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A lifetime of being the monster that he was had turned his sense of smell into that of a hungry blood-hound. Bent only on hunting and surviving. Keen to smell not only blood but when blood went bad– when rot made a meal inedible.
Jack knew the smell of Jeff’s blood quite well at this point. Two people in the same line of awful business with vaguely supernatural existences were bound to come across one another more often than not. Jack had been in the game for what seemed like eons, time only a vague memory to him now– but Jeff was still new to this grim underrealm, and he had the swagger of a tiger and teeth to match. Quick, cunning, and highly dangerous, he remained mortal to a fault, and he bled as simply as he breathed air. Dousing every surface available in a deep red color. Jack had seen him wrap gray duck-tape to his wounds, and staple himself shut more than once. He got into trouble often, and he got rid of the trouble even more often. Jack was still waiting to see when it would get him killed, but so far the bastard had not met his untimely demise. Eventually Jack grew somewhat used to being in the surrounding aftermath of Jeff’s murderous chaos – not that it was easy to escape – and on occasion he would keep an eye out for Jeff. If for nothing more than to avoid his wrath.
Initially, Jack meant their conversations to be nothing more than tips and advice. The warnings of an old man who merely wanted to have one less dead acquaintance. It turned out to be that Jeff’s big mouth was more than just for looks. Jack often felt like he was a nosy old man gossiping with a younger co-worker.
“There’s lotsa cops in this area nowadays.”
“Y’know that you can just go get new clothes for free at the GoodWill, right? Look at yerself old man…”
“The Italian restaurant on West Avenue throws out their old bread on Wednesdays…”
“It’s a college town, the kids ‘round ‘ere go missing and die all the dang time.”
“Are we goin’ all out for Halloween this year or whaaaaaaaaaaat?"
“Some kid put up a picture of you on a subreddit, dumbass.”
Jack caught a whiff of it a mile away from the old cabin he called a home.
Jeff’s blood did not smell bad per-say, but it was so strong - Jack would rather huff bleach. It stung him. It made his eyes and his mouth water, the dark goo that powered his body would make his tongue heavy. He shrugged on his backpack properly and walked a little faster. The smell grew stronger the closer he got and when he stepped into a moist patch of grass he knew well what color it would have been. On the narrow porch of his house, to the side of the door, there was a curled up little ball of red and black.
When Jack rested a heavy boot onto the first step of the porch the crumpled figure let out a faint hiss, and Jack watched Jeffrey attempt to sit up on shaky arms. The ratty old white hoodie he wore dyed a deep red.
“Old man…” Jeff croaked out. “I…ugh…”
Jeff’s chest heaved heavy and slow, every breath shook his body with a terrible pain. From the sound of his breathing Jack could tell that at least two of his ribs were broken. He hurried up the rest of the steps, boot prints left behind in the gore on the floor, and threw his backpack off his shoulders, a wet thump echoed behind him. The smell of Jeff’s blood hung heavy in the air and it jabbed at Jack’s nostrils like a thousand little needles. Jack wiped the goop from his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his shirt.
“What the hell happened to you?” Jack asked.
Jeff let go a sound that might have been a laugh. “Car got me…sort of…”
Jack sighed. He'd give Jeff a lecture later. Right now he had to figure out from where it was exactly that Jeff was bleeding out. Car accidents usually caused the bleeding to be internal, but all this blood had certainly gotten out somehow. He crouched down next to Jeff and slowly lifted him up by the armpits. The younger man let out a groan of pain. Jack quickly threw one of Jeff’s arms around his own neck and moved one hand under Jeff’s legs to hoist him up properly. Jeff hissed again, he balled the back of Jack’s shirt into his fist, trying as hard as he could to contain the pain within his own little bubble of suffering.
This is your real problem, Jack thought Even in death you’re too proud.
The more unseemly aspects of himself had made Jack strong and sturdy. Almost twice Jeff’s size, and twice as strong. In his haste to throw the door open and hurry over to his kitchen he moved Jeff around too fast, and Jeff winced again.
“Sorry, sorry…” Jack mumbled.
He dropped Jeff down onto the little kitchen table as gently as he could. The smell of blood now steadily flooding into his home. “Do you know where you’re hurt, Jeff? Can you tell me?”
Jeff’s head lolled to the side, mouth agape, and a lone blue eye vacantly assessing its surroundings, not particularly locking on anything. His shallow breathing was quickly becoming more and more inconsistent. Jack did not wait for an answer. He pulled a pair of old scissors from a kitchen drawer and cut right down the front of Jeff’s hoodie. It was soaking wet in Jack’s hands anyways and there was no salvaging it. Jeff offered up no complaints that his clothes were being torn apart, all of his will power was focused on his breathing.
When Jack finished cutting up the first layer of clothes he saw that Jeff's undershirt was just as soaked, but the gash near his left hip bone was too large to go unnoticed. Thinking quickly, he turned around to the stove and twisted on one of the circular stove-tops. Then he yanked open a cupboard and pulled out a small frying pan, placing it onto the stove. The car itself had probably just banged Jeff around, unless the sharp edge of the bumper had caught him, but the cut was probably from wherever the car had thrown him into - something on the side of the road. Jack returned to the table and cut into Jeff's shirt, trying to get more answers out of him so that he'd stay conscious.
"Did the car hit you from the front? Do you know where you fell?" He asked.
A shaky sigh left Jeff's mouth. Then he blinked once, twice. "A fence."
A fence? Jack thought. And then it occurred to him that around here a regular fence would not keep local teenagers out of the woods. Nor the creatures in the woods away from the teenagers.
"Barbed wire, was it? Or something like that? Something sharp?"
A sharpened fence-post was not uncommon. A pointy metal one would have done the job. And the jagged edges of the wound made more sense then. Once Jeff's shirt was cut open fully Jack scurried to the bathroom and returned with a damp towel and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He doused the towel in peroxide and winced at the smell. Jack gripped the top of Jeff’s left thigh to hold him steady.
“It’s going to burn, but it’s for the best.”
As soon as he pressed the cloth against Jeff’s wound Jeff let out a painful gasp. He tried to move his legs but he was too weak either way. Jack tightened his grip still, he pressed down harder on Jeff’s stomach. The sound of the peroxide bubbling seemed to echo around the kitchen. Jeff wrapped a hand around Jack’s wrist. He held onto Jack with very little strength, but it seemed to help him breathe again. Jeff winced a final time and Jack lifted the towel back up.
“It’s almost over, almost, I’m sorry.”
Jeff let out a sob. His whole body seemingly frozen by his own pain.
Jack had grown desensitized to pain over the years, he barely felt anything anymore, but worse was the way in which he’d forgotten the feeling of pain entirely. How no cut, shot, or hit did anything to him anymore. Watching Jeff writhe in pain felt so foreign to him. He thought of sticking his fingers into Jeff’s wound for a second– just to see if it would incite any sort of feeling within himself. At the bottom of his stomach something settled into a knot, like a snake at the back of its den. Taught like a bow, it waited.
Jack sighed deeply.
He dried his hands on the same rag and tossed it to the side. He turned around to see the frying pan on the stove had heated up. When he looked over again at Jeff he saw a ruined little face, with a sad, wet eye. In all his time of knowing Jeff, this was perhaps the quietest he’d ever been. Jack felt the snake inside his stomach move. Jack waited for a moment, then he reached out a hand and carefully wiped Jeff’s bangs out of his face. His skin was cold to the touch, and moist with sweat. Jack walked over to the stove and grabbed the frying pan by the handle. When he returned to Jeff’s side, he looked down at him and frowned. He placed a hand down gently between Jeff’s bare stomach and his ribs.
“This is gonna hurt, but it’s the quickest way to get it over with.” Jack said.
Jeff’s face turned sour, he locked eyes with Jack and let out a small whimper.
“I’m sorry.” Jack repeated, he looked away from Jeff, tightened his grip on Jeff’s middle before he could try and protest, and as quickly as he could Jack placed down the hot frying pan on top of Jeff’s wound, cauterizing it shut. The sizzling noise made Jack’s spine shiver, and the strangled cry that came from Jeff’s mouth made the snake in Jack’s stomach stir, and the smell of burning meat made black blood spill from his mouth in waves.
When Jeffrey Woods awoke the next morning, he was laying in a bed. That in itself was enough to raise alarm for someone who spent most nights sleeping on the blacktop. He felt exhausted, his whole body a stone at the bottom of the river. Jeff allowed his eyes to slowly adjust to the faint sunlight that shone through the curtains of a window he could not quite see. His body was not responding to him and he could not move, but he did not feel the rightful panic that would have gripped him on any other occasion. The bed was soft and warm, and the air around him smelled like soap and candles. He sighed deeply, decidedly closing his eyes again and waiting for sleep to take him once more.
Next to him on the bed, something shifted.
Jeff opened his eyes - one eye and one empty socket - back up again. A tinge of fear slithering down his throat. He turned his head to the side, but he could not tell who or what it was that slept next to him. Jeff opened his mouth to say something, but no noise came. His throat was dry and itchy. He swallowed, trying to get some moisture back down. The shadow next to him shifted again, this time it turned around to face him.
Sleeping next to him was Jack, seemingly not very uncomfortable with the notion that this was as close as they had ever gotten to one another. In his sleep Jack let out a soft sigh. Jeff frowned. He couldn’t fully remember how he’d ended up here, and while it was annoying, there was a small part of him that was very thankful (mainly to be warm and in a freaking bed for once). But it did not ease his irritation at all. Jeff tried to speak up once more, a soft noise emerging from the back of his throat before he could really say anything.
“Jack…” he mumbled. “Hey…asshole…”
Jack did not hear him in the least. Jeff allowed himself a small whimper of complaint. Now that he had been awake for a bit longer, his body did not feel as exhausted as before and he attempted to wiggle a bit, to try and see if he could turn on his side. When he did a hot flash of pain tore up his side and he let out a yelp in earnest. As he hissed in pain, Jack shifted awake, beady little black eyes adjusting to the dim light. A strong hand reached out from under the covers and settled firmly onto Jeff’s chest, motioning him to lay back down.
“Careful…” Jack said, his voice still sleepy. “You have to be gentle now…”
Jeff sighed, the pain in his side steadied, but it did not fade. He took a handful of deep breaths. ‘I-don’t…what happened…”
“I found you on my porch half dead.” Jack replied, his hand never leaving Jeff’s chest. “You told me you were struck by a car, but I think you hit a fence post after. There was a gash in your side, I cooked it shut.”
Jeff turned to look at Jack again, his eyes just wide enough. “Cooked?”
“I burnt the wound shut with the bottom of a frying pan.”
Jeff frowned as his only response, then he looked back up at the ceiling. Jack pulled his hand back from Jeff’s chest and readjusted himself under the covers. They remained in silence for a while, with only the birds outside chirping, announcing the arrival of the morning.
“Thanks…I guess.” Jeff said.
Jack snorted. “Don’t mention it. You do owe me a frying pan.”
“Whyd’ya let me sleep here though?”
Jack blinked twice. “In my bed you mean? I only have one, you were hurt…and you looked very sad. I wasn’t going to throw you on my couch.”
Jeff smiled just in the slightest. Then he frowned. “Like hell I looked sad. What does that mean?”
Jack laughed, a single dry cackle. He sat up in bed and stretched his arms above his head, letting his spine pop. “Well, you just looked sad. That 's all.”
Jack tossed the overs off himself and stood up. He walked over to the lone window of his small cabin and opened up the curtains slowly, allowing the soft sunlight to fill the room.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “You might not feel hungry still, but I think that it’s best if you get some food in your system.”
Jeff was facing the ceiling again. “I ain’t ever looked sad…”
Jack rolled his eyes. “I’ll bring you something in a bit, try to sleep again if you can.”
He closed the bedroom door behind him as he went. He hummed his way down to the kitchen, thinking of what he had stored around the house. He could whip up some eggs and grits with bacon quick enough. Did Jeff like coffee? Should he give Jeff coffee with a hole in his stomach? Would it give him a tummy ache? Maybe water was fine for now.
Slower than he’d liked, and one frying pan down, Jack set out to make breakfast. He returned to his bedroom some time later with two plates spread across one arm and two mugs of black coffee in the other hand. He found Jeff sitting up in bed, propped up against a pillow. Without a shirt on, he looked thin and tired. His body pale and the veins that ran up and down his arms and neck almost luminescent blue. It struck Jack again suddenly, the reminder that Jeff was just some kid, had been a kid, when he first became a monster.
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Feeling any better?”
Jeff shook his head. “Layin’ down was makin’ me dizzy.”
Jack handed him one of the coffee mugs. “Think you can stomach some coffee?”
“I’m about to find out.”
They ate slowly, in mostly silence. Shoulder to shoulder on Jack’s bed. Only interrupted by the sounds of one another eating and Jeff’s occasional quibble of pain. Jack finished eating first and he ruminated in silence for a while before he spoke again. He looked straight ahead, beyond the door frame into the hallway.
“How long did you wait on my porch for help?”
Jeff paused. He ate slow always, cutting up his food into small bits and shoving it to the furthest part of his mouth, working around the scars on his face. He tended to keep food all in one cheek, and it made him look like a little critter. He drank from his coffee mug, careful not to spill any of it.
“A while…’m not really sure…I was real drowsy by then.”
Jack did not reply immediately. When he did turn to look at Jeff it was with another question. “Why did you come to me at all? I’ve seen you lick your wounds by yourself before. You don’t like to ask for help.”
At that Jeff smiled. “You know me so well,” then he sighed, “I…nobody else care for me much these days. I really didn’t think I was gonna make it this time. I was gettin’ desperate. An’ I thought…well…if I die I might as well do it somewhere nice. Be a little useful.”
Jack frowned. “You wanted to die on my porch?”
“Your arms, ideally.” Jeff corrected. “Then you’d have fresh meat-”
“I don’t-”
“-an’ I thought maybe you’d like to take a bite outta me at least before you put me in the ground. Lord knows nobody else is goin’ to.”
Jack sighed. So there it was, the fear of dying alone. Of having lived a life with any purpose other than to harm. The fear of having all that harm return to you in death. The desire for a gentle death, even being as he was. Even someone like Jeff could fall prey to those kinds of thoughts.
“I don’t want to eat you, Jeff…your blood just…gets all up in my nose.”
“Pardon?”
Jack rolled his eyes again. Wordlessly he picked up his and Jeff’s empty plates and returned them to the kitchen sink. He’d wash them later. Then he returned to his bedroom. Jeff waited quietly, almost nervously. Jack pulled back the bedcovers again, and settled himself next to Jeff under them, adjusting his face into the crook of Jeff’s neck. He placed a warm hand over Jeff’s chest once more.
“Sleep.”