The Color of Dying

by Carlos Colon

  SÁNGRE

  The Color of Dying

  By

  Carlos Colón

  HellBound Books Publishing LLC

  Houston, TX

  A HellBound Books Publication

  Copyright © 2014 by Carlos Colon

  All Rights Reserved

  2nd Edition

  Cover and art design by Keith Whalen/HellBound Books Publishing

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are entirely fictitious or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

  www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my wife Maria,

  The light in the window

  that guides me home.

  SÁNGRE

  The Color of Dying

  “There have been a small amount of cases where victims retained a consciousness of who they were when they were alive, therefore carrying the characteristics, memories, intelligence and emotions that they’ve always had. Those are the ones that suffer the real horror—the horror of losing everything and everyone that they’ve ever loved.”

  – Dr. Teresa Gunder, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania

  1

  One of the few good things about being dead is making your own rules and not giving a crap. I do what I want, when I want and where I want to do it. And right now I want to feed.

  Here at Rahway State Prison the blood of the prisoners is generally of the quality I need to be at my undead best. They eat well and they have nothing to do here but exercise, giving their blood the nutritional value that can last for about a week—much better than the crap running through the veins of the street scum I come across when I’m in Charles Bronson mode. In “Death Wish”, Bronson drew muggers into dark alleys and blew their insides out with a .44. Me? I just drain them of their blood.

  Being 5’9” and 160 lbs., I’m not the most imposing figure you’d find walking the streets, which makes me a tempting target for switchblade or pistol-wielding scumbags. And while I can’t deny the enjoyment of seeing their expressions when my fangs rip into the bases of their necks, the feedings usually carry little nutritional value. Junkies aren’t known for having the best eating habits so the quality of their blood might hold me for maybe a couple of days. It’s our equivalent of junk food. I learned that back in my early predatory days feeding off a Bronx hooker I spotted at a seedy tenement doorway on 164th Street. She was succumbing to the toxic substances that were fighting for space in the thinning blood remaining in her arteries so I said fuck it. I dragged her ass out of sight, away from the street lights, and clamped my fangs onto her perfume-soaked neck as she drifted into the next world.

  In the end, the effort was hardly worth it.

  Not only did the sewage from her veins taste like shit, it barely lasted me into the next day. Who would have guessed it? The rules of proper nutritional feeding apply to the dead as well.

  The prison allows me to enjoy a quality feeding with somewhat of a clear conscience. Yeah, that’s right, a clear conscience. For most of my kind, conscience doesn’t come into play; but me, I’m the less common of the undead species. The majority of us, when we become infected or turned, lose all of our identity and we become mindless, soulless, territorial predators. For others in the minority like me it’s different. We are burdened with a genetic resistance that retains our humanity and saddles us with conscience and emotions. Right now I would say that there are about two hundred of us walking the night throughout neighborhoods around every corner of the world. Out of that group, maybe fifty of us are genetically resistant. For me, that means a constant battle of emotions when taking a life in order to keep myself going—not the kind of quality you look for in a nighttime predator.

  Dining in a place like Rahway makes things a little easier. Earlier this evening at the inmates’ cafeteria, I walked unseen amongst the prisoners to catch the buzz on who is the biggest scumbag or who is due for a good shanking. Towards the end of dinner, I observed a pair of goombahs huddled together pointing at a large bull-like figure with a receding hairline and a forehead you could place a billboard on. I overheard them referring to him as Phillip Vernon, the piece of filth former high school coach that was recently convicted for sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl from his soccer team. It wasn’t clear who was going to do the shanking from their conversation but it didn’t matter. Neither of them is going to get the chance. He’s mine.

  The ability to control minds is a useful little trait that allows me to send any pain-in-the-ass corrections officer to rub one out in the bathroom while I dine on a selection from the Rahway menu. It might be immature but who gives a fuck? I’m dead. I could use a good laugh now and then. When I run into someone that is not so susceptible, usually some tough-guy corrections officer ready to shove his nightstick up my ass, I turn off the light on my presence. But going around unseen can be draining if you’re lacking some good plasma.

  #

  The cell is cold, dark. Vernon’s in the bottom bunk fast asleep. In the upper bunk, his cellmate, rustled by my sudden appearance, bolts up from his pillow. “What the f—?”

  “Shh... just go back to sleep.”

  With no need for any of that Bela Lugosi look into my eyes shit, Vernon’s cellmate compliantly falls back onto his pillow.

  The commotion has stirred my intended. He groggily awakens to find a surly Puerto Rican stranger staring down at him.

  The intruder is disturbingly calm. He gently places a hand on Vernon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything. For now, just be quiet and listen. I’ll be quick, I promise.”

  The clammy prisoner rises from his pillow and leaves a profile of perspiration. The stranger kneels to look at him squarely in the eye (it’s my preferable method of communication). “Vernon, I was walking around the cafeteria before and I heard some shit about you. It seems you like forcing little fourteen year-old girls to give you blow jobs after classes.” His eyes are cold and detached, but they betray an unnerved acknowledgment that this isn’t going to be a very good night for him. “I also hear, Vernon, that one of the girls tried to fight you off, and when she couldn’t, she almost bit your cock in half.” That must have hurt. “You then lost it and beat the girl so badly that she now has permanent brain damage.” I have a daughter. Or should I say I had one when I was alive. The image of Vernon mercilessly wailing on that girl bothers me—a lot. “You see this shank, Vernon?” Vernon recognizes what was once a cafeteria spoon and mumbles some undecipherable gibberish. “This was hidden in one of the other cells. It was meant for you. Somebody on the outside wants you gutted.” His fear is escalating. I smell it. “It seems you might have victimized the wrong little lady, my friend.” He may be powerless to react, but it doesn’t stop the sweat from escaping his brow.

  “Vernon, my name is Nicky Negrón. And you might want to brace yourself for this one ‘cause, believe me, I know how it sounds. But the fact is: I am a vampire.” Even I still snicker when I say that. “Yeah, I know, it sounds like I’m some kind of nut. Believe me, bud, I wish I was. I’d happily take that over being what I am. But unfortunately for the both of us, I am not. Instead I’m a predator that feeds on human blood …like yours. Now, as a human, you barely qualify. But you’re going to have to do. Because that poor girl you assaulted is going to be stuck for the rest of her life with the thought of your filthy cock having been
in her mouth. And that gives me reason enough to not only drain you of every drop of your blood, but to drag it out so that I can enjoy the essence of your fear as you realize that any one of the next breaths you take could be your last.”

  Enough shit talk.

  Vernon’s short muted gasp punctuates the slam of my fangs against his jugular. My tight embrace of the execrable coach is not one of affection, but of me not wanting to miss a drop as his blood springs festively onto my palate like the fountains at the Bellagio.

  The desperate kicks are just reflex. At this point Vernon’s mind is totally gone. His legs will give out, then start twitching along with the rest of his body as his life slowly drains away.

  Hmm...

  His blood tastes funny. I don’t like it. It’s thin, especially for a phys-ed teacher. I wonder if he’s on anti-inflammatories. You get a taste for these things after twenty-seven years. I better check the med facility, find out what the fuck I just ingested.

  Loose ends first.

  The 18” Filipino Ceremonial Blade I carry is the kind they use in the Philippine mountains to decapitate criminals. I use it the same way. It prevents my victims from turning. Don’t need any other predators feeding in my territory. Theoretically, I could just leave Vernon here until morning and let him burst into flames. But who needs all the questions and speculations that come with spontaneous combustion? It’s easier to just hack his head off and leave it and the shank on the upper bunk with his cellmate. I’ll let him take the blame. He’s in prison so he’s probably scum too. Fuck him.

  #

  The squeak from the metal cabinet’s “V” drawer echoes like the feedback from a Hendrix solo. The lights are out. I left them that way. Don’t need any interruptions. With the half-moon only barely outlining the fern sitting on the window sill, the dancing beam from my iPhone’s flashlight is the only hint that there might be some presence in the room as I search through the prison medical files. Next door, the resident doctor is enjoying some Internet porn in his office. The moan from Sasha Grey’s fake orgasm should be enough to mask the metal grinding from the file cabinet.

  Veglia... Velarde... Ventura... here you are, you piece of shit. Phillip Michael Vernon. The history doesn’t seem that bad, just a little hypertension which they have under control with a prescription of Norvasc.

  But here’s a little something.

  Just like I detected, he’s taking anti-inflammatories. I always try to check things like this out so I know what kind of shit I ingested.

  There’s a sub-folder with some additional documents, they look new.

  They are.

  They’re dated today.

  His white blood cells have been monitored for the past month. He’d been coming in with fever, chills, and a loss of appetite. His weight had dropped fifteen pounds.

  Shit!

  Leukemia!

  Cancerous blood that might last me for maybe a day.

  I’ll probably start feeling the pangs as soon as I rise. Looks like it’ll be feeding time again in Nickyland tomorrow night.

  2

  Shut up, Othello!

  Fucking cat. I can’t stand this little bastard. And he obviously isn’t much of a fan of mine either.

  They’re weird, cats.

  I and the rest of my kind break every law of nature we’ve previously come to understand. We appear as we did when we died, giving the illusion of never aging, and we can remain unseen whenever we want to. Even Mother Earth is confused by us. We don’t cast reflections, we have no shadows, and our images don’t come out in photographs or on video. So why is Stefanie’s black, long-haired, pain-in-the-ass cat hissing at me?

  How can he see me when no one else can?

  That being said, the little ass wipe is doing his job. He knows I don’t belong here and he’s spewing out his disapproval. It’s as if his senses are telling him that I shouldn’t be walking this earth, never mind snooping around on my widowed and remarried bride.

  Stefanie always liked naming her pets after English literary characters. During our days together we had a dog named Lancelot and a parrot named Romeo. The bird was my favorite. I used to get a big kick out of teaching him to curse in Spanish. Stefanie not so much; she’d blush every time he blurted out something like coño or puta in front of company.

  Since he’s only a couple of years old, Othello came into Stefanie’s life long after my indecorous passing two-and-a-half decades ago, so his allegiance is to Stefanie and her husband of almost twenty years, Bill Rippey.

  I don’t know what I’m looking for when I come to Scarsdale to peek in on their quiet suburban life. Admittedly, there is some degree of comfort in seeing that a sense of order has been restored to the life of the woman I left behind. But it also comes with the price of realization that the only love I ever had has now been married to another man longer than she had been to me. Everything I’d worked for, every dream I ever had of sharing with Stefanie is now a part of Rippey’s life, not mine.

  It should be me curled up on that couch with her watching Downton Abbey, even though it would have bored the shit out of me. But for her I would have done it; even if I never understood how a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx could like that crap.

  Cozy as they are, she looks a little under the weather. She’s got a cup of hot cocoa in her hands and a quilt wrapped around her (along with Rippey’s arms). It looks like he enjoys this PBS bullshit too, a category where I fell short.

  I knew this prick would win her hand the second she met him. The first six years after my disappearance for Stefanie there was nothing but despondency and mourning until she realized that she was still young and had a whole life ahead of her. And let’s face it, as horrible as the circumstances of my death were, I didn’t exactly leave this world very nobly, thanks to the newspapers that kindly emphasized that I died in another woman’s bed. I mean, hey, they could have characterized me as the victim of a bloody crime. But nah, not the New York Post. They preferred to highlight the fact that there were traces of my semen on the bed sheets. Thank you for painting that picture for my wife and children, fuckers.

  Stefanie was in her mid-forties when they met and she still had a smooth, soft complexion with only her eyes showing wear from years of crying alone in what was once our bedroom. Her hair was thick, wavy and still dark, showing little grey despite all she’d been through. She also still looked great in a dress, with those same shapely legs I fell in love with back at Hunter College. It made me seethe with jealousy whenever my unseen presence tagged along during her dates. Of her first suitors, the majority couldn’t get past her attractiveness and they focused only on trying to get her into the bedroom.

  Not Rippey. A calculus professor at Fordham University where Stephanie worked as a supervising librarian, appearance-wise, Rippey wasn’t terribly impressive. He was about six feet tall with a thin build and wild, scraggly grey hair that matched his grungy beard, which looked like it smelled. He reminded me of a stoner that woke up from a thirty-year high at Woodstock.

  As much as I wanted to dislike him, I couldn’t. He treated Stefanie with total class. He was thoughtful, patient and completely understanding of everything she’d been through. His support was a key element in her working her way towards being her old self again.

  Often, they just sat together on the couch, like they’re doing tonight; watching movies with her leaning her head on his shoulder, the way she once did with me. Right in front of my eyes, I could see their bond intensifying as he gently stroked her hair, driving me nuts with envy. They ended up marrying two years later.

  Othello continues to scowl and hiss while keeping a cautious distance away from me. You gotta admire his protective stance, although he’s probably ready to shit himself. He doesn’t know what the fuck I am but he knows I’m not human. I almost feel bad wildly, flailing my arms above my head to shoo him away.

  My exaggerated ooga-booga gesture successfully freaks the cat out and his yowl draws attention from inside the house. Rippe
y rises from the couch and approaches the window.

  He looks right through me, into the still night.

  A couple of yards away out on the lawn, he spots his shaken kitty.

  Because of my, okay I’ll say it, supernatural condition, my appearance to everyone when I am visible is the same as it was when I went belly up twenty-seven years ago. The same can’t be said for Rippey, whose long white hair now makes him resemble the professor in “Back to the Future”.

  Othello, at my feet again, meows at Rippey as if saying, “Hey, you blind bastard, can’t you see what’s in front of you?” For a quick laugh I could pick up Othello by the nape of his neck and dangle him in front of the window. Probably a bad idea; the sight of the floating cat would probably give the old guy a heart attack and make Stefanie a widow yet again.

  “Bring him inside,” she says as Rippey heads towards the front door.

  Othello is drawn to the front door as he hears Rippey unlocking it and stepping out.

  “Hey buddy, you want to come inside?” asks Rippey, who watches his cat scoot in with the obvious answer.

  Looking out into the cool night, Rippey sees no sign of what might have stirred up his kitty as the answer to that question also slithers in past him.

  Stefanie’s looking thinner these days than I like to see her. It makes her face show her age more, even if her eyes still have the same sparkle that caught my attention in college almost fifty years ago. I can see the lines around them becoming more pronounced as she laughs at some line Maggie Smith spouts out on the TV. It’s probably something that only Stefanie and the English would find funny.