Daily Screams

Werewolf Prompt

Dennis looked down at his hands in horror; thick, sticky blood covered both his palms, globs of congealing blood dropping off his fingers.
"I, I..." He turned his hands over, slowly rotating them back and forth as though waiting for the blood to just disappear. Dirt encrusted his nails which were torn and jagged. Long scratches ran from his knuckles up his arms, vanishing into the matted dark hair there.He whimpered, a stifled animal sound from the back of his throat.
"Wh-what happened?" He finally raised his eyes to mine. His face was gaunt, the skin stretched taunt and white. There were dark smudges, practically bruises, under his eyes. I stepped forward, wanting to smooth those dark circles away.
He shrank back, hunching in on himself, fending me off.
"Den." I kept my voice low and cool. "Den, darling. It's okay." It really wasn't, but I needed, needed, to calm him down. He looked a hair's breath from breaking completely. I reached out; slowly, like you would a frightened, beloved puppy. A frightened, beloved puppy that might just have rabies.
"Dennis, I'm here. Let me help." He twitched his head and blinked. "Please, Denny. Look at me. Look at me." My voice was barely more than a whisper now and I risked inching forward again. Dennis flinched, but stayed where he was. I gestured from my eyes to his, like a magician bewitching him. It worked; he twisted and rocked on his toes, but he maintained eye contact, and for all he was trembling head to foot, he made no move to run.
It's the little, almost stupid, movements that matter in a situation like this. When you're dealing with a wild animal, you shift your head just so and use your peripheral vision to watch them - direct eye contact spooks them something terrible. But a person? That eye contact mesmerises them, leaves them hypnotises them.
I needed Dennis to trust me. To focus on me so that he wouldn't notice the police quietly circling around behind him.
"They're, they're dead," he managed, his voice cracking.
"I know. I know." Repeat yourself, keep your words simple, clip your sentences so there's not much for them to take in. People fixate when they're in shock, the trick is to drip feed them until that frozen fear starts to thaw. Trickle the information, let them find their own speed with words. And above all, keep that eye contact.
"Dead," he said again. His eyes widened and I knew in that instant I was about to loose him.
"Dennis! Look at me. It's me. Sam." He shrunk back and, heart in mouth, I took the chance. I leapt forward and locked him in a kiss. Deep, powerful, passionate.
After an eternity, I pulled my lips away from his and just held his head in my hands, feeling the rough stubble grazing under my fingertips. Denny knew how much I loved him clean shaven and he'd been religious with a razor ever since our first date. In many ways, that three-day stubble was as shocking as the drying blood on his hands and clothes.
I ran my fingers along his jaw, cupping his chin and leaning forwards for another kiss. Softer, tender, more Anteros than Eros.
I pulled Dennis into an embrace, smoothing his head into the dip in my shoulder - a loving gesture that just so happened to let me see if the police had got into position.
Not yet. More distraction then.
"Sammy." My poor boy moaned, his face pressed into my shoulder. A hot tear dropped onto my neckline and ran down the inside of my shirt. Dennis smelt of blood and sweat and mud and shit. His hair was slick with perspiration. Grass, dirt, and blood stained his clothes. And suddenly his whole body was shuddering against mine as he began sobbing, big ugly gasps of hysteria. I stroked his hair and murmured in his eye. Softly, softly. The old fight-or-flight impetus had deserted him and now he needed to be held; rocked and soothed like nightmare awakened child.
"I love you." I meant it. I always do.
He pulled back, standing straight before me as though I'd uttered some magic mantra. I fixed my eyes on his, ignoring the rise and fall of his chest as he fought for control of himself. Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks, but the raggedness of his breathing slowed and the jerking, gulping eased.
"I, I killed them, Sam," he forced out. "Tara and Clair and Sampson. I, I killed them."
I took his hand and stroked it softly. "I know."
His face crumpled up again and he snatched his hand away, hugging himself and rocking back and forth again.
"I don't know what happened. One, one minute we were all sitting around; laughing, joking, and then -"
He broke off, turning away from me. Rebuffing me.

And oh how that hurt.

The first time had been like a punch to the gut, but I was used to it now and Denny only caused a lump in my throat that ached.
Not that body-wracking blow that nearly cost me everything, but then Steven had been my first love and I'd nearly broken when I found him, blood drenched and catatonic in the hayloft.
I still don't know how I would had dealt with it, if I'd had time. If the other stable lads hadn't found me bending over him trying to rouse him from his stupor. Of course they assumed it was Stephen. The squire's young son was found dead, his throat torn out as if by wild dogs, and there was the under-groom vacant-eyed and bloody in the hayloft, one of the lads clutching him and weeping. My hands and chest were tacky with the drying blood from Stephen's clothes and shock had stolen my voice.

They hanged Stephen.

And I remember watching his feet kick and the crotch of his trousers stain with urine and faeces.
The head-groom gave me Stephen's job - after all, the horses never gave me trouble and the hounds were always strangely quiet around me. It was only, several years later, when it happened again and my beautiful Oskar was blamed, that I realised this would set the pattern for my life.
I am very careful, only once in every decade or so does the moon catch me by unawares. But it's always those dearest to me that seem to find the bodies. My wonderful, precious lovers that stumble across the mauled remains and find themselves blanking out in terror, only for their minds to, oh so wrongfully, fill in the gaps.

I love Dennis, but the police will pin this triple homicide on him. It's that or confess. And I can't do that. I've lived these lies too many times now.


Word Count: 1128
Prompt: Werewolf