The Taste of Damnation

His blood was cold on my tongue. It flowed slowly and thickly, clots running through it made me want to gag. Its iron tang overlaid the acrid flavour of rotted meat that came from the hand clamped over my mouth. I had bitten my attackers finger in the hope that it would persuade him to let go of me.

It didn’t work. In fact the favour was returned, with interest.

I felt his teeth tear into my throat. They weren’t sharp. They opened my neck, not by cutting, but by ripping the skin apart with brute force. Moments passed by agonisingly as he chewed through muscle and sinew until he found a major blood vessel.

I wanted to flee from the pain into the dark embrace of unconsciousness, but I was held awake, aware of my every exposed nerve ending. In fact, as the pain increased, so did the clarity of my mind. I could feel my blood flowing into his mouth even as I could feel his blood insinuating itself down my throat and into my stomach.

My heart began to slow.

They say that, as your life ends, it passes before your eyes. This proved to be true for me. Memories began to crowd into my head. I fled into them.

I found myself, nine years old, sitting on the topmost branch of the tree in the churchyard, brimming with pride in my athleticism. My scraped knees were an irrelevance at worst, and a medal of honour for the effort involved otherwise. (My neck pulsed in renewed agony; colour leached from the world and the memory dissipated like a dream that bursts on waking.)

In its place, I lay at the bottom of the tree crying after yet another failed attempt. The bitterness of failure merged with the taste of cold blood in my mouth, fixing the pain and frustration in place. I knew that I had once held the joy, but it was no longer there.

(A flash of insight. This thing on my back, in my neck, was not just drinking my blood, it was taking my joy, all my memories of pleasure were going to be pulled away. I would be left empty. I had to find a way to resist, but…)

I remembered the birth of my child, Adam. I could see him in my arms. He was a huge baby when he came out, over 10lb. His head nestled in the crook of my elbow, his nappied backside rested on the palm of my hand while his feet dangled below. (No! Don’t take this!) I walked around the intermediate care ward. The doctors were worried that because of his size he might need more nutrients than a mother might be able to give him.

Another father balanced his tiny daughter in the palm of his hand. He stared unbelievingly at Babyzilla in my hands. I laughed inwardly at my competitive streak. Adam was the largest newborn baby I had ever seen, he was the size of my entire life. A wave of love, stronger than I had ever felt broke over me. (No, don’t forget! Please let me keep this!) I looked Adam in his pale grey eyes, tried to fix them there for all time.

The memory faded, torn violently away from me, leaving only the knowledge that I had once felt that amazing purest love for a helpless infant.

Adam's first words were replaced with him screaming for 8 hours straight for no reason. His first steps vanished, every stinking nappy in their place. I found myself frustrated by his constant demands, exhausted by the lack of sleep, annoyed by the endless nights where he would climb into bed between me and my wife to play gooseberry. He was 9 years old now and the demands had not ceased, only changed. My only reason for being out tonight was to buy the random object he needed for school tomorrow and should have told me about last week. If it wasn’t for him, I would not have been attacked in the first place. I wouldn’t have come out across this field to get to the supermarket before it closed. This would not be happening.

The bitterness inside me grew.

My first kiss faded, supplanted by the heartache of my first break-up. The companionship and fulfilment in my marriage was overridden by every single argument we ever had. Visions of parties popped. Friendships failed. Lonely nights remained. Every act of kindness I had ever performed or received receded from my mind, drawn through the gulf in my neck. Every human connection was taken from me, leaving only the darkest dregs of my experience and the tantalus of having once had, having been so much more.

By the time my heart stopped, I had been drained of light and filled with an echoing darkness that drowned my mind.

When I awoke, I found myself covered with a thin layer of soil. I shook it off me and looked around. It was the middle of a moonless night and there were no streetlights, but I could see as clearly as if it were noon on a summer’s day

Despair hit me. I was a wretched thing with nothing good inside me. I was worthless, less than human. I would never know joy again. I started to walk with no direction in mind.

Then I noticed someone.

I smelled her before I saw her. Her scent carried health, and somehow happiness and hope. I felt the urge to run to her, to taste her goodness, to take her happy memories into myself.

I resisted.

Her memories weren’t mine. She had no idea of my family life. She would not be able to rekindle the flames of the love I could remember feeling. She couldn’t help me.

Adam on the other hand, he would know. His blood would hold his love for me. He could restore my sense of me.

Just one little taste.

I turned away and headed home.