Rowan Vautin

My blood is splattered all over the bus stop.

The bus schedule is unreadable, already water-damaged and sun-faded, now stained with sprays of my very life force.

The broken streetlamp flickers pathetically, illuminating the morbid scene in stuttering flashes.

I sit down heavily on the bench, my vision blurring.

Blood creeps across the cool metal, reaching out to cling to the hem of my short, pleated skirt.

My attacker is watching me, chest heaving, eyes glowing, teeth sharp.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ I reply instinctively, ‘you were hungry.’

My blood drips from their chin. They lick their lips.

The mechanical hiss of a braking bus echoes from around the street corner. When I look back, I’m alone.

I stumble upright, digging through my purse for my bus card, blood and viscera dripping into the soft fabric interior as I search blindly.

I stick my arm out to hail the bus.

It slows down at the last second, the doors hissing open reluctantly.

When I climb aboard, the driver pulls a crucifix necklace out from the collar of his shirt. He cranes his neck to watch me wander to the back of the bus.

I remain standing, wiping my palm against the cleanest part of my outfit before clinging to the overhead handhold. I don’t want to get the seats dirty.

As soon as I’m home, I scrub off the blackened crust of blood in the shower. The weeping gash in my neck reawakens, pulsing out blood. Thick expulsions of congealed matter swirl down the drain.

I collapse onto my bed, the duvet crisp and neat under my aching body. The scratchy decorative pillows rough against my cheek. Part of me feels like I’m still waiting for the bus, not yet aware that I’m trapped in a dying body.

When I wake, all that remains of the wound are two pinpricks side by side, about a centimetre below my jawline on the left side of my face. Easy enough to cover up.

It quickly becomes part of my morning routine: smooth a band-aid over the marks, dress, apply makeup, check emails.

I take the bus to work each day. Although now, I walk an extra fifteen minutes to avoid the macabre scene. In over two decades of life, I never figured out how to stomach the sickening guilt of making a mess, of being an inconvenience. Yet I still swallow up the guilt at every opportunity, a greedy impulse like snatching blueberries off a bush.

Corey, the nerdy IT guy with an endless supply of bland button downs, leans over from the cubicle next to mine, raising his eyebrow at my winter coat in the height of summer, ‘Do you want to turn the AC down?’

‘No, it’s okay,’ I answer immediately, ‘I’m not cold.’

It’s been getting harder to type, my fingers stiffening with the growing chill that emanates from my chest. I spent two hours counting my heartbeat the day after it happened, and I’ve been studiously ignoring the conspicuous slowing ever since.

It takes a monumental effort, but I finally train myself to stop smiling.

No more polite smiles at passersby, no more grinning with enthusiastic agreement in meetings, no more laughter at mediocre jokes or pop culture references I don’t understand.

My gums, bloodless and waning, exacerbate the lengthening fangs dropping from my canines, the threatening blades stuffed into my placid mouth.

I tuck myself out of the way and wind a woollen scarf around my neck to pull up over my chin.

I cut my fingernails twice a day in an attempt to offset the sharpened claws that sprout incessantly like a poison weed. As a precaution, I ensure I don’t touch anyone, keeping my hands tucked into my coat pockets or enclosed in thick winter gloves whenever it’s deemed polite.

If, when I grasped someone’s hand to shake it, my nails pierced the thin skin by their wrist bone, their blood gasping to the surface, I think it would kill me to maintain control.

I dream about rivers of blood in a meadow of shivering muscle and flowers of freckles and moles that I pluck to turn into a bouquet. Into something beautiful. I’ve never made anything beautiful before; it’s a nice dream. Until the siren call of the river drags me into the depths, drowning and choking and so, so hungry.

Hunger is an old friend of mine.

I know how to endure it. I can manage desperate cravings. I can distract myself, curl up into sleep to pass the time, chew gum to confuse the brain signals that compel me to consume something, anything that will assuage the roaring pit. I know how to suffer.

But there’s only one way to cure it.

You have to eat.

I switch to working remotely.

My blinds are permanently drawn. I order deliveries that I only retrieve once the driver is long gone. I deflect invitations with repeated apologies, then slowly stop answering any messages at all.

It’s easier to avoid being rude or unkind if I limit my interactions with people.

I am watching the late afternoon sun, eyes slitted against the blinding rays that penetrate the cracks in my blinds, when my phone buzzes.

My boss needs me to go into the office.

Absolutely! I reply, I’ll be there in an hour, thank you!

‘I’m sorry,’ my boss says, ‘we have to let you go.’

I dig my nails into my thighs, fighting the maelstrom of indignant rage and hunger, always the hunger. I’d forgotten to cut my nails in the chaos of leaving the house, but I have no blood left to surrender, even as the serrated edges of my claws shred rips through my jeans.

‘I understand, there’s no need to apologise!’ I say peppily, ‘Thank you for meeting with me. I guess I’d better get home, then!’ I laugh.

My boss laughs too, relieved. He doesn’t seem to notice my teeth. Or, he is at least unalarmed by them.

I don’t realise I’m following him until I’m five blocks off course on my journey home. The man hasn’t noticed me.

It’s a new moon, but my surroundings are sharp and clear through the faint glow of my eyes.

My stomach cramps, my heartbeat gives one last pathetic attempt at beating, a final breath ghosts between my lips.

I can smell him. The blood racing through his veins. Life.

I want it.

It’s a revelation, a tiny spark in a room of flammable gas. My hunger is no longer a sensation to endure. It is all I am.

I am Hunger, ferocious and ruthless.

I lunge forwards, the momentum of my full weight knocking the man to the ground. He screams, fights, thrashes.

I dig my claws into his forearms, pinpricks of his blood racing to the surface of his freckled skin.

The smell intensifies, sickeningly sweet. Addictive.

I haven’t even had a taste, and I’m already craving more.

I lower my head, nosing under his jaw until he tilts his head back, trembling, limbs taut with terror.

I unhinge my maw and bite. Life soaks in between my teeth, coats my tongue. I swallow, and swallow and swallow. The severed artery spits out life into my waiting mouth.

A pool of blood grows beneath the man, staining the concrete dark crimson.

He whimpers, tears dripping from his eyes as he starts to shiver from blood loss.

‘…why?’ he croaks out.

The light leaves his eyes, and he slumps, sinking deeper into my inescapable grip.

I finally feel warm again. I feel alive.

And it’s so goddamn beautiful.

‘I was hungry.’

---

Rowan Vautin is an aspiring poet and writer, who recently graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English Literature. They are enamoured with the power of words to tell captivating stories and connect with people from all walks of life.

More riveting stories are waiting you… Return to Issue 6!