Issue #105
If he had ever been as sick as this, he must have blocked it out. Anyone could talk about being so sick that they couldn’t even leave the bathroom, but it was different to actually experience it. His stomach was in complete upheaval, throwing up every five minutes. Part of him marveled that there was even anything left in his stomach to bring up.The bathtub was full of lukewarm water. Soaking his body had helped, but it proved to be too much effort to climb out of the tub in order to be sick. Now he was curled up on the thick shag floor mat, trying to avoid letting his skin brush up against the tile floor, which felt so cold it was like being burned.
The voice at the other end of the phone had dripped with disbelief when he called in sick for the third day in a row. He didn’t know what else he could do though, short of exposing the entire office to whatever he had caught.
Part of him was considering suing the company, since it had been immediately following the staff holiday party that he had begun feeling this way.
He felt the upsurge again, and lunged for the toilet, barely making it. This time, there were flecks of blood clinging to the bowl after he flushed. Maybe he needed to call 911, or at least someone to take him to the doctor. Who would really want to get anywhere near him when he looked like this, though?
It was a level of sickness that he wouldn’t have thought even possible. He had never heard of anything like it, let alone experienced it. It was like every major organ in his body was slowly being rejected in favor of something else. Indeed, his own body was starting to feel like something alien to him.
He was freezing, but for some reason he was also sweating, his own fluids pushing up out of his pores in some kind of milky, viscous substance. The thought of food was enough to make him throw up, but he also felt a hunger more intense than anything he had ever felt.
From somewhere off in the neighborhood, he thought he heard an animal howling. The sound sparked a sudden, irrational anger in him. He needed to make someone pay for this pain he felt. Someone had to be responsible.
It was hard to believe that it had just been days ago when he had felt perfectly normal. The party was the last memory he had of not being horribly sick. Right before that thing had attacked him. It had been some drunk, hiding out in the shadows who had jumped out at him. At some point, while they were struggling, the guy had actually bitten into Andrew’s arm, running off into the night and howling, screaming like some damn animal.
From the top of the toilet tank, his phone started to vibrate. Even that mild of a sound was like something drilling into his forehead. He looked at the screen and rolled his eyes. His sister was calling, likely to find out why he hadn’t been at work and to make sure he hadn’t run off on a bender somewhere. He still sometimes questioned the logic of being related to his sponsor.
He had to answer. She was just going to keep calling. Gritting his teeth against the imminent lecture, he swiped his finger across the screen.
“What?”
“Where the hell have you been the last few days?” It was what he thought she had said, but the voice was so loud, it was hard to hear clearly. He jerked the phone away from his face and glanced at it, checking to make sure it was set to the lowest volume. Seeing that it was, he had to hold the phone at arms length just to tolerate the volume of her voice.
“Is that why you called? Don’t you have anything better—”
“Where have you been? I’ve been stopping in to see you.”
“You mean to check up on me.”
He heard the heavy sigh on the other end. “Well, what do you expect?”
She didn’t even try to hide it anymore.
“It isn’t like you’ve really earned that much trust from me.”
Andrew was ready to hurl the phone against the wall, if it wasn’t for him being so worried about how much it would hurt to hear the phone exploding.
“Why don’t you fuck off?” He asked, pinching his nose as hard as he could to try and focus.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Look, just leave me alone.”
“You’re off your ass again, aren’t you?”
“I’m sick, you idiot!”
“Right. And how did you get that way? Tip the bottle one too many times?”
“I haven’t been drinking.”
“Sure, and I suppose—”
He felt the bile washing up his throat and he collapsed towards the toilet, vaguely feeling the phone squirt out of his fingers and into the bowl. He heaved until he thought his back was going to snap, and then pushed back, choking at the sight of all the blood that now streaked up the porcelain and onto his arms.
Andrew scrambled back, hitting his head on the sink and falling to the side. His vision had narrowed down so much that he felt like he was staring down a long tunnel. The articulation of his pain and rage came rising up out of him in the shape of a piercing howl.
He could hear conversations of couples, walking past on the street outside. This was accompanied by a horn, and breaks being applied as well. His skin felt like it was on fire, and could slough off off at of his body, as if something was swelling up out of him from within.
As he braced himself against the wall, the room started to shake and blur. He tried to focus, but the volume of his thoughts progressively became secondary to that of his own basic needs. There wasn’t a time when he could remember being this hungry. He needed to feed.
Whatever was left of his mind was gone. The objects in the room around him were now simply shapes, standing in the way between him and all that he desired. By the light of the full moon, bleeding in through the window, he marched to the door and kicked it open, stepping out into the crisp night air and fully releasing the scream of rage that had built up within him.
It was time to hunt.
