The Bite (October ‘06 Story Contest)
The Bite
Prologue
He sat in the woods, out of sight from the meddling humans and their ever-growing city, but from where he sat he could see its invasion into his home. In time it would get worse. Leave him less places to hide. He stared down at the parking lot not more than a kilometer from where he sat, concealed by trees and the cloak of night. A parking lot that belonged to a grocery store. He sighed to himself. If nothing else, at least perhaps he could gain a companion from all of this... invasion.
He was tired of being alone. This was as good a place to change that as any other.
He sat, the gentle night breeze whistling through the branches around him, singing a sweet song. The thought of not being alone again was exciting. A female, to share the days with. And the nights. Precious nights.
“Remember caution,” he told himself, “remember not to rush it. If you are caught, you know what they will do to you. Like the others.”
He calmed himself for what was to come. And so he prepared.
*****
Thursday
“Damn, out of milk,” Karen sighed to herself as she rummaged through her refrigerator in search of a 10:00 PM snack. She noticed she was out of a couple other things as well, and decided a late night trip to the grocery store was in order. They were open until 11:00, so she figured no time to restock like the present. Besides, she could pick up a real snack food while she was there. Chocolate. Yes, one chocolate bar added to the list won’t do any harm.
Karen got her jacket, car keys, and purse, and headed out to the well-lit parking lot of her apartment complex. She admired the view to the east on the way. Her neighborhood was a recent development on the edge of a large city, but it came with the advantage of some actual nature scenery. The still undeveloped woods to the east looked very pretty by day, but were hard to make out by night. Still, better than an endless stream of concrete in every direction, she thought to herself. As she got in her car she wondered to herself how much of the woods would still be there in a few years. Probably not much. A bit preserved as a park, the rest probably cut down to make way for more housing, or perhaps a golf course.
“Seems like a shame,” she sighed to no one in particular as she started her car, greeted by a bit of light jazz over her car radio as the engine purred to life. She pulled out of her assigned parking stall and began the drive to the store. Her fingers merrily tapped on the steering wheel in rhythm to the radio.
It wasn’t far, not more than 5 minutes even if you hit the red lights. In the day she’d have considered just walking, but for a night run she wouldn’t risk it. A couple years ago when Karen had still been in university there had been a string of night attacks in the university park on some of the girls. Mostly just public exposures at first, but eventually a couple of the attacks became more serious before the man responsible had been caught. Some pervert in his late 30’s. She hadn’t had anything happen personally though Karen did walk through the park from time to time, but she had casually known one of the girls attacked. Ever since, she’d never taken a walk at night alone anywhere.
The roads were quiet and uneventful as she drove. Not many people heading out to the grocery store at 10:00 PM on a Thursday evening. She was able to pick a fairly well-lit parking stall not far from the entrance to the store, its large glowing sign overhead.
As Karen walked towards the large automatic doors, she noticed a man entering the store only a few seconds before her. He was tall, a bit pale but he still looked handsome. He was wearing a leather jacket and blue jeans. As he entered ahead of her, he veered off to a pay phone not more than a few steps inside the entrance. Karen and the man shared a brief glance as she entered herself, before she walked on into the main of the store. She picked up a small plastic basket from the stack and made her way around the grocery store, picking up a handful of items. As she made her way to the checkout, she smiled as she grabbed herself a chocolate bar.
“It’s almost the only reason you came,” she giggled to herself, as the cashier ran her handful of items through. Karen exchanged money, and formalities with the cashier, then took her bag of groceries and made her way for the exit. As she did, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the man she’d seen coming in was still on the phone. She thought nothing of it, as she made her way out to the parking lot.
As she walked towards her car, she could hear the footsteps behind her. Quiet, but present. They were getting closer. Something inside Karen told her that something wasn’t right, a gut feeling. She suddenly found a tinge of fear as the steps closed in. She didn’t want to turn around. Her pace quickened. Her car wasn’t more than 20 feet away now. She reached into her purse, but not for her keys, instead her hand searching out a can of mace. She could feel his eyes on her, and paranoia or not she’d be ready. Maybe it was nothing. A trick of the brain on a dark evening. All the same, 20 feet to go or not, paranoid or not, Karen felt her nerves on edge to the sound of those footsteps.
*****
The Bite
Fifteen feet. Then ten.
“Just a few more steps, and you can get in your car and relax,” she thought to herself. What happened next occurred in a flash, a jumble of sound and fury.
He was on her in a flash. The man who was on the telephone, she was sure of it. His arms flew around her, trying to pin her arms to her sides. In a flash and torrent of limbs and motion, they crashed down to the asphalt of the parking lot. Karen screamed out, as she tried to pull her hand out of her purse, mace in hand. The man seemed impossibly strong. He released one arm of his grip to try and cover her mouth. Karen flailed, and fought, and twisted, and fought, and kicked, and fought. She still couldn’t get her arm free to spray mace at him. He heart pounded 500 beats a second, the world reduced to slow motion. Anyone but me. Why me? The strong hand was doing it’s best to muffle her cries for help. He seemed so strong. And every flail she made was met by one of his as he tried to pin her down to make her hold still.
She felt a sudden and intense pain on the left side of her neck. The man was biting her. Hard. She cried out and flailed against his grip with all she had. Finally, finally her hand was free enough with her can of mace. She didn’t really aim, she just started spraying anywhere in the general direction of her attacker’s head. The pain in her neck was intense. She heard a growl from the man - she’d got him - and she couldn’t help but think the growl sounded… odd. Even for a man in the process of being maced. His teeth were still sunk into her neck. She kept spraying, flailing, crying out. Fighting.
His teeth came off her neck, and suddenly she was alone. She heard him scampering away. It didn’t matter where. Just away was enough. She lay on the ground. Panting. Crying. Bleeding. The bite was bleeding, though not too terribly, it did sting badly. Karen looked around. There was no one else in the lot who had seen the attack. Had none of the few in the store heard her, come out to help? Karen felt terribly alone. Exposed. Violated. She began shaking, as she went to stand, heart pounding and adrenaline pumping. She got into her car as quickly as her shaking hands would allow. She locked the doors.
Then she cried to herself.
*****
Waiting
He sat in the woods, one eye, the one she’d managed to mace, still burning. He was thankful she hadn’t got both or finding his way back towards safety could have been very difficult. For that matter he was thankful she hadn’t had a gun. Such was the risk. And if he’d been shot, it wouldn’t have taken long to discover he wasn’t what he’d appeared to be.
His heart was still pounding from the attack. He regretted that this was the way of things, and felt sorry for what the woman must have been thinking at this moment. But there was no other way. This was how it began. Just as it had to him, years ago. A temporary fright, for what, near immortality? A minor inconvenience for her, at most. And for him, a partner again. Yes. To not be alone.
The eye would recover soon enough. All he had to do now was wait. Even if she hadn’t realized it yet, the changes would already be beginning.
*****
Friday Morning
Karen called in sick to work. She didn’t want to go out. Not today, not yet. She lay there in bed, simply not wanting to get up today.
After the attack last night, she’d driven straight home and locked the doors. She knew she should have gone to the police. But she hadn’t. She just wanted to be behind a locked door, away from everyone. Safe. And when she’d got home and treated her neck bite as best she could, she was puzzled by it.
Karen was no doctor, but she was a bright enough girl to know what a bite mark by a person would look like. And this was not the bite mark of a person. The teeth marks were all wrong. She wondered if she was crazy. And how do you explain to a police officer that a man attacked her and bit her, but he didn’t have human teeth. She wasn’t crazy, or imagining anything. It had been a man. Alone. They were his teeth. But… something didn’t add up. It looked more like an animal wound.
So she hid in her bed. Safe. Away from him… it. Whatever it was.
Now, on Friday morning, all she wanted was to be left alone. If there’s no one around, nobody could do anything to her. It was isolated, and isolation suddenly seemed like a good idea. Her neck still hurt, though not as badly as it had last night. But the pain from the bite was noticeable.
It didn’t matter, as long as she was away from people. After all, they weren’t to be trusted.
*****
Friday 4:26 PM
Karen found herself feeling very odd, sitting locked in her apartment. And quite hungry.
“Not that surprising, girl. You haven’t eaten all day!”
Meat. Something red. Steak. A big rare one. That sounded like a very, very good idea to Karen at the moment.
Her bite mark itched a bit, but it didn’t feel too terrible.
“I’ve got to get some meat in me,” she thought. At that moment, it made a lot of sense.
“I wonder who that man was who bit me,” she thought to herself, without fear. This lack of fear so suddenly puzzled her, but her mind said it was okay.
*****
Saturday 1:14 AM
Karen sat, curled up at the foot of her couch, shaking slightly, staring blankly into the distance. The thought pounded in her head now. Unrelenting, unyielding. She felt driven. Compelled.
“I have to find him.”
Part of her knew it was crazy. But most of her didn’t care. She couldn’t sleep. Not here, in this apartment. She needed to go back.
Karen ran out of her apartment. She knew exactly where she was going.
*****
Reunion
The parking lot was deserted at this hour. She stood there,
regaining her breath. Her eyes adjusted easily to the night. Quite easily. She looked around for someone. Him. But the parking lot was deserted. But she could feel his eyes. He was here, close.
Seated on a grassy knoll, halfway between the woods in the near distance and the parking lot, sat a solitary wolf. Karen’s eyes found him. And instantly she knew, it was him. Impossible as it was, it was him. She walked towards him, their eyes locked. The wolf sat in place, calmly, unmoving. As she got closer, she could ever feel his eyes boring into her, more and more. Compelling her near. She stopped less than 10 feet short of the still seated wolf. Karen’s mind was so confused.
“W-who are you, and what’s happening to me?”
The wolf continued to stare straight into her eyes, and she could have sworn he smiled. Then, he stood up, and begin to let out a strange, low growl. She was afraid, but held still. She couldn’t move. His body began to seemingly grow. Change. He was getting bigger, and in a swirl of strange, indescribable movements, he seemed to be becoming a man right before her eyes. The man who’d attacked her hours before.
A small voice in Karen’s head told her to run. But that voice was just a whisper now. A shadow. An afterthought. Against all rational judgment, she felt compelled to be near this man. To be with him. To follow him.
The man stood before her, breathing hard from the effort of this… act. His eyes refocused upon Karen, he took a moment to steady himself, and then he spoke.
“You’re feeling many strange sensations. Thinking strange thoughts. Acting in strange ways. In time, it will pass. You will come to understand this is what you are - fate has dictated this is what you were meant to be. And now, you are mine.”
Karen stood in place, an image of confusion. But though she did not yet fully understand, her mind screamed that all these words were true. Especially the last ones. She was his. She knew it. She did not understand it, but she knew it was true all the same. Her instincts drew her to this man like nothing she had ever felt. A slight breeze passed over them, and Karen shivered. As much from the sensations of her nerves as from the wind.
The man walked up to Karen, who stood in place seemingly transfixed. He put a hand under her chin, and gently tilted her head upwards and to the side, exposing her neck. He examined the bite mark, eyes passing over it, and the contours of her neck, before gently running his fingers over the trauma he had inflicted.
“I’m sorry about that. It must have hurt badly.”
“It… doesn’t hurt as much as it should,” Karen replied. He smiled knowingly, eyes coming to connect with Karen’s again.
“True,” he replied, “but nonetheless I’m sure it caused you a great deal of distress at the time. For that necessity, I am sorry.”
Karen needed answers. To understand the strange things that were happening to her. In a soft voice, she asked, “Please… can you tell me what’s happening to me? Why… why am I here? Why don’t I can’t I run from you?”
“Not here,” the man said sternly. He turned, and began walking briskly towards the woods. Without looking back he spoke a single word.
“Follow.”
And so she did. They walked in silence, until enveloped by the edge of the woods, her several paces behind him, still not understanding, yet knowing. This was right to her, now.
Now surrounded by the trees, he stopped and turned to her.
“You shall kneel,” and Karen found herself totally unable to resist. She sank to her knees before this man, and looked up at him. He spoke to her now, offering her clarity on what had become of her.
“No doubt, despite your compliance, parts of your mind remain in confusion. It would be hard not to notice that you at this time are completely unable to resist any command I give. This is, to me, a happy side effect of your transformation at my hands.”
“Transformation? I… I don’t understand,” Karen mouthed.
He smiled, “You’re becoming one like me. Indeed, you are already more like me than you can imagine.”
He walked forward and kneeled down, closer to eye level with his new woman. He reached out a hand over her cheek, brushing away her hair. He smiled to her.
“I have not enjoyed being alone. In time, I promise I will explain everything, and it will all make much more sense to you. In time, the control I have on you will fade, and you will face the same choice all of our kind meet at some point - to stay or to go. Every one of us has had to make that choice, at some point. But for now, you are mine. As completely as I want you to be.”
The man stood before her, “Stand,” he commanded firmly. As she did, he took her in again. She was lovely. Pleasing to the eye. And what he could feel of her inner self was at least as interesting. For this he was thankful. He felt his pulse quickening, and his thoughts turning lustful. It had been a long time, and he wished to wait no longer.
“Remove your clothes.”
Karen’s heart skipped, but she felt totally compelled to obey this man. In short order she was removing all her clothing and soon stood before him, naked. Her supple body glowed in the moonlight, and his eyes drank her in deeply. As his eyes looked her over, she shivered, but not from any chill.
He continued to look her over, as he stripped off his clothing as slowly as his self control would allow him. They now stood, eye to eye, taking each other in. Karen could not fight against… whatever was happening to her. This man had her, and she couldn’t help but feel pulled to him. He again brushed his hand over her cheek, and then down onto her neck, gently. His fingers brushed over her bite mark while his thumb teased her lips, which gently moved in response. Being able to feel her breathing excited him.
He moved himself to stand behind her, keeping the one hand on her neck as he wrapped his arm around Karen’s frame, his other arm sliding around her stomach, hand snaking its way up her frame to touch and tease her breasts. His lips teased the other side of her neck. Karen found herself pressing back to him, greatly desiring his touch. Using his hands as a guide, he and Karen sunk down to their knees in unison, his lips working away on her neck and the side of her face, as one of his hands began playing with her breasts, gently rolling her nipple between his fingers. Karen softly moaned and turned herself so her lips would meet his. Whatever was happening to her, she was his.
He was containing himself, for now. He wanted to rush, to be more forceful. But he would be patient. He would give her the time for her pleasure, before taking what he was in truth free to take at his leisure. While one hand continued to tease her breasts, the hand from around her neck slid down her sides ever so slowly, taking in the softness of her skin as he did so. His hand slid over her trimmed patch of pubic hair, and over her warm and waiting sex. The effect had been predictable but to find her so… ready, was exciting all the same. The touch of his hand elicited a moan from Karen.
“Yes… that’s my girl. Lose yourself in the moment. Lose yourself in me,” he growled into her ear, before nibbling on her earlobe while his hands fondled her soft feminine body. It had been so long for him, and now he fond his body racing in excitement at his new partner. The animal in him would take over soon. For now, two fingers worked up into her, feeling her warmth, her body responding to his every touch, his lips growing more frenzied upon her neck.
As his fingers pressed into her, his other hand groping her chest, his lips all over her neck, she could feel nothing but lust. And need.
His lips passed over her bite mark. He kissed and licked it, several times, gently.
Karen melted in his arms.
*****
His
She found herself being pushed forward, onto all fours. He was on her, and as she gained her balance on the ground, she felt his lips move over her, to the back of her neck. He playfully, but not entirely gently, ran his teeth down the back of her neck to the top of her shoulders. She felt a shiver run all the way down her spine and straight into her sex.
As he slid his way down her body, she felt herself being gripped firmly, held in place. She felt his nose press against her sex, taking in her scent greedily. It sent a chill into her, it was so… animalistic. And then his tongue began lapping at her. He lapped not to give, but to take as much of her as he could. He was greedy, quick, probing, demanding. She pressed back to him… his ability to take of her overwhelming. His tongue greedily probing into her, deeper and deeper, and over her, pleasing her greatly, without abandon. She moaned out, and writhed in pleasure as he snaked his way in and out of her, greedily tasting her womanhood. She couldn’t help herself, and she came for him.
But he was unrelenting. He enjoyed her taste, and he wanted more. She squirmed, tried to get away… it was too much. His hands held her firmly, roughly, and his growl left no doubt. She was to stay put. No debate. She forced herself to remain in place as his unrelenting, long, coarse tongue probed her, deeply… until she melted again, crying out caught in the ecstasy of the moment.
He released her from his grip, momentarily. She started to move for only a second, and again he growled, more loudly than before. She froze in place. She was not to move. Instead, she spread her legs, and arched her back… inviting him to take what was his. She could feel him circling her. She kept her head low, and her pelvis up, lags apart… waiting for him. She could feel him, behind her. She breathed shortly, quickly… anticipating.
In a flash, he began to mount her. His new queen. He gripped her tightly, and began thrusting… seeking that which he needed. She reached back, found his thrusting manhood with her hand, his body mad with an animal’s lust. She guided him to her… needing him. He felt her heat, and he thrust. Fast, hard, and without mercy. For him.
It was not gentle, by any stretch of the imagination. He had waited far too long, wanted her far too much, and was too far gone to his animal side to do anything else. He hammered into her, needing the relief only the heaven of woman could ever bring, gripping her strongly on the sides, on top of her, mounting her, his teeth gripped on her neck for support, gently growling as he thrust again and again. She moaned, and wailed. He grunted, and growled. Her warmth, her dampness, her womanhood was overpowering and drove him only deeper and deeper.
And then, she could feel the bulge pressing into her.
“Oh God…”
*****
Epilogue
The two wolves sat in the woods, staring out from their hidden location at the city below. It was a cool night, but still pleasant. A clear sky, stars alight (those not blocked out by the light of the humans anyway). It was peaceful in the woods that night.
The male turned to head deeper into the woods, away from the city. There was no reason to stay close to it now. The female still sat, staring back at the city. It no longer held the lure for her it once did. There was nobody there for her. Nobody like him. It was better to be with him, together. Yes. Wherever he went, she would follow now. That was home now. The male turned to the still sitting female, and growled at her to follow. The female wolf turned her head to him.
She rose, and together they descended deeper into the woods as night fell in around them, allowing them to disappear for as long as they chose.
