The Blood Talisman (5 page)

They walked around one corner after
another. They passed several doors that were marked with the names
of the many administrators, the people that ran the hospital. They
came to a set of double doors marked ‘Inertia Meeting
Room’.

“
I got Dr. Jackson here,”
the Commander said into a little black box that resembled a small
speaker.

After a few moments, the door buzzed
and they gained entry. The Commander once again grabbed Dr. Jackson
by his white coat and dragged him into the room. In the middle was
a long meeting table surrounded by big, leather, high-back chairs
with chrome trim. There were men and women dressed in business
suits in the chairs. At the head of the table was a tall, burly man
dressed in an up-scale black suit and a red silk tie. His jet black
hair glistened under the lights. He was clean-shaven and his skin
had been kissed by artificial sun.

“
Have a seat, doctor,” the
beautiful man said in a superior voice.

He waved his hand at an empty chair
towards the end of the table. The Commander let go of Dr. Jackson
and he quickly made his way over to the chair. It swallowed him
whole, but he straightened his lab coat and sat up straight. The
Commander crossed his arms and stood patiently in the corner of the
dark meeting room.

“
Do you know why you are
here, Dr. Jackson?” a woman asked.

She was sitting next to the end chair.
Her black suit and red lips contrasted perfectly with her blonde
hair and tanned skin. She was rather beautiful and it was difficult
for Dr. Jackson to look at her, much less speak to her.

“
Ma’am, if I could just… I
mean… if…” Dr. Jackson stumbled.

“
We don’t like excuses, Dr.
Jackson. Let’s get to the point. You let a potential new asset run
freely out of this establishment. We need people like him on our
side. We need as many of his type as we can. He, in particular,
would be especially beneficial to our cause. You do not know what
is at stake, doctor. You are a man of medicine and you have been
taught to heal and preserve the body and to cure disease. We want
to preserve our bodies and live with our condition in a way that
has been glorified across this nation. We wish to be idolized as
lovable monsters. You want to cure disease, but we embrace the
disease that we have been blessed with. We gain strength and
stamina through blood, but our species cannot live forever. We are
not the immortals that this world makes us out to be but… there is
a way for us to gain immortality. There is a way for my business to
thrive and for this Administration to be in charge for generations
to come. We hunt the talisman and the immortal witch. He holds the
key to true immortality.”

“
W-w-why are you telling me
this?” Dr. Jackson responded.

“
Because your knowing of
this won’t matter after today,” the blonde finished.

Every person at the table turned and
smiled at Dr. Jackson. He began to feel uneasy. This didn’t feel
like an ordinary firing to him. And when they all stood in unison,
he began to feel a little freaked out. He didn’t know if he should
stand or speak. He just sat and watched all of them, trying to read
their beautiful, blank faces.

One of the men moved slowly over to
stand beside Dr. Jackson. He leaned his behind against the end of
the table and crossed his hands over in his lap. He looked at Dr.
Jackson in a matter-of-fact kind of way.

“
This knowledge won’t
matter after today, because you’re lunch!” he said and
smiled.

His
teeth were normal except for two distinctive canine teeth that
protruded a little longer than the rest of his perfect
smile.

Chapter 6

The drunk in the wrecked BMW began to
regain consciousness. He rubbed his forehead with his left hand and
straightened his glasses on his face. He immediately wished that he
had remained unconscious. He saw in his rearview mirror what
appeared to be a beast tearing and ripping at the deer he’d
hit.

“
I’m never drinking that
much again,” he sighed.

His car lights were flickering. The
car clinkered and the lights faded to darkness. He frantically
pushed the airbag down to make it deflate quicker and reached for
the keys to get his car started again. The BMW sputtered and
attempted to crank, but his tries were useless.

“
Shit,” he said aloud, and
pounded the busted airbag with both fists.

He looked back up into darkness and
could just make out a man sitting on the ground beside what was
left of the animal. He rolled out of the car and onto the ground.
He didn’t feel injured, but he was still really drunk. He managed
to pull himself upright and clung to the car roof as he balanced
himself to walk. His first step was too much and he knocked over
some empty barrels that his BMW had narrowly missed. The noise
didn’t interrupt the man beside the deer.

“
Whoa, steady dude,” he
mumbled to himself.

He attempted to balance himself again
by putting his arms and hands straight out to either side of him.
He crept over slowly to the man by the deer and tapped him on the
shoulder.

“
Hey buddy, what happened?
I didn’t hit ya, did ya? I mean, did I?”

Alex glared up at the man through the
tears that streaked the blood on his face. Blood dripped from
Alex’s chin and covered the tight black and grey female shirt he
had put on earlier. Mud still covered his green scrub pants and he
couldn’t imagine the sight that he looked at the moment.

“
Oh shit,” the drunken man
said, “what the fuck happened to you? Man, I’m sorry. Did I do
this?”

Alex composed himself and took the
bloody shirt off and wiped his face with it. He turned his hands
back and forth to stare at the blood that covered them. He was
completely ignoring the drunk man who stood there in shock, staring
at him. Alex pulled himself up off the ground and walked back to
his stolen Mustang.

“
Hey, where you goin’?” the
drunk man hollered out.

Alex got in the car and glanced over
onto the passenger seat at the cell phone he had stolen along with
the car. He wanted to call Amalia again, to hear her voice for
comfort. He wouldn’t tell her what had just happened. He was
shaking as he dialed her number. The cell phone repeatedly beeped
to warn him the battery was nearly out so he knew he didn’t have
long.

“
Hello, Alex is that
you?”

She sounded worried, tearful even.
Alex figured she needed him home as much as he needed to be
there.

“
Amalia… I had a… um… I’m
on my way home, sweetie.”

“
Alex, there are some
people here looking for you. Please hurry.”

“
What’s wrong?” Alex asked
anxiously.

Amalia screamed.

“
Amalia? Amalia?” Alex
yelled into the phone.

The phone dropped and Alex heard
breathing sounds and gurgling in the background.

“
Amalia!” Alex yelled into
the phone once more.

The cell phone beeped its last beep
and died. Alex threw it down and slammed the door to the Mustang.
He floored the vehicle, leaving the drunk from the BMW in his
dust.

Alex drove through town after town. He
would stop at nothing to get to Amalia at this point. The Mustang
got good gas mileage and he was in Mississippi before he knew it.
He had driven as far as the car would let him. The car sputtered
and came to a stop, somewhere near Greenville. Alex had no money to
get gas. He was only a couple of hours away by car but he looked
too much of a mess to try and hitch a ride.

“
Maybe I can concentrate
and use these new powers of mine to get to her quickly,” he
thought.

His new idea of travel terrified him.
His mind raced and he found focusing to be a challenge. In between
the meal he’d reluctantly eaten and the realization of werewolves
being real, he couldn’t concentrate on the littlest of tasks.
Amalia would be his muse. She would be his compass and he would
concentrate on the thought of returning to her.

He decided to hoof it. He stepped out
of the car onto the highway as a big diesel truck flew past him,
honking its horns in an irritated tone. Alex looked along the road
and saw a sign that told him Greenville was twenty-nine miles and
Indianola was fifty miles away. Alex sighed: he had a long way to
go. He felt anger rise within him and he closed his eyes, listening
to the speeding vehicles that zipped passed him. He felt the wind
on his face and it calmed him a bit, but the anger was almost
unbearable.

He looked to a nearby forest and
headed that way. His head began to pound and his heart began to
race. The feeling of fire in his veins had returned and he prayed
for the pain to stop, but it only made him angrier. He was angry
for what had happened to him, angry for the Mustang being dead, and
mostly angry because he was not getting to Amalia as fast as he
wanted. Much to his disappointment, he was returning to the beast.
The wolf within overcame his body and he began to run through the
forest.

He raced through woods, along roads
and past houses. He felt the wind hit his face. The noises of the
people he passed engulfed him: their very breathing and the highs
or lows of their voices as they chatted on their phones, talked to
their pets, or laughed at their televisions. The sounds of the
internet going through phone lines and the sound of every raindrop
there and in between. He felt and heard everything, but it went so
fast that he never had time to even think of each moment that
happened. And he was finally there.

He stood at the doorstep of the home
he shared with Amalia. He was breathing heavily and he fell to the
ground. His anger finally left him and now he was only filled with
worry and love for Amalia.

The door was ajar but there was no
sign or sound of life. Alex slowly pushed the red front door fully
open. He noticed that Amalia had finally gotten that brass door
knocker that she’d always wanted.

Alex stepped inside and caught the
smell of blood emanating from throughout the house. Something big
had happened here and he was scared of what he might find. He
didn’t want to find her dead. He crept into the foyer. Amalia’s
keys to her car were thrown on the floor, along with some unopened
mail. The living room looked almost normal, except for the TV,
which was snowy.

Alex walked over to the TV and turned
it off with the push of his finger. He stopped to listen and see if
he would hear a breath, a heartbeat, or any sign that she might be
here and alive. The silence felt like a lump in his throat that he
could not swallow down.

“
Either she’s not here or
she’s…” He couldn’t bear the thought of her dead, but he needed to
find her to ease his mind either way. The smell of blood got
stronger as he neared the corner to their kitchen and dining room
area. “Please don’t be dead,” he kept saying to himself.

Blood covered a huge section of the
gray ceramic tile in between the stove and the sink cabinets. He
knelt down beside the pool of blood and began to smell. It was her
sweet blood. He recognized the perfume that she always wore and the
smell of her was distinct.

“
Please God, please God,”
Alex whispered.

He sat backwards onto his feet and
closed his eyes. He took a deep breath of the blood-scented air and
a vision of her came to him. He saw what had happened, but it was
faint. He only got glimpses. Her screaming, the cell phone dropping
from her hand, and her beautiful chestnut hair whipping the men
across the face as they struggled to hold her tight. One face he
recognized and it made him immediately angry. It was his
commander’s face. It was Commander Fortner.

He saw the Commander throw her to the
ground and held her hands together in his.

“
Where is he?” he yelled at
her.

She shook her head back and forth
violently. He held her down tightly to the floor and he licked her
on the neck. She cried out, but Alex heard no words. Their voices
began to fade so he took a second sniff of the pool of blood on
their kitchen floor.

This time she lay there crying with
nobody holding her down. The other man stood over her as she cried.
He was laughing at her tears. He began to chant words that were
unrecognizable to Alex, but he kept listening. He then leaned down
to her and held her body down with one hand. The anger within Alex
was now pounding in his head like a pulse. He knew that he was
about to change to the wolf, but he held on to learn what happened
to his Amalia.

The man bit her just above her
clavicle and he began to drink her blood. The blood that escaped
his mouth ran onto the floor in the kitchen. Amalia lost
consciousness and the images faded. He lost the
connection.

It was the end of the nightmare. He
could not tell if she was alive or dead. He couldn’t bear the
thought of her dead. Tears filled his eyes and rage filled his
heart and soul. He changed into the beast and tore at his clothes
and began to run through the house that was once theirs. He slashed
the couch and pulled all of the stuffing out. He knocked over the
TV and ripped out the wires from the back. He rolled on the ground
and clawed at the carpet. The beast slowly turned back to
Alex.