Necks.

It was as simple as that.

The blood was a red herring, so to speak, sent to distract him-by his psyche or whatever, his conscience-to stop him from seeing the much healthier obvious. It was necks he’d been craving, not blood. He didn’t want to drink blood and he was no more anaemic than a cow’s leg. The simple, dirty truth was, he wanted to bite necks. It was one of those midlife things. And that was grand, it was fine, because he was in the middle of his life, give or take a few years.

Sex.

Simple.

He wanted to have sex with everything living. Not literally. He wanted to have sex with most things. Some things-most women. He was a normal man, slipping into middle age. His days were numbered. He knew this, but he didn’t think it. A year was 365 days. Ten years was 3,650. Thirty years gave him 14,600. You have 14,600 days to live. That’s fine, thanks. As he lay on the bed, he felt happy. The urge was gone, because he understood. His mind was fine, but something in him had been running amok. His biology, or something like that. Not long ago, only a few generations back, he’d have been dead already or at least drooling and toothless. Middle age and the autumn years were modern concepts. His brain understood them, but his biology-his manhood-didn’t. He only had a few years of riding left-that was what biology thought. More to the point, a few years of reproducing. And maybe the vasectomy had made things worse, or more drastic, sent messages haywire-he didn’t know.

The human mind was a funny thing. He’d been dying for a ride, so he bit the head off a neighbour’s chicken.

He went downstairs.

— A fox got one of Barbara’s hens last night, said Vera.