BROTHERS OF BLOOD: A New Orleans Vampyre Novella (New Orleans Haunts Series Book 1) by J.T. Patten

Author:J.T. Patten [Patten, J.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798987300534
Publisher: HELBOUND Productions
Published: 2023-08-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Compulsion

As I opened my eyes, fighting to recall the details of my conversation with Jacques just moments ago, I found myself standing in a courtyard, my hands and clothes soaked with blood. To my left stood Wayne. He was also bloodied and bewildered. He, however, was holding an axe. The axe from our father’s trombone case.

Confused and disoriented, we gathered our whereabouts, trying to make sense of our surroundings in the early morning sun.

“John,” he said, emotion building in his voice. “What did we do?”

I could feel my heart racing in my chest. I looked at Wayne, and he had the same look of confusion and fear on his face as I did. We both knew we had to figure out what had happened to us, and fast. Fragmented memories flooded my mind. Snapshots of a man and woman screaming, a small vision of us at night using a metal object to pry open a door before entering the unfamiliar home. Beyond that, there was nothing.

“Wayne,” I said, “I have no recollection of how we got to this courtyard, or what happened to us. But I have a nightmarish vision of something horrible.”

“A man…and a woman. Asleep in their bed,” my brother said as he dropped the axe on the ground.

I nodded. “I receive visions of these pictures. Some vivid, some obscured. Moving pictures. Of faces. Acts. Like I’m watching myself from afar in a dream. Or on the wings of a fairy.”

We pieced together our fragmented memories, trying to make sense of them. We remembered arguing with the man and woman, but we couldn’t remember what it was about. We remembered using the screwdriver to pry open a door, but we didn’t know whose door it was or what we were looking for.

The visions came in flashes, and we struggled to make sense of the nightmares we knew to be truths. Hazy, a memory returned. I sensed the terror and fear we must have caused them. I heard their pleas for help. Smelled the foul stench as we eviscerated their bodies.

We were alone, though we had each other. Baffled and scared, we felt consciously responsible for whatever happened, and the weight of it all was suffocating. We remained frozen in the courtyard, lost, trying to make sense of the horror show we seemed to have walked into—or caused.

I looked around for any clues. Our steps had stained the courtyard stones of Jacque’s home. A path led to the high wall. It was there I spied the jars.

“Wayne.” I pointed to the glass containers, dark in fill. “Look there.”

He set off for a closer look.

A smear of our murder soilings ran the length of the enclosure to the top where the filled contents sat. I knew what must be inside.

“We filled them,” he said. “I remember filling them from their bellies and arms and legs…and throat.” My brother shuddered. Tears welled in his eyes, and he looked down at his hands as if he didn’t recognize them. “What’s happening to us?”

The answers were not there.

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