The Renfield Syndrome

The Renfield Syndrome

(Bisexual horror) - David is an ordinary man thrown into a nightmarish world of bloodlust and passion with his own humanity at stake. This is an ongoing work in progress of psychosexual horror.

CHAPTER 6

Dawn in Seattle was more of a gradual lightening of the cloud cover. David sat outside on Lucas' large wraparound porch watching the downtown skyline as morning approached, his head full of a ridiculous miasma of conflicting emotions and far too much new information to absorb in too short a time.

"What does she put in us?"

"Her blood, mostly. The more of it she gives you, the more of her power you've got. But also, the more of it you want and the more hers you become. The harder she is to resist."

"I couldn't resist her, I couldn't even try to resist her. I wanted her, I wanted her to own me. I was ready to let her kill me if that's what it took to have her."

"It's not your fault. She's part of you. She's like an addiction none of us can break, we're her creatures now whether we like it or not."

It was shaping up to be another gray wet day and the rain was coming down as usual. David didn't hate the rain so much as he was terribly bored with it. He had also observed that the longer the residents of this drippy climate went without seeing the sun, the meaner and nastier they got with each other. Seattle was a lousy city to have seasonal affective disorder in.

"What can kill us?"

"Anything that can kill us too fast to heal. Also, if you get something cut off you, it's not growing back. We heal like normal people, just a lot faster. We live longer too."

"How long do we live?"

"Lucas says he was around for the Haitian revolution, so he's over two hundred. He's the oldest one that we know of right now, Belial is just a little bit younger. Me, I don't look half bad for a gal of seventy-eight. But none of us that we know of has died of old age yet, not that most of us get the chance to try. Nobody has any idea how old Angelique is, of course."

"Belial... Christ what is that guy's problem?"

"He's Angelique's favorite attack dog. My best advice is steer clear of him whenever possible, he's powerful and sometimes he's no better than the feral people as far as his temperament is concerned. He hates Lucas because Lucas is the only person he's afraid of, besides Angelique herself."

David took a sip of the expensive coffee in his mug, savoring the intensely rich flavor. All his senses had sharpened including his sense of taste, and it was hard not to get distracted by the flood of sensations that previously were outside his range of perception. The pounding of the rain on the covered porch was thunderous in his ears, and he could smell the waterfront from here with its distinctive aroma of used motor oil and dead fish that seemed to permeate the entire gloomy city.

"What are the feral people, exactly? What's wrong with them?"

"They've regressed and surrendered to their animal nature. It's a curse every one of us has to deal with, and most people don't deal with it that well. You've felt the hunger, you know what it's like, and that's something that'll never go away. In fact, it only gets worse from here, so you either learn to live with it or you don't."

"So how do I NOT turn out like that? If I've got this thing in me, how do I fight it?"

"That's something we've had long conversations about. Lucas says he doesn't fight it, instead he's kind of made peace with it, but he can explain it a lot better than I can. He's better at it than me, anyway, I've done some awful shit without meaning to over the years. Things I'm not going to tell you about, so don't ask."

It was chilly out this morning, but David was still finding the cold air more than tolerable as his entire body was jacked into overdrive. He was burning with an interior heat that was less like having a fever and more like a bizarre

hyper

-life, his body's systems all humming along at many times their normal speed and capacity. David wasn't even tired despite being awake all night, the coffee more of a ceremonial thing than any need to caffeinate himself.

"So, what does Angelique want from us? Why does she create us in the first place? What do you guys do for her?"

"Anything she wants. We're her lovers and sometimes companions, she seems to crave company and she likes to be worshipped. You'll know when she's calling you to her, and it'll be very hard to resist. Your will isn't entirely your own anymore."

"Has anyone ever tried to resist her?"

"Yes, and you saw what happened to him. But try not to mention Aaron around Lucas, they were real close, you know? He's a lot more torn up than he's letting on."

The side door opened and Roach emerged onto the porch, eyeing the sky to judge the weather. Her boots clomped on the floorboards as she strode over to where David sat and gave him a silent and unsmiling greeting. He returned it and drained his coffee, standing up to return the mug to the kitchen.

"Hey," Roach said. "You need me to give you a ride somewhere? I'm about to head home myself."

"Sure, that would be great. I still have no idea where my car is."

"I think I do, the cops who pulled you over are like us. They're a couple of irredeemable assholes but they're totally loyal to Angelique, and I know how to reach them. Shouldn't be too much trouble to track it down."

"Thanks, Roach," David said with genuine gratitude in his voice, feeling like he could use all the help he could get right about now. "I can't imagine trying to go back to normal life, but I guess I have to. I'm actually more worried about losing my phone than my car, my whole world was in there."

"Lucas went to bed, but he said you're welcome to visit in the future if you need to. Like I told you, it's a safe place should you ever need one. We try to look after each other, and Lucas is a real good person to have on your side." Roach tucked a damp lock of long black hair behind her ear and zipped up her military coat. Together they crossed the sodden lawn to where Roach's nondescript car was parked on the street, and climbed in.

Few words were spoken during the drive, save for David's directions for the trip toward his place on Capitol Hill. It was early Sunday morning, the waterlogged roads were nearly vacant save for themselves, it was a short drive north on the 1-5, and soon Roach was pulling up in front of David's building. "Hey," she said as he made to get out. "When you get a phone, here's my number. Just in case you need it."

"Thanks," David said again, accepting the proffered scrap of paper with a thin-lipped smile. They waved their goodbyes and Roach pulled away as David let himself into the building. The elevator was still out of order of course, but David took the stairs two at a time on the way up just because he could, as his personal supply of energy never seemed to run dry. He reached his floor panting from exertion and walked down the hall to let himself into his small apartment.

A low feline growl greeted him upon stepping inside, and Tish scooted to hide behind the recliner. Ignoring her for the moment, David stepped into the bathroom to splash some water on his face and stood for several minutes regarding himself in the mirror. It was weird to be home in these comfortable and familiar surroundings when everything going on inside of him was so alien that he felt like a stranger in his own skin. The man looking back from the mirror wasn't one David recognized at all,

THAT

guy had tasted human flesh some hours ago, just for one thing. David knew he was going to have to face that fact sooner or later, but for now he pushed it back into the fog of an already overwhelming day.

From the bathroom David moved to the cramped half-kitchen area and retrieved a can of cat food from the cupboard. He emptied it into the bowl and then spent a good twenty minutes trying to coax his normally affectionate pet to let him come near, all in vain. Tish refused to take a single step toward him, and would hiss and spit if approached, retreating to the farthest possible distance.

Finally giving up, David left the food on the floor and returned to the kitchen to find something for himself to eat. Without much warning he realized he was ravenous, but as he rummaged through the refrigerator he found his vegetarian offerings to be unappetizing in the extreme. David avoided meat as a rule and never had any in stock at home. The sickening thing was that David knew exactly what he wanted, there was no question in his mind. He was craving red meat like little before in his life. Eggs were the closest thing to animal protein in David's fridge, and so he set about frying a couple of them up, only to find them frustratingly unsatisfying.

"Oh well," David said aloud to Tish. "Seems like giving into cravings has become my hobby recently, so I might as well go for broke, right?" Her answer was a warning yowl, so David left her to her own devices and left his apartment again, descending the stairs and out into the rainy streets with his destination being the market a few blocks away.

Halfway there, walking down the rainy sidewalk, David passed an older woman bravely out walking her dog. The dog was a small one, some kind of rat terrier, and it promptly went berserk at David's approach. Barking in an especially piercing manner it seemed uncertain if it wanted to attack or run away, and David hurried on to get away from it and its apologetic owner who was shocked at her pet's behavior.

Half an hour later David returned to his apartment with steaks, chicken, some sausage, and a bottle of wine. He had never been a wine drinker, but no liquor stores were open to get his usual fix of hard alcohol. He reminded himself that he was still trying to quit, and this lapse was turning into a full-fledged relapse, but he couldn't find the fight in him to resist the pull of drink when he so desperately needed it. David never drank to have fun or to cut loose. David only drank to numb up, it was pure self-administered emotional anesthetic. He drank to not care, and if there were ever a man who could be pardoned for needing to not care, David judged it might well be him considering what he was medicating against.

He set the groceries on the counter and put a pan on to heat. By now David felt so hungry that he was hollow inside as he set about preparing his food as quickly as possible, eager to sate himself. The raw steaks were the cheapest cuts, but he found himself nearly drooling as he unwrapped them on the cutting board. One went into the frying pan and David settled on very rare out of impatience. The steak went onto his plate more warm than cooked, and David ate like a man starved for days. He was finished mere moments later and still ravenous, and he idly wondered how many calories his amped-to-the-gills body had burned over the last twelve hours.

David went to prepare the second steak but paused before putting it in the pan. The bloody meat looked more than appetizing, and he brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply. It was tantalizing to his hyper-acute sense of smell, that raw red meat, and he paused only a moment before surrendering to the hunger and taking a huge bite. It was delicious and satisfying, so David sat at his small table and devoured the raw steak using only his hands and teeth, delighting in the feel of tearing meat off the bone.

By the time he finished, the razor's edge had been taken off his hunger, but it was by no means sated. David wasn't even sure what he was craving exactly, more food or something else. The emptiness he felt inside him was begging to be filled with

something

, so David grimly opened the cheap wine he had bought and took a long bracing drink direct from the bottle. He didn't like wine very much, it was purely an alcohol delivery method, but it was that or beer and David had detested beer his whole life, just because of the Old Man.

"Shit, the Old Man!" David exclaimed aloud. It was Sunday morning and he'd been missing in action since Tuesday. For a few blissful days, he had completely forgotten the fucker existed. David had no phone, but he could imagine the messages stacked up on his voice mail, demanding to know where he was. He would be lucky if he hadn't been reported to the cops, more likely for elder abuse than being a missing person. He groaned and contemplated the wine bottle, giving serious consideration to downing the whole thing in a single draught and going back to forgetting. But the Old Man needed checking on as his nurse didn't come on the weekends, though the idea was as appealing as a root canal.

Resigned to his fate, David considered his transportation options. The Seattle Metro bus line ran down toward the general area, but it would be a long and complicated ride. Calling a taxi was the next idea, but David had no phone, and it struck him again just how dependent he had become on the damn thing. For that matter he'd lost his credit and bank cards in an era when cash was growing ever more out of fashion. He wrote exactly one check for his rent out of an aging checkbook that gathered dust the rest of the month. David grimaced when he thought of everything that was in his wallet he would now need to replace, his driver's license, social security card, insurance cards... He had practically been rendered a non-person in the eyes of modern society. He no longer had his papers.

Settling on the likeliest option he saw before him, David allowed himself one more solid pull on the wine bottle before leaving his apartment, judging he was going to need all the psychic Seran-wrap he could get for the task ahead. Lori's apartment was two floors up from his own, so he climbed the stairs and walked down the carpeted hallway to her door, where he rapped lightly. There was a pause and then the door opened, and Lori's round face appeared wearing a welcoming smile as always.

"Morning, David! Come on in, there's fresh coffee made if you want some." Her voice was bright and full of genuine warmth. David stepped inside and into an affectionate, loving hug from the curvy woman.

"Hi Lori," David said gratefully. "Sure, some coffee would be awesome. I was just wondering if I could use your phone to call a cab, I haven't gotten my car back yet." Lori's apartment was similar in size to David's and decorated to reflect its tenant's slightly eccentric taste. Lori loved computers, anime, cryptocurrency, and horror movies in no particular order, and she had mastered the "gothic nerd" aesthetic in both her home décor and personal look.

"You lost your car too? Oh, David..." She mourned, leading him inside and urging him to take a seat on the couch. She poured him some fragrant coffee in a mug that declared its holder a 'sarcastic ray of fucking sunshine' and brought it over to sit beside him. "That was one hell of a relapse, I guess. Sure you can use my phone, and I'm happy to give you a ride somewhere."

"Thanks, but it's okay," David said. "I have to go check on the Old Man."

Lori's expression immediately turned sour. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I'll even lend you my car if you want, but I can't go with you on that one. I know I'm a fat bitch, I don't need to hear it from him."

"Jesus, I'm sorry about that, Lori," David said automatically, well used to apologizing for the Old Man's behavior. "And you're not a fat bitch."

"He don't know me vewwy well," Lori said, making a goon face and jerking a thumb in David's direction. "Seriously, I don't know how you do it, David. However bad you say something is, I know it's a hundred times worse because you don't like to complain to me about things."

"I feel like all I do is complain to you," David said, taking a sip of his coffee. "I know how you feel, believe me. But it's my cross to bear for the time being, at least until I become a rich and famous columnist for Rolling Stone."

"I'm just really worried about you, David. I wonder how much that rotten Old Man had to do with this last relapse? He's a major trigger for you and we both know it."

"I'm okay, I'm already back on the wagon again." The lie was automatic and well-practiced. "I've learned my lesson. And I totally get where you're coming from, Lori, but it's family shit and I don't have much other choice right now other than to keep doing what I'm doing."

"I know, I don't mean to nag, I'm just trying to be a friend. But I swear if I could I'd go halvesies with you on an old folk's home. I've seen your face after dealing with him night after night." Lori gave David's knee a commiserating squeeze. "But I'll drop it, I promise. Don't worry about the cab, you can totally borrow my car. Would you like to do a date night here soon? Netflix and chill except instead of sex it'll be actual Netflix and actual chilling?"

"Um... I'd like that, actually," David said. "Give me a chance to get outside my own head for a little while. If you want, I can make stir fry for us."

"I'll never say no to your stir fry," Lori said happily. "Yay, it's been too long since we've had an evening together. I've been totally missing you, you know? I'm not cut out for the single life, dating sucks ass."

"I haven't even tried yet," David admitted. "It's cliché as fuck to say, but I have a lot of 'me' work to do before I'm fit for public consumption."

"You say, but you're going to make some lucky guy really happy," Lori insisted. "You're a damn good-looking dude and when we can get you to talk, you have a great personality."

"Thanks, it's a disorder," David said. "I've thought about it a lot, but I think about all I could handle right now is a queer platonic partner. Someone to watch movies with, laugh at stupid shit, give each other emotional support and maybe forehead kisses."

"You've got that with me," Lori said. "And after the last few months of the dating scene, I'm seriously thinking of caving in and going lesbian anyway. Straight men are fucking pigs."

"I tend to assume they're aggressive and untrustworthy and work from there," David admitted. "Believe me, it sucks being a queer guy who doesn't like men very much."

"Well, if I can't be your girlfriend, I can be your fag hag," she teased.

"We call them ride or die friends now!" David laughed. "Fag hag, Jesus Christ!"

"Seriously, I'll totally be your queer platonic partner, just don't shut me out, okay? I love you and want you involved in my life."

"I'll try not to, I know I've been distant lately. I get stressed and I withdraw, and there's a lot stressing me these days. Believe me, it has everything to do with me and nothing to do with you. But how about tomorrow night? I'll get the stir fry fixings and we'll cook over here and just have a nice normal evening like we used to." David's mind scoffed at the word 'normal', he felt like he'd never be normal again. But he kept a straight face. "I love you too, you know. That's never changed."

"I know," Lori said, giving him a tight hug and snuggling against his shoulder for a moment. "And it means a lot that you do. Tomorrow sounds awesome, I can't wait."

David hugged back, feeling like an utter piece of shit for lying, but he couldn't imagine himself trying to tell the truth.

To be honest, Lori, in addition to going back on the booze again, I've been sleeping with a woman who's got fangs in her hoo-hah and I'm not sure I'm human anymore and I eat raw meat now. How's things been in your neck of the woods?

The cognitive dissonance he felt trying to plan a normal date was staggering.

---

It was moving toward noon when David pulled up in front of the old family homestead. The rain had lessened somewhat, but it still was heavily overcast for the umpteenth day in a row. He paused a moment to regard the place, trying to find some sense of home or belonging here and failing as he always did. As the middle child David had grown up surrounded by family, had gone to school from here through twelfth grade, and had known no other home save for a series of increasingly shoddy apartments in his adulthood. But this place still felt like hostile foreign territory and probably always would. David automatically reached into his pocket for his bottle of Xanax before he realized that he had forgotten it at home along with all the rest of his missed daily medications that he was surely crashing hard from.