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  HYBRID

  Nick Stead

  A Wild Wolf Publication

  Published by Wild Wolf Publishing in 2015

  Copyright © 2015 Nick Stead

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  First print

  All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  E-BOOK EDITION

  www.wildwolfpublishing.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal reading only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the law.

  I would like to dedicate this book to my amazing family for their support and belief in me over the years, especially my mum for encouraging my love of stories from a young age and my cousin ‘Lady’ Sarah for getting me started on Hybrid all those years ago.

  Also to my friends who I’m lucky enough to be able to say are too many to name, but you guys know who you are. Special mention goes to Charlie for really boosting my confidence with all the positive feedback and helping with the book launch, Sarah for helping me survive through school, college and more recently LARP, and Lauren for all those horror movie nights which helped keep me inspired to work on my own stories.

  I would also like to thank my fellow writers and friends at Huddersfield Author’s Circle for all their support and feedback on my work.

  And finally, thanks to Alex and Squeaky for pointing me in the direction of Wild Wolf Publishing, making my dream of being published a reality at long last.

  Nick

  Prologue

  The late autumn sun glares down upon the land, creating pools of light and shadow amongst the tree trunks and in the undergrowth. A chill wind whispers through the woods, a hint of what is soon to come in the winter months. Shivering, you quicken your pace, eager to be home, listening to the sound of your own footsteps crunching through the blanket of leaves that covers the floor.

  Clouds lazily drift across the sun, casting yet more shadows through the trees. The woods suddenly seem a hostile place, as if something is lurking in the undergrowth, something that doesn’t belong, something deadly. You can’t shake the feeling you’re being watched. You thought you were alone but can you be so sure? The woods hide many creatures, but the sense that something other than the natural wildlife is crouching in the shadows cannot be ignored. You can feel eyes following you as you walk, eyes that do not belong to any known creature on the planet. Fear begins to take its deadly hold, slowly tightening its grip upon your heart and squeezing until it becomes painful, until you feel your heart will stop. But what is it you fear the most? Do you fear the death that you feel awaits you, the pain, the unseen creature itself?

  Movement alarms you and you begin to run, fearing for your life. Whatever it is, can you outrun it? Unbidden, images flash before your eyes, all those horror movies you’ve seen, the horror stories of man-eating animals you’ve heard, and your own lifeless body lying broken and bloody on the ground, hidden by the leaves, slowly rotting away and fed upon by the creatures of the woods. Fear spurs you on to a greater speed.

  You’re being followed now; you can hear something behind you but what is it? Through the panic, you’re dimly aware that it doesn’t make any noise running through the leaves, yet you can hear some creature behind you. Something darts out in front of you, causing you to cry out. The bird quickly seeks refuge in a nearby tree, followed by others of its kind. You stop running and double up with laughter, laughing at your own fear, allowing your imagination to get the better of you. Birds. It was only birds.

  You start to walk again, still laughing and shaking your head at your own stupidity. But something still isn’t quite right and you pause again. The world is still and silent. Shouldn’t those birds be singing now? With a shrug you continue walking. Who knows what goes on in the minds of animals? Perhaps they fell silent in fear after you startled them.

  Clouds are massing in the sky overhead, black and threatening, casting the woods entirely in shadow. There’s no denying the hostility of the world around you. Maybe there is something other than birds here after all.

  Leaves crunch behind you. Not your imagination this time, you are definitely being followed. But is it human or animal? Both seem equally as frightening.

  Your head whips round in an attempt to spy the stalker, but only plant life meets your eyes. Another sound – it’s in front of you now. And gone when your head spins back round to meet it. A human couldn’t move that fast… The thought isn’t very comforting. Can you outsmart the creature in its own habitat?

  Running again, you see movement in the shadows: a darker shadow than those cast by the trees, weaving between trunks, keeping pace with you. Definitely an animal of some description but not one belonging to Britain. A quick glance is enough to tell you it’s bigger than any other predator native to the country and your fear intensifies. You lose sight of it, the black shape seemingly melting into its surroundings, but you keep running, knowing it could be moving in for the kill.

  Precious time trickles by but the creature is gone. Just as you think you’re safe and begin to slow, a shape steps out from between the trees. But it isn’t an animal this time. Shock and confusion brings you to a standstill and you face the stranger, chest heaving as your body craves more oxygen.

  A man stands before you. There is a feral look about him: his dark hair is a mess, long and unkempt, and long stubble covers his face, just short of a couple of day’s growth needed to be called a beard. His wild eyes belong to a madman at first, but as you watch they become cold and merciless, like the eyes of a killer, before seemingly growing warmer, more human perhaps. You cannot hold his gaze for long, for you can feel a great hunger burning in them, always there despite the changes you just witnessed. He is barely wearing any clothes, naked from the waist up. What rags remain around his legs are torn and covered in filth, and you can’t be sure but they appear to be stained in blood. His eyes are narrowed while he surveys you, his top lip curling slightly to bare sharp yellow teeth, pieces of raw flesh caught between them. On any other man it would be described as an expression of contempt, but in this case it appears to be more of a snarl.

  I look at you and I smell your fear. It calls to me as the hunger eats away at my insides, urging me to hunt. I see it in your eyes now, the fear is taking over. So hungry. And yet, something holds me back this time. Memories rise from the murky depths of my mind, corpses rising up from their watery grave. Memories of the human world. How long has it been now? Weeks? Months? Years? I don’t know, but I remember… And I want to be part of that world again. I take a step towards you, so close now that you can smell the stench of flesh and blood on my breath. You’re praying it’s the blood of animals, but deep down you know that it is not. You want to run, but you seem to be glued to the spot. You find you want to know more about this strange man, in spite of yourself.

  I try to speak but it’s been so long, all I manage is a grunt. Frowning, I embrace the memories now, searching for the forgotten knowledge, trying to find the secret to forming the words to this forgotten language, the key to this forgotten world. It’s been so long, but I remember a time when I was a part of that world, and finally my tongue forms words I thought I’d buried
along with my past.

  I tell you not to fear for the little good it does. I will not harm you. So many things I tried to forget, but I will never be free of those memories. Words cannot describe the horrors I have known, nor the torment I have endured, but I find the need to tell someone, and I shall seek to relate them to you as best I can. I’ve been alone for so long, isolated from the world, no longer a part of your world but not a part of theirs. I tried turning to the natural world for a time but I do not belong there. Your world fears me, my world turned their back on me, and I am alone. I long to be part of man’s world again, to see my family if they are still alive. Maybe it’s too late for that now. Have I outlived them all, everyone I knew in my former life?

  I have been haunted by these memories for so long, keeping them locked inside my skull for what seems an eternity, but now it is time to release them. I have to tell someone; I cannot go on any longer like this.

  It starts to rain. Thunder rumbles across the sky and lightning streaks through the clouds. Come, I will take you to shelter where you can listen to my tale while the storm rages. Please? I don’t want to be alone any longer.

  You look at me, distrust evident in your eyes, but pity stirs your heart and, though you should know better, you follow me to a cave, carved long ago into a rocky outcrop somewhere near the heart of the woods. You help me start a fire and settle down on the floor opposite me, with only the dancing flames between us. Now, where to begin? I search my memory for the right place to start. Everything is so confused, but thinking is slowly becoming easier. You act as a catalyst, reminding me of the life I once had, and slowly the memories begin to make more sense, form some kind of order. Yes, the tale, or at least the part of which I will tell this day, began in a small Northern town in Yorkshire, here in Britain. I must warn you that my story is not for the faint of heart or those with a weak stomach. I will make your skin crawl and your blood curdle, and I swear to you it is all true. So long have I lived in secrecy, but a new era is dawning, I feel it, and the age of the undead is almost upon us. For it is their world to which I should belong. Most men are ignorant of our existence, yet exist we do. So then, now you are sitting comfortably, it began in my hometown at the beginning of September, in the year 2003. I was still at school then, and we must start with the last day of the summer holidays just before I was about to enter my final year at high school, preparing to take my GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams at the end of the year.

  Chapter One

  My Entrance into Lycanthropy

  The lights were still on red but the green man had just disappeared and they would change in a matter of minutes. I’d never had much patience, and I certainly wasn’t going to wait for them to change again, so I sprinted across the road before the traffic started moving. A car had already been creeping forward, and just as I ran out the driver had decided to put his foot down. I couldn’t stop in the middle of the road once I’d decided to go, so I kept my head down and sprinted onwards, feeling my glasses slide down my nose. The driver beeped his horn but didn’t bother to slam on the brakes, and I barely made it across. I gave him the finger as he drove away in disgust.

  I pushed my glasses back up my nose and walked away, calm despite the fact I could have been in the back of an ambulance by then, staring Death in the face. As I walked I entertained thoughts of the alternate realities theory, thinking if it were true I was probably long dead in at least a hundred alternate universes already. As a teenager I was somewhat reckless and I took stupid risks, and somewhere I was sure I’d paid the price. The thought didn’t trouble me, mortal as I once was, since we were all headed for the grave eventually. I knew my time would come and it didn’t matter to my younger self whether that was in hours or years.

  Most of the girls at school were obsessed with eating healthy and their figure. I used to think, why bother? I saw no point in being so careful to avoid Death all your life when he would catch every one of us eventually. People talked of uncertain futures and being unsure of where they were going in life. As a human I knew where I was going. I knew where we were all going. I just didn’t know how any of us were getting there or how long it would take. But regardless of how often I contemplated my mortality, I don’t think I truly believed my life would end anytime soon. I didn’t fear Death, and I didn’t expect him to catch up with me for many years to come. I was still young and care free, and so very much alive. My dark thoughts turned to those more typical of a teenage boy as my feet automatically carried me towards home, which was just as well since I hadn’t really been paying attention to the route I was taking.

  Before I knew it I was walking down the drive to our house, and only then did I notice both cars were missing, meaning my parents were out. Dad was probably at the gym, but I had no idea where Mum could be. She wasn’t shopping because she had just sent me out for a few supplies, and she wasn’t working, since she worked in the same school my sister and I went to and it was still the summer holidays, albeit the last day. Not that her whereabouts really mattered. Having the house to myself for the afternoon was all that mattered to me back then, since it meant I could watch horror movies rated eighteen or play online games without being interrupted. Dad didn’t like me watching horror films as it was; he thought they were ‘morbid’, and had once said they were ‘poisoning my mind’. But I was fascinated with the horror genre and I wasn’t going to miss out just because he couldn’t understand it.

  I felt in my pocket for the house keys and unlocked the door, trying to decide what to do with my hour or so of freedom as I dumped the bags in the kitchen. But I was soon disappointed to find I wasn’t alone after all.

  Amy, my younger sister, lay sprawled across the sofa watching TV with the back of her blonde head to me. I’d just assumed she’d be out with Mum when I’d seen the cars missing. She didn’t bother to look round when I walked past, but she shouted out “Nick smells!”

  At twelve years old she was a typical girly girl and the very definition of ‘dumb blonde’. There was plenty of sibling rivalry between us which the raging hormones of puberty had taken to new heights, and we would often wind each other up. Sometimes it was on purpose, sometimes it was just from the tension of spending so much time under the same roof, but whether intentional or not we would argue often. Yet in spite of all her annoying qualities, she was still my little sister and I loved her, even if there were times when I felt like I wanted to throttle her.

  I sighed and looked at the shopping. There was no way I could watch an eighteen DVD with Amy home, since she took great pleasure in grassing me up to our parents whenever she caught me doing something they’d forbidden. There were plenty of other films I could have watched but I decided my time would be better spent on the computer while it was free. However, fate wasn’t on my side. Our internet connection had always been somewhat temperamental and it soon became clear that it wasn’t going to connect.

  Sulkily I ran upstairs, thinking I might watch one of my horrors rated twelve or fifteen after all, or maybe I’d have some time on the Playstation, but first I went into the bathroom for a quick pee. I looked up at the mirror over the sink while I washed my hands, wondering why nothing ever seemed to go my way. Green eyes tinged with brown stared back at me from behind my glasses. They were deep set, under brows that were fairly thick and slightly curved, somewhere halfway between straight and rounded. To my teenage self my lips felt a little too big for my liking, though not ridiculously so like some celebrities. But at least everything else was in proportion.

  The overall effect meant that, relaxed, my face was quite serious looking, but more often than not it was grinning when I was out with my mates, or when things did go my way for a change. My face used to be round when I was younger but as puberty went on it was getting to be a little more angular, becoming the face of a young man rather than a boy. Puberty still had a long way to go, however. My beard hadn’t started to come through yet and my voice was only just starting to drop.

  I gl
anced back down at the sink to turn the tap off with my long, skinny fingers. I’d always been skinny despite the fact I had a good appetite. There was a little muscle on my arms and shoulders though it didn’t look that impressive when I had such a skinny frame. I often wished I was better built, my bones thicker, and I could only hope they would change with puberty.

  The muscle on my hairy legs was more impressive. They were skinny too but I had big calves, the legs of a runner. I might not have been one of the strongest guys in our year group at school but I was certainly one of the fastest.

  We weren’t a particularly tall family but I would have said I was about average height for a fifteen year old. I kept my dark hair short, mostly so I didn’t have to do anything with it, or as short as school allowed. In a certain light it looked almost black, but it was actually a dark brown. Back then I thought black would look cooler and intended to start dyeing it eventually, though I hadn’t tried any dye as yet.

  Black was the preferred colour for my choice of wardrobe too. I generally only ever wore gothic t-shirts with snarling monsters, grim reapers or snakes preparing to strike, that sort of thing. I did have a few animal ones but the gothic shirts were my favourites. I also had a few band shirts that I loved. And I typically wore my black jeans everywhere, even in the height of summer. The only time I wore anything slightly different was when Dad insisted I change into something smarter, or at least less ‘morbid’.

  I ran my hand through that dark hair, still undecided what to do, but when Amy shouted out something else I headed back downstairs instead. Taunting her seemed like fun at that moment.

  As I entered the lounge I could see she was watching one of the music channels, her greenish blue eyes glued to the screen. She had no taste in music as far as I was concerned, often subjecting me to modern pop, dance and hip hop. It was all rubbish to my ears. Much as I loathed the songs blaring out of the TV, I walked past the sofa and flicked her long hair, knowing she really hated that.