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Werewolves liked young hearts best, and sometimes hunted in pairs, though the hunter did not know that this one did, and now there was another. Now there was the threat of vengeance with teeth. Now the glint of the silver knife in hand. Now the slicing through muscle and bone. Now the bloodrush. Now the bloodthirst. Now the splash of blood to the face. Blood on the snow, leaking out into puddles.
Now the dragging of bodies through the forest floor. Now the smell of accelerant, burning flesh, smells of dead wife.
Inside the cabin his boys were huddled in the corner, the smell of their fear unnaturally thick in the air. They cried and said, “Dad, are you okay? Are you hurt, Dad?” The hunter said, “You should see the other guy.” Now he looked in the mirror and there was blood and viscera and soot on his face. Now the washing of hands, and there were cuts on the hunter’s hand from where the knife, slick with blood, had slipped and dug into his palm, so when he rinsed his hands both his blood and the blood of the wolves swirled down the drain. [Always there was the mingling of the blood of the hunter with the blood of the hunted; even this hunter was hunted once]. His oldest boy with the brave face hovered by the sink, said, “I knew you’d get it, Dad. Next time I come with you.” The hunter grunted and shook his head, but soon his boy would be old enough. He said, “Get the bourbon and the kit.”
They sat at the table and the hunter took a swig, for the throb in his palm, and the boy for his shaking hands. The boy took the hunter’s hand in his hand and the suture needle in the other. Now the sting of puncture, the piercing and tugging of flesh, over and over, and now four perfect stitches. Life line severed and mended. Now the boy cradled the hunter’s hand in both of his and grinned sweet and sun-warm, the only kindness that remained in his world, and thawed the hunter from the inside out. “Good as new,” he said. “Do I get to drive?” The hunter took another swig of bourbon, then passed the bottle to his boy, to celebrate. The hunter did not delight in the killing, only in a job well done.
When the hunter was a boy — when he knew nothing of fire or rifle or pistol or shotgun or of blades of any kind — steel or silver, cursed or pure, fabled or mundane — or of any other instrument of bloodletting — when he only knew of guns as plastic ornaments around his bed — when he was only a boy living somewhere else other than Lawrence, beloved by his father and his mother, who was nightly carried in his father’s arms to bed and laid to sleep and nightly kissed on the cheek, his father’s roughened cheek against his cheek, his father’s cheek perfumed still from morning and made rough by hair, made so rough it hurt the boy’s cheek so that he wished some nights that his father would not kiss him, or that if he must, that he would kiss him in the morning when his cheek was still smooth — there came a night when his father kissed him, queerly dressed in his going-out clothes, and said he would be back soon, and the boy asked when, and his father said, “I’ll be back when you’re up in the morning,” but then when morning came his father was not back, and morning turned to noon turned to dusk turned to night and he was not carried to bed nor kissed on the cheek, and his mother said, “Your father will be back soon,” and he asked when and she said, “When he is able,” and he asked when, and she said, “I don’t know, but he loves you very much and he will be back as soon as he can” and her voice sounded small in the dark and then she kissed him — not on the cheek but on the forehead — and he closed his eyes and went to sleep, and when he’d woken up in the morning again his father was not back, so all day the boy thought about his father, how sorely he had missed him, and wondered when he would be back, and if he would kiss him when he came back, and if yes, when.
He flashed his FBI badge and smiled and told the secretary evenly and with authority that he needed all she had on file, class schedule, housing address and the like, for one sophomore, last name Winchester, for the purposes of a very important investigation. Then he sat in his car with three fingers of whiskey in his coffee and wrote down their descriptions with great care and took pictures to be developed and magnified and printed and pinned up in a web of red string, but he did not get close enough to catch their names. Male, Caucasian, 6'1", brown hair, brown eyes. Female, Caucasian, 5'6", blond hair, brown eyes. Male, Black, 5'10", black hair, brown eyes. Female, Caucasian, 5'10" blond hair. Light eyes. Blue? Holding hands. Girlfriend? Among them his son, who had grown half a foot while he was not looking, now taller than the rest, now unmistakable even from a block away, shaded by oaks. Maybe it was only the father’s keen eyes, attuned to find his child in a great crowd of other children. His child, heart of his heart, a child no more, laughing, head tipped back, hair in his eyes. How could he see at all with hair like that? In some other world, the father would get out of the car and say, Surprise, son, I came all this way just for you, and they would hug one another, and the son would say, Dad, I’m so glad to see you, and these are my friends. The father would shake their hands and look into their eyes closely, especially those light eyes of that tall girl. And then he would say, Why don’t you skip that Anthropology section and come to the Giants game and they would drive to the stadium and listen to The Doors on the way and they would watch the game and eat stadium hotdogs and listen to The Doors again on the way back to the son’s apartment. The father would rib him for the dirty pile of clothes in the corner and the books on the floor and the posters on the wall, but he would be happy for his son, for finally having something of his own. He would find that picture of him and his wife, and he’d say, I think it’s time I told you some things about your mother and the day we took that picture. Then he would say, I’m so very proud of you, son, now show me the pentagram on the bedpost and the salt in the door frame and the window frame. And after they said goodbye, the father would get into his car and drive to his motel. He would slide the key into the keyhole and turn the handle and enter the room and shut the door after him and take off his shoes silently and without turning on the light, though he would be all alone. It was only a matter of habit: quiet for little Sammy sleeping, then vigil for little Sammy gone.
Your son, on his knees, says please so sweetly, and you put your hands around his neck. He closes his eyes and sighs and you close your eyes and you feel the working of his throat and his carotid pulse, and you count one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty and that’s how old he is now and you marvel at his being alive, and you remember your wife. Your wife under the same greedy hands, how she let you tug and squeeze. So in love were you with blond hair and soft breasts and the dew between pale thighs; so in love were you with the sound of her sighing; so in love were you – you were so in love – with the sound of her heartbeat, you would slot your fingers into the spaces between her ribs and put your ear to her chest and listen to the thumping until you fell asleep, fearful there might come a day when you would go to sleep and there would be no other sound but the beating of your heart alone and your breathing. You and your wife and your arms around your wife in the dark, and you so starved for love, and then one day a third heartbeat! The sound of love growing outward, the sound of never-leaving. You put your ear to her swelling belly and thought she could never leave you now, that you had played some trick and that you would never be apart, that you and she had solved the puzzle and that you would manage forever to be alone together. Your son, on his knees, nuzzles his face into your thigh and makes a keening noise and his eyes are closed, his lashes dark with dampness, his breathing shallow. You move your hand to his cheek where he’s bruised and he grinds his jaw and groans, and there’s something torn up inside him. Your son at twenty carries your sadness like a family heirloom, like diseased marrow. You and your son on his knees in the late morning light, and you curve your body over his, canopy over cradle, and you shove a hand through the worn collar of his shirt and feel his shoulder blades, and you press your forehead to his temple, smell of mother’s milk long gone, and you say, I got you, though you don’t know how; you never did find a cure for this disease. He opens his eyes and looks at you, and you remember your wife and her handing him to you. Your son, your own, this somehow you knew when you first held him, with the green in your eyes and none of her blue. So small he should not be out in the world. You thought you would hold him inside, if you could, for another nine months, nine years, ninety. Never could this boy grow enough to be without father. You say, I got you, again. I’ll take care of you.
Vessel (n.) – 1. A container (such as a cask, bottle, kettle, cup, bowl or body) for holding something. 2. Used for the holding of poison, holy water, blood, bile, bitterness, grudge or family curse. 3. Grammatical gender: feminine (see: Emasculation). 4. Can be used with or without consent. 5. Once given, consent cannot be denied. 6. May be used for the holding of Demonic spirit or Angelic grace. 7. May be used for the holding of eldest son, brother-killer. 8. Use may cause harm to self or to others, up to and including permanent injury or death. May cause feelings of helplessness, lack of control or memory loss. 9. In some cases, hereditary. 10. In some cases, divinely and/or heavenly ordained or predestined (see: Fate; see also: God’s Will).