Chapter Text
“Thanks,” Dr. Whitmore whispers as I drop my test on the podium, and “Have a good day.”
I salute and slip through the door, still falling slowly closed after the last student’s exit, ready to escape the cool dim of the science building. I’m not optimistic about the test—there’s no way I made more than a C—but now that it’s over, I can relax. Chemistry’s my last class of the day, leaving three glorious hours of sunshine on this October day. It’s not much, but I’ll take what I can get.
Ever the optimist, my mother would have teased. If she were here. The thought sends a sharp pain through me and I brush it aside, eager to move on. Eager to stop hurting, or forget the hurt for a while. Whichever comes first.
The paths are relatively empty on this side of campus, since most of the science classes occur in the morning. Afternoons are for history, literature, and art, but I took literature last year and art was the hour before chemistry. I’m a free person.
Someone—probably a frat boy—yells in the distance, and my gaze wanders toward the three drainage pipes under the little bridge to my left. Heavily shaded by the trees around it and especially dark at night, it’s a popular location for partiers to get drunk and needle up, although pills and cigs have also been popular the last few years. I usually avoid the area, choosing to take the long way around, but last week a stray cat cut itself on a glass bottle left behind by some drunk idiot or another. I’ve kept an eye on it ever since, stealing a few minutes each day to pick glittering glass shards out of leaf piles and other plant matter. It stinks, and it’s no fun, but better me than them. The local strays and wildlife didn’t do anything to deserve getting cut up by a drunk’s or stoner’s leftovers.
I don’t see any new glass, but I do notice a darker tint to the trickle coming out of the leftmost pipe. Did those idiots leave a bottle to drain? Now the coons can get drunk as well as infected. I step closer, leaving the sidewalk, and glance around cautiously before beginning the brief descent. I’m not too worried about my reputation, but I’d rather not be associated with the partying group. It’s not my scene at all.
The newly dark drainage is thicker up close—more viscous, I correct myself—and falls somewhere between red and black in color. Not beer, then. I’m not too familiar with wine myself, but something about it doesn’t smell, much less look, right. Peering into the pipe, I squint to try and make out the middle. Sunshine colors the other end of the pipe a dirty gray, but the light doesn’t reach far and the middle section is only vaguely apparent. An unrecognizable shape juts up next to the side of the tube, with what looks like knees pointing toward the ceiling. Human knees, to be exact.
“Oh, god,” I mutter, putting my hands on my own knees where I crouch in front of the pipe. “You better not have OD’d, or it’ll be way too late.”
Officially, my CPR certification expired last month, but now I can’t recall if that means I should wait for professionals to arrive or not. I take a deep breath, and immediately gag on the foul stench of cigarette smoke and what I assume is stoner stink. If I have to do mouth-to-mouth in this setting, I just might throw up.
“I’m coming in there, okay? We’re going to get you out of there.” I brace my hands on the sides of the pipe and place one knee in, then the other. “Me,” I mutter to myself. “I’m getting them out of there.”
The pipe’s not long, maybe fifteen feet, but between the smell and the frankly slimy drainage beneath my hands and knees it takes a couple minutes to reach the middle. I’m not trying to go slow—I’m actually trying to hurry—but I won’t exactly be helpful if I’m too busy puking to call 911.
“I swear,” I gasp between shallow breaths, “I swear I’m coming. I’m going to help you, I promise.”
The body doesn’t answer, and I’m beginning to worry they really have OD’d, but then I glance up and see the opposite end of the tunnel, which should be about seven feet away, looks like it’s thirty feet away. And it keeps moving farther.
“This is a really shitty time for my vision to freak out,” I mutter, raising one hand to rub my eye. I hesitate, seeing the grime on my fingers, then freeze. My eyes have adjusted to the dim light now, and my hand isn’t wet with dirty water, like I’d thought.
It’s wet with blood.
“Oh my god,” I say, and I mean to say it in a sort of whisper but it comes out like a really quiet shout instead. Or maybe it’s a regular shout; I wouldn’t know. Some part of me, the seeing part, is no longer in my body, or at least it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I’m watching the discovery from outside my body.
“Oh my god,” I say again, and look to the body. The body. “Oh my—are you okay? Can you hear me? I need—I need to call the police. Where’s my phone?” I’m muttering to myself again, patting my jeans with bloody hands.
“Great,” I say to myself, to no one. “Now it looks like Bloody Mary slapped my backside." I pause. "No phone either.”
The body in front of me stirs, groans a little. Brilliant introduction, Y/N. “Who’s there?” The words are slurred, but understandable.
“I’m Y/N,” I say as calmly as I can manage given my present situation. “I’m here to help you. Are you hurt?” I shake my head, suddenly blinking back tears. What am I doing? “I’m sorry. Where are you hurt? Do you remember what happened?”
“...s’lot of blood,” the figure mumbles, and I lean forward.
“Yes, I see the blood,” I say shakily. “Do you know where it’s coming from?”
They lean forward too, seeming to examine the blood, the drainage pipe, me. “S’not mine.”
A shaky breath. “Are you sure? Whose is it?”
“Not…mine,” they repeat, and suddenly they’re slumping back against the wall again, spent. “Raccoon.”
“I—what?”
“The blood…is the rac—is the raccoon’s,” they repeat, and point a trembling finger at something beside them. Their body is between me and the supposed raccoon; I hope they’re not hallucinating.
“Okay,” I try again. I fold my hands in my lap. “Do you know where you’re hurt? What happened?”
The figure thinks a moment, staring at the ceiling of the pipe. They’re tall, I can see now, slumped mostly across the floor so that a good foot and a half remains between their head and the pipe roof. Who are you?
“Blast…threw me back,” they say finally. They sound defeated, frustrated, but it quickly turns to anger. “Stupid! Shouldn’t have…need a bigger spot. Need a bigger sacrifice.” They say the last word so meaningfully it makes me shift back a little, but they’re not paying attention. “Need…need more blood.”
“Do you think you need a blood transfusion?” I ask gently, trying to get back on subject. I don’t know what kind of sacrifice they’re talking about, but if their trip was strong enough to make them kill a raccoon, or hallucinate killing one… Maybe last night’s thunderstorm was the blast they meant.
“No,” they say forcefully, and turn suddenly toward me. They fall onto their stomach, propping themself up on their elbows. This close, I can see a finely bearded face, thick brows, wild eyes. Definitely not a student. “Need. More. Blood!”
“Okay,” I say slowly, wishing I had the strength and space to scuttle back out of the pipe. “I’m going to call 911, okay? They’ll know what to do.”
He looks around, briefly. “No, they won’t,” he whispers. Then he looks at me again. Focuses. His eyes narrow. “I need…” He hesitates.
“What? What do you need?” When he doesn’t answer, I try again. “I can't get it for you if you don't tell me.”
“Yes,” he says slowly, nodding. His face is grave. “I need…” Another pause. “I need blood. Yours.”
Now I really do start inching back, bracing my hands on the walls to give me a little pushing power. “Sorry?”
“I need your blood. Now!” He struggles to his hands and knees, slipping in the bloody drainage that soaked through my jeans several minutes ago. I glance over his shoulder, see the other end of the pipe. It looks even further away now, maybe fifty feet, and somehow, impossibly, it’s darker out.
This is a dream. It has to be. Then I see a strange, misshapen lump just behind the stranger’s right knee, and I swallow the rising bile in my throat. The dim light reveals just enough: scraps of coarse striped fur, a mangled leg, what looks like part of a rib cage. Just the right size for a procyonid.
Correction: nightmare.