Blood

This is the first short-story that I really put thought and time into. I hope you like it or can at least offer some constructive criticisms even if you don't.

I walked up to the house as a light in an upper window went out.  It was a cool spring evening, the air smelling deeply of roses.  Surveying the other homes, I found all of the interiors to be dark and desolate.  The night was still with precious silence as I walked up to the wrought iron gate as it moved softly from my path.  The lawn had been cut recently, and I stared absentmindedly at it as my feet brought me closer to my destination.  Among the piles of grass clippings, I spotted an old ant hill, filled with holes where it had been shaved down.  I could just imagine all the little ants frantically trying to rebuild it, to return it to its original height and design.  If only they knew that broken creations could never be entirely whole again…  Returning to reality, I stopped at the front door and stood transfixed there for a moment.  My thoughts drifted to the darker places of my memory.  Was I really ready for this?  Could I control it this time?  What if I couldn’t?

“Well,” I whispered, “I suppose we’ll find out tonight, now won’t we?”

Taking a deep breath, I touched my index finger to the cold wood and heard the slow unlatching of the lock.  The handle turned and the great door swung forward, revealing a narrow hallway.  Stepping inside, I scanned the imminent darkness for any signs of life, my eyes quite adept at seeing through the black.  The door creaked shut and locked itself behind me.  Deciding that the hall was empty, I advanced into the oblivion and spotted the door to another room.  It was then that I came upon a quaint parlor; armchairs, pictures, and potpourri as far as the eye dared to see.  I searched once more for movement before soundlessly crossing to the bottom of the worn wooden stairs at the back of the room.  For a third time, I examined the darkness before me; and for a third time, my eyes grasped only darkness.

I caressed the stairs with silent grace and found myself behind yet another door, but this one smaller and somehow more inviting than the others.  I brushed my palm across it lightly, feeling a sort of gentleness about its face.  After another smooth stroke along the wood, the knob turned and the door swung open, entailing an awful screech as it did, one that could easily wake the dead.  My muscles tensed as my eyes darted inside the room, franticly scrutinizing every detail of the space within.  I held my breath as they came to rest upon a squirming lump in the middle of a four-poster situated to my left.  It tossed and turned haphazardly, obviously disturbed by the horrific noise.  When it had finally settled, my muscles relaxed ever-so-slightly, breath finally escaping my air-starved lungs in a long exhale.

Drawing on what little courage I had left, I glanced back at the bed-lump; it had resumed a slow breathing pattern but otherwise remained motionless.  My fear slightly abated, I cautiously stepped into the room and continued to watch the bed.  Step-by-agonizing-step, I crept to the side of the four-poster, never daring to look away from the shapeless form.  Once I had successfully reached the bedside, I straightened up and peered at the body below me.  It was thin and lithe, female no doubt, but it nevertheless exuded a powerful presence.  Her face was obscured by the sand-colored hair that lay in voluptuous tangles about her head.  But as I stared longingly at her lovely form, the curse that had afflicted me for so long began to rise once more to the surface.

My eyes began to move away from her subtle curves, instead focusing on the prize I had come to claim; her neck, half-covered by her hair, became clearer in the moonlight.  Alabaster white and smoother than porcelain; I could only imagine the taste of the blood that coursed sluggishly beneath it.  My throat began to burn with that sinister thirst.  I could feel my carnal instincts starting to take over; it was all I could do to keep from ripping her apart and gulping down every last drop of that magnificent blood.

Please… don’t kill her… remember your… humanity…, rasped my dying conscience.  I could barely hear it:  Stay strong… don’t let… the beast win…

I clung to every word with all the strength I could muster.  They were the only thing keeping me from the black pit below, the lair of my fiendish other self.  I could hear him whispering out of the darkness:

You’re not strong enough to stop me…  I will get out…  It’s just a matter of time before you realize that…

His laughter echoed up the walls of the pit, reverberating off of everything, amplified to a deafening roar.  My hands began to slip, as if his monstrous cackling had shook them loose.  I groped desperately to hold on to the crumbling walls.  I remember thinking all the while how I couldn’t let it happen, I couldn’t let him win.  So many had already died because of my weakness… I couldn’t let it happen again.

These thoughts became my stepping stones.  They began to form a pathway back up into the light, leading me away from that wicked laughter and its even more demented owner.  With a final push, I dragged myself out of the darkness and back to the surface.  My vision came back to me out of the haze.  I was back in the bedroom, the girl still in her bed, the world still spinning in the right direction.

I could feel my fangs sliding out of my gums as he continued lap at my soul like a wave, barely staying under.  I knew I couldn’t wait any longer; I had to get it over with now, before he took over again.  My arms were weak and stiff from fear, but I somehow forced them to move toward her.  Before I could entirely register it, they had already picked her up.  My face loomed only inches from her neck.  I gulped hard, sweat pouring down my body in rivers.

I opened my mouth, fangs fully extended, and moved closer, straining to take it slowly.   When I finally reached her neck, the smell of blood was almost too much for me to bear.  I bit down in a rush, sending shockwaves throughout her body.   I could feel the first drop of her blood as it trickled down my tongue.  Pure euphoria… I could hardly contain myself as more began to seep from the wound and down my throat.  Words could hardly begin to describe the taste.  All I could think was how I wanted more…

After a few minutes of silent ecstasy, I was jarred back to reality by a barely audible voice:  Stop…  I couldn’t discern where it came from or where it had gone, but I instantly knew it had been right.  I had to stop, lest another life be taken at my hands.  It took all my willpower to release the vice that was my jaw, but I was finally able to wrench it from her neck.

I laid her back upon the bed with as much care as I could gather, my hands still shaking from the sensation of feeding.  It was then that the dreams started.  She began to thrash about, violently trying to beat the imaginary creatures that were trying to devour her.  That was how all of the survivors ended up:  trapped in a never-ending nightmare, at the mercy of the horrific delusions that constructed themselves within her mind.

I looked away in agony, suddenly overcome with guilt and regret.  Why?!  Why was I cursed to be a bloodthirsty monster?!  I wanted to scream, but sorrow stole the sound from within me.  I writhed about in pain and misery, tears streaming down my face in a torrent.  All the memories of my past feedings came back like a film reel playing in front of my eyes.  I tried to shut them out of my vision, but they just kept coming, endless and repeating.  Then, as if on cue, memories of that first night entered the reel, eclipsing all others in their clarity.  I kicked and screamed as they dragged me back to the awful beginning of it all…

It was a humid summer night in the heart of the big city.  No one but us was walking the streets that night, all keeping to their homes to avoid the stagnant air.  We had been returning home from a late cinema screening across town, opting to go late in the evening to save some money.  But the film was terrible.  I told him it would be, but he still insisted on seeing it.  We had promised to be home before midnight, but the movie had lasted longer than we had expected. Luckily, the alleys provided a faster way through the silent streets.  Unfortunately, though, luck was the last thing that we had that night…

As we walked behind one of the taller buildings on Main Street, we heard a noise like an animal growling.  We stopped dead in our tracks and listened.  It was silent for a long while, so we started cautiously edging our way down the alley once more.  After a few paces, it sounded again, but this time louder.  It was then that I began to sweat, to feel true fear, the fear that freezes your body and sets fire to your mind.  My heart rate began to flutter and race, never content with a set pattern of beating.  My eyes darted everywhere in the darkness, straining to find the thing that couldn’t be seen.  They didn’t have to search for very long; they immediately caught sight of something yellow and shining.  It suddenly split itself into two, and I realized that they were a pair of gleaming eyes.

The next thing I knew, I was crumpling against the wall behind me, the blow to the head hazing my vision.  I could barely make out the thing that was gripping Matthew by the neck.  It looked like a tall man with dark hair and very pale skin.  He was rather wiry in build, so it surprised me when he was able to lift Matthew into the air with one hand.  I couldn’t see his face with his back turned to me, but I knew what was there.  At the moment, however, I couldn’t care less what his face looked like; all I was concerned with was the fact that he had Matthew in a choke hold while I was lying on the ground.

I tried to get to my feet, but dizziness overtook me before I could.  I gripped the wall for support and finally staggered upright.  Words had found their way to my mouth, but the fog that clouded my mind kept them there while I tried to force them out.  I managed to at last with a splutter:

“Let him g… go!  Take… take me instead!” I spat at the beast.  The instant I had uttered the last word, he had me by the throat while my friend passed out on the ground.

“If you insist on being the first course, then so be it!” he snarled between knife-sharp teeth.  In the next second, he had my arms locked behind me and had forced me to my knees.  I felt his icy breath only inches from my neck and shuddered.  The prick that followed was accompanied by a suction-like feeling.  My head began spinning faster and faster as I lost more blood.  As my body became lead, he released me with a jerk.  The blood seeped from the twin wounds in warm waves as he spoke again.  I caught bits and pieces of it through the dizziness and haze:

“Actually,… have… idea as to… do with you… You will… servant and… for eternity!”

My mind grasped for understanding as he took one of my leaden wrists and bit into it.  This time, however, instead of sucking the blood out, he forced something into me through his fangs.  It flowed like ice water into my veins, where it began to work its way throughout my body.  When it finally consumed my head, I began to feel drowsy, and my heartbeat started to slow.  I could just see my friend through the thickening haze, limp and lifeless on the ground a few feet away.  I tried with all my fading strength to reach for him as the world around me became black and quiet.

When I awoke, my head was throbbing and my muscles were stiff.  Desperate for some measure of my remaining humanity, I took a breath to get some air back in my lungs.  I immediately forgot who and where as I was engulfed by a magnificent aroma wafting somewhere nearby.  I craved the source of the scent with the carnality of a lion hungering for a slaughtered animal.  My throat seemed to dry itself out the more I thought about it.  I looked frantically around me, trying to find some evidence of where it was coming from.  My gaze had rested upon the limp body only a few feet away when a horrified voice broke through my trance.  Its screams shattered my delusions from the inside out as the words burnt like fire in the back of my mind.  The scent that had filled me with so much desire, so much longing and want, was that of Matthew’s blood.

My stomach churned with disgust and anguish.  I could feel my cheeks flushing to a sickly pale.  I wanted to vomit, to have some sort of relief, but whatever it was that came up my throat caught there and refused to leave.  When I had given up on forcing it out, I tried to swallow it back down.  But the lump it had created refused to go anywhere and thus remained in my throat.  The tears came swiftly as I realized the hideous truth.  I was no longer scared of what that monster would do to Matthew; that was too definite, too absolute, to fear anymore.  What truly frightened me was the horrifying possibility that I would be the one to kill my best friend.

A bestial cackle brought me back to the outside world.  I looked up to find the yellow-eyed beast, my new master, standing over me, grinning a sickening, self-satisfied grin.  His teeth shone bright and deadly in the moonlight as he laughed again.  His eyes sparkled with sadistic glee, eager to see more of my suffering at his hands.

In that moment, at the sight of his cruel pleasure, all my misery, all my sorrow, all my uncertainty suddenly evaporated.  It was replaced with an intense, burning rage that had somehow found its way into me.  Fury and hatred filled every cell in my body as I let out an inhuman roar from deep within my throat.  Haze clouded my vision as my body willed itself toward the beast, ripping and tearing at what it hoped to catch.  The world went dark and silent once more.  When I had finally escaped the blackness, I found myself standing over the lifeless corpse of the monster.  Its chest sported a deep wound wreathed in dried blood.  As my senses began to return, I felt something clenched between my fingers.  I looked down again at the wound and immediately dropped the beast’s razed heart next to its mutilated body.

When my senses had fully returned, the smell of blood in the air had become overwhelming.  The desire, the need to quench my burning thirst came back in a rush, and my throat ached with the burning.  Then, I caught sight of my hands, dyed crimson in the moonlight, and sucked in my breath.  My inner carnality sprang forward like a tiger, and the mist once more permeated my vision, clouding reality in my fit of unguarded pleasure.  My fangs wrapped their way around the creature’s icy neck and began their work.  The blood surged forth in a rush, and my tongue began to dance with delight as it flowed down into my stomach.  The taste could force even the hardest of hearts to cry out in joy.  The pleasure it induced was hypnotic, locking me in a trance that seemed to last for days.  It never grew tiring, never became dull.  All I wanted to do was bask in the pleasure of it for the rest of my life.

That night was almost forty years ago, but I can still recall it like it had just happened, every disturbing detail forever locked away inside my memory.  As I exited the bedroom through the window, I wished I could see that man again. I longed to ask him if he could help me one last time.  I knew it was pointless as I landed on the grass below.  When I closed the wrought iron gate behind me, I remembered why.

“There is one master that a vampire can never escape, no matter how hard he tries,” I said to myself as I began to walk away.  “The master that is his thirst…”  I walked on solemnly into the starry night, a single glistening tear rolling down my cheek…

Author's Note

Ignore the ending for now; I'll fix it for later. What I really need is feedback on the concept and the storytelling. Any comments?