Day 95 - Bloody Story

Bloody Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 Zeek dropped to his knees, blood streaming down the cuts to his arms and from a wound to his head. He had been in a fight and someone had cracked a brick against his skull and he was pretty sure that he was losing far too much blood far too fast. As for the other guy – well, if the knife sticking out of his chest was any indication, he seemed to be pretty much dead. Zeek didn’t know his name. He didn’t know why he had been attacked. But he had fought back with everything he had. Self-preservation will do that to a person – bring out the vicious animus when necessary.

Zeek was in Hanover Hill Park. He had been cutting across the park on his way home from McCleary’s Pub when he was attacked. At first Zeek thought it was a mugging, and even tried to give the man his wallet and money. But the attacker was possessed. The attacker had no need for cash or other material gain. The attacker clearly had an insatiable blood lust.

And he had the knife. And was intent upon using it.

Zeek was not a strong man or a well trained fighter, but he had his will power. The attacker wielded the knife, but he didn’t use it with the skill or competence of a man that knew what he was doing. He just attacked and attacked again. He was wild, sporadic, and his attacks were sweeping and undirected. He drew blood again and again, but had no real purpose or direction. If he had wanted to kill Zeek there were faster and more effective ways of doing it. Instead it just seemed like all he wanted to do was draw blood. Again and again and again.

Zeek lunged at the attacker, getting in so close so that the knife was no longer a useful weapon. They wrestled and Zeek knocked the knife free. Zeek was hurt and bleeding and just wanted to let his arms drop and fall to the ground, but he knew that wasn’t an option. He knew that if he did that he’d be dead. His adrenaline took over and he knocked the man to the ground. They struggled, each grasping to gain the upper hand and to reach the knife. Zeek kicked and punched at anything he could reach on the man. He grabbed a rock and bashed the man as hard as he could.

Both men gave up their battle and made a play for the knife. Zeek got there first.

“It’s mine. Give it back.”

“You must be crazy if you think that’ll happen.”

Zeek gripped the knife tighter. His arms were tired and his body hurt, but there was no way he was going to lose this knife. Not without a fight. Not without perhaps sacrificing his own life.

He closed his eyes for a moment and bit his lip. Something pulsed inside him. His heart rate was up. He was nervous and anxious and aroused all at once. He had never been a violent man before, but now a new feeling overwhelmed him. He wanted to hurt this man. He wanted to make him pay. Suddenly the pain in Zeek’s arms was less and he could almost swear that the bleeding was slowing.

Zeek looked at the blade of the knife and in it he saw blood. Perhaps it was his. Perhaps it was sown into the metal itself. It was splattered and swirled and Zeek was intoxicated. He felt the knife in his hand and he wanted to plunge its tip deep into this man. The knife wanted it. It called for him to do it.

Zeek charged the man.

Sensing the shift, the attacker grew scared and tried to run. Zeek was an unstoppable force and death was calling for one of these men.

The fuller on the blade of the knife filled with the attacker’s blood. Zeek had buried the knife into this chest. Both men looked at each other, fear filling their faces and eyes. Suddenly Zeek had sympathy for this other man. All he had been doing was what the knife had wanted. Zeek knew that now. It wasn’t that this man had wanted to kill him in particular. He would have killed anyone he came across that night. The knife demanded it. Just as it had demanded that Zeek kill this man. For a moment he was sad. For a moment he wondered just what the hell sort of knife this was.

Then the brick smashed against his head.

Zeek didn’t realize that the man had any life or fight left in him. He somehow assumed that a knife buried in your chest would end all that. He hadn’t paid attention. Now he was paying the price.

Both men dropped to their knees and fell to the ground. Both men were losing blood at an alarming rate.

Zeek reached out, struggling to touch the knife. He wanted to feel it again, let the skin of his fingers rub against it. Just one more time, he begged, just let me have that rush one more time.

Zeek stared at his attacker’s eyes and they blinked their final blink and the eyes went blank. Zeek had never seen a man die before. Now he was a killer.

His head hurt and he was losing a lot of blood. He had cuts all over both arms and he wasn’t sure how deep or how many there were. He didn’t know how much blood he was losing or how fast. Still he struggled to reach that knife.

His hand began to shake, he was losing consciousness. It was just a little too far away, just out of reach, just beyond his power. His breath slowed. His eyes closed. His fingers began to drop.

When the bodies were found and the police had been called and they were trying to make sense of the scene, the knife was nowhere to be seen; someone somewhere had taken it in the middle of the night and the knife had a new home.