#killigan

He was all warm smiles, his teeth white and pearly and perfect, even if a little too sharp. His eyes crinkled at the sides. He was expressive and kind, his hands always reaching, always touching, always smoothing. His nails were black and short and he never wore jewelry so that he could run his hands through people’s hair without a free of getting snagged. His body was cold but not distant, wrapped in soft fabrics that were easy to hide inside.

“I won’t hurt you,” Killigan had said.

His hands shook and he hid it, pulling his long hair away from his face. The only give away were his ears, the soft points leading people to think he was more fae than fiend. His teeth were sharper and his eyes lingered, not on his friends, not on anyone specifically, but on bared skin, fresh cut meat, whoever was close. He pulled people close, breathed in, and held them in.

“I’ll never hurt you,” Killigan had said.

There was red in his eyes, not in the iris but in the white. He bit at his own lip and when he sliced through it with teeth that were razors no blood spilled down his pale cheeks. His hands were hidden in pockets, his gaze on the floor, and he was erratic, frightened more than frightening. He couldn’t focus, not on words, because he was listening too hard, to something under the skin.

“You’re safe with them,” Killigan had said.

Rhys knew what he was. It was in the crowd that he hung around. Vampires weren’t the worst out there, they at least had control, most of the time. Xi was a lot less in control and the forest scared xim. There were wolves out in the distance and xi could hear them, wondering why xi decided to come here at night anyway. Xi knew that if xi lost control xi would be with them, running through the underbrush, catching and killing whatever they found.

The cabin was terrifying as well though. There were hunting traps and tools hanging off of the slanted roof, long metal things that may have once been weapons or tools. There was a welcome mat, but it couldn’t be read anymore, too worn through, too full of blood. The windows were all boarded up, but from the inside. Xi knew that xi was in the right place, but xi wanted to be anywhere else.

There were traps, ready to be sprung on the porch, in the leaves on the way. They were obvious though and they were old. Rhys poked a few of them with sticks and only one in four snapped closed, and even that was slow and with such low force that the stick came away unscathed. They had been purposefully blunted.

Killigan didn’t want to hurt visitors. He wanted them to go away. He was trying to be frightening with the cabin, not with himself.

Rhys knocked on the door. Xi could see movement inside, a pale, emaciated humanoid figure pausing, looking around, and then shambling away. He knew that xi was there, there was no way that he couldn’t. Rhys was sure that Killigan had known that xi was there as soon as xi had gotten out of the car, more than a mile away. The cabin was secluded, there was no road to get there.

Xi didn’t bother knocking again, just took the doorknob and pushed. The door was locked by a small rod of metal, like a camp bathroom, nothing really. Rhys’ hackles rose, xir sense of smell growing to catch a whiff of old blood, wood rot, mildew, and xir own sweat, as xi pushed, feeling the wolf’s strength in xir arm as the small bolt broke out from the wall.

“Killigan?” Xi asked, entering the cold cabin. Other than a few books, left open with their spines broken on the floor, upset by movement, a swath of hardwood polished by pacing, and a lack of dust on a few surfaces, it didn’t look like anyone lived there. The fireplace was dead and had been so for a long time. There was nothing around aside from a sagging couch to provide comfort. It was more like a messy cell, a place of punishment, than a reprieve from the world.

Rhys called out for Killigan again but he didn’t respond. He wouldn’t. The others had told xim to expect this, that this was just how Killigan got sometimes, when he didn’t let himself eat. He would go out to his cabin, pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist, and sulk. This seemed to be more than just sulking though. Rhys kept xir eyes wide, focusing for any movement. Xi could feel the muscles in xir face ache, twisting and stretching to make xir eyes capable of sight, xir nose capable of smell, and xir ears capable of hearing. Xi didn’t want to go full wolf. Xi never did, but a little would only help xim.

There was a kitchen towards the back, which had a stairwell down, into the cellar. Xi didn’t know why Killigan would want to hide down there, but xi followed the scent, a small hint of the humanity that Killigan still had in the detergent of his clothes.

Nothing was locked in xir path and xi caught up quickly enough. The cellar was more of a crawlspace than anything else, and what Rhys saw there made xir hair grow, a thick collar of fur around xir throat, claws growing from xir nail beds.

“Kee ajan?” Xi asked, the syllables hard in xir mouth, too hard to come out. Xi was getting close, too close, to losing ximself.

There were bones down here. A lot of them. They were animal, mostly, with pink outlines made of rotten fur and whatever was left of their bodies. There was no skin on any of them, though there were tendons and sinews keeping some of them in their proper shapes. They all had their one spot, none of the skeletons touching one another, almost as if they were used in a ritual or had been laid out in shame.

Killigan was in a corner, curled in on himself, clutching at the bones of one of them, not the whole skeleton, it had been moved too much to keep its form, just random pieces. He didn’t look much like Killigan, not now. His curly hair was all matted, his hands and feet elongated and clawed. He was still wearing his black robe and loose pants, but there was a pinched quality too them, far too large and yet constricting him at the same time.

“No,” Killigan whimpered, “No, go away!”

“M’not,” Rhys kept approaching, stepping over the bones as best xi could. “Not without oo.”

There was a crack, the bones in Killigan’s hold snapping from how tightly he was holding them. “I can’t! Please! You have to understand! I can’t! I can’t...”

Rhys stopped, a few feet away from Killigan. The bones in his hold weren’t like the others, weren’t that of a deer or rabbit. These were cherished, hidden away, and now damaged by his own fear. Fear of his own hunger. These were human.

Killigan was a monster. He had killed people, a lot of people, when he’d Reaved in the past. Now he had a small cabin, where he could hide away from the world, when he felt the need to again. But he regretted it. They all did. Some hiker, probably, had stumbled close enough to the cabin while Killigan was starving, and he’d drained them completely.

They were all monsters. They were doing what they could to make up for that.

Killigan was crying, though there was no moisture in his eyes, in his body. He was ricking though, eyes closed, and his gaunt, broken features were twisted into such sorrow. He wasn’t mindless, not yet. He still knew what he had done. He knew what he might do.

Rhys breathed, tried to control ximself. Slowly, xi could feel the wolf squirm and wriggle, bury itself once more under xir skin. Xi felt tired, muscles aching, but ximself. It was just the two of them, in a cellar, as much themselves as they could be.

“It’s okay,” Rhys promised, kneeling down, extending xir arms. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”

“You don’t!” Killigan glared. “Please, you have to leave, before I...”

“What, kill me?” Rhys rolled xir eyes, over dramatic, on purpose. “You know I have a death wish already. You kill me I’ll probably thank you.”

Killigan was just staring though. There was something wrong with his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.” Rhys crawled closer, touched Killigan’s arm, made him jump. “Why don’t you put those down?”

“Reminder,” Killigan chuffed and there was a sob in his throat, no way to get it out. “What I am, what I’ve done. I’m… I’m the worst. The absolute worst. She was just lost. She didn’t know what I was. She didn’t deserve it. None of them ever did. I’m a monster. The absolute worst! I should just go to the hunters, let them destroy me, so I can’t hurt anyone else!” The words were coming faster and faster, a terrible knot in Rhys’ chest as xi heard them. Killigan meant it. He really felt that way.

Rhys was sure that xi would feel that way with xir first kill. Xi wished xi’d never get to that point. “Punishing yourself like this is just going to make things worse though. You’re more likely to do it again if you’re like this. You have to take better care of yourself.”

Killigan shook his head. “No. No, If I’m far enough away, if people were to just leave me alone, they’d be safe!”

“People love you, Killigan! They love you! Everyone you know loves you so much. They’d come even if you were completely gone, if you were full Revenant. They want you to be safe, to be happy. I’m just the first but others are coming, they’re all coming, to make sure you’re okay.”

“You’re lying.”

Rhys could feel anger flare in xim. Xi didn’t know how to break through this, xi never had been any good at it. “I’m not! Think about it. You do this sometimes, hide away from the world, and people always come, don’t they? Why would they do that if they didn’t care about you?”

Rhys was close enough now, they xi could touch Killigan. Xi reached out, the same way that Killigan had so many times. “Come on now, let’s go upstairs and get you something to eat.”

Killigan was staring at xim, and now xi could see that the whites of his eyes were the color of fresh bruises, the skin around them dark from exhaustion.

“I’ll hurt you,” Killigan said.

“I know, but that’s okay,” Rhys replied, peeling Killigan’s arms around from the hiker’s skull. “I trust you to stop when you need to.”

It had taken adecade for his body to recover, a century for his mind.

He was shaking. Hisstomach was an empty pit. His ribs were jutting out and he wheezedwith each step. His hair was thinning and matted. He was stillstrong, but strong like a dog that plans to bite the hand that forgotto feed it for the past week. He didn’t know about his face,couldn’t see it, but he could imagine how gaunt he had become, howterrible.

He scoured thewasteland. He was always scouring the wasteland. He’d gone fromcity to city, or the ruins of them, looking. Looking for something toeat, looking for something that could kill him, looking for someother survivor. He’d made it this long on supermarkets, where themutated rats would gather to eat the remnants of humanity. They werell that was left, other than a few birds that he couldn’t hope tocatch.

He was carrion.

He had decimated thepopulation of three cities. Devouring the cancerous blood of all ofthe citizens, all of the small furry things that used to be calledpests. It had been four cities since he’d last seen another likehimself. He had killed her, done her a kindness, just as he had allof those before.

Back when they wereplenty, at the beginning of all this, when the war was won by thedead, their kind had slowly picked themselves back up, piecedthemselves back together, and made communities. It was the first timethey’d been able to, since the humans didn’t like when there wasmore than one vampire within a hundred miles of another. It had madethem nervous, made them too aware. So this was the first and tensionwas high and the food supply was low, dwindling by the day. They wereeating the remnants, sucking down hospital supplies and what animalsthey could find, until there was nothing left. And then they startedto starve.

Suicide wasn’t anoption. For most types of vampire it took a lot more than slit wristsor hanging to get the job done. They had to ask for help. They had tonail one another down with stakes, burn their own hands as they cutoff heads and filled them with garlic cloves, as they cut the bodiesinto pieces and tossed them into the sludgy, polluted water. Therewas no dignity in it, but it was better than becoming one of thoseRemnants.

He had always pickedthe short straw.

He had killed somany of his own kind that, at the end of it, there was no one left tokill him in return. So he wandered, day and night, wearing the cloaksof his friends, one on top of the other, stacked thick, to protecthis skin from the terrible sun. The ozone layer was practically goneand the sun would destroy him, turn him to ash, faster than it everwould have before, but then the moon would come out and he would beforced to put himself together again.

He’d seen ithappen before. Seen a lot of people try to end themselves that way.They didn’t survive coming back all the way, someone had alwaysbeen kind enough to kill them, to end the misery of their nervesstitching back together over the exposed bone.

There was no moremercy in this place. There was no more anything.

He didn’t have amap. He didn’t have anything to know where he was going. He doubtedthat a map would have helped anyway. So many of the cities had beenwiped out, just the foundations visible, from the missiles, thatheading towards anything specific was a waste of energy. He wentmostly by his sense of smell. It was stronger now, he could smell ifthere was blood miles away. It wasn’t congested by all of the lifearound him and it was honed by his hunger. He had smelled a lot ofit, coming from a direction that he assumed to be east.

By now it was sostrong, so thick, that he was moving at a half jog. He hadn’tsmelled something so strongly in a while, it was like a buffet, likethere was just so much food in the distance that he was salivating,his pupils dilating to take over the bruised whites of his eye. Therewas a hill ahead and he climbed it, gladly, knowing that there wouldbe food on the other side, juicy and wet and waiting for him.

He bellowed in painas the bolt struck him, wood and silver, shredding through hisshoulder. Fire tore through him, first from the silver and then fromthe sun, his skin, exposed from the hole, burning away, turning toash. The bolt fell to the ground at his feet. He covered the holewith one gloved hand, glaring at the sound of a crossbow beingreloaded.

There was a woman,with a crossbow, a bandanna over her face and goggles over her eyes,a scarf keeping her hair close. She was sensitive to the sun as wellbut she wasn’t like him. She was human. She was a buffet wrapped inclothe. He was salivating.

Behind her he couldhear people moving, more weapons coming out. He would have to movefast, dispatch them, bind them and force them healthy so that hecould feed. He could live forever, until the next lifeforms took overthe planet, as long as he kept this little group of survivors,huddled and hiding in the ruins of a city, alive and breeding.