Maybe some cold water will help me.”
A hand presses against his chest before he can even gather the strength to move. Fingers dig into his skin, which feels hypersensitive, like millions of needles are trying to pierce through his skin from inside his body. It is not a pleasant feeling.
“What’s happening to me?” He tries to sound angry, but all he manages is blind panic. He can’t see Dante’s face anymore, not really. Everything is swirling together into a blur of colors that make tears leak from his eyes. A calloused thumb brushes one of them away, and he presses into the contact like a frightened child seeking comfort.
“You’ll learn soon enough,” he hears, and that does nothing to calm him down. If anything, it makes him panic more, and he tries to struggle his way out from under the blankets. The hand pressed against his chest keeps him down easily, though, and he eventually resigns himself to the fact that he’s not going anywhere.
“Can I at least have some water?” He sounds pleading, and weak, and that is not at all the way to make a good impression on people. Dante seems to think that water would be a swell idea, though, because the swirl of colors shift and suddenly the dark splotches that he thinks were the other man move out of his line of sight. He hears a door open and close, and feet moving down the hallway. As soon as they’re far enough away, he struggles to sit up and leans back against the headboard of the bed.
He has no idea where he is. He doesn’t even know what’s going on. Just moving that little bit of space leaves him gasping for breath as more sweat breaks out across his body. He curls his hands into weak fists, feeling his nails scrape against his palms, and closes his eyes as he tries to keep himself upright instead of falling over. Is this what being drunk feels like, without the pain? He never drank enough to get wasted, so he wouldn’t know, but he feels like maybe this is what getting drunk is like.
He doesn’t like it.