Devourers - Excerpt

DEVOURERS follows the long life of Nicholas Statham, who was turned into a Devourer Animatum by his own father. This is my take on the modern day vampire novel. My creatures are more combinations of zombies/vampires but they do not drink blood. My character writes in his journal (which is necessary and briefly explained). All of his journal entries are found and delivered to a police officer in small town Kansas - who uses the knowledge he finds to solve hundreds of unsolved murders over a seven decade time frame.



23 May 1935

This brings us to present moment, and to present quandary. I have only the remembered details of almost two full centuries of my father’s life, and that is what you’ll have to make do with.

That day in his study, my father created a monster as terrible a monster as he himself had been. He called us Devoratores Animorum, which with my limited Latin I believe means the devourers of hearts. He always refers to our kind as simply the Devourers. Stupidly, this is the part I skipped over the most as I found it to be a lot of boring biology when I wanted to read his story. Most things I can gather from the name devourers of hearts. I don’t remember anything about him actually consuming a heart, but I do remember something about necks. He said a lot that it will make sense when it’s time to feed, which we have to do between every two and three weeks.

Without this consumption we start a decomposition process that my father described as simply hell. He says at first he tried to stave off the ‘taking’ because he knew from his teacher that there must be a more complete loss of life than anything he’s ever known. He went three weeks without feeding, and was torn from his slumber screaming and clawing at his skin. He compares it to a time when he was young and playing with chemicals from his father’s study. He dropped a bottle, spraying some of the liquid on his legs, and watching as the acidic concoction burned holes through his skin until his father threw white powder on him. The decomposition is similar to that acid being poured down your throat. He said it only took him minutes of this until he crawled his way to one of the staff in his home and took her. He said that the physical pain of it was enough that he remembered, even after the ‘taking’, or at least long enough to get it written down.

He describes how it is important to write down everything, every minute detail of our lives because after the ‘taking’ we forget anything that is not emotional, anything that is not a skill set. He remembered how to run his business, and how to act in certain situations, but he could not remember the names and faces of the people he worked with. He couldn’t even remember his own name, who he was, or what he was doing before the taking. He has sketches of my mother, Gladys the housemaid, me, Duke, Lela and a few other people in his life drawn through his book. He also comments how important it is to write yourself a note indicating what you were trying to do, and the location of the journals. He describes it as unendurably frustrating and had quite a few places in his notes where he does not believe his own description of the decomposition and wills to try it again. I can only assume that from his continued takings that he was never able to endure.

My father also speaks about the importance of choosing the proper victim. He says to chose only those minds you wouldn’t mind inhabiting. Those with sets of skills and emotions you want to have. I wrote down this quote “I’m lucky to have chosen a path that allows me to take the scum, the castoffs. As an owner of this devilish business, it suits me to take people as ruthless and vile as myself.” There is not a moment where he describes the joy of an immortal life, the love of increased skill sets or having a large emotional repertoire.

There seem, to me at least, to be a few perks of this damned existence.

My father describes an ability that I am slowly seeing manifested, the ability to feel the emotions of other people. My father believes that everyone is able to do this to some degree, but that our kind is better at this because we “have cleared our minds enough to be able to focus the process.” I’m not really sure what that means, but perhaps it, like most things, will become clear with time.

As limited as this knowledge is, it’s all I know right now. According to my father I’ll need to feed within the next few days, and I’m frightened. I don’t know how to do it. Damn me for not taking better notes, for not being patient! I’m frightened of killing someone; I’m frightened of taking the wrong person. I understand my father’s need to take the scum and the vile, but I do not understand why. If given the choice, I would not want to be like them. My thoughts dwell on being like Lela or any of the tenders working in our joints, rather than the vile monsters who operated in the other towns. I’m appalled that I’m even having these thoughts. If I were a man, I’d dismiss the whole process and allow myself to die.