The Children of Black Annis Read online

  "No kidding," Becca says as we reach the tree. She pauses. "So where's your phone?"

  "I don't have one," I say, turning to her.

  She stares at me. "Are you a gypsy?" she asks. "I heard there were gypsies living round here. I don't want any trouble -"

  "I'm not a gypsy," I say, stepping closer. "But I will take your heart." Without giving her a chance to react, I reach out and thrust my hand into her chest, wrapping my fingers around her beating heart and ripping it out. She clutches her chest, blood pouring from the hole, and she takes a couple of steps away before collapsing onto the cold, wet ground.

  In my hand, her heart beats a couple more times before finally stopping. Not wanting to waste it while it's still warm, I raise it to my lips and take a bite, my mouth filling with her hot blood. I chew on the muscle and finally swallow. It feels so good to have food again after so long. My last meal, all those years ago, was much smaller. It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to eat a fresh heart, but that old familiar, rich taste soon comes back to me. With blood dripping down my arm, I take another bite from the heart. It takes me a few minutes to eat the whole thing, because I want to take my time. Finally, though, I'm finishes.

  Time to deal with the body. All that skin...

  Jess

  "Are you serious?" I ask, standing on the street corner and looking around. "Is this what you meant when you said we were going on holiday?"

  Duncan and I are standing in the middle of a drab, gray Scottish council estate. The houses are gray, the street is gray, the sky is gray.. even the few people we've seen since we got here are gray. Everything's gray here. There's even a thick gray fog in the distance, covering the nearby moor. It's been two days since Duncan tracked me down and told me he was taking me on holiday. Two days and this is where we end up. All around us, dull little houses spread out for miles and miles, in rigidly-defined grids of identical streets. The whole place smells of chip fat, and there's rubbish blowing about. Above us, a dark gray sky threatens rain at any moment. They should just rename this place Greyville. It'd be more honest.

  I sigh. Yesterday I was a wolf, running free across the parkland, chasing deer, tasting blood in my mouth. Now I'm... not. Very, very not.

  "This is it," Duncan says, taking a deep breath as he smiles. He looks over at me. "What's wrong? Have you been here before?"

  "No," I say. "It's just... when you said you were taking me on holiday, I kind of assumed..." I pause. To be honest, I'd assumed we'd be off somewhere hot, like the Caribbean or the Maldives. Even two weeks in Mallorca would have been okay. But this is just a scrappy, forgotten little council estate in the middle of Scotland. I look down at the suitcase I'm clutching in my hand. No need for those two bikinis, I guess...

  "You'll get used to it," Duncan says, that smile still slapped across his face. "I've always wanted to come to a place like this, but I've never had the time. It's stunning how humans are happy to box themselves up in identical little houses, doing nothing all day except going to work, coming home from work, going to work again, coming home again..." He takes a deep breath. "What's that smell?"

  "Chips," I say. "And... cooking fat."

  "Wow," he says. "You know, I've been to some strange and wonderful places, Jess, but this... this is one of the weirdest locations I've ever seen."

  "Yep," I say, my heart sinking. I should have learnt by now: never, ever just 'assume' anything with Duncan. His mind just doesn't work the way a normal mind works. When he says something will be 'brilliant', he probably means it'll be dull; when he says something will be fun, he could just as easily be talking about jumping into an ice lake as relaxing on a hot beach.

  "Come on," he says, leading me across the road towards a little house that I realize, with resignation, must be the 'holiday cottage' he said he'd arranged for us.

  "So we're here for two weeks?" I ask as we walk through the garden and Duncan pulls a key from his pocket. I look back at the street as rain starts to fall. "Two weeks of this?"

  "I know!" he says excitedly, opening the door. There's an instant smell of carpet cleaner and bleach. Someone obviously cleaned this house up in a hurry recently. "Wow," Duncan says, breathing deep. "It's so exotic."

  "Uh-huh," I say, following him in and shutting the door.

  "What's wrong?" he asks, apparently noticing that I'm scrunching up my nose.

  "Nothing," I say. "I'll get used to the smell." I head over to the stairs. "I'll put my suitcase in the bedroom," I say, trying not to sound too underwhelmed or ungrateful.

  "Meet me in the kitchen," Duncan says, smiling again. "Apparently there's something here called a garbage disposal unit. It's some kind of -"

  "I know what a garbage disposal unit is," I say. I pause, smiling slightly as I see his excited expression. "Go. Find it. Play with it. Don't stick your arm in it. I'll be down in a minute."

  He steps towards me, kisses me on the cheek, then turns and hurries through to the next room. I sigh and carry my suitcase upstairs. Don't get me wrong, I think it's nice that Duncan wanted to bring me on holiday. I guess I just thought that life as a werewolf would be a little more exciting. I mean, I grew up in a house like this. I get why it's exotic and unusual for Duncan, but for me it's just a shitty house that stinks, in a place where there's nothing to do. I thought Duncan and I would be roaming the wilderness, living wild, having adventures. He promised me we'd be going to India at some point, but then he said he had to 'collect' something. He started muttering about Excalibur, and then he announced we were going on holiday.

  And here we are.

  I find the main bedroom, which has a large and rather used-looking double bed pushed up against a wall. Taking a look at the mattress, I find it has numerous brown stains. I'm just going to assume that they're from coffee and tea. I place my suitcase on the bed and open it.

  "Won't need that," I say, pulling out my red bikini. "Won't need that," I continue, pulling out my sun-cream. "Won't need that," I add, pulling out the cotton dress I bought especially for the trip. I pause, taking a deep breath. Turning and glancing around the room, I find myself unable to think about the past. The truth is, I haven't been to this council estate before, but I've been to one just like it. The similarities are strong enough that memories are starting to flood back, memories I've been deliberately trying to ignore for almost a year. Being a werewolf was supposed to be a new start, but Duncan's brought me to a place that reminds me of my old life. I know he didn't do it on purpose, and I guess he thinks I'll be just as excited as he is, but the truth is...

  I sigh.

  These next two weeks are going to be a bit of a challenge, to say the least. I wander out of the room and head through to the bathroom, where I'm shocked to see my own reflection in the mirror. It's been less than twenty-four hours since Duncan caught me and forced me to resume my human form, and this is the first time I've seen myself for a long time. I look the same as before, really: fairly tall, not too thin or too fat, quite attractive but nothing special, and with the same slightly dirty brown hair. Perhaps there are a few more shadows around my eyes, but it looks like nothing much has changed. Still, I bet I looked a hell of a lot better when I was a wolf.

  I hate being in human form. It reminds me of... things. Times long gone. Places and people that I never, ever want to think about again. When I turn into a wolf, those memories linger for a while, but eventually they start to fade. I become a wild animal, and all I think about is the thrill of the chase. There's nothing wrong with that. It's unnatural to keep switching from one body to another. I want to choose, and my choice is clear: I want to live the rest of my life as a wolf. So why does Duncan keep tracking me down and forcing me to spend time as a human again? What does he want from me? Why can't he become a wolf and stay that way too? What's so special about these stupid human bodies? Why give me this ability and then not let me choose how to use it?

  Staring at myself in the mirror, I make a decision. I'll give Duncan these two weeks of holiday
, and then I'll tell him to his face that I'm not interested in being human any more. I'll ask him - beg him if necessary - to respect my choice and let me be a wolf for the rest of my life. I can't stand the sadness in my own eyes; I've always felt like that, and now - miraculously - I have a chance to escape humanity. It's what I want. This isn't a sudden decision. It's not a mistake. It comes from the depths of my heart.

  I lean closer to the mirror and look at my eyes. Soon they'll be gone forever, replaced by the eyes of my wolf form. There'll be no looking back. For the first time since Duncan tracked me down, I smile. The thought of leaving this human body behind forever fills me with something I haven't felt for a long time.

  Hope.

  Hope and -

  Suddenly I hear a scream from nearby. I turn, panicking. It's coming from outside the house, but still close. A man's scream, tortured and tormented, rising across the estate.

  Black Annis

  Sometimes, the fog gets so strong that it extends past the moor and down into the nearby town. On these occasions, I like to take a trip to civilization. It's so rare for me to be able to explore real human towns, I can't help but be curious. The last time this happened was more than thirty years ago, and a lot has changed in the intervening years. The place seems so much busier and yet, at the same time, more neglected. It's as if the humans living here care less and less about their surroundings. No wonder they come up onto the moors to get away.

  The fog drifts between the buildings on the outskirts of town, and I walk slowly along the street. Occasionally a car drives past, its headlights shining through the dark gray of the air. It's late afternoon, and people in this sleepy little town are just heading back from work. This is a fairly nondescript council estate, the kind of place where humans go to be forgotten. There's no real need for this place to exist. It's just a wasteland of death and desperation. They should be thankful that I'm here. Without me, there's be nothing interesting going on at all.

  I stop outside a small shop. There's a poster in the window, showing a picture of the girl Becca who I killed last night. It turns out she's missing, and her family are worried about her. Anyone who has seen her is encouraged to call the police and report the sighting. She's supposedly just seventeen years old, which is younger than I thought. No wonder her heart tasted so fresh and strong, and no wonder her skin was so firm and tight.

  "So sad," says a voice next to me. I turn to find an elderly woman has also stopped outside the shop. "They won't find her alive, you know," she says, shaking her head. "Not if she went on the moors."

  "You don't think so?" I ask.

  "Not a chance," she replies. "If she went up there, she'll have been had."

  "Had by what?" I say, curious to know how much this old woman knows. If she's lived around here all her life, she might have got an idea of what really happens to people who disappears in the fog.

  "There's things out there," she says. "That's all I'm saying." She fixes me with a determined look. "Don't go poking about up there. Not if you want to come back down again."

  I smile. "You make it sound like there's something terrible living there," I say, trying to draw the conversation out. It's interesting to hear what she has to say. I know that humans have told stories about me for many centuries, but often they get the details wrong.

  "Black Annis," the woman says.

  "Black Annis?" I ask, pretending the name is new to me. "Is that a person?"

  "A creature," the old woman says. "She lives on the moors. She lures the innocent to her clutches, and then she kills them." Pausing, the old woman takes a deep breath. It's clear that she believes what she's saying. "They won't find no bodies," she continues. "They never find no bodies. That's 'cause there's no bodies to find. She eats what she can, and she uses the rest."

  I smile. It's surprising how much this old woman seems to know about me. Whereas most people tell wild, improbable stories about the Black Annis legend, this woman apparently understand a lot more about my nature. "What does she use the bodies for?" I ask.

  The old woman shakes her head. "Horrible things," she says. "She uses the skin for hides, and she uses the bones for soup. She don't leave nothing left-over. Nothing."

  "How do you know all this?" I ask. It's almost disconcerting to find that this old woman seems to know so much about me.

  "I've talked to a boy who's seen her," she says.

  "You have?" I say, my curiosity piqued.

  "Robert, his name is," she says. "He saw Black Annis kill his sister."

  "He did?" I ask. I can tell that the old woman is enjoying telling her story. She probably doesn't get to talk to many people, and most of them probably ignore her claims as the ravings of a mad old crone. But I know better. I remember Robert very well, and I know exactly what he saw.

  "She oughta be hunted down like a common beast and killed," says the old woman, venom in her voice. "They oughta organize a search party to go out and stop her. No child's safe around here. She's pure evil."

  I laugh.

  "Something funny?" she asks, sounding offended.

  "Not at all," I say, still smiling, "but I find it hard to believe that anyone can be pure evil. Surely there's some good in everyone?"

  The old woman unbuttons the top of her coat and shows me a small silver cross hanging on a necklace. "I'm a good Christian woman," she says. "God-fearing. I go to church on Sundays, and I pray for the souls of even the wickedest folk. But this Black Annis woman is ungodly. She's pure, black evil through to her core, and there ain't no fate what suits her other than having her body ripped apart. The world would be a better place if she was gone from it."

  I glance back at the Missing poster that shows Becca's photo. Perhaps the old woman is right, and the world would be a better place without me. But what else am I supposed to do? I was born like this. I have no choice. Like a scorpion born with a sting, I simply live as I can. I need to consume human hearts in order to survive, and finding a regular supply is difficult. It's not my fault that I enjoy killing.

  "Perhaps she's just waiting for someone," I say. "Perhaps she's just waiting for someone to show up, so she can deliver a message. Perhaps the killing is designed to get someone's attention. Have you thought about that?"

  The old woman shakes her head. "Bollocks," she says. "There's nothing about this but pure evil." She turns and shuffles towards the shop door. "Pure evil deserves no sympathy," she says as she goes inside.

  I'm sure that if I were in that old woman's position, I'd feel the same. But the truth is, I'm only hanging about this town because I need to attract attention. I've lived for hundreds of years, keeping myself to myself and only killing people who won't be missed. But lately, things have changed. I need to send out a signal, and this is the only way I know to do it, so I'm having to be a little more obvious about my plans. As soon as he finds me, I can deliver the message he must hear. And then, finally, I can stop killing for a while. So really, none of this is my fault. If anyone's to blame, it's Duncan.

  Jess

  "Calm down!" the old man shouts, trying to persuade the younger guy to follow him back into the house next door to ours. They're out in the middle of the street, with the young guy holding his arms up around his head and still screaming, while the old man tries to gently persuade him to go back into their house. "Come inside," the old man is saying. "It's okay, just come inside!"

  Duncan and I are standing in the doorway of our 'holiday' home, watching as the scene unfolds. "Look," Duncan whispers to me, apparently fascinated by the scene unfolding in front of us. "We're the only ones who've come to watch."

  "Great," I reply. "Maybe we shouldn't be so rude."

  "Of course we should," Duncan says. "It'd be weird not to want to see why that poor guy's screaming, and yet..." He pauses. "No-one else is looking. No-one has come out of any of the other houses to see what's happening, or to offer help. No-one's even looked out a window. Do you know what that means?"

  "No-one cares?" I ask.

&nbs
p; "They're not curious because they know what's happening," Duncan continues. "They're used to it. This happens a lot."

  We watch as the old man manages to keep hold of the younger guy long enough to guide him out of the road and back towards the front door of the house next to ours, but the younger guy breaks free again, still clutching his head. He lets out a primal scream. It's almost painful to listen to his agony.

  "We should go back in," I say, not wanting to keep staring. Something about this scene is bothering me.

  "We should," Duncan says, before stepping out into the garden and walking over to the younger guy. "Hello!" he says. "Are you okay?"

  I sigh, walking after him. This seems so wrong. Looking over at the older man, I see the panicked look in his eyes as he continues to try to get the younger guy to go inside. It really doesn't look like this is a situation that Duncan and I need to get involved in.

  "Everything's okay," the old man says, trying to get the younger guy away from Duncan. "He's fine. This happens a lot. It's under control."

  "What's his name?" Duncan asks, bending down to try to look into the younger guy's face.

  "Robert," says the old man. "Please, just leave us alone."

  "What's wrong, Robert?" Duncan asks.

  "Leave us alone," the old man pleads with him.

  "Just a moment," Duncan says, gently pushing his arm away. "Robert, can you look at me? Robert?"

  Slowly, Robert looks up at Duncan. His eyes are red and crazed, and the pupils of his eyes are large and dark. It's pretty obvious that he's struggling with some kind of mental issue. It's as if he can barely even see Duncan standing in front of him. Whatever his problem is, I don't see why Duncan's so interested. Sure, Duncan's smart, but he can't fix every problem. It's like he's just storming into the middle of someone else's life and poking his nose in. To be honest, it's kind of embarrassing.