The Redemption of Peter Wentz

Still was the night, silent, waiting. Faint sirens rang out, chasing a target on the streets of downtown under the blanket of fog that was rolling through the districts., scraping the spires of buildings as it settled above the blanket of snow that fell throughout the day. This silence sat as it usually did, smothering all else at this point in the night where time seems to stand still.

A scream tears through the industrial yards. Muffled but persistent, it’s guttural, primal, desperate to escape torture but to no avail. The thick walls of a dilapidated warehouse almost succeed in blocking it out, but it continues to intermittent crashes. Flood lights cast orange shades over the snow and gravel. The lone warehouse, shadowed by a condemned mill, hints at signs of life; shadows pacing under the doors, dimly lit from behind.

Inside, the scene was hellish. Papers, dishes, glass—all shattered and furniture torn and shredded with cotton innards. A wooden workbench is split in two, tape recorders, a laptop, and syringes crushed and scattered beside a lamp flickering on its side. The path of destruction leaves a trial down a hallway with dents and holes dotting the walls and lines of fingernail marks dragging to a single door at the end. A vault door, stained with blood around its edges, rattles from the soul locked behind it: the source of the screams. It calls out to anyone listening, if there was even anyone around to hear it, though the only one, buried in mountains of files and books, scribbling furiously into a journal under a harsh desk lamp and fervently resisting the urge to help.

Behind that door with bolts bigger than eyes, the animal cried and begged, raking bloodied fingernails down the scratched surface. His shirt was ripped to shreds and stained with blood, his leather jacket balled up in the corner. Pete’s hair was pulled from every direction, matted from a cold sweat, black eyes darting around, alert.

“Please, Patrick! Let me out!”, he pleaded.

Silence.

His forehead met with the cold surface, drawing out a growl and letting it grow into a full snarl, throwing himself against the door in a fit of rage. The bout lasts another half-hour to deaf ears, ending in the animal sliding down the surface to the floor, clenching the fabric of his jeans in a vice. The fog in his mind begins to clear, and reality sets in. The gravity of what he’s done, how his friend will never look at him the same way again.

Pete knows that after his episode (a blur of movement, vice grip, the snarls, the too-sharp teeth), he deserves solitary confinement with. Starting a rhythm and swaying, he starts his mantra, eyes glassed over.
You won’t kill. You won’t kill. You won’t kill.
The blood lust raged on, burning in his throat for hours, scraping against his veins.

Pete knew he was slipping and losing himself to the thirst. Every day, every hour became more difficult to maintain self-restraint. What worried Pete most, above anything, was that every evening when he awoke, there was a period when he forgot everything: his childhood, family, friends, morals, everything but the pervading thirst. What terrified him was the fact that each time he rose from that makeshift coffin in the floor, these episodes would last longer and longer. Not only was he losing to the thirst, but also himself, to what he was.

His prison at the end of the hall was stripped bare of personality; its bare walls, bed, and dresser were cold and lifeless, void of color and life beside the restraints bolted into the wall. He realizes how lenient Patrick had been to him, following his actions in the common room, when he’d completely lost it and threw himself at Joe and driven by his thirst before biting into his throat. The scene replays in his head, over and over. Through the mantra, he still sees flashes of it; dragging Joe across the floor, drinking to kill, anticipating satisfaction.

The monster is tightening its grip on him.

He doesn’t move when the bolts on the doors start to release, when the handle clicks and the door nudges against his dead weight. It persists, shoving him aside and Andy steps in.
"You better be alive.", he teases.

He growls in response, “Barely.”

Andy hums decisively, kneeling before him. His inquisitive eyes are peering behind thick lenses, and Pete averts his eyes, not helping to notice Andy’s probing stares. He runs a hand through his combed hair, shaking his head. His tone is soft, subjective.

“Why haven’t you been feeding? You know what happens…what did happen.” Pete shook his head, slowly and silently. Andy sighed. "You can't keep doing this to yourself, Pete. Feeding is inevitable for you. You need to drink it so that shit like tonight won't happen again."

"I didn't mean to. I didn't want to kill him." Pete's voice shook with regret.

"You very nearly did." There was a brief window of quiet between them as Andy put his hands gingerly onto Pete's folded forearms.

He flinched at the contact, and recoiled further into the door. He wanted to ignore the inviting pulse, the beckoning aroma of Andy that was well within reach. Pete ran his tongue over his teeth as his breath quickened. Sensing this, Andy backed off but stood his ground, letting go of him.

"Why won't you take it, Pete?"

"It numbs me, only for a while. It does nothing. I...I need something more. It eats away at me every second." His voice was husky and coarse as he spoke. "But...I don't want to kill. I can't."

"You can stay with your decision, but I can't stand seeing you like this." Andy spoke softy, getting to his feet. He pulled Pete up with him, heading out into the hall. Almost literally, he was carrying a corpse. "I'll go to the hospital in the morning and come back with some O positives for you."

"No, Andy, I can't--"

Andy braces a hand to his neck over the sensitive scars. "They're donations, Pete, relax.", and he places a packet into his hand, biting his tongue to hold back the flood of negative thoughts.