freedomfangs

[freedomfangs]

~ Kilmarnock, Scotland, 1994 ~

For whatever reason, you can’t manage to fit your key into the lock. Shaking hands from the cold and the booze, it’s hard to see through the cloud that huffs from your lips. It might be March but it’s still cold enough that you can see your breath.

Before you can realise, the sound of the door unlocking from the other side is followed by said door being swung open so quickly it almost knocks you back - startling you. Your eyes grow wide when you’re suddenly crushed by a hug, long arms wrapping around your shoulders.

“Thank god you’re alright!” A whiny voice sounds. Too shrill for this time of the morning, too shrill for your vodka induced headache.

Your face twists, clearly confused. Morven releases you from her embrace and notices your expression, her brows soften with something sad. She takes your hand in hers.

“You’d better come look” she says, leading you inside, making sure the door is locked behind the two of you.

You’d known Morven for two years, having moved into student accommodation together for university, but you’d quickly become firm friends despite being quite opposite in your hobbies and lifestyles. She was quiet and reserved, enjoying a night in with a pizza and a movie while you were much more outgoing. Choosing booze and the club scene over school work for the majority of the time.

She leads you to the living room, plonking herself down into the arm chair and turning up the tv via the remote. It plays over the news, a headline whirring across the screen like a banner that reads ‘female university student becomes third victim in what is thought to be a related attack’.

Your mouth feels dry all of a sudden.

There’s a wave of nausea that rolls through you, and it doesn’t feel as though it’s from the alcohol. Something worse. Maybe guilt, perhaps relief, in an awful sort of way. You don’t recognise the girls picture as it’s blown up on the screen, a candid picture, she’s smiling as she holds up her tabby cat to the camera. How cruel the world can be, you think.

You clear your throat. “Did you know her?” You ask, Morven is quick to shake her head.

“No” she wrings her hands in her lap “I don’t think she was from around here, only came for a party according to the news” her voice grows small.

Your feet drag against the carpet as you make your way to her, coming to rest on the arm of the chair, instinctively wrapping your arm around Morven’s shoulder and pulling her into your side for comfort. She gladly welcomes the contact, pressing her cheek against your ribcage. The two of you stay like that for a while, blankly staring at the news as the camera scans the scene. A secluded woody area, far from where she should have been, there’s crime tape blowing in the wind as the camera stops panning. Pausing like that a moment while the news reporter reels off phone numbers to call and crime reference numbers to give if a viewer saw or heard anything.

Morven had been trying to call you for a few hours, you’d ignored her, growing annoyed at her persistence. She must have thought it was you, given the victims description. All this time she’d thought it was you who was dead, never to come home again.

-

Weeks pass before another body is found.

Again, it’s Morven who makes you aware. You don’t exactly watch the news as a casual viewer day by day.

She tells you over dinner, bow pasta and sauce from a jar. Cheap and cheerful. She gives you the grace of letting you finish eating before she lets you know the gory details. You hadn’t thought to ask how the victims died, only knowing they were attacked - brutally murdered. What you learn disturbs you in every sense of the word, jostling the meal you’d just eaten to the point you want rid of it.

Each victim had been found in the same manor. Throats torn open, bled out and bodies bruised, defence wounds on their faces and hands. They’d been conscious enough to try and fight back but all four victims had been drinking prior to their murder, essentially easy targets, that’s how the press were putting it. Victim blaming as usual.

“Young women are being urged to stay in bigger groups” Morven says it into her glass, a half mumble between sips of apple juice.

You raise a brow. “I doubt that would matter to someone like this” you don’t mean it to sound the way that it does, but Morven frowns.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go out at all” she can’t meet your eye, because this isn’t like her, she would never want to sound bossy or rude. You don’t find her to be either but you know she doesn’t regulate the same as others do, she wants to tell you to stay home but in her own way.

“Me specifically?” You ask, swirling the pad of your finger over the lip of your glass.

Morven scoffs at that. “You know what I mean” she sounds agitated now.

“That’s exactly what people want. For women to be so freighted that they don’t go out when it’s dark or enforcing the idea that they shouldn’t go out alone. It’s crazy” you fully understand Morven’s concern, but you can’t help but look at the bigger picture.

The attacks aren’t as close to home as Morven is making them out to be. Yes, it’s the same area, but it’s not on your doorstep. While that might be a dangerous outlook to have, it’s a realistic one. The closest attack to you was over an hours drive away, the other three even further afield. It seemed like the killer was moving further and further away, so it settles your nerves even just a little that it’s highly unlikely the killer will come back on themselves to travel further toward where you’re located.

It justifies your next actions.

Days have passed since dinner with Morven, when she told you more about the attacks, now seems like a better time then any to tell her the news that it’s unlikely you’ll be coming home this weekend.

“You’re going out? Really?” She pauses brushing her teeth, words mangled around a mouthful of foam.

You shrug at her, brushing your own teeth in your own bathroom. The two of you stand parallel in your respective doorways, the only sound being that of brushing your teeth while she still stands there dumbfounded, foam dripping past her lips to the carpeted floor.

Morven rinses and spits. “I don’t think it’s a good idea” she sounds more serious now, she’s even put her toothbrush down.

You spit into the sink and wash off your toothbrush before placing it back in its pot. “It’s Shannon’s birthday, I can’t just not go” you shrug again, not exactly seeing how this needs to be a discussion.

“Shannon might not have another birthday if you guys go out, same goes for you too. What if you get attacked like the others?” Her voice grows, emotion sticking in her throat.

You sigh. “I think you’re thinking about this too much, we can’t live our lives in fear over something happening three towns over Morven” you turn your back to her, but the way she sighs your name has you turning to meet her eye.

She doesn’t have to say anything. Her eyes say it all. She won’t, but if she were less afraid of rejection, she’d crawl on her knees and beg you to stay. Folding her fingers together in a prayer to her Lord that you might see sense and listen to her, it’s wasted on you.

Swift footsteps carry you to her and you wrap your arms around her shoulder, tentatively, she hugs you back.

“Would it make you feel better if I stay sober?” The questions lingers for a little while, as if Morven doesn’t want to answer it.

She sighs, once more. “I guess so”.

-

The air is cold and the sky dark. Stars litter the sky and peek between the grey clouds that swirl overhead. If it weren’t so icy, you might say it was a nice night outside, only you’re worried you’ll lose your fingers or nose if you spend too long standing out watching the stars.

You’re not one to smoke, usually, but without the presence of alcohol in your system you’re disheartened to say that you’re not as loose limbed as you’d like to be. The nicotine provides that, not in the same way as a vodka cranberry would, but it’s something to take the edge off.

For now you’ll enjoy your cig and think of an excuse to leave for home early, Shannon was already paralytic beyond belief and to be stone cold sober yourself while dealing with that was a humbling experience - at least Morven will be pleased.

You take the last long drag of your cig and flick it to the ground, stubbing out the ember with the toe of your shoe.

“Excuse me?” A voice calls, smooth, rehearsed.

You’re thrown off at first, unable to see anyone out in the darkness with you, the particular club you were at didn’t appreciate smoking indoors or close by so you’d had to walk around the corner to spark a light, conveniently the one corner that had a flickering streetlamp. But the voice calls out again, and it’s then that your eyes adjust, noting a figure a few feet away standing against the brick wall.

The way your heart pounds in your chest leaves you breathless, unable to answer, looking for an escape.

Then there’s shoes clacking against the concrete, moving closer, you’re frozen in place.

“Are you alright?” A man steps into the light, his features fitting together with every shuddering flicker of the street light.

His accent is hard to place from the short few words he’s spoken, but everything else about his outward appearance seems utterly average. Barely as tall as you, dressed plainly, dull features with muddy brown hair. Your heart rests just then, seeing no threat here.

You blink hard. “Yeah yeah- sorry, just lost myself a bit there” you half laugh, shrugging off the fact that you were ready to run for the hills - on edge remembering Morven’s words.

The man smiles, it’s gappy and jagged, his canines twisted slightly, it suits him, you think. You’d always had a thing for teeth, they make up the character of a person, a unique trait that can pull someone away from the crowd. You pull your eyes away from his mouth, hoping he didn’t notice too much.

“Ah no worries, I get that way sometimes too” he huffs a laugh, slightly awkward. A few beats of silence pass before he exclaims “oh right! I was gonna ask if you had a light on you by any chance? Couldn’t help but notice you had a cig” he rocks on his heels, keeping a distance from you as he waits your answer.

Again, you feel a bit frazzled, taken aback by your initial fear that has turned into a somewhat innocent interaction.

“Yeah of course” you rummage in your pocket for the lighter, handing it over to him. “Here” you extend your hand out to him and he gladly takes the lighter, you can’t help but notice the temperature of his skin as his hand brushes yours. He’s ice cold.

“Bloody hell” you yelp “you’re freezing, you’ll catch your death out here” you laugh it off, needing to keep up the talking so the silence doesn’t fall again.

The man laughs too, shrugging it off. “Mates ditched me for a group of birds, thought I’d have a smoke and hit the road to be honest” he smiles as he places the cig between his lips and cups his hands around the lighter. You watch as the flame illuminates his face, casting an amber glow - it’s like his eyes light up completely, reflecting the glow like a cat’s eyes would.

“Great friends you got there” you raise your brows with a roll of your eyes, when you look back at the man he’s looking pointedly at you. It makes you red in the cheeks, you hope he can’t see it.

He hums. “Yeah, some mates ay” he hands the lighter back to you, again, the chill from his fingers makes goosebumps rupture over your skin, he can’t be comfortable.

You stand there for a little while, silently, half watching the man out of the corner of your eye. Him the same with you. There’s something about him that intrigues you, feeling almost as though you’re being pulled in, forced to stay close to him despite your settling unease.

His voice breaks the blanket of quiet that’s settled. “Can I ask your name?” There’s a slight rasp to his voice now, tar and nicotine sticking in his throat.

You huff. “Well you just did” another laugh, fully to yourself, he mimics you and it only makes you laugh more.

“Funny ain’t you” he sighs, turning his face away from you as he exhales the smoke.

You humour him, telling him your name, he’s quick to turn back toward you.

“Very pretty” he says, all gravel to his tone, voice lowering as do his eyes. You feel hot again, red in the face under his stare.

You shuffle on the balls of your feet. “Feel like it’s only fair you tell me yours now” without thinking, you step closer, invading his space. The man doesn’t flinch.

Another huff of smoke. “Remy” his voice is quieter now, almost like he’s embarrassed of the name, you smile at him.

“Not at all what I was expecting” another step closer, he eyes you, watching you come closer. Again, he doesn’t move or address it.

He tilts his head “and what were you expecting? John? Michael? Sean?” His tone doesn’t match his expression, the wide grin splitting his face betraying the berating nature of his tone.

Another step closer. “Maybe” your voice grows quiet, you’re so close to him now that it feels intimate. That you could simply whisper and he’d hear it.

It’s magnetic, the way he seems to pull you in, you aren’t sure you understand - but you’re certain that it doesn’t feel totally right. Yet, you can’t shift it, can’t stop the way you creep closer and closer until your arm is flush with his, standing side by side.

He knows it then, he’s got you.

-

He keeps his arm looped through yours for the entire time it takes the two of you to walk back to his place. Rain starts to spittle down but it doesn’t dull your evening, it’s refreshing against your skin, it makes you feel colder than you are.

You’re not sure how you got from A to B. One minute standing outside the club with a cigarette to hand and the next minute you’re taking someone home, or rather, he’s taking you home. You’d left without saying bye to Shannon, not that she’d have realised, too far gone to accept a glass of water let alone acknowledge a goodbye. Still, you feel bad, but there’s a funny feeling in your belly. This isn’t like you, it’s unheard of that you go about things this way, cautious even before the attacks and the concerns from Morven - but you really can’t help it.

Something about Remy intrigues you, his calm nature and the colour of his eyes, there’s a genuine kindness in his smile too.

Remy smiles against your lips when he kisses you, twisted canines teasing your lips as he sinks his teeth into them. It’s a filthy kiss, teeth and tongue and grabbing hands. He’d been on you since walking you through the door, big palm cradling the back of your head as he slants his lips to yours. It takes your breath away, the heat of his touch in comparison to the icy temperature of his skin. You grow hot instead, cheeks flush and forehead sweaty, it’s too much and not enough all at the same time.

He undresses you with a tenderness that you don’t expect, branded by the heat of his kiss but treated like a porcelain doll as he strips you of your clothes. Hot mouth pressing open kisses to any exposed skin he comes across. You let yourself melt into it, into him.

It’s almost a sob that leaves you when he presses his mouth to your centre, gingerly kissing you to test the pressure, to warm you up. You’re quick to weave your fingers into his hair, holding him to you, gaining leverage as he smiles against you. Suddenly wicked. His tongue soon abolishes the gentleness, delving through your folds and forcing you to fist his hair tight between your knuckles.

The whole time his hands cup your thighs, holding you in place, not letting you close your legs around his head to snuff the life out of him. You try to focus on the feeling, on how precise he moves his mouth against you, seeming to know the right way to bring you closer and closer to the peak.

Suddenly the contact is lost and you whine, throwing your head up from where it’d been leant against the pillow. There’s a sly smile painting his lips when you meet his eye.

“There you are” he whispers, hoarsely, a sharpness to his smile as it quirks up one side of his face. You pant, chest tight as you search his eyes.

“Don’t take your eyes off mine” he says, returning his mouth to your for the briefest of seconds before speaking again “I want to watch you cum” those words alone send a fire-like heat straight to your stomach.

You do as you’re told, or at least try your best. Keeping your eyes glued to his as he presses a kiss to your center, you have to fight the urge for your eyes to roll in your skull. He makes quick work of you, plush lips teasing you open and skilled tongue working you to the point your world explodes behind your eyelids. Your eyes burn with the need to blink, to screw your eyes shut as he continues to ride you through your orgasm.

Your chest feels like it’s in a vice, crushed beneath and invisible weight, it takes you a second to gather your bearings.

Remy moves up, snaking up your body until his mouth reaches yours once more. The taste of yourself on his lips is new, but hardly unpleasant. Your hands take root into his hair again, cradling his head further toward you to deepen the kiss, he smiles again. He makes a mess of you, panting and whining and curling your body into him to try and get closer - to be closer.

His mouth drops from your lips to your cheek, chaste kisses pressed to the skin as he trails his lips further down. Reaching your neck and then to your collarbone, trailing back up to your throat again. His teeth worry your skin, laying bruises against the skin of your throat, you’ll wear the mark of him tomorrow for sure. Your fingers tighten in his hair, body curving up into him in search of relief.

There’s a noise that’s ripped from your throat just the same as the flesh is. He’s suddenly latched onto you, feeling as though there are daggers pressed deep into your neck as he moulds his mouth to the juncture where your neck meets your shoulder. You try to move, try to grasp at him to get him off, but it’s futile. All you can do is stare up at the empty ceiling, tugging at his hair as he lathes and slurps at your neck like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. It’s hard to tell how long it lasts, it feels like forever, fading in and out with blurred imagines of darkness and a pair of orange eyes.

It’s the last thing you see.

[freedomfangs]

~ Ulster, Ireland. 1609 ~

He’d been strung up in the village square, right before the church. Hung for heresy, as the English insisted. You hadn’t been in attendance, there was no way you could have been, not for his last wish or anyone else’s. To have that be the final way in which you laid eyes upon him, selfishly you knew the nightmares would be too great of a burden- as much as his death itself.

Your father had gone to the spectacle, a solemn pinch to his brow when he returned home to tell you that they were yet to cut him down. “Let ‘em come for this place” he’d sneered “over my dead body”.

Not a day later you found yourself standing in the square, unable to argue when sent to the village for an important letter. You did your best to avoid the church, to avert your eyes as you darted across the dirt road. But it didn’t matter, because he was gone, not even a sign he’d been there at all. You assumed his brothers had cut him down in the dead of night, carried him far away over the moors to bury him where his grave would be unmarked and undisturbed. You hoped that was the case. That his life wouldn’t be limited to the opinions of those who had come to these lands unwelcome, spouting religious spite and cruelty from beyond the Eastern sea, uprooting folk from their homes and lives.

He’d been the first of many slaughters that your village became witness to, but not all were in the name of the church.

Days pass, the mist lingers, shrouding the hills in a blanket of silence. A solemn air about the dead space between the farms and the village, hollow woodlands that whistle and whisper. Something in you tells you to whisper back, to answer the shrill screams you hear call out in the dead of night from outside your window.

The townsfolk would call you mad, hang you in the square all the same, shouting of witchcraft and devil worship - perhaps that was a better fate than starvation and exile from your one and only homeland.

Living becomes little more than breathing. Chores around the homestead; dusting and weeding and tending to the chickens, cooking what little there is to cook. Monotonous work that breeds resentment in you, a hatred for what life has become, barely more than surviving.

Then, one night, everything pulls apart at the seams.

It’s in the pitch black of midnight, that’s when you hear it. The screaming, this time it feels more visceral, it sounds real. Before you believed you were imagining it, had thought your nightmares had bled into your waking hours, just barely. Slipped between soft snores and the crust in the corners of your eyes. It frightens you, sends a chill over your skin. The fire had died hours ago, little more than embers humming a dull glow in the fireplace. Light is low, visibility even more so, yet you pull a blanket around your shoulders and will your memory to serve you well. Hoping to creep through to your father’s room, wondering if he can hear it too - maybe you are just mad.

When you reach the door to his room, it’s hard for you to notice the emptiness of his bed, but through the gap in the drapes the moonlight provides just enough for you to see that he isn’t sleeping, so you slip away further through the hallway, blissfully unaware of your fathers lifeless body on the other side of his bed beneath the window ledge, lying just out of sight in the shadows.

The silence reaches you then, as if the world comes to a halt, not a drop of rain hitting the windows or the dogs fussing in the kitchen. There’s nothing. No creak to the floorboards or beating of your own heart in your ears, even your breathing feels stilted, like you dare not take a breath and make a noise. You move slowly, taking each step downstairs carefully in the darkness, the wood is cold beneath your feet.

Suddenly, there’s movement, the faint noise of footsteps or shuffling. It makes your chest squeeze, your father would sleep through thunderstorms - what could have forced him out of bed at this hour if not for the screaming?

Your pace subconsciously quickens, violently aware of how your anxiety begins to grow, a cold sweat beading at your hairline despite the low temperature outside, its seeping through the cracks in the window panes. The pads of your feet hit the stone floor and the noise echoes, the slap of skin against cold floor, your pace is uneven yet rushed. Something rattles in the kitchen, then a whine, then you’re stopped dead in your tracks.

Framed by the moon as it pierces through the kitchen window, a figure is hunched over the sink, dark and tall and unmoving. There’s a coldness, like whatever it is isn’t really there. A spectre. A ghost. You’d pinch yourself or press your thumbs into your eyes to ensure you were awake if you weren’t frozen in place, eyes glued to the creatures back - or what looks to be its back.

It doesn’t move, not right away, and neither do you. Maybe it doesn’t know you’re there, you could slip away through the front door and run toward the village, hoping someone might open their door to you. Your eyes dart around the darkness and you spot four iridescent eyes staring back at you from a far corner, the dogs are pressed back against the wall, looking as terrified as you are. You step back, hoping to slip away, but in that moment the creature turns on a six pence. The same iridescent eyes as the dogs, but there’s a shift to them, almost reddish, you don’t know whether to scream or run. Either or would do, but as you continue to stare at this creature while simultaneously turning your body toward the front door- it leaps.

Before you can even blink it’s on you, your spine pressed into the wall and your body crushed beneath the creatures weight. It’s breath fans your face, a stench of copper invades your nose and you wince. It’s overpowering, it smells like the shed at the back of the property, the one where your father slaughters the chickens and hangs them for the blood to drain out. It’s sour, coppery and strong as the creature pants against your cheek. But through the stench of blood there’s something familiar, something that forces your eyes wide, finally looking the creature in the face to confirm your noses suspicion.

It’s him. It’s too dark to make out the finer details of him you so vividly know, but it’s him alright. The smell of ferns and rosemary, that hint of dust and wheat from the bakery he spent too many hours in, you’re not sure how it’s at all possible.

You say his name but he rebukes, you feel him physically recoil against you, his chin shifts against your cheek as he shakes his head. “Doesn’t feel right bein’ called that” his voice is hoarse, like he’s swallowed gravel, it doesn’t sound like him.

There’s so much running through your mind. How impossible all of this is. He was dead. Hung for all to see. In the name of his questioning faith, because he dared not believe what he was conditioned to - he was dead all the same. So how was it that he was standing here right before you? Breathing. Speaking. Smelling of death and ruin and the grave.

He startles when you touch him, warping the fraying shirt stretched over his chest between your fingers until the fabric screeches. Through the heartache and denial and questioning of your own beliefs, he was standing here now. This wasn’t a dream.

You feel his breathing shift, the swell of his chest grows, pressing more weight into you as you almost break through the wall. His nose presses against your cheek and you feel the smearing of sweat from his face against your own, especially around his mouth and lips. The tip of his nose traces down your face and to your chin, he pauses, inhaling deeply, but he doesn’t speak. You don’t let go of him, anchoring yourself to him incase he slips away once more, incase this is in fact the most vivid dream you’ve ever had in your life.

“Say something” you whisper, needing to hear him, needing to relish in the reality of him standing here with you.

He presses deeper into you, if it’s possible, crushing your chest, you can’t find it in you to tell him to stop. You don’t want him to go.

“You smell so good” it’s slurred, almost rumbles from his chest. Your brows furrow, but before you can retort there’s an immense pressure at your throat.

It’s unbearable. A fiery hot pressure that burns from the inside out. Like venom in your blood. Burning and burning and burning until there’s nothing but fire. You scream, a bloodcurdling sound that makes your own ears hurt, everything hurts. Your nails pry at him for relief but there is none, if anything he bares down harder the more you fight, like an instinct. Something akin to a predator.

These teeth aren’t his own. That of a creature like you’d thought before, a predator, a demon. A curse for none belief. They tear through the flesh of your throat like butchers knives to venison steaks, a practiced killer, a skilled hunter.

Heat blooms throughout your body despite the fact his tongue doesn’t let a single drop of blood fall anywhere but to his mouth, an insatiable hunger in him you have seen only once before. He’d made a dishonest woman of you and yet this feels worlds above that, as filthy and improper as you could possible imagine feeling. Yet, it swells inside of you, your own hunger, soon pressing yourself into the pressure of his mouth as his hands take root at your hips to keep you still - to stop your squirming away.

You close your eyes, revelling in the pain for a moment, for when you open your eyes again - you can seen clearly through the darkness. As if the sun has risen in the space of a second, now the darkness doesn’t interrupt your eyes, you can see clearly that the man who stole your heart is no longer just a man. He’s much more. As much beast as the dog’s still cowering across the room, as much a ghost as he was thought to be - as much a demon as the bible would state.