"In The Blood - Prologue" by Tansy A. H. Pye

Prologue

I don't know how long I had been lying there, watching my blood dripping from the windowsill. It was still dark outside. It had been dark forever.

So pretty, the way it pools on the floorboards below the window, dribbling into the cracks between them. I can’t move, I’m impaled on a huge shard of glass where I had been thrown through the window by the creature in the garden.

At first I was terrified and in pain. I thought the creature would come after me. I thought I would fall back out of the window, or die here, but as the time has worn on and the creature hasn’t come and I have neither died nor fallen, my mind has turned to other things.

I tried to struggle at first to escape, but any movement flared the pain in my stomach and side and caused the beautiful but precious blood to flow from me with more speed and violence and I knew I couldn’t afford that.

So I settled and calmed and the blood slowed from a terrible flood to a steady drip, drip, drip onto the floorboards. I’m going to die here. Half way through a window on the second floor of a house I have never seen before. I don’t even really know where I am. Somewhere in Wales. In the middle of nowhere. Why did I come here? why didn’t we go to France, or Scotland? Anywhere but here.

"Hello?" My voice sounds weak and thin and calling out has set my heart to racing. What if the creature is nearby? What if it hears me? The fear has made my blood pump faster. I’m getting weak from the loss of blood.

My mind is wandering terribly now. I know that is not a good sign. But I guess thinking is better than passing out. I am afraid to pass out in case I didn’t wake up. It’s like what they say about the snow isn’t it. You get so cold you just want to lie down and sleep. This felt a bit like that. I sort of wanted to just go to sleep, but part of me knew then i’d die, so I stayed awake and I thought about stuff. Any stuff.

I like the floorboards. Stripped pine, heavily stained and varnished, or oak maybe. Don’t know, I’m not too good with woods and things. They look really warm and beautiful. Of course you’d never get that blood stain out. I feel guilty about that, staining this nice floor. I start chuckling. Ouch it hurts so bad to laugh. The blood is a trickle now. I must have shook something loose inside me. Try not to think about anything, don’t move calm down.

Drip, drip, drip. That’s better.

I’d like to have floor boards like that. Maybe when I get home I’ll look into it. I have a new house, less that five years old, so probably just chipboard under the carpet. No floorboards. But they do quite nice clip together stuff now don’t they.

My shoulder feels like it’s burning. like there is some venom working it’s way into me. I wish I could move my arm to feel the wound there. It’s the creature’s bite mark. Where it grabbed me, shook me like a dog with a toy and threw me here, through a second floor window, what sort of a creature was it? looked like a huge mutant human thing. I wonder if it’s infectious like a werewolf, it didn’t look like a werewolf. Bigger and greener, more lizard than wolf... werealligator? It had horns, am I imagining the horns? It all happened so fast. I just remember green and teeth and blood, so much blood. A demon then. Maybe I’ll survive this. Maybe I’ll become what it is. Am I wrong to hope so?

I want to live. I’ll take living as a demon thing as long as I live. Please God let me live. I don’t care. Please Satan if that thing is anything to do with you let me live. I’ll be a monster I’ll kill for you. I’ll be the best damn monster demon thingy you have, just let me live.

Now I’ve done it. Probably stands against you appealing to the dark lord seconds before you die. I’m supposed to be repenting aren’t I? I can’t remember it’s been a long time since I believed in all that crap, mind you, I just got attacked by a creature I don’t believe in either. Something like that really changes your perceptions.

What was it and where is it now? Will it still come back for me? I am beginning to hope it will. I’d rather be eaten and get it over with than just lie here trying to stop myself bleeding to death. Shouldn’t I be dead by now? I’ve been here for ever. Maybe I’m dead already. The brain lives on long after the body dies doesn’t it.

"Hello is anybody there? Help me!" I don’t care if I attract it. I just want to get out of here. Ow! Coughing now. Jesus this hurts. Shouldn’t have tried that. Damn it! done it now. Really shaken something loose. The blood is flowing again. I can’t have that much more blood in me. Sod it! Damned if I do damned if I don’t. I throw my weight forward pitching my self into the room.

Must have passed out for a while there. Where am I? Nice floorboards. I remember now. Still can’t move but my scenery has changed. My whole arm and chest burns now. Infectious or venomous, something was in that creatures bite. God I wish it would kill me or turn me or whatever the hell it’s going to do soon. I’ve been here forever. If I turn my head I can just see the window I came from. The other way and I can see the legs of a bed and the door. A bedroom then.

I’m going to die on the floor of somebody’s bedroom. I feel like writing them a note. I want to apologise. I didn’t mean to end up here. I was running through the woods. Running away from the creature that had wrecked my camper van and killed my Boyfriend. Oh god Michael. I’m so sorry. I had forgotten about you. The thing tore him apart and I just ran. i didn’t even try to help. At least in the movies the girl tries to help. But then in the movies that girl dies.

I came here because I saw the lights through the trees. I heard the dog barking. The man came out with his shotgun I remember that, he saw me, but the creature was right behind me. He shot it and there was a fight. I tried to run into the house, but the thing was faster it bit me on the shoulder as the woman came out of the house, she had a rifle she shot it, it shook me and threw me high against the house where I crashed through a window, but landed awkwardly impaled by the glass.

So now here I am. For a while I heard other screams and fighting in the house. Children crying. Then sickening sounds of crunching and slavering. The creature devouring it’s victims. But eventually it all went silent. I guess the whole family are dead. I’m so sorry. i brought it here.

But where is the creature now and why am I not dead? In fact, my breathing is getting easier and I’m beginning to feel better. Okay, let’s try this again. I take the shard of glass in my hand and wrench it out of my side with a scream. I use the pain and adrenaline rush to get to my feet and throw myself onto the bed. I pass out again.

I wake in the bed some time later. It smells like blood in here. Through the window I can see the sky is lightening. I’m afraid. The light in the sky fills me with terror, but I don’t know why. I have got to get away from the light. I crawl off the bed and into the wardrobe. I feel weak, but there is no pain. What has happened to me? What have I become?