Author's note: This story was written several years ago, part of a series of short stories. Enjoy.
He lay there in the alley with the cold, wet pavement pressing against his face, watching the lifeblood slowly pool near his face in a shallow, cold formation. Never in all of Matthew's life had he thought this is how he would die, alone and shaking, the knife still deep in his chest.
Of course, there was a lot about the past six months Matt hadn't expected from life. The sudden lust for adrenaline, an addiction that rivaled any he had ever read about, especially puzzled him now.
Her name was Elaina. Matt had never even knew her last name, and a part of him didn't want to know it. It would have just been another piece to the useless puzzle that had become his obsession. They had met at a company Christmas party. She was the guest of one of his firm's wealthiest clients, and somewhere in the night things had gone south. She threw her drink in his face and he slapped her across her's, sending her marching off into the New york night like a scalded cat.
Matt went after her, despite a cross eye from the senior partner, and caught her two blocks from Central Park. He thought she had no idea what she was doing or where she was going, fueled by the normal dose of anger after such a public spat, that she had no idea she was marching right into certain death. At night, the park could rival even the hardest neighborhoods, filled with meth-heads and dealers, prostitutes and pimps.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
"Hey, wait up!" he shouted to her, at least a dozen steps behind her quick pace. "Look, I'm just trying to help!" She stopped, but hadn't yet turned toward him as he came jogging up. "You know, most people just pack their bags and move to Yonkers after a scene like that," he said with a quick grin. It was an honest grin, one he had developed in his younger years along the East Coast, moving from city to city with his father. It was disarming, at the least.
"I don't need your pity, and I certainly don't need your help," she said, turning toward the park. "I need prey."
She quickened her pace, but Matt stayed close. It reminded her of a puppy, playfully tagging along. "Look, I'm already in hot water with my boss for running off from the party. You think maybe I can at least get your name... and your number?" She stopped and started at him. "What makes you think I would give my number to a complete stranger like you? Did you think your $200 shoes or that $1,000 suit would convince me? Maybe you have a Mercedes waiting around the corner. Did you think that would persuade me? You're dead, and you don't even know it. You're just like the rest of the stiff suits in that office, toiling away day after day, and for what? To buy things someone else thinks you need? You're a cute guy, but you don't have the balls to play my game."
Matt knew he looked like an idiot now, his expression half-grinning and half shaken, like a clown someone had kicked in the groin. The silence lasted only a moment, as she turned and headed off into the park. She was suicidal. That's all Matt could think as she strolled indifferently toward the park and its inhabitants.
As he lay on the cold pavement remembering that night, Matt simply had no idea what had possessed him to follow her into the park. He remembered being surprised she got as far as she had before her long legs and short skirt caught the attention of a trio of thugs sharing a joint near one of the park's jogging paths. "Just walk away. Just walk away," he told himself, over and over. But he couldn't. There was a sick feeling... A tingle running up his spine now, something he'd never felt before. He felt like he was going to puke, but at the same time he felt so alive every inch of his skin was tingling.
He couldn't tell who attacked who. It had to be the thugs, he told himself. But once the battle begun, it was hard to sort out who the aggressors were and who the would-be victims were. The first lunged toward her with a wicked looking knife, only to have half his face bashed in with the side of a high-heel shoe. The second thug, a large, round man who spoke with a heavy Australian accent, was behind her in a flash, grabbing her arms and twisting them behind her. As he spun her, the woman's eyes locked with Matt for just a second, and even through the darkness the young man could have sworn he saw something... something primal. It was the look of the hunter.
Before he realized what he was doing, Matt was on the third guy, grabbing him quickly by the throat and twisting his hand to the side, taking as much flesh as he could with it. The man tried to yelp, but it just came out in a gurgle. As Matt spun the heavyset man to the side, he caught the second thug with a spinning punch to the head, and despite his obvious lack of experience and fear for the longevity of the bones in his hand, Matt was surprised to find the shot right on target. A crushing sound, deep and sickening, came from the second thug's face, as he and his companion hit the ground at the same time.
It was over in the time it would take to pour a cup of coffee.
"You know, we all began as something, or someone else. Do you believe in reincarnation?" she asked Matt, adjusting her skirt and hair in the moonlight. All he could do was stare at the blood on his right hand, the blood that had come gushing out of the third thug's throat and covered him to the elbow. "Honestly, i don't know what I believe in," he whispered, still in shock. A part of him was repulsed at the scene laid out before him, while another part of him... a part that had remained hidden, dormant all his life, was relishing it, filing away each detail for some sort of sick, mental orgy.
The days that followed the incident in the park had become a blur, one confrontation after the next. They never struck first or instegated the fights, but they were always in the right place at the right time. Her name was Vivian, but Matt knew that was a lie. He could see it in her eyes each time he called her by name. The haze of adrenalin, blood and sweat all began to run together, and Matt couldn't have loved it more. He had begun dreaming, sokmething he had rarely done in the past. The dreams were all from different times, ranging to before the birth of Christ to the early 1900s, and while his face changed only marginally from one dream to the next, one thing stayed the same: killing. He was a killer, and he knew it now. Some part of him had always known it, but he had managed to keep it at bay... until he met her.
Tonight they had gone looking for purse snatchers on the streets in China Town, and gotten more than either had bargained for. As the fight drug on and on, and the enemy seemed to multiply before his eyes, Matt realized it had only been a matter of time before the pair had met their doom on these streets and in these alleys. They had been reckless, even sloppy. And, even as the fight reached a fever pitch, Matt saw Vivian fall. There had been a gunshot, and the crimson stain was creeping slowly from the center of her plain,. white T shirt. He was next, as one of his assailants stabbed him quickly in the back, quickly pulling the knife from the wound and finding his chest. They grabbed for his wallet, but he didn't have one. The man that stabbed him spit on him as he lay there, gasping for breath, grasping at the knife that was buried in his chest.
Quickly, it was silent, a fact that told Matt the end was here. There are two things that don't exist in New York City: soil and silence. He waited for the darkness to roll over him and claim his soul, but it didn't. He lay there, still gasping and spitting. As he rolled onto an elbow, he caught a glimpse of a dark shadow crouched near him.
"Hello Matthew," he said, moving into the light. There was something incredibly familiar about the man. He was dressed in all black, with long black hair and deep, dark eyes. He wore a red rose in his lapel, but there was something sickening about the flower. Something evil. "I've waited long enough for you, my friend. Now it's time to come home. Now it is time for you to serve."
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