Curse Of Darkness By Steven Gilby - Chapter Six

"What is it?" Razz asked. She almost ran ahead of me to see what was new.
He put a tape inside what looked like an oversized VCR and something popped up on the screen. Little organisms, some turning black and withering away, others just sitting where they were.
"Am I supposed to know what I'm looking at?" I asked and leaned both hands onto the table near Razz. I could smell her hair, a fragrant shampoo of some kind of flower.
Razz looked up at me, "This is your blood."
Ok, I thought, My blood? Why is it turning black? Maybe I should ask.
"Why…is it turning black?"
Eddie looked up from the screen and told me about what was happening to my body. Apparently I had werewolf and vampire DNA inside me and their nature is to fight for superiority over the body of the host. Now since there were two different types of DNA fighting for superiority it seems that neither one nor the other will win to be superior. Instead, they will fight each other inside my body but they seem to be equal so they end up killed each other, but at the same time they are taking over uninfected cells so in time all my cells will be either vampire or werewolf but also in even more time the two will not be able to coincide with my body and end up destroying each other and inevitably killing me in the process. But I'm sure they aren't doing it on purpose. Riiight.
I watched as the little red things on the screen killed each other.
"So?" I said.
"Eddie is going to try and make a serum to suppress it for now. It might take a little while to make, but he should have it done in a few days."
I nodded my head. What could I say? My body was killing itself and there is no way to stop it. How long do I have? If I was told I forgot.
"You haf maybe sree veeks before it starts to seriously alter your body. After zat you vill die slowly and painfully as you organs disintegrate inside your body."
"Wonderful." I reluctantly smiled. "I'm just going to go get some fresh air." I looked for what looked like the front door and walked outside. When I reached the door I heard the words "I heard you two down there" and I quickly turned to see who said it. I looked at the faces of the three other people in the room besides Razz and me. I saw Vincent had a smile on his face as he looked at me. Not a gay smile, but an "I said it" smile.
"Don't tell Vincent." I said as I walked out.
When I got outside I saw that we were in a residential neighborhood. Joy, oh joy. Colored houses of pastel blue, green, and beige. Cars, trucks, mini-vans and motorcycles sat in scattered driveways while a few little kids, to young for school, played outside. I wondered what part of town this is. I didn't remember it from when I was alive. Maybe we were in another town.
Razz followed me outside shortly after. Crap, I thought, I can't do it in front of her. I was planning on killing myself to get it out of the way and skip the pain of disintegrating organs and go straight to the dying part.
She got close; it was a comfortable close though. I never liked it when people moved close to me but she made lots of things feel better.
"We think it happened if it was on top of you and dripped saliva into your wounds."
I took a deep breath and it made me notice the weather. It was a fair temperature outside with a few dark grey clouds. I think it would be nice if it rained, it would go along with things very nicely. Find out something bad and BOOM, it starts raining and thundering and lightning, can't have one without the other.
"How did that happen back there?" she asked.
"How did what happen?" I lied, but not to her face. I don't think I could ever do that. Truth is, I don't know how the hell it happened either.
I turned and looked at her. Her face was pale. "When was the last time you had some blood?"
She touched her cheek like she could feel the paleness. "I had some in the basement if you don't remember." She smiled slightly which made me let out a small laugh.
There were a few moments of silence, comfortable silence.
"Why?" I asked.
A tear ran down her face and her lower lip quivered. She nearly jumped into my arms and started crying and put her head on my chest. Our arms wrapped around each other, holding tight, making sure not to let go.
"You were my first human friend that I felt normal around. You made me feel like I was human again. We could always talk about anything. Every time I saw you you made me feel more human inside. Then I decided to tell you about me, about the other side of the world. I dragged you into this world. I…I-"
She lost the words. I put my hand on the side of her head and held her ear to my heart. A heartbeat was always soothing to listen to. We just stood there on the porch of that house and she cried her eyes out. I could feel my shirt getting wet from her tears. A small spot of wet on my chest. I didn't mind. In a way I think I had always had a crush on her. We did lots of things together, but we mainly walked around town and talked about everything. You name it we probably talked about it (don't get all perverted with it though).
"Come inside. We have something else to show you."
Razz looked up at me and said we should go see and that I might not like what I saw.
Eddie had the same equipment set up from earlier.
"More home videos?" I asked.
"This ain't America's Funniest Home Video's, kid."
I looked over at Vincent, "Please don't call me 'kid', I hate that crap."
"My apologies."
I nodded at him, one of those "it's ok, just don't let it happen again" nods. Eddie popped in another tape and pressed play. It was me when we were still back at Eddie's place; it was in black and white. I was knocked out from the meds on that table. Razz was standing far from everyone, very left of the camera. Vincent and Magnus were on either side of me and Eddie was holding another needle.
"How much shit did you pump into me, Eddie?"
"Just vatch you stupit boy."
I shut up and watched the tape. Magnus and Vincent held my arms while Eddie put the needle in the upper part of my right arm. I had no knowledge of anything that was going on now. I moved closer to the screen. I saw my body start to convulse. There had been no sound up until now, everything was pin-drop silent. Magnus and Vincent struggled to hold me down while Eddie looked for another liquid to shoot me up with. Razz was still standing at the far left as I growled and snarled.
I noticed something and moved forward and asked what it was. My arms darkened and in no time at all I had tossed Magnus and Vincent away from me and transformed into a werewolf. I stood up from the table and looked around and I saw my eyes got fixed on Eddie. Razz still stood at the far left as Eddie quickly stuck a needle in my side that was completely full of a dark liquid. I calmed down a little but I was still on a warpath. I reached and grabbed Eddie by the throat and pushed him back. Whatever that stuff was it made me weak. Razz moved from her position at the far left of the screen and walked by a table and picked up what I think was a pipe. No telling what it was coming from Eddie's basement. She calmly walked over and swung the pipe and hit me in the head dead center and I was out cold. As I lie on the floor I slowly went back to a human. I hate that all my clothes tore off. Razz threw a blanket over my body and Vincent wrapped me in it while he picked me up.
Wow. I'm a werewolf. But I'm also a vampire. This sucks.
"So what now?" I asked.
"Now," Magnus started, "Now we look around town and find any leads as to the whereabouts of Robert. I'm sure you can help us with that Razz."
"Yes. I should."
Razz has been pretty quiet ever since I died. It's not like we can't do all the things we used to do. Al we really did outside of school is walk around and go to our sword style classes. I wonder what's so different now that I'm a vampire. I mean I'm just the same as I ever was only now I drink blood and I want to kill something. After I kill that werewolf I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll think about it later.
"Where do we go now, Razz?"
"I am going to find Robert. You are staying here with the others."
All I did was nod. I didn't feel like arguing right now. I just found out I was dying, and I'm already dead. I could see it like a headline. "DEAD MAN DYING!" Never thought I'd hear that.