The Monster Within

Montlimer, Ten Years Before

Logan spent his time moving between the common room and the junior library, trying to escape his grief in books and TV shows. He gradually got to know the other students by name and face as they made their appearances in the common room. They were curious about him, but there was an unspoken rule that he quickly worked out – they didn’t ask about his past, and he wasn’t to ask about theirs. And that was fine with him – he couldn’t talk about what had happened to him and could understand why they didn’t want to share what they had been through.

Conversation mainly revolved around the school, teams that he should join, the teachers that were more or less fun to study with, and which students were hooking up with each other after lights out.

Logan’s roommate Wade was seeing Katrina from across the hall, and they alternated nights in each other’s room, requiring Logan to either spend an uncomfortable night listening to the opposite bunk bed creak, or to take his blanket down the hall to the common room and spend the night on the couch there.

Logan didn’t mind as he wasn’t attending classes, and the common room meant that he could have the TV playing to keep him company during the long night. He struggled to sleep; his nights haunted by the monster.

As the night wore on, Logan drifted in and out of sleep, waking to stare out the window at the full moon, the TV fuzzing as he’d rolled onto the remote and taken it off channel. He had a headache – a combination of his scalp wounds healing and his lack of sleep, he figured.

He got up to get a drink and some of the paracetamol from the first aid box in the kitchen, and scratched at the skin of his arm, and then chest, frowning at the couch as he took the pills. Was the couch infested with bedbugs or fleas? It had been fine two nights before when last he’d spent the night in the common room.

His skin felt tight and crawled with itching. He couldn’t feel anything under the scrape of his fingers, no little bumps from bites, but the feeling persisted driving him across the room to the light switch. As he scrutinized the couch cushions and himself for the cause of the irritation, he heard a woman screaming.

He froze, his heart racing and then leapt over the back of the couch, skidding over the tiles on his way to the door. He threw it open and stepped out into the hallway, almost bumping into Katrina’s roommate Suzie, catching hold of her shoulders to steady her when she almost fell.

“Did you hear it?” She gasped.

Other doors were opening, students peering out uncertainly, some venturing out. He saw Wade, naked and clutching the sheet to his waist appear, an obvious hard-on tenting the fabric.

“Yeah, we all heard it,” Logan told Suzie.

There was another scream and he turned on his heel and bolted down the hallway toward the center of the house, only to encounter a group of armed men in black, turning towards the locked door. Amongst them he saw a woman, covered in blood, fighting against their grip.

“Gillian?” He gasped and saw her jerk against the men’s hold in order to throw a look back at him.

“Logan!” She screamed as the door opened and the men carried her through.

“Gillian!” He threw himself after her, only to be intercepted a by a man in black.

“Hold it there, son,” the man said.

“That’s my sister!” Logan fought against the man’s grip. “Gillian!”

“She’s getting the care that she needs,” the man told him. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be looked after.”

“Where are you taking her? Why is she covered in blood? I need to see her!” Logan protested.

“Logan, I was just about to come and get you,” Father Isaiah stepped around the soldier holding Logan back. “Thank you, Adam, I’ve got it. The rest of you,” Father Isaiah said to the students that filled the hallway behind Logan. “Back to your rooms please. Logan,” he put his arm around Logan’s shoulders. “Come with me.”

Father Isaiah led Logan towards the door through which they had taken Gillian, with Adam following behind. “Gillian is okay, Logan,” he said as the door swung shut behind them. “Or we hope that she will be. We believe we understand now what befell your family.”

The hallway beyond the door was very different to the other side of the door. There was no art on the walls, but there were security cameras every few meters. The first doors that they passed opened into darkened rooms filled with screens and soldiers monitoring them. Logan only saw a glance of what was on the screens, but it contained both the exterior of the school and what appeared to be cells.

“Why are there people in cages?” He demanded.

“They’re not people,” Father Isaiah replied. “They’re not like us, Logan. They’re not human. They’re something else. Your sister was in a relationship with one of them, and let him turn her, but something went wrong, and she only half turned.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Logan stuttered in bewilderment twisting out of Father Isaiah’s grip in order to claw at his skin. “Sorry, I think the couch has bed bugs,” he said as he scratched frantically.

Father Isaiah watched him with narrowed eyes. “I think that it’s not bed bugs, somehow, Logan, and I’m really sorry for that. Let’s continue, shall we?” He paused at a door and entered a number into the pin pad before pushing it open.

They entered a corridor that reminded Logan of the hospital – the neon-lights shimmering off smooth walls painted off-white, and the floor linoleum. There was a strong smell of antiseptic. The hallway was lined with doors, each with a slot at the bottom and a little window at face level.

Logan met someone’s eyes through the window of one of the doors and was certain that the person’s eyes glowed green and gold. “There are people in these rooms.”

“Yes,” Father Isaiah replied. “Though people is a loose term. Werewolves. Humanoid in one form, and wolf in another. They must turn at the full moon, at least for brief periods of time, but can turn at other times.”

“Werewolves…” Logan’s mouth went dry. “The monster.”

“Sort of,” Father Isaiah replied opening a door at the end of the hall. The door opened into a room with a row of barred cells against one side, each cell containing an open toilet and sink, and a simple trundle bed. Gillian sat on the trundle bed of the nearest cell scratching at her forearms, dried blood flaking off and speckling the white tracksuit pants and t-shirt that she wore.

“Gillian!” Logan gripped the bars.

“It is better, Logan, if you stand back a little,” Father Isaiah eased him back from the bars. “Gillian isn’t in control of herself though we have given her a sedation which is helping from appearances. How do you feel, Gillian?”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, looking at her blood covered hands. “What happened?”

“You know, Gillian.” Father Isaiah replied with confidence. “You told me what happened. Kyle got the potion wrong, which was probably lucky for you as it is very rare for a human to survive a werewolf’s attempt at turning them. It only partially worked and when he saw the monster that you turned into, he fled.”

“Oh god,” Gillian began to cry, reaching up to cover her face and then stopping, not wanting to touch the blood to her skin, not realizing that her face was also coated with it.

“Please don’t take the God’s name in vain under this roof,” Father Isaiah reprimanded gently. “He had nothing to do with this tragedy. After Kyle abandoned you in the woods, the beast that you had become obviously retained just enough of the woman in order to find its way back home by morning. I imagine that your parents fear upon finding it on their doorstep triggered its instincts and led to their slaughter. I’m not entirely sure why Logan survived but, he did not get away unscathed, did he?”

Gillian turned her head and looked at Logan. Tears tracked through the blood on her face and her eyes were entirely black, without any white. “I’m sorry, Logan. I’m so, so sorry.”

“What’s wrong with her eyes?” Logan recoiled.

Gillian scratched and writhed. “It itches.”

“It’s the moon, the werewolves get the same when they resist turning,” Father Isaiah told her. “The sedation is giving you moments of lucidity, but they are brief - ” He was cut off as she shrieked, throwing her head back, and clawed at her neck and chest as she fell forward onto her knees.

“Oh f-k,” Logan cried out as her clothing tore and her skin seemed to ripple and darken before sprouting wispy, coarse fur. Her small frame bulked out with muscle, and her nose and jaw lengthened whilst her hair retracted. Logan braced against the wall, the repulsive process combining with the realization that Gillian was the monster that had slaughtered his parents emptying the contents of his stomach onto the linoleum.

There was a roar from the cage and the metal bars groaned under the impact of a body against them.

“I’m very sorry, Logan,” Father Isaiah said softly, not even flinching at the vomit that had sprayed over his shoes, his hand soothing on Logan’s back. “You need to come with me now,” he encouraged Logan towards the third cell, leaving an empty cell between the two cages. “We know very little about this condition, although it is one that has occurred before. Potions are very tricky to get right, after all, one wrong ingredient is all that it takes. Usually, however, that results in death rather than Lycanism, and it’s very difficult to study the Lycan as they are so incredibly dangerous.”

“You think…” Logan realized where the conversation was going. “You think I’m like her?” In the other cell, the monster snorted and snuffed around the cell, and then slowly, painfully, transformed back into his weeping sister. She wrapped the blanket from the trundle bed around herself.

“We will find out tonight, I suspect, Logan,” Father Isaiah replied. “We can offer to sedate you as we have sedated Gillian?”

“Yeah,” Logan decided, scratching at his neck. “This itching is getting…”

“As you wish,” Father Isaiah stepped back out of the cell to let Adam in and the soldier took a device out of his pocket. “Just a small prick, Logan,” Father Isaiah murmured as Adam injected the meat of Adam’s shoulder.

Logan’s eyes were immediately heavy and Adam took his weight, lowering him carefully onto the trundle bed before stepping out and shutting the cell door.

“Does this mean I’m not human?” Logan wondered.

“You are human, Logan,” Father Isaiah replied. “A victim of the supernatural world. We will do everything in our power to understand what has happened to you and your sister, and to help you. That is what we exist for, after all, to help humans when the supernatural world does terrible, terrible things to them.”

“Thank you,” Logan whispered as he sank into the darkness. “Thank you.”