Flesh

Chapter three.

“Where are we going?” I cried, stumbling out the house mind spinning. Not wanting to peer over my shoulder to see the tapestry of memories I was trying to force from my crowded head.
“No one else can see me, get a taxi to the edge of town.” She hissed in my mind, scarring it some what ice cold. I nodded, still slightly scared of her, and ran down the path to where a taxi was sitting along side others, bored drivers hanging arms out of the cars with fingers clasped round cigarettes. We took the smallest one.
“To the very...” I cast a glance at the girl who was cross legged on the seat, peering at the upholstery “the edge of town?” he looked over his shoulder at me.
“Err, a little more information perhaps.” he slurred, dumping his cigarette and winding up the window.
East
“East please.”
“You don't look or sound to good to be going down that part of town.” he didn't sound like he actually cared.
“East” I replied sternly and he sighed, stepping on the peddle with a shrug. I looked out the window and drew a little smiley face with my fingers, of blood.
The girl gave me a disapproving flash. I shrugged and shuffled in my seat. If I wasn't so cold I'd have sweat on my forehead.
We soon arrived, managing to miss any major traffic jams, where I slipped out. Feeling racy and panicking. My pulse pounding in my ears.
Calm The girl told me.
“I'm sorry, you are?” I snapped, actually managing to speak to her normally.
Lisa I looked at her suspiciously. you expect me to have a beautiful, abnormal name like yours Aldorina? But I was once human she turned and started to almost drift into the part of city I have never been and know most people avoid.
“Where are we going?” I cried as we walked into, what once had been a forest, but was now ashes and dead trees. Burnt and blackened my the licks of fire.
It's dangerous to come here. Which is why its so deserted from most life. We have a living area up along here. Your new home. I swallowed. Trying not to stare at her like she was mad. It was a lot to take in, and I couldn't believe I was trusting her. Following her. Believing what ever shit came out her lips.
“What are you?” my voice was merely a frail tremble in the waste land. She looked over and smiled slightly evilly.
Your soon find out.
Oh joy.
I hope dinners ready she snarled in a way I wanted to recoil, how ever I couldn't help staring at her all the more. Most people have one incredibly slim friend. And the way her veins showed through looked the same a slims persons veins show through on her foreheads.
Not all the veins showed through her skin, just the ones nearer the surface. And they weren't thick and comical, they were thin in a way it looked like cracks, branches of an icy, glittering winter.
A massive house came into view, with dark beautiful stone walls, its gutters polished a beautiful black. It looked like the type of house if you were to lean against it would creak, the whole thing looked deserted. It lent to one side and hung with cob webs. It had stunning Victorian architecture but was a little Gothic at the same time. I shivered. It was beautifully dark but looked empty...
“That's the house?” I cried, my voice barley a whisper now, scraping stuck like sand paper in my throat. She raised her delicate eyes brows at me and nodded.
Its a Victorian mansion. The back part was damaged in the fire which is why it's deserted. But it's fine for us.
“There's more of you?” I stumbled over my words and she just nodded again, parts of her bun falling forward in black wisps round her petal like face.
We are so rare. There are only a few of us. Us...
“And am ... am I turning into one of you?” I almost cried. She stopped, turned and took one of my pale, beautiful hands in hers.
She stroked the top of my hand, tracing the veins, leaving a single bead of blood glistening like a black pearl, she just stared at my hand then let it flop to my side.
I'm so sorry. Most of us enjoy what we are. But your mind speaks differently. I shook my head, confused and upset, pulling my hand away from her completely.
Come child.
Child? She looked younger than me.
Trust me. I am centuries old.
“You read minds?” I whispered, my voice coming out so frail. Remembering what I had done with Jay. At the thought of my friends and family tears swam my vision and I swayed on the spot for a second or two.
She climbed gracefully up the sloped, crumbling stairs and pushed open the black door with the palm of her hand, no doubt leaving a smear of blood that only glazed its soft surface.
It was absolutely beautiful. This building, with its high spiked tower and crumbling walls, was as old as Victorian got. The inside were vanished in black wood. There was the smell of old ash and nature but also coldness and a chilling emptiness.
How ever I was still drawn by its tall ceilings, elaborate furniture, dusty chandeliers and mirrors that you could barley look into any more they were so aged by past. The whole place shook with memories and blood. Blood that the others had left with every hand print and footstep, every skin contact made. There was something deathly in the suffering air.
Oh I'm sorry. Let me make the dark blood we leave not visible to your eyes. Inside the house any way. She turned and placed a hand either side of my trembling head and breathed over me, her breath washing ice cold over my skin, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Then, she was gone, obscuring my vision from the sudden wave of dizziness, and the blood was gone.
Weird. In fact incredibly freaky not to beable to see something that I know was there. Well I think it was there, or was it or...
Any one home? she called out and I herd a whisper of wind before some one dropped from the top banister of the top floor from the stairs. Any human would of broken or fractured bones doing so. But he landed, knees bent, in front of us, like a predator. A creature.
Colias. This is her. Aldorina. Be nice. He snarled.
She's still mostly human. he replied heavily, I was reviled I could hear him through the mind speaking. He had amazingly red hair, dark flame red, and the same eyeslike Lisa, but in stead of cold he had Caribbean eyes, in other words a beautiful green.
He wasn't that good looking, but stunning. Absolutely stunning. His skin was less blue and more just paper white, with lighter blue 'cracks' running through his skin.
Is food ready? Lisa asked him, pointing at my shoes. I slipped them off and she picked them up and chucked them out the glassless window. I scowled at her.
You won't need them, she told me and turned back to the magical boy. He shrugged.
Amanda's doing that today. I don't see why we can't just go out and pick any one.
Because we have to be careful not to be found out. We have to pick carefully.
I stared at them both. “Some one?” I asked, horrified. She sighed and there was a loud mental voice from down stairs shrieking at some one else.
OH SHUT UP WILL YOU? both their heads flicked down and Lisa placed a hand on her small hip.
Amanda is the more modern one of all of us, she's only been around for one hundred years or so. Just after the Victorians. I decided not to respond to that. Despite her younger appearance, Lisa seemed the oldest and the leader if you may.
Amanda, please come up stairs. Colias's voice was old fashioned and gentle man like, but with a modern twist. He addressed who ever was yelling, Amanda, downstairs.
He looked at me with an emotionless face.
Do you need any human food? he asked, hardly bothering to sound like he cared. I shook my head, thinking about it now I had a burning hunger but I wasn't ready for any type of food, not feeling this sick.
A flutter of feet came up the stairs after a loud door bang.
Amanda had copper hair piled up on her head in soft curls so much it cascaded round her cheek bones and beautiful blue eyes. I couldn't tell how old she was, but one thing was for sure, she looked so innocent.
Amanda this is Aldorina. Amanda curtsied then waved and bared her teeth at me. I gave her a small smile.
She's the most ravenous of us. Lisa laughed, her messy, straight black bob shaking around her head. It was cut in short choppy layers, perfectly straight, but looked messy and slightly teased. Unlike Amanda's who looked incredibility Victorian. She also wore a beautiful Victorian dress, the same colour as her eyes. Lisa wore a pretty, simple white Elizabethan dress and Colias just wore a black shirt and dark blue jeans with converse.
The men clothes from my time weren't so super. he answered the question I was just about to ask my self.
Amanda turned and I couldn't help but gasp a little, the back part of her neck was open and rotting so the back of her spine was easily viewable.
Don't worry, its like that all the way down my back. she told me with out turning, you two coming for tea or what? Lisa looked at me hesitantly.
While we eat you chose some new clothes other than school clothes okay? she eyed the hideous school wear and went over to a huge trunk she clipped open.
There's some modern dress in there. Collected through the ages. it smelt damp and seemed like the places moths would hang out, but I went to look through any way.
The three of them went into the cellar, and seconds later I herd blood curdling screams that were not mental in any way.
I tired to block it any way.
The only decent thing I found was a deep purple and black corset dress – which wasn't scary at all. In fact it was pretty. It ended half way down my thigh. Because of my electrifying pale blond hair it didn't really look emo.
Just mystical.
A pounder of feet returned a couple of minutes later, and the sweet innocent looking Amanda appeared, with blood dripping from her mouth and down her front. Her eyes glowing one colour only and that was the electrifying blue that was normally only in her iris. The glow dimmed and returned to their normal state. Okay abnormal state. What ever. I jumped up and felt my heart pound. The other two joined her side.
Do try to be less messy next time Amanda. Lisa mentally sighed. Amanda glowered at her and wiped it off with the back of her hand.
“Your vampires?” I cried.. they all looked at me, Amanda started giggling. But Lisa stepped forward and shook her head, watching me carefully.
No child. Worse. To us that's fairy tell characters. she turned to the others. When do we tell her?.
Colias shrugged.
I honestly don't care. And left the room leaving Amanda looking incredibly scared.
Not yet, her smile turned sly, I like it when she thinks I'm innocent. Lisa scowled at her but nodded in agreement.
I'm glad you found something. she gestured politely to my dress. I looked down and nodded.
“Yes thank you.” my throat was so clogged up with words I felt constricted when I spoke.
Feel free to speak like us. she looked at me concerned. To speak but not move lips was an incredibly odd thought. One Jay had already experienced.
Will I ever see my family and friends again? I asked desperately, surprised at how easy it was to direct thoughts to people's mind, how ever I kinda used the connection Lisa had already created between our minds, it was like a silver thread.
She looked at me sadly and shrugged, part of her collar bone sliding out her skin.
I'm not sure, the reality that I may not see those who I love ever again started to weight down on my shoulders in a way it become unbearable.
Lisa ruffled her hand through her messy hair, and sighed, looking down at my hands that were now completely blue and spreading past my wrists.
Does the coldness go after a while? I asked painfully, its sliced into my nerves. But she just looked at me like she'd forgotten the coldness even if it was still there.
You need to rest while the rest of the change is happening. Other wise god knows what could happen to your body.
Rest? Now? Like this? Unlikely.
Oh don't worry, she stated, running the tip of her finger along the table edge, then looking up at me through her golden eyes, I can help with that. suddenly her whole eyeball was a glowing golden, no white or black. I stumbled back.
“No, no, what are you doing?” she bared her teeth and each of them snapped into curved points, like each of them was a canine, then, as my stiffening lungs took one last breath, she lunged for my neck and the only thing I herd was my own hoarse scream, a scream which I drowned into a deepening blackness.

It was like lying in a coffin of ice. A deathly coldness swept my rigid body, making my nerves dance with fire. I could see nothing.
My senses were only beginning to come. I felt so diabolical. I felt monstrous, and emotionless at the same time. I felt like every single sin that was committed in this treacherous world was my fault.
My eye sight was so blurry, white and black spots, as I managed to open my eyes, feeling drowsy and drugged though I knew I wasn't.
I managed to regain my body and sat up with no knowledge of how long I'd been unconscious.
Then I remembered what had happened and broke into scared gasps and sobs as I clung to my neck. But it was okay, I wasn't hurt.
I don't think. My vision came about, I was in a room, quite and old room with a huge fire place, in the upstairs of the house.
Looking down at my body I could declare I was no longer Aldorina, and this sent my head spinning. I was terrified. Tears swam in my eyes as I looked at my new, palest blue body with its cracks of veins at the thinner parts of my skin. Anybody to look at me would just think I was paper white, I was only tinged with blue. Like a corpses... pale blue skin tone.
Ugh. I shivered and slipped to my feet, feeling empty. In need. But most of all. Out of place. Not belonging. And absolutely terrified. My whole body shook, my lip trembling so much I had to bite down on them till I broke the skin.
Each step I took towards the door sent my stomach clenching into a knot tighter and tighter.
I was so scared. So worried. So upset. So odd.
And then, like a sudden rush all these voices flooded at me. So many it was unbelievable. They were whispers, frail, daunting, distant whispers that scratched the inside of my ears. I dropped to my knees and clamped my hands over my ears, and tried to scream. But my mouth wouldn't operate. One finger traced along my mouth and I felt... stitchings.
Sewing my beautiful lips together.
No I want to scream, I need to scream! But it wasn't happening. It came out mentally. I herd feet padding up and approaching mind.
She's awake. but this wasn't a voice being directed at me, this was merely a thought. A mutter under breath but within a mind. It was a whisper. The same whispers that had pushed me to my knees, just louder.
The door swung open and Amanda stood there, head cocked to one side.
“You okay?” I jumped a little. It sounded like the voice had been said out loud, how ever her lips didn't move.
She just stared out of feverish eyes.
“Lisa!” she called over her shoulder, lips sealed tightly. I crawled forward and saw scares on her lips that looked like stitches.
“Why are my lips sewed together?” I cried at her. Her head flicked back to me.
“That's not the worst. We have to do worse to your back soon.” a tremor rolled down my back, creating a spasm in my stomach.
“What do you mean?” I clung to her words desperately.
She shook her head at me as another mind approached.
At last. and Lisa appeared by the door. Her hair held back in a beautiful satin Alice band with silver branches that in no way matched the time of her dress.
“Lovely morning is it not Aldorina?” she asked sweetly.
“You...” I tried to accuse her of something but my mind wasn't working. Amanda looked pitying at me.
“Block the voices out. Its easy. Just envisage they aren't there, push them aside.” I closed my eyes and forced my self to do this. They were still there but a hell lot quieter.
“Done. Now what have I become?” I cried, getting to my unsteady feet.
“There is a scientific name....” I turned to Amanda who has said it oh so causally.
“ How to explain it...” she pondered for a second, “i guess it's kind of a mix of a Fallen angel and a dead girl. Aka, zombie. We're mostly know as Children of Dead. ”
I shook my head dumbly, not processing the information.
“Um, no.” I trembled. “No, no, no, no. when things like this happen its supposed to be beautiful vampires or mystical were wolves. Not fallen angel zombies.” I turned to Lisa and stared at her desperately. “Please don't tell me this is true! Please no, not to me! Not to an average girl with a boy friend and a future!”
What really clicked it, what really told me was that single tiny movement.
That nod. That tiny flick of a head.
My nerves suddenly twisted under my skin, my stomach turned inside out, and my throat felt so clogged and burning for a moment I had no idea which way was up and which way was down. I went hysterical and scared.
“So I'm a monster?” Lisa looked at me sparingly but Amanda snorted.
“Don't you love the feeling?” she grinned, flashing her teeth at me that were now back to their normal state. Colias gave a silent laugh and nodded.
“Your free now.” he told me. I looked at him then to Lisa.
“And do you, do you like being a monster?” I cried, to the point of breaking. She shrugged.
“If it hadn't happened to me I would of died, sometimes I think I'd be better off dead, I do not embrace the idea of being a flesh ripping beast, but I learnt to live with it, and we're working on ways to make it possible to live until... well you know.”
I looked at her, trying to get her to imply more. Desperately I nearly screamed horrified at what glinted in her glassy, soulless eyes.
“You know I can't deal with this now. I'm having a beer.” Colias looked at me heavily before turning off.
“Until we can find a way to move onto the next life, escape.” She said it with sadistic lust, some one monstrously. I shook my head slowly.
“I'm in an immortal state like this?” I threw my arms down to my body and she shook her head.
“How old are you now? Because that's the age you'll be until we find the door way to the next life. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but dead people don't age.” I tired to focus but the room was spinning, it was worse than when I drunk to much at a wedding and got screamed at by my parents.
“I can see the whole zombie thing now. Obviously I just died,” oh my gosh, I just died, I just died! I started to shake, I wasn't ready to die, I was so fucking young! “But I'm still walking and talking and incredibly slowly, slower than I corpse, rotting. Which makes me 'zombie',” I swallowed, saying the facts out loud had me on the verge of tipping point, “but fallen angel? I mean what the hell. The only part of that is the beautiful bit, I mean where are the wings?”
She looked at me.
“Your body was always destined to be band from the after life, so your soul tried to go to the after life but fell back into your body, how ever it's different to a fallen angel, it's just the easiest way to describe it.”
“What. BUT. I.?!” I screamed at her in a quick string, making her flinch.
“Later please-”
“Do wings come into this?” I was out raged now.
“Yes.” she looked at me out of sad eyes, completely different shapes to Amanda's Bambi eyes. I blinked a couple of times.
“Excuse me?” She held out a hand.
“Please, follow me.” I just took it and let her drag me through the Gothic mansion.
“Erm, who builds a Victorian House in the middle of a forest?”
“A man in love of the country. He actually built it next to a lake, that's still there and currently behind this house, next to a forest. A man with enough money to buy a great deal of land, and retire from his city life to build this house here. To later go mad, and die here, actually hanging him self in my room. Which is why it was deserted, he feeds off human fear. How ever I think his 'ghost', or echo as it really is, is scared of us. That's why it's deserted, its haunted. Well that and the fact the back is burnt and it looks like it's going to collapse soon, but it won't.” She looked at me kindly.
“Are you hungry?” Amanda smiled as we arrived down stairs, a one litre cherry aid bottle in one hand, swigging at it like it was beer.
I nodded but then paused, I was aching with hunger, my insides stripped raw. But what was I eating...?
“Well now your one of the children of the dead, you won't be eating your normal, burger and chips or what ever it was.”
“I was a variegation.” I said sternly and she looked at me, eyes wide.
“Woah, even worse. Your gonna have to give that up honey,” she pulled the bottom of her dress up as we climbed down the cellar steps. My body was spinning I was so scared, I felt so sick.
“Amanda, be nice. Try not to scare her.” Lisa sighed, Amanda's pixie face lit up and her grin came evil.
“Uh-uh.” She opened the door.
“This is kinda where the zombie part comes in.”
“Brains!” I cried, turning to run up the stairs, but she grabbed my arm with such a force I stopped stone cold in my tracks.
“Please corporate. Watch first.” It was dark but I could see as well as I could in light, night vision I guess.
We went through another door and there was this scream.
A woman was huddled in the corner, her arms wrapped round her legs, sweat dripping from her face despite the shivering of obvious coldness I didn't feel. She shrieked again and beat with the wall to get out, blood trickling from her knuckles. She was in... lets say... bad condition. Amanda recoiled and grabbed her by the hair, slamming her to the wall.
“Shut the fuck up will you?” she snarled, the woman could smell death in the air, Amanda could taste it on her tongue.
Something happened. It was so beautifully terrifying I wanted to kill my self there and then.
Her eyes filled their one colour, and her teeth formed to curved points. Each and every one. Her face twisted so dramatical one seconded she looked like goddess of the under word, and then she striked at the woman, ripping the flesh open from her throat so blood spewed onto the walls and around her.
The woman's last scream gurgled and became so clotted up with blood, her eyes popped red.
Amanda placed one hand (which I now noticed was completely skeletal), under her chin, and the other against the wall as she pushed into the lady effortlessly.
Not drinking her blood put tearing at the flesh.
She let the lady fall to the floor and slit her front open, her teeth at every possible piece of flesh. The sounds ripping through the air in a way making me want to whirl and throw up.
Blood now pouring onto the floor and puddling round Amanda, who was snarling and still devouring this lady ravenously, she became a completely different thing.
It went on for too long, although it must of only been minutes. By the time Amanda was done all I could see was a muscle absent skeleton and organs spewed over the floor.
Amanda stood there, her teeth still ravenous, her eyes still glowing, holding the ladies heart, nerves and veins trailing from it, and pumping it in her hand so blood poured from its open points, staring at me, trying to show off and scare me.
Expecting me to run.
I shook my head.
“How did you react when you first saw some one do that?” I whispered, only because I didn't think i'd be able to speak as tears left trails on my cheeks, the only sound that cracked the thin, empty air apart from blood dripping from the heart in her hand. She stepped forward and licked her teeth.
“Girl, I grew up with my father sitting me in front of eighteen horror films since the age of three. You think I cared?” I pulled my back up and looked directly at her. We were the same hight.
“Then what do you expect me to do?”
“Your life was perfect right? Boy friend. Okay grades. Mama earning good money. Good little thing like you just gross out and scream about how its all ruined. I respect you for standing up right and not showing anything you feel inside.”
Need I explain what I felt inside?
I'm sure you can imagine.
“You enjoy this?” I was uncomfortable, her eyes and teeth still the monster.
She walked over and pulled a white bag from a wooden drawer.
Then pulled what was left of the body into and chucked the heart in last. She avoided any eye contact.
“I like it because got the chance to kill my bastard of a father. Being a monster is part of who I am. If this hadn't happened to me... I...” she stiffened any sign of sadness she had just shown and pulled on a tough girls face.
“I love it.”
“Does it taste good?” the words rolled off my tongue before I gave them a chance. She looked at me. Like it was the most stupid question in the world.
“Its mesmerising. I think that if you were walking along in the streets, (good luck with that), and some one just, lets say... paper cut there finger on a newspaper? The open flesh would be enough to kill them, depending on the amount of control. Like Colias. He aint fussed, it would take some one to fall and get a deep cut on their knee or something for him to rip. If the monster with instincts takes over.”
“What about you?”
“I'd say, yeah a deep paper cut.” I looked at her, expressionless but secretly pitying her.
“What if one of us cut our selves. Would we?”
“Ugh, decaying flesh. Err, yum? And its a lot harder for us to. Although it's possible I guess, but we wouldn't be attracted.”
I sat down with my head in my hands.
“How old are you? Or in other words, how old were you when you changed, oh and why are we what we are? How?”
“Steady on girl! I was fifteen. Yeah, pleased to meet you. I look a lil older. And I'll let Lisa discuss that, you think I care?” she shook her head at me disbelieving. “Now come on, the sooner we get away from an open body the sooner I go back to 'normal'.” knowing what she meant I lead her up stairs.
“Shall I go scoop up some more?” Colias asked Amanda, a cigar in his hand. I muffled a snort.
“Yeah what ever.” He gave a wink to her then me an approving look.
“You held it together first time? Impressive.” Lisa looked up from the huge table over the other side of the room from the sofas, maps and other old papers spread over the table. But they didn't know how unstiched I was inside.
“I'm jealous.” she smiled.
“If the monster uncurls at open flesh why didn't I just then?”
“Because once the body is owned, there's no point trying to take it as your instinct knows the one eating is the stronger, so don't try and match instincts. And also I guess you didn't even drawl because you haven't tasted it before so how do you know what your missing?”
I nodded.
“Sometime we'll give you a tour of this beast.” she nodded to the inside of the house.
I nodded again, I couldn't speak a great much right now. I felt sickness welling up inside me.