Diary of a Blood Drinker

by Robert Arellano

  The crowd looked as it had before, milling around and carrying on conversations. Several people complimented me on my costume. Some asked who had made it, so I gave them the designer’s name.

  I had been socializing for a couple of hours when I noticed a woman, trying not to be obvious, but who was shadowing me when I moved from group to group. It was hard to tell much about her because of the costume and the heavy make-up she was wearing. I put her presence in the back of my mind and continued visiting with my new friends.

  I listened to stories about how they became vampires, how they survived, and how long they had been living this life. Some stories were really farfetched, but they believed them and I guess that was all that mattered. I got some great ideas, though. At one point, some of the people came together and performed a scene from a popular movie. I had enough for the evening and I needed to feed, so I said goodbye and started walking toward the door. When I got to my car, the woman that had been shadowing me appeared out of nowhere.

  “Why were you not drinking or eating anything?” she asked.

  I sensed her before I saw her. Why had I not seen her coming toward me? I stared at her, trying to figure out what was going on. It took me a moment to answer her and all I could ask, was, “Who are you?”

  She stared into my eyes and then her hand came up to my throat faster than I had ever seen. I was quicker and I grabbed her wrist before she was able to touch me. We stood there looking at each other and I finally released her. We were the only two in the parking lot and no one had seen this exchange.

  “We need to talk,” she said. I agreed and suggested she get into my car and I would drive to my home. For a split second, I thought that this may not be a good idea. But with the way she moved and who knows what else, she would probably find me sooner or later. I had to know more about this woman.

  She was quiet all the way to my house. I was dying of curiosity, but opted to wait for answers until I was in a safe environment. We got to my house and walked inside. In the time it took me to turn, close, and lock the door, she disappeared.

  I heard running water coming from the bathroom and I figured that was where she had gone.

  She yelled, “You should get out of your costume.”

  I went upstairs, removed the costume and makeup and headed downstairs. When I got there, she was walking around, looking at the house. “Very nice,” she said. “I especially like the view.”

  She was about my age, of Hispanic descent, and very pleasant to look at. She turned to look at me and said, “I think that we are the same.”

  For some reason, she seemed to trust me more than I trusted her. I asked her how she was able to move as fast as she did, why she decided to approach me, and what was it that drove her to do it. She was throwing questions at me and I was doing the same to her.

  We both finally said, “STOP!”

  I told her I needed a little time to wrap my mind around what was going on. I asked her to wait and I slipped out the door. I made sure she was not following me and I made my way down the canyon and fed on one of the vagrants.

  When I got back, I found her on the back patio near the pool looking out over the city. Even though I moved very quietly, she turned as I approached her.

  “The best thing would be for me to start from the beginning,” she said.

  She had joined a group of people that were coming from Mexico to the United States. They walked across the border under cover of night through the desert. The crossing took up to four days in most cases. They would prepare for the crossing by bring as much food and water as they could carry. The crossing happened during one of the hottest months of the year. After the third day, some of the people ran out of water.

  The guides – called Coyotes – usually arranged for someone in their group to leave drinking water somewhere along the route, but for some reason, that didn’t happen. A couple of desperate men stole what little water she had left. She protested and tried to fight them off but they overpowered her. During the struggle one man hit her and knocked her out. When she woke up, she was alone.

  “I do not know how long I was unconscious,” she explained, “but when I woke up I felt sick.” The symptoms she described were almost identical to what I experienced the night I was bitten by a bat.

  By the time she was able to move around, another group of people came along. They stopped close to where she was. Her feeding urge made her attack a woman in the group and she was able to survive. She made her way to Los Angeles and set out to locate the relatives she had come here to meet.

  When she found them, they did not know who she was. They feared that Immigration was somehow involved. She found herself living on the streets, feeding on anyone that was vulnerable. Like me, she was quickly realizing what she was capable of and how to use it to her advantage. She had been looking for ways to survive and wanting to find out if there was anyone like her. She joined the vampire group mostly to see if she could find out any information that could help her. She, too, was sure that she was the only one with the curse and was afraid of what would happen if there was someone like her in this world.

  “I noticed you last time I was there but I was unsure,” she said, “and by the time I realized that you might be like me, you had gone – I had no way of finding you.” Her only hope, she explained, was that someday I would return or she would run into me in the streets.

  She seemed to be on the same track as I was except that she had only been infected for about five years. I had been this way for nearly two decades. One huge difference between us was that she could go up to three days without feeding, as I had to feed every night. We spent most of the night comparing details about how each of us lived with this affliction.

  She told me she had poor eyesight before she became what she was now so she did not need any aid in dealing with the bright light. She did not experience any visions of the person’s life while feeding. Unlike me, she was able to sleep – not very long, but after being out all night, she would feel the need. Everything else, though, was what I had experienced.

  I found out that she was living not too far from the place I had rented on Fountain Street some years ago. It was well into the morning when I told her that if she needed to rest, she could use any of the bedrooms upstairs and spend the day.

  I told her that we would talk some more when she was ready. I headed down to the cellar, locked the door and set myself trying to understand what was happening and how I was going to deal with this new development.

  If there really was another creature out there, what would I do and what impact would it have in my life? I was in my trance-state, going through everything that we had talked about. I sensed that she liked me and that she was not an evil person. I realized that we were just trying to survive in a world we did not belong in. My biggest question was whether this city or even this world could support two creatures like us.

  Shall I ask her if she wants to share her life with me? Am I ready to trust her? Should I wait until I know her better? I’m sounding like a horny teenager that met a girl at a party and is about to ask her to be his girlfriend and move in with him. What the hell am I doing? This is not a game. Now I know there are two creatures in this world feeding on the blood of innocent people. I need to be serious about this. Other than what she has told me, I don’t know much about her. Hell, I don’t even know her name.

  I came out of my trance and heard some movement upstairs. I walked out of the cellar and up the stairs, and found her sitting just inside the doors that led out to the pool area.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, “And what is your name?”

  “Before I came across, my name was Maria,” she said, “But since no one knows me now, I’m calling myself Marty.” She told me that she was having a hard time with the reality of finding someone like her. She was not sure if she was happy and was not sure if she was more afraid now than she was prior to meeting me.

  I told her that I had no intention of hurting her. I had
no idea what would happen to me if I were to drink some of her blood. I wanted to spend as much time as we could together, to learn all we could about each other.

  “I feel the same way, too,” she said, and asked me to tell her my story.

  I told her what had happened to me, and how I had solved some of the problems I had encountered. I did not go into the details of where I had lived or worked and I did not tell her of the people I had killed. She listened intently and asked a few questions. I answered some with the truth and others with lies.

  After a while, she told me that she had to feed that night and she needed to go home for now. For a split second I thought about pointing her in the direction of my feeding spots but decided not to. I was not willing to share my food source yet. I called a cab and walked her out the door. We agreed that she would come by again the next day. She got into a cab and as it drove away, the neighbor that tried to seduce me walked up and asked, “Is that your girlfriend?” I nodded, turned around, and headed back in the house.

  I was lonely and I did not have anyone to share my problems with who understood what I was going through. I sensed that the same applied to her. For close to twenty years, I had survived by myself. The only person I had to take care of was me. If we entered into a relationship where we could feed off of each other’s experiences, maybe this would be the answer to my loneliness.

  Could this work like a normal relationship? If it did not work out, could we just go our separate ways? Could I trust her? I was so confused and worried I did not know what to do. As I thought of all the pros and cons, I decided that I could not live alone anymore. I needed someone to talk to and share my life with. If something were to go wrong, I would deal with it. The risk was worth it. I needed to know if she felt the same way.

  I had no idea what her feeding patterns were or where she did her hunting. I thought about trying to find her, but decided against it. I figured that if I had not encountered her in all the time I had been hunting there, the chance of me finding her would be slight. I decided to let her come to me.

  That evening I drove the farthest end of the valley. It was a predominantly black and Hispanic community. I found a bar and waited outside. Groups of two or more people kept exiting. I waited until the place closed and the last of the patrons left. I slipped into the bar through the back door. There was a woman behind the bar cleaning glasses and putting away things for the night. I attacked her as she was working and humming a song. I made sure she was alive and slipped out the door into my car and headed home. As I pulled into the drive, I saw Marty slip behind the bushes. I got out and called for her and she came toward me.

  I asked her if she was alright. She told me that she was and that she was very excited to find me. She told me how safe she felt since she found me. At first, she was afraid of what I might do once I was found out. She wanted to know if she could spend time with me learning more about what was needed to survive.

  I put my arms around her and held her. I was surprised that she responded positively but more surprised that I did not have an urge to feed. Maybe it was because I had just fed or because there was chemistry between us that I did not understand. I walked her to the house and told her that she was welcome to stay as long as she needed. I said I would go into more detail later about everything I had learned.

  I tried to remember if I had read any stories about male and female vampires living together. There were some bizarre stories of male vampires keeping females that they had turned into vampires. I could not think of any story or movie that applied to what we were going through. There were no books on what a relationship like ours was supposed to be like. Everything that we would try would be a first for us. For anybody reading this story, it could be a topic to try to expound on.

  There were so many things that we could not do as a couple. But we talked about things that we could do, and by doing them, we would be more likely to appear normal. We spent several hours talking about my experiences and about the things that we could do together that would be enjoyable. We both loved music and would go to intimate music performances. We loved to research things that would make our lives easier and more pleasant. We came to an agreement that, when it came to hunting and feeding, we were to be left alone. There had to be some time that we needed to do what had worked out the best for us. Even though through our talks, we found out that the kind of places that we visited for food where pretty much the same.

  Our daily routine would consist of us talking about our lives during the time before we met. We continued to compare notes about how our bodies reacted to different things, like when we were injured. How we felt after we fed on someone. There were so many things that were the same. I told her that I was certain that I was infected by a bat. She said that she had done some research and came to the same conclusion. She was very sincere about her convictions. Even though she found excitement in what she had become, she still felt sadness for her victims. Her strength and stealth made her more confident as a woman than she had ever been. She had thought about hunting down the two men that had left her in the desert but soon realized that they had unknowingly saved her life. In doing so they gave her a life she never imagined. Her sadness, like mine, was not having someone to confide in. Now that problem was solved.

  I would leave every night to hunt and feed. She would leave every third night. On the nights that we went out together, I would sometimes wait for her to get back or she would do the same. I had not visited the vagrant camp down in the canyon in a while, so one night I went there. The family that had been living there was gone. In their place was another family but they only had one child. The couple was younger than the previous man and woman that had been living there. There were two women living in another camp and the third camp had the same two men. As was my pattern, I waited for everyone to retire for the night and then attacked and fed on one of the women.

  When I returned to the house, I called out for Marty and she did not answer. I went through the house and she was not there. I knew that she was not supposed to go out that night to hunt, so maybe she left for another reason. She didn’t come home that night or the next day. That night I walked down to the strip to visit a club nearby and found my victim – a woman that had stumbled out of a bar and passed out in the front seat of her car. The window was open so I bent in, pulled her to me and fed. I walked home and as I was walking up the walk, I found Marty lying among the bushes. I picked her up and took her in the house.

  Marty was barely alive. The first thing I noticed was the strong smell of blood. She was covered with blood and had several wounds on her body. I ran to the kitchen to get a knife and then knelt over her. I cut into my wrist and placed it at her mouth. She started drinking my blood. Her eyes opened and she saw what was happening and continued to drink. I could feel her sucking on my arm and blood flowing out of me. When I felt that I could not lose any more blood, I pulled away from her. By this time she was fully conscience and was trying to talk to me. I told her to be quiet, just to lay there and rest.

  After a few minutes she sat up. I picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. I took off her clothes and turned on the shower and washed the blood off of her. I noticed the wounds were almost healed. I could not give her any more blood, so I carried her and laid her on the bed. She was almost fully alert so I asked her what had happened.

  She told me that she had gone to check out some new places to hunt and feed. She stumbled into an area that was controlled by a gang. She was walking along, minding her own business when she was approached by three members. They started pushing and groping her so she fought back and had the situation in control but several more showed up and attacked her. She was able to break away and get to a safe place, but then realized that she had been hurt. She was getting weaker by the minute and could not find a victim to feed on so tried to make it home. The next thing she knew I was leaning over her feeding her from my arm. I asked her how she felt. As far as she could tell, she was feeling well again.
r />   I had wondered for a long time what would happen if someone drank my blood. She seemed to suffer no ill effects and the results were no different than if she had fed on a normal person. We would have to wait and see if anything would change in her as time went on.

  As soon as she was strong enough, I led her to the vagrant camp I had been using and introduced her to one of my food sources. I left her alone and went home and waited for her to come home. When she returned, I could not tell whether anything had happened to her. She walked up to me, put her arms around me and thanked me several times. We talked and decided that if she wanted to search out new places to hunt, we would go together. She told me that she had made some stupid mistakes, but never this bad. In the meantime, she would stick to places that she knew were safe.

  We were living a content life. I introduced her to my neighbors when we met them on the street, while on our morning walks. We would go to musical events. Sometimes we would spend some days at the museums or art galleries. Movies were our favorite place because they were dark and some movies were entertaining. Our feeding patterns stayed the same for the most part. Everything was going along wonderfully. What could go wrong? I was about to find out things were not as wonderful as I thought.

  I went for my walk through the neighborhood one morning. I came around the corner and I saw a police car and an ambulance in front of the home of one of my neighbors. I asked an ambulance attendant what was going on. He told me that one of the occupants had died during the night. I remembered that the woman that had tried to seduce me and her older husband lived there. I assumed that he had died a natural death since he was not a young man. I asked why the police were there. He leaned close to me and whispered that it was a suspicious death. I figured that there could be a lot of reasons. She was much younger than him. Maybe he found out about her indiscretions and she reacted violently to a confrontation. It could be anything. I continued on my way and went back home.