September 21 1999
The sun felt bright, too bright, and too hot on her neck as she slouched home through town. Missing the bus had been the last horrid event in a truly horrid day, when everything and everyone had seemingly colluded against her. Things smelled different, looked different... she couldn't seem to read people in the way she was used to, which was something Lisa had always prided herself on. And to top it all off, she had a double toothache in her upper jaw. So it was no surprise that Lisa was irritable when she got home.
The sound of the doorbell jarred against her hearing, which seemed to be so much more sensitive to high-pitched noises. Perhaps she was ill... it would explain the shivers. And when she had looked in the mirror this morning her skin had been pale, and yet somehow very dark as well, as if her flesh had become necrotic underneath that thin, translucent surface.
The door opened wide and Marge loomed out at her, yelling something incomprehensible at her face. Lisa growled under her breath and tried to concentrate. If she listened hard, she could make out the words...
"... hope you're not feeling too hot in all that black clothing. Come on, you don't look so good, you should get out of that sun."
Lisa allowed herself to be led up to her room. She lay down on her bed whilst a Marge busied herself opening windows and drawing the curtains.
"You look like you've caught the sun a bit, your neck is bright red! And your face... oh dear, I think I should call a doctor."
"No, mom," Lisa mumbled, yawning. "I'll be fine. I just need... sleep..."
"That's a very good idea. I'll be downstairs, if you feel any worse just holler."
Yeah right. Lisa closed her eyes and settled back into the bed. But she couldn't sleep. There was a scent lingering in the air, something new... something inviting. Tasty, in fact. She inhaled the pungent aroma and found that she was salivating. Over what, she had no idea, but she had to have it...
Lisa rolled over and the smell got stronger. It was coming from her own bed? What in the world... and then another, stronger scent wafted through the air. She pulled herself to her knees and curled over, hugging herself down.
"Lisa?" It was Bart. He was the stronger scent.
"Bart, leave the room. Please."
"I-I just came to see if you were-"
"Leave Bart." She let her arms go limp and slowly pulled her body upright. The stench was overpowering now, commanding her to act. "Please... Bart, leave now."
"But-"
"Now!" she thundered. She placed one foot on the floor and began to turn slowly, then the other foot followed until she was facing her brother.
"You okay Lis?" Bart hesitated. It cost him his life.
Lisa found her vision clouding, turning red, and then suddenly she was no longer Lisa. She became something else, and the little part that was still Lisa Simpson had to watch in mute horror as the Hunger took over. She... it launched itself at Bart with all the ferocity of a tiger pouncing on its prey. He screamed once, in shock at being knocked over. Once again, louder this time as his neck was slashed open and the demon sucked out his life.
Lisa came too, holding Bart in her arms, covered in his blood. She was crying. His breathing was shallow, weak. Too weak... She shook him. "Bart, wake up. Please wake up..."
He gagged and coughed up a few spots of blood. Then his eyes fluttered open. "Lis..."
"Oh god Bart I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." but his eyes closed. "No Bart, no don't die. Don't die! Bart!"
One last breath. His eyelids opened again, partway, but not to let him see. His eyeballs had rolled back into his head. His body went limp in Lisa's arms and she had to drop him...
"Bart..."
She looked down. Her hands were covered in blood, his blood. She wiped a trickle from her mouth and found more blood. Blood in her mouth. In a final brief moment of sanity she realised what she had become and it horrified her. Why me? She thought. Why? How? No...
Julian...
... and the hunger returned.
When she awoke again, Lisa couldn't recall much more than the image of her brother lying in her arms, his skin deathly white, save for the deep red welt on his neck. In the darkness she began to feel her way around. Her hand touched up against something cold, but yielding. In the distance, a vague blue glow cast though a doorway, to the lounge, where the TV was flickering static.
Lisa stood up carefully and looked around. The kitchen... that's where she was, the kitchen. What had happened? After Bart's death, she couldn't remember a thing... no, she could remember. Vague images, scenes... sounds... the screams... her mother had been in the kitchen...
She looked down. Marge looked back up at her, eyes vacant, accusing... the wound Lisa would come to know so well on her neck. There was a knife near her hand. Lisa, bereft of emotion, stepped around the body and into the lounge. Homer lay on the floor, shotgun in hand... lord knows where he got it from. He had shot her... in the stomach... and yes, her shirt was shredded. But there was no wound. Not now anyway.
It was when she found Maggie that Lisa finally started to mourn. Her own sister, barely eight years old, lay face down in a pool of congealing blood at the bottom of the stairs, where Lisa had thrown the corpse after... after...
Oh my god...
She returned to the kitchen and tried to slash her wrists. It hurt, but the wounds almost instantly healed each time and eventually she gave up out of frustration, hurling the knife against the wall. After a moments thought, she picked up the phone and called the police. Then she went up to her room, changed her clothes and started packing.
She found the brooch lying on the floor. Lisa picked up the small piece of silver and examined it for a moment, then dropped it to the floor and turned to leave the room. But then she paused again... It was Julian that caused this, she thought angrily. He'll pay...
She returned and retrieved the brooch. Then she picked up a picture of her family from the stairs, stepping gingerly around what was left of Maggie, and ran from the house.
September 3 2006
The early pre-dawn light was adding its faint glow to the street lights far below Lisa's window when she had finally finished relating her tale. Mark slouched in the couch, seemingly exhausted by the long night of listening, an empty beer bottle dangling from his hand, the pizza they had ordered lying half-eaten and cold in its box on the table.
Lisa stood by the window. The sky was overcast, bleak. It would be dull day, not bright at all. She could survive if she wore her shades, although there was little point in going out now she had no way of finding him.
"So that's my story," she said quietly, turning a little and glancing at Mark. "The important pieces anyway."
"You're trying to tell me you're a... a..."
"I hate that word. But yes, I am, even though I tried to deny it for a long time..."
"But they don't exist! They're a-a fairy tale, something you see in horror movies."
"I don't think so." Lisa let her mouth hang open on the 'o' just long enough for Mark to glimpse a pair of slightly elongated canines. He blanched.
"Jesus..." Mark rubbed his face, scratching at the shadowy stubble on his cheek. "What's it like? Being a... y'know..."
"Can you imagine what it's like to live without those most basic things that make you human?"
"You mean a soul?"
This drew a snort from Lisa, almost a laugh, but tempered by reality. Still got one buddy...
"I suppose you could call it that." She turned back to the window. "But no, there's so much more to it, beside that... don't take this the wrong way, but part of my mind considers you to be nothing more than an animal, something to be exploited, used. Humans," she said, a single tear forming. "Are prey."
"Obviously you're avoiding that quite well. I mean, the whole bite-"
"Don't, please. I had to give up my most cherished beliefs to 'cope', as you put it. I had to give up everything, but I refused to give them my humanity."
They were silent for a long time. Lisa pulled back her tears and drew the curtains. "I suppose you're going to run away now."
"Like hell I am. Lisa-"
"No... you should." She walked over and took his hands between her own. "You should run away now, before they link you to me. Now they know I had the book, they'll come for me, and anyone close to me... I can't let that happen again."
"But... I want to help you." Mark stood up, dropping the bottle to the floor. "I won't leave until you see that."
"Oh Mark you just don't get it do you? When they find us, they won't kill you. They'll make you into one of them!" One of us... she didn't add. "That's how they work."
"Oh." Mark wandered around slight, motioning vaguely in the air. "Well, you seem to be coping. How bad can it be?"
"Haven't you listened to a word I said?"
"Yes I have, as a matter of fact, and the least I've figured out is that it's not safe to go back to my apartment any more!" Mark paced across the room. "It's probably not safe to try and leave the city either, if this stuff really is true. In fact, the safest place for me right now is probably here."
Mark folded his arms and glared at Lisa. She glared back angrily, unwilling to admit he was right, that is was foolish for him to go anywhere else. It was too much of a risk. He's too close... again... Images of Bart flashed across her mind, lying in her arms... God help me...
"All right, you can stay on the couch tonight." Lisa hoped the emphasis on that last word would make him see how hard it was for her. "After that... we'll see."
"Thanks, I owe you one... I think..."
Lisa didn't say anything, instead walking to her room and closing the door, leaving Mark to settle in as best he could.
Much later, once she had deemed Mark to have fallen asleep, Lisa emerged from her room wearing a thick, dark coat. She also sported large black sunglasses and a hint of sun block lightened her already pallid skin to the point that she looked like death itself.
She stood in the room for a moment, staring uncertainly at the prone figure on her couch, sensing the first faint cramps of her torment returning. The old familiar scent was piling up in the room from his prolonged stay, building around her like an inescapable prison. Lisa held her breath and pushed through the thickening odour to the door.
In the corridor outside her room natural airflow continually refreshed the air, allowing her some space to breath. She kept her pace under control as she walked, managing not to look like someone fleeing from some unknown horror...
Lisa stepped gingerly out of the lobby, into the washed-out sunlight. It felt uncomfortably warm, perhaps the way most people would feel in the tropics or even a desert somewhere. She found herself wishing she could experience that, just once in her life. The thrill of foreign climes, days at the beach. Another dream dashed.
Walking down the street, bundled as if against the cold, Lisa prayed to whatever gods might be listening that she would find her tormentor. First, that meant finding the book, and then finding out who Julian really was, which was why she was out now instead of waiting until it was dark again. She had spent too much time explaining her life to Mark, time she could have spent tracking the animals who had invaded her home.
Normally Lisa would have baulked at the phrase, but she felt these people deserved it, working as they did with something so evil... she had no idea where they would have gone, though, loath as she was to admit it, and she had no contacts in New York, no one she could trust, save Mark and he was locked in her apartment.
And so, eventually, Lisa found herself in front of a police station. She pushed through the throng of humanity, the petty thieves, hookers, lowlifes. She found the logical, rational part of her brain actually teaming up with the animal, telling her she could become some kind of vigilante, 'disposing' of this criminal element and solving her own problems at the same time. She dismissed the thought as she approached the duty sergeant.
"May I help you ma'am?" He smiled, although Lisa could see a little uncertainty in his face. Everyone got that around her, around people like her. It was something to do with the different smell, although humans couldn't consciously sense something as subtle as that.
"Uh, yes, please. Someone broke into my apartment last night."
"Ookay..." he took out a pen. "Did you phone this in at all?"
"No, I... didn't have chance to do that."
"Right." The man was making notes. "Did they steal anything?"
"Yes. A book." More notes. "It was a very important book, I was using it for some research for the governor."
A little white lie now and then doesn't hurt does it? Besides, she was already far beyond any kind of salvation, if she had ever hoped for any in the first place. More notes, perhaps a little more urgent now. Her mentioning the governor had alerted the man, informed him that if something wasn't done, his job might be on the line.
"Okay ma'am, if you wait over there we'll send someone down to speak to you, ask you a few questions." He was pointing to a chair in the corner, next to some tramp shaking his head and hands rhythmically. It was the only free seat in the entire room. "Don't worry ma'am, he's harmless."
"I'm not worried." Lisa stepped through the crowd and sat down next to the man. He seemed to be mumbling something, although she couldn't make it out and, frankly, her mind was already numbing under the pervading stench of humanity around her. It made her sick; more so, knowing that she could have been among them, if only...
"DEMON!" The sound shocked Lisa, the voice, accusing... it was the tramp, sitting next to her. Only now he wasn't sitting, he was standing over her, holding some kind of cross. He shouted again. "Demon! Fiend! Get back from me, Satan!"
She shuffled away from him, just a little. He was drawing a few stares now, boring into them both, making her blush under her sun block so much she almost looked human again.
Now the staff sergeant was standing over them both. "All right Tom, I gave you a warning about this. Any more and you end up in the slammer, that's what I said isn't it?"
"She's a demon! She's evil! She-"
"Tom! Don't make me arrest you for a breach of the peace." The sergeant placed a calming hand on the old man's shoulder and called another officer over to lead him away. He looked down at Lisa with obvious concern. "I'm sorry ma'am, he just an old cook, but he used to be an officer and we... well, y'know..."
"I understand. Thank you."
"I think someone will see you now, if you'll come with me upstairs." He led her through a small door into the back of the station, up some stairs. It was darker here, quieter, a little more comfortable for her now, although it was hard to see where she could be comfortable...
There were interviews with pert young assistants, fresh faced recruits working up the career ladder. They asked the same boring questions, how many were there, what did they take, what time was it. Routine, to a point; Lisa had never gone through it before. Until now, she had relied on simply running when they found her, hiding away until they got bored and moved on. Now, though, she couldn't hide until she had the book.
She eventually found herself in a small office, sitting opposite a stereotypically large detective with a faint smile on his kindly face. His name was Detective Marlow, or so the sign on his door had said. Marlow's eyes, though, betrayed his real state of mind. They were cold, hardened by years on the streets. He widened his smile a little.
"Coffee?" There was a pot perking away in the corner of the room.
"No, thanks."
"I always like fresh coffee in the morning," he said, standing up pouring himself a cup. "Wakes me up, keeps me moving. You look like you could use some."
Marlow sat down without waiting for Lisa's response and flipped open a thin file. Within was the compiled, condensed and sorted account from the various interviewers Lisa had faced earlier, neatly typed out on three sheets of paper. She had a file. How nice.
"Well Ms... Simpson." He perused the documents. "Our boys reported a body outside your apartment building at about six this morning, his neck was broken. Do you know anything about that?"
"He fell from my window." What else would they ask about? She thought bitterly. Of course, he was just doing his job...
"He fell, and you didn't try to do anything?"
"I wasn't able to."
The man nodded to himself and made a note in the file. "Okay, you claim a grey van with an obscured licence plate was used as a getaway vehicle. Did you recognise the van?"
"No, but I would if I saw it again."
"Well it seems like you're in luck, or the filing boys are unusually efficient today. A grey van of the kind out describe was found illegally parked outside a lock-up in Queens. So that's that..." he pointedly slapped the file closed, only to open it again in order to look at another sheet of paper.
"Will you be able to find the book?"
"Probably. Hmm, this is interesting you know... we have, apparently, a witness who claims a woman jumped from a third floor window of your building and landed on one of the men, killing him outright. Care to explain that?"
Lisa shrugged and glanced away from the detective, watching the steam rise from the coffee pot, thankful for the smell masking everything else in the room. The detective closed the file again.
"Probably a bum witness I guess." He poured himself another cup of coffee. "Well, in that case, we'll see what we can come up with. Are you sure you don't want some coffee? Jamaican."
"Thank you, but no. Do you mind if I have the address for that lock-up?" Lisa held out her hand, making the request an order without saying so. The detective slipped his hand inside the file and pulled out a sheet of paper, handing it to Lisa. "Thank you."
Lisa folded the paper and tucked inside her coat, turning on her heel to leave the room. But then she heard the detective, apparently sensing something about her, pushing his chair back and standing up behind her.
"Miss, although I have no idea why you've taken that address, please bear in mind there are a lot of cops down there, with itchy fingers all of them. Don't do anything stupid, okay?" He reached into his jacket and withdrew a small square card. "If you need anything, just phone me okay?"
Lisa took the card and looked at it for a moment before dropping it into her pocket.
"I can take care of myself," she replied, opening the door. She heard Marlow huff slightly as she closed the door again. Perhaps it was a cough. Perhaps he knew more then he was letting on... but then, he would hardly believe she was a... would he? No one did, did they?