* * * * * *
3
“David and the Dying-Buzz”
A week after Terrence’s run-in with the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, David sat in Oppum’s living room watching TV. The professor graciously provided four large pizzas, several liters of pop, and the latest Die Hard DVD.
David provided the company.
He’d had invited the whole group; each man who let blood for him, each Cow he also called a friend. Terrence sat on David’s immediate right on the overstuffed sofa, leaving Jerry on the far end, while Maury and Luke sat in chairs to either side of the couch. Oppum sat in the recliner catty-corner to the big-screen television, but he wasn’t interested in the show. He mostly ate pizza and watched the kids watch the movie.
The boys were very dissimilar and David enjoyed the differences between them. Luke was tall and broad, a football player at the High School. He was 19, but had been held back one year for bad grades and a worse attitude. Jerry, an African-American, was smaller than Luke, but just as tough. He ran track and was a freshman at the college. A drop-out, Maury completed the set, slight and mousy, with dirty brown hair that hung in his eyes. With Terrence’s doughy physique and Oppum’s obese frame, David felt he had collected for himself a motley and delightful bunch of companions.
Half-way through the movie, as David laughed with abandon at the outrageous stunts on screen, the doorbell rang. A hitch in his breath from the effort, he saw Oppum check his watch before rising from his chair. His small beady eyes found David’s and he raised his meticulously plucked eyebrows.
“It’s sort of late.” He mouthed the words, really asking permission to go the door. Smiling, David gestured for him to answer it. The old gentleman pushed his bulk out of his chair and walked the short distance to the door. An explosion on the screen caught David’s eye and he looked back in time to see the protagonist kill a helicopter with a police car.
Then all hell broke loose.
Before David could come to his feet and reach the foyer, the front door burst in and Oppum fell back, landing hard on the stairwell. Two dark-skinned, hooded men had entered and the skinnier of the two dead-bolted the front door.
Behind him, one of the kids squealed in fright.
Ignoring the intruders, David ran to the Professor’s side and knelt down beside him to check his condition. He’d been stabbed in the gut and bright red blood seeped through his white dress shirt. David pressed his hand to the wound.
“Terrence! Get over here!” he shouted, but the intruder closest to him pulled him to his feet by his collar and forced him around. It was Masher, Terrence’s drug dealer, and he was insane with fury.
“I told you I’d find you, and I’m gonna kill you all. Then I’ll make myself at home in this little fairyland of yours.” Masher’s putrid breath fell on David’s cheek as he cursed in his face.
David looked into the four faces watching with wide eyes a few feet away in the living room, and then to his other side where Oppum lay sucking in his last breaths on the stairs. The drug dealer’s partner moved into the living room then and pointed a long open switchblade in Maury’s face. The stench of urine filled the room.
David had had enough.
With barely a thought, he put the heel of his right hand on Masher’s chin and his left on the base of his skull. The guy managed to drive his knife into David’s middle, but after that, was unable to do anything at all as David nearly twisted off his head.
His friends screamed at the sight and only Terrence came forward, dodging the maniac’s partner who still threatened Maury with a wary eye on David, shouting, “Masher! Hey! I’ll gut you for that!”
David took one step toward the remaining thug who stepped back, still barking threats. But it was enough of a distraction for Terrence to reach the stairs. David gestured toward Oppum.
“Press your hand into that wound. You have to stop the bleeding!” David yelled, facing the lone bad guy across the room. As Terrence knelt down and did as ordered, David pointed toward the intruder. “Drop the knife, or end up like your friend here.”
The man backed one step toward the door, but continued to brandish his blade at the boys. David stepped up to him in a blink, and the guy’s eyes widened in surprise. It was about to happen and David couldn’t stop himself.
He reached out for the man’s face and snapped his neck with no effort at all. Poor Maury, already weak, and at 17 the youngest of the bunch, fainted then and crumpled onto the sofa.
David eyed Luke and gestured to his pal. “Take care of him.”
He then turned to Oppum and Terrence. The professor’s face was paling quickly and David whipped out his cell phone. He tossed it to Jerry who dialed 911 without further instruction.
David raised his voice and addressed the boys. “Everyone listen up! You just saw Terrence break this man’s neck in self-defense. Then Luke jumped the other guy and did the same. Do you understand?”
David wished his voice was calmer, but his heart was going ninety miles a minute. He couldn’t for an instant be connected to the deaths of the drug dealers, no matter if it was self-defense or not. If he became involved, he’d have to skip town, and he’d warned them all in the past of this danger. David caught each boy’s eye and they nodded with understanding.
David turned his attention to the old man.
“Oppum! Professor!” he called. The bleeding showed no sign of letting up and David didn’t have the ability to heal him. He checked the position of Terrence’s hand and indeed, the kid was doing the best he could to stem the flow.
David leaned down close to Oppum’s face and touched his cheek. “Ben? Ben?”
“Master…” Oppum mumbled, his tongue thickening with shock.
David wiped the sweat from the professor’s forehead with his palm and smiled down on him. Professor Benjamin Oppum was sometimes obnoxious, but he’d been a good Cow and maybe more importantly, a good provider for David for over the years.
“Yes, Ben, how’re ya doing? I can’t stop the bleeding. I’m sorry,” David whispered back. Oppum’s eyes shone with pain, but he managed a tiny smile just the same.
“Master would you…” Oppum paused and grimaced as pain overcame his tongue. Then his eyes reopened and he fixed his gaze upon David’s. “Let it be you, master… David…you do it. Please. Please.”
David shook his head. “No, Ben, it’s no good. It’s not good. Shhh…”
Oppum eyes filled with tears and David looked behind him at the faces of the boys. Had he shared with all of them the pros and cons of Rakum drinking from the dying? Terrence knew, of course, but what of the others. David looked back to Oppum and he was hanging in, probably stubbornly, just to get his way.
“Please master…just this one last gesture…my life for you…” Oppum’s voice broke at the last and David knew he might not have the strength to speak again. In the distance, but still a good four minutes away, David heard sirens.
Four minutes. Not much time to drink from a dying man. The effects could incapacitate him. Not to mention that it was forbidden by the Fathers.
“My life…” Oppum mumbled and fell silent.
David reached into his pocket and yanked out his knife. Without further ado, he pushed the tip into the professor’s throat and covered the wound hastily with his mouth. The blood rushed into him at first and he drew it out as fast as it would go. But as the seconds ticked by, the volume decreased, Oppum’s heartbeat slowed, and the sound of the sirens approached the neighboring street. With supreme effort, David stopped the impromptu feast and rolled off Oppum’s chest.
He lay back on the steps, not aware of the discomfort of the carpeted stair jutting into his back. The dying professor’s blood was doing exactly what his teachers had warned him it would. A Rakum his age, who never drew a dying buzz in the past, would seize, and David couldn’t move a muscle.
On the opposite side of the mountainous Oppum, Terrence reached for David’s arm.
“The medics are here, David. Get upstairs!
”
He hissed his words and David made an effort to roll onto his side. Terrence called for assistance and soon, strong arms pulled him to his feet and supported him as they climbed the stairs. Two of the boys, likely Jerry and Luke, heaved him toward his room, with Terrence following behind barking orders like a drill sergeant.
“Get him in his room! Hurry! They’ll be here any second. Come on, Luke! Get the door open!”
David heard the commotion through a haze of pure pleasure, his every nerve alive and tingling, and his mind buzzing with delight. The blood of the dying was packed with adrenaline, and that very same ambrosia titillated him to the core.
David was dropped onto his bed and Terrence shouted for the two boys to head back down and greet the paramedics.
“Oppum’s dead!”
A voice from downstairs. Maury, poor little Maury. He wouldn’t soon forget this night, David mused absently.
Terrence busied himself with frantically straightening David’s arms and legs and tucking him under the covers. David turned to meet the kid’s gaze and he smiled, not even aware of his expression. Terrence’s eye widened and he gasped.
“I’ll be downstairs, don’t worry about anything,” Terrence said while backing up, his face ashen and his mouth open. “I’ll take care of everything.”
Then he was gone. He pulled the door to and it locked automatically.
David rolled his eyes closed and rubbed his stomach lethargically. Seventy years and never had he drank from a dying man. His teachers warned all of the young Rakum to avoid the experience at all costs.
And not because it was dangerous.
David ran his tongue across his teeth and smiled. His canine teeth had elongated and were now sharpened to a point.
No, the Rakum no longer drank from the dying because it caused them too much pleasure, because it caused them to desire too much death.
Several minutes had passed and the buzz continued.
David lifted his hands to his face and examined them. His once manicured fingers now ended in inch-long claws.
Sharp teeth, claws, no wonder Terrence left in such a state.
No… David mused to himself, smiling. Rakum no longer drank from the doomed because it caused them to regress into monsters.
David sucked his teeth and rubbed his eyes with his rough fingertips. Yeah, it was probably wrong.
But it felt so right.
END…
* * * * * *
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David Walker is a main character in
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