Ghouls. - Taster.

The first time I smelt fear, it took me so long to realise that it was my own.

It had been my second full week back at school, and I had been happy. I’d gotten to see my friends again, I was doing well in my classes, and everything was going alright for me so far.

As I walked home from lacrosse club after school, the cold and dark evening had already descended upon the now murky autumn of the Chilterns area, turning the streets an icy chill with mist.

I knew that it was probably just my imagination, but as I walked along the rows of houses, I thought that I could feel the eyes of invisible forces looking out at me, watching me, and I unintentionally quickened my pace, thinking that I could feel hands grabbing at the bottom of my jogging bottoms.

Trying to imagine about what must have been happening… it all went by so fast, it was a whirl. One minute I was whistling “I’m Yours” to myself and casually swinging my lacrosse stick around, the next, I’d realised that my imagination had not betrayed me after all, because when I turned a corner and crossed the road, I noticed a dark figure following me, taking the same rout. I couldn’t make out it’s gender, but from the build I would have suggested a male, tall with broad shoulder, hunched over " probably from the cold, but I assumed that it was to try and hide his face, - and his face was covered by the brim of his fedora.

I remembered thinking about how he’d looked like a detective or a gangsta from those old black and white movies, as I watched him cross the road behind me. I fumbled about with my bad, readjusting it on my shoulder as I tried to make it look like I hadn’t stopped only to watch this Stanger come towards me, and turned back, my pace quickening slightly.

As I was in my jogging bottoms, a tank top, and a sports hoodie, I’d debated if it’d look weird for me to suddenly take off in a job in the general direction of my house, - in case I was merely being paranoid and he was just some old guy hurrying home from his day of cosplaying as some detective or from his work.

I sighed to myself, embarrassed at how scared and cautious I was acting. Then, as I looked back up again, I could feel the presence of the man behind me get nearer, and two more shadowy figured appeared out of the gloom ahead of me. I tried to side-step them, but my arms got grabbed and I was pulled back by the man in the fedora.

A startled gasp escaped my lips, and I tripped. The fedora man laughed cruelly, sending a shiver down my spine, and threw me down onto the floor, landing me with a heavy thud on my chest. I winced as I tried to pick myself up off the ground, my chest stinging from the fall, and my instincts kicked in, telling me to run and hide. Run, or fight, they corrected. My mind was certainly not getting through to me back then, despite having the thoughts cross through my head.

One of the other figure crouched down on top of me, pinning me to the floor with their body. I frantically grabbed for my lacrosse stick, and swung as hard as I could at the figure on top of me, and it hit him round his face with a savage thwack; he fell off of my body and onto his side for a moment, and I finally realised the cracking noise that had come from him when I’d hit him. A vile wave of nausea washed over me at the idea that I’d broken anything, but was quickly replaced with hatred for him and a sense of pride at hurting him. I tried to pull myself up, but his body still half-lay over mine, leaving my legs trapped under the weight of his unconscious flesh. I noticed that he was wearing a puffy body warmer like those bought at Superdry and an oversized grey hoodie underneath, and dedicated these details to my memory for when I got away and phoned the police. If you get away, my mind corrected, and I silently cursed myself for always doubting my abilities at running. The third figure came down upon me, uncaringly throwing the man’s body aside, her pencil skirt writhing up her thighs as she straddled me. A moment of confusion passed over me again. A woman? Not another man? Her blouse was wide-collared and showed cleavage, but she was dressed for business and maybe even office attire. She reached up and slapped me hard across my face, and as my head hit the floor another sickening crack passed through my body. My jaw burned like white-hot fire, and I could feel it hang limply onto my face. She’d just broken my jaw with one hit?

I stared up at her, deciding that she and the others were not men and a woman, but monsters who only looked like people. A strand of her platinum hair fell from the bun at the back of her head, and she threw her head back, cackling at the anguish on my face. She reached up behind her, and undid her bun, letting her hair cascade down around her face, and removed her blue glasses from off of her face, carefully tucking them in an inside pocket of her blazer as if she were still in an office, her red lips curling up again into a sinister grin. I felt my eyes grow wide as she slowly opened her mouth slightly, running her tongue across the front of her teeth. Her teeth were sharp, and like the ridged blades of knifes. I was expecting her to cut her tongue on them, but she didn’t; instead, her tongue morphed and grew longer and sharper, the end of it splitting into a forked tongue like a snake’s, and she cackled again madly, throwing her head back.

I felt the tears stream down my face as I lay there trapped in sheer terror. This really was a monster. A real, live monster, in the flesh. Saliva dripped hungrily from her fangs and she gently ran her long, rough tongue across my tack top, and I felt bile rise in my throat.

The man in the fedora crouched down low, and I forced myself to tear my eyes away from the beastly woman to try and memorise his features, desperately looking for an exit. His face looked tired, and he had bags under his eyes, making me think of him even more as an old dusty detective from one of those stupid black and white movies. “Damn you” I spat at him hatefully, feeling my despair become fuelled also by rage.

“You little b***h,” He spat back, laughing charmingly at me, and His teeth were long and sharp and predatory. “What are you gonna do with me? Rape me?” I asked hysterically, trying to keep my rage, “You’re not gonna get away with it, the police will find you,” I turned my attentions to all three of them “all of you sick b******s!”

The woman licked her fingertips as if she had just finished a meal, and replied in a low, silky, seductive voice “Big words from such a small, insignificant little life, and such a voice on you too…” she chuckled playfully, laying her index finger down over my lips as if to hush me. I looked back at the man, debating actually spitting at him, but froze. He had a sad, gentle smile on his lips, but his eyes were a burning blaze of hunger. “Oh, my dear little girl, when we’re done with you...” he gently stroked the back of his fingers across my cheek, whipping away some of my tears, “…you’ll wish that we’d have raped you.”

The body of the man I’d hit shuddered, and the sudden unexpected movement threw my eyes towards his crumpled flesh. His body rose so that he was lying, with his forearms keeping his face and chest off of the floor. I couldn’t see his eyes because of his hair and hat that were covering his eyes, but I saw his crumpled cheek, and his jaw hanging loosely. He picked up a hand and readjusted his jaw, cracking it and clicking it back into place. Letting his arm fall back down onto the ground to hold him up again, he rested for another few moments, and then spun his head around wildly to face me, his eyes glowing neon orange from his irises. His mouth was opened hide, his fangs larger than the others’ and his tongue was fatter and more pointed.

As saliva dripped from his teeth and from his tongue, it turned an odd, surreal kind of silver colour, which seemed to look as if it had neon green and blue speck inside of it. I felt soft whimpers escaping from my body, but couldn’t feel myself anymore. I felt detached, as if I were watching a movie or reading a book.

After that, it all turned to a blur. The man leaped onto me, fighting and the best position on top of my body with the woman till they both held down a different half of my body, and they snapped at each other playfully as they readjusted themselves, holding down my wrists and keeping my thighs pinned by their legs.

They tore into my body, excruciating pain that burnt worse than fire and sent jolts of electricity through me making me scream out in agony as they tore at my skin and flesh and clothes, catching glimpses of my stomach being shredded and my organs being dragged out of me, being chewed on and gulped down in whole chunks sometimes flashing before my eyes.

“You see, the funny thing is,” the fedora man murmured to me, the restraint obvious in his face as his irises began to burst with bright patches of neon blues, “Is that when our species devours our prey, we release a toxin that is in our saliva. It… changes our prey, depending on if we don’t finish it off yet or not, like a virus. It’ll slowly work its way through your bloodstream… and then, before you know it, Poof!” he made a little popping motion with his hands, as if he was trying to pretend to do magic for a small child, “You’re one of Us, and you’ll be trying to eat your friends, your family, even your own pet fish and dogs, anything that you can get your hands on.” He laughed cruelly, gently pinching the tip of my nose playfully, and added “So you better behave yourself, wouldn’t wanna end up doing this to your best friends now, would you?”

He winked at me, and then bit down hard into my neck, and I felt my mind go hazy and blurred, as if I were coming out of a bad dream or of some sort of high, and I half-blacked out. Time moved strangely from after that, the black voids being broken up by sharp, bright, blaringly painful flashes of consciousness; the flashes of my body being devoured, and the screams of whomever found my body, the ride in the ambulance as they desperately tried to race me to hospital, waking up dozily in a hospital bed with the stitches stretching all along my body, putting me back together like a patch-work doll.

Author's Note

This is just a teaser i guess to see if i should continue this or not?
It's a first draft, literally just wrote it up a moment ago, so it's not very good, but i'm just curious as to what you guys think of it now.
Obviously, this doesn't really have any horror in it, but, yeah, that'd probably be in there some time soon. XD
I'm gonna continue writing this some more, so this may be updated later! XD
I do not own the picture.
EDIT:
I updated this now to the most current version of my little story XD
My girlfriend tells me that it got really dark :o but idk, so yeah XD Enjoy :)

Reviews

[R. A. Merritt]

An intriguing story and I would recommend you continue along with it though calling them ghouls seems somewhat vague. They sound like a combination of zombies and or vampires who seem won't to fall apart if struck a sufficient blow. I would like to know a little more as to their origin and what brought them to that state, but since you've stated it was first draft and therefore seems more a stream of conscious creation rather than a piece you plotted out in advance then that is understandable. It struck all the cords however and captured the necessary atmosphere. The only problem I saw was a few spelling errors such a rout (route) and bad (bag) and the such. Beyond that I believe it has great potential and you should endeavor to continue on with it if that is your inclination.

[My-two-lives]

Thank you for your suggestions, and i hadn't noticed the spelling mistakes since i'd written it out on word, i'm sorry. :o Thanks for pointing those out too!