lacey

lacey benson had always been known to have a short temper and a strong sense of justice.

growing up southern baptist in a rural tennessee town, he had a keen eye for the way his community treated others.

and it sure wasn't the way jesus would've, that's for sure.

he'd long witnessed the mistreatment of wives, children, neighbors--and the casual manner of the abuse made his blood boil.

how could these men convince themselves they were good people in the eyes of god? could they list their heavenly father's commandments, or had they conveniently written their wrongdoings out of the book? what was it that jesus stood for? what happened to love thy neighbor?

so lacey took it upon himself to protect others. he'd been blessed with intimidating stature, after all--well over six feet tall and sturdy enough to make anyone think twice. it served him well to use his size for good.

when he wasn't toiling away as a mechanic in his family's scrapyard, he was doing volunteer work in his community, helping vulnerable people escape abuse.

his guiding principle was to do right by god. not by the church, necessarily, but by the lord himself.

and that made it all the more harder to bear when god turned his back on him.

"felt his absence since the night i died," he drawled.

without any memory of the bite, or a transformation, lacey was left struggling to put the pieces together himself.

"reckoned it was some kind of a punishment, that's what i told myself. but i never knew what i did wrong."

all he knew is that he was hungry--and it didn't take him long to learn that indulging that righteous temper of his was the easiest way to procure what he needed.

the local news stations reported them as animal attacks, the victims seemingly mauled by feral dogs. but there was one thing they all seemed to have in common: for one reason or another, many that knew them claimed they had it coming.

when it dawned on the little town that no one had seen the benson boy for a while, people began to speculate.

and the benson scrapyard became a site of local legend . . .

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♫ : beat the devil's tattoo

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