by Amy Cross
I start laughing.
"Adeline, open the door." It's cute, the way she's trying to sound authoritative. Ineffective, of course, but cute. "Adeline, open this door immediately. I want to see that you're alright and I want to see what you're doing in there."
"I tripped over some crap on the floor," I call back at her, with a big, goofy grin on my face. "I'm fine. I didn't even bang anything."
"What are you doing?" she asks. "Are you drinking?"
"Of course not."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Just some shit," I reply, before bursting out laughing again. I swear to God, I don't mean to laugh at times like this, but there's just some part of me that finds my mother's concerns funny. She's a typical idiot, always focusing on the wrong things. She fusses about details, but she can't see the wider picture. If I told her that I'm on the verge of a unique transformation, she'd probably think I'm nuts.
After a moment, I hear her footsteps heading away, and eventually I hear her going downstairs. Seconds later, I hear muffled voices from the front room. I guess my parents are having another of their long conversations about me. I swear, they must be the most bored and pathetic people in the world, because it seems like all they do every evening is talk about me and what's wrong with me and all this other shit that's none of their business. I mean, I'm not even that interesting, not as far as they know. I try to keep under their radar most of the time. I should probably take it as a compliment that they're so into everything I do, but it gets a bit tiring sometimes. I don't ask for their attention. I just want them to leave me the fuck alone.
Sitting up, I look around my room and realize that it probably is time to tidy up. I mean, it's not like I enjoy living in squalor, but I never have time to organize things. Besides, by now it'd a huge job to fix the mess, and I don't have, like, a whole day to dedicate to sorting it all out. I guess I just need to be a little more careful when I'm extracting blood, 'cause the last thing I want to do is pass out. The whole idea of this project is that I'm supposed to be getting better at functioning with less blood in my body, so I just have to push through any discomfort. These low periods are to be expected. They're the price I'm paying for what's going to come next.
I'm not sure whether I pass out, but after a few minutes I realize I'm suddenly leaning back against the wall. Feeling kind of groggy, I grab the jar of blood and crawl over to the closet, where I quickly set the jar in a large box along with all the others. I pause for a moment, feeling as if I just want to sit here and sleep, but finally I force myself up and, this time, I manage not to wobble too much. I swear to God, I feel like absolute shit, but I have to get the hell out of this house. I need to keep up my surveillance of Kerry Herbert, because I'm gonna need to know everything about that bitch by the time we get to Saturday. I can't afford to make any mistakes, so I need to make sure that I understand my target's habits. It's not exactly a huge chore, but I kinda wish Kerry was a more interesting target.
A vampire never pauses, not when there's work to be done.
Chapter Three
For some fucking stupid reason, it's raining when I head back out just before midnight. The last thing I want is to get soaked, but at least the bad weather means the streets are mostly empty. It's a long way to the house where Kerry Herbert lives with her parents, so I decide to take a short-cut. Climbing over a series of fences, I make my way stealthily through a bunch of back gardens. No-one sees me, of course, since I'm pretty good at passing unnoticed through the shadows. In fact, sometimes I feel as if I'm part of the shadows. Occasionally I hurry past a window and see some stupid family getting on with their meaningless lives, and it occurs to me that I could bang on the glass and scare the shit out of them. Still, I don't want any complications tonight. I'm not here to do anything. I'm here to observe.
As I reach the end of Somerville Street, I suddenly see a bright light approaching. I freeze as I realize there's a police cruiser slowly making its way toward me. After a moment's panic, I duck back behind a fence and wait, hoping that they didn't see me. This whole fucking town has been on high alert for the past week, ever since some little girl named Eva Wilson went missing a few streets away. Naturally, the local media's whipped the whole thing up into a frenzy, and everyone's convinced their children aren't safe. I don't know what happened to that dumb kid, but she probably just got sick of all the bullshit and ran away.
Smart kid.
The police cruiser drives slowly past as I hold my breath. To my immense relief, it doesn't stop. I know what the cops are like around here, and they'd totally be on my case if they found me out here late at night. Determined not to make a mistake, I wait until I'm certain that they must have gone around the next corner, and then I cautiously step back out from behind the fence. The street's empty again, apart from the rain. People are scared to come out at night. They're scared of creatures like me. The police aren't any better.
"Fucking pigs," I spit, before hurrying away.
The empty streets are kind of depressing, in a way. I feel like people are too keen to scurry into their houses after the sun goes down. If they'd just stay outside a little longer, they'd see the world as it really is. All this darkness is so beautiful, and it's at times like this that the world really seems to reveal itself. Then again, I should probably be careful what I wish for; if people came out more at night, it'd be harder for creatures such as myself to get about. This is my world, and I'll be alone here until I'm able to create more creatures who share my views. I know my victory is coming, but I need to make sure that I don't get too carried away. Slow and steady wins the race, and I'm still not quite at the point where I can make a stand. It'll happen, but not yet. One day, the world will know my name.
When I get to Kerry Herbert's house, I slip carefully down the side and into the back garden. There's this stupid apple tree over by the pond, so I climb up and position myself among the branches. From here, I've got a pretty fucking excellent view of Kerry's bedroom window. I pull a pair of binoculars from my coat pocket and focus on the house, and soon enough I see Kerry sitting at the desk in her room. She's doing something on her laptop, but I can't quite make the screen out properly. As I sit and watch her, I try to imagine how she'd react if suddenly she turned around and saw me here, but there's no chance of that happening. She doesn't suspect a thing, since her imagination doesn't allow her to contemplate the possibility that I'm seriously after her. She thinks it's all a joke, which is fine by me since it means her defenses are down and she'll be a little easier to kill.
After a while, this little surveillance operation starts to drag and I find myself wondering if maybe there are better uses for my time. Still, I'm worried that it'd be a mistake to give up and that I'd lose some valuable intelligence information. Despite the boredom, therefore, I continue to watch Kerry's window, and eventually she gets up and walks away from the desk. It's getting late, and after a moment I see that she's preparing to go to bed. I wait as she changes into a t-shirt, and then I watch her sit back down at the laptop. I don't know what's wrong with the fucking bitch, but she seems to be totally glued to that damn machine. I swear, she must be the dullest girl in the world. At least her final moments won't be dull, though. When I come back and kill her in a few days, she's going to understand the true meaning of pain. Her life might have been boring so far, but her death's gonna be so fucking memorable. She'll be screaming and bleeding and begging for her life, and the very last thing she'll see is gonna be my face grinning at her.
Poetic fucking justice.
I can almost taste her blood right now. The richness, the purity, the passion... I can imagine it running down my throat while I hold her struggling body in my arms. Just the thought of the act is enough to send powerful shivers through my body. Sure, I was born with a pitiful and weak human body, but that's not my fault. What matters is that I'm taking my weak original form and forcing it to change and mutate. I'm not willing to spend the rest of my life like this; I'm going to become the first
of a new race of creatures. Eventually, I'll crush these fuckers under my feet.
I'm not really sure what happens next, but suddenly I wake up and realize that I must have fallen asleep for a while. I'm still wedged securely between the branches, but the rain has intensified and I'm totally fucking wet. Kerry's bedroom window is dark now, which I guess means she's gone to bed. I hate it when I fall asleep like this, and when I check my watch I see that I've been out for a couple of hours. Feeling kind of vague and wispy, I take a deep breath and try to re-focus on the task at hand. Sometimes I feel as if these attempts to train my body aren't going too well. Still, the setbacks aren't going to stop me. If anything, they're going to push me onward. My mind is going to win this battle, not my body.
Eventually, with the rain getting worse and worse, I decide that it's pretty fucking stupid to still be up in this tree. Carefully, I climb down and drop onto the wet grass. I'm already completely soaked, which is fine, but I can't help noticing that I seem to be shivering a little. I'm pretty sure vampires aren't supposed to shiver, but I figure that's something I can deal with later. After all, I'm still partly human, and it's going to take a while before I can train myself to be a full vampire. I've been working on this project for a couple of years, and I'm still only at the stage where I'm getting ready for my first kill. There's such a long way to go before I can consider myself to be a true vampire.
Making my way across the grass, I emerge onto the street and start walking back to my parents' house. I'm still feeling weak from the blood extraction, and there's a lot more work to be done. The next time I come to Kerry Herbert's house, however, I'll have my equipment with me and I'll be ready to strike. I happen to know for a fact that her parents are going away at the weekend, which means she'll be alone in the house from Friday afternoon. She has netball practice on Friday evenings, and she often hangs out with friends once she's done. Saturdays, though, are different, and she usually stays home. I guess she thinks she's safe while she's in the house, but one of the last lessons she's gonna learn is that she's never safe, not from me. I'm coming back here on Saturday night, and I'm going to fulfill the first stage of my destiny.
Chapter Four
The old guy's watching me.
It's late, and I'm in one of those over-lit all-night convenience stores. There's some old idiot behind the counter, and although there are a couple of people in the store right now, I'm the one who's getting the suspicious glances. One of the surveillance cameras is pointed right at me, although it won't do much good now that I'm invisible to recording devices. I can more or less do as I please, which must be confusing for normal humans.
I make my way to the back of the store. It pains me to be reduced to certain actions, but a lack of resources means that I must scavenge some of the items I need for my plan. I'm sure the guy behind the counter is gonna assume that I'm some homeless, drunk piece of trash, but that's fine by me; I'd rather let him think that, than have him know the truth. I need to stay under the radar for as long as possible, which shouldn't be a problem. I'm an expert at this kind of thing.
Having checked that there's no-one nearby, I grab a pack of razor blades from the shelf.
"Can I help you?" asks a voice suddenly.
Turning, I find that the guy from the counter has come over to join me. He's got a concerned look in his eyes, and it's obvious that he thinks I'm gonna steal the blades. He's right, of course, but for the wrong reasons.
"You want to buy those?" he asks, looking down at the packet in my hands.
I stare at him.
"If you want to bring them to the counter," he continues stiffly, "I can ring them up for you." He waits for an answer. "Are you gonna be wanting to pay by cash or card?"
I glance across the store and see that the other customers are getting on with their business. Still, the place is a little too busy for my liking, and I don't much fancy the idea of causing a storm when there are so many people around. Each of these assholes is a potential witness.
"If you're not going to buy anything," the guy says, "I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the store. Our services are for paying customers only."
I sniff. The guy's seriously getting on my nerves now, and I'm starting to sweat. This kind of reaction is precisely the reason I want to leave my human side behind. Humans are weak and easily panicked, whereas the next stage of evolution is going to be strong and confident. I mean, I'm already strong and confident, but there are these times when my human nature takes over. If I could just be myself, I mean my real self, I'd dispatch this asshole in seconds and leave a trail of his blood from here all the way out into the parking lot.
"Adeline," he says suddenly, "you really need to be moving along, and I don't think you need those, do you?"
I almost rip his head off, but luckily for him I manage to restrain myself. How the fuck does this bastard know my name? He must be friends with my darling mother, or maybe the local shopkeepers have got together and decided that they don't want to serve me anymore. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to deny service to someone who's ready to pay, but I guess none of these assholes care about the rule of law. Still, the last thing I want is for him to start shouting my old, human name and claiming that I've been stealing stuff.
"Okay," he says, reaching out for the pack of razors, "let's just -"
Stepping back, I hiss at him.
He stops dead and stares at me.
Looking over my shoulder, I see that one of the other shoppers has noticed this little confrontation. The fucking idiot probably thinks I didn't see him looking at me, but I did. In normal circumstances, he'd have incurred my wrath and he'd have mere seconds to live, but he's lucky today. I'm not in a position to flex my full potential, and it's hardly likely that I'm gonna even bother to remember his pathetic little face once I'm stronger.
"Adeline -" the store guy says, with a clear hint of fear in his voice, "let's not turn this into a scene. I'd hate to have to call the cops."
I hiss again.
"Adeline -"
Before he can finish, I rip the packet of razor blades open. Some of them drop down to the floor, but I manage to keep hold of three, which is more than enough.
"Okay, Adeline," he continues, clearly enjoying it every time he gets to say my name, "I'll cut you a deal, okay? If you'll just walk out of the store right now, with those razor blades, I'll sort something out with your mother next time she comes in. I'm sure she'll be willing to pay if it means that the police aren't involved." He pauses for a moment, and it's clear that he's making a laughable attempt to stare me down. "But you do have to leave right now," he adds. "Is that something you can do?"
For a moment, I consider hurting him. I could do it. Then again, what's the point? He's just an idiot in a late-night store, and the last thing I need is to get into trouble for some random attack. I need to ignore my foolish human urges and focus on the bigger picture. Stuffing the razor blades into my pocket, I push past the guy and hurry toward the door. As soon as I'm out in the night air, I take a deep breath and run across the parking lot, making for the trees. Climbing through the undergrowth, I can't help but smile as I think of the total fucking victory I just scored. I got what I wanted, and now I'm set for one final act before I'm ready to face Kerry Herbert and taste her blood.
Chapter Five
I've been waiting for this moment, but now it's here, I feel... scared? No, that's not quite the right word. Nervous? Yeah, maybe. I guess there are two problems, really. First, there's the fact that I know this is gonna hurt a lot. Second, there's the fact that it's the final stage before I go after Kerry. This is the act that I've been building up to for so long, and all the pain and blood is going to be worth it. One day, when I'm strong and powerful, I'll look back on this as the moment when my preparations and plans become something more concrete. Between now and Saturday night, I'm going to complete my metamorphosis and shrug off this old human soul. This is when the vampire will emerge from my dark heart, pushing aside my humanity as if it
's nothing more than an abandoned skin.
So why the hell is my hand shaking?
Setting the razor blade down, I try to reset my thoughts. I guess my human side is holding the rest of my soul back. In a way, I expected this. All my life, I've been subject to the stupidity and whims of my birthright. I've watched as those around me have fallen prey to their weaknesses, and I've felt the same weaknesses tug at my mind. I don't know why, however, but I was lucky enough to be chosen to live a very different kind of life. From an early age, I could feel a kind of darkness growing in my soul, and I nurtured it until it began to speak to me. The vampire life is my destiny, and nothing's going to hold me back. I am what I am, but soon I'll be so much stronger. If my human side is panicking now, it's only because the end is nigh.
I take a deep breath.
My hand has stopped shaking.
Picking the razor blade back up, I glance over at the door one more time. It's 4am and my parents are fast asleep, and hopefully neither of them is gonna wake up and come and disturb me. I'd rather perform this operation in my own room, but I need the benefit of the bathroom mirror. The harsh electric light makes me look particularly ghoulish, which I kind of like. It's fitting and appropriate that I should look so goddamn cool now that I'm on the verge of reaching perfection.
Slowly, I open my mouth and stare at my teeth. I've waited so long for my dull, human teeth to fall away and be replaced by a proper set of fangs. I always assumed that the process would just happen at some point, and that I'd know when the time was right. I remember when I was a kid and my baby teeth fell out, I thought the moment had arrived, but normal adult teeth just came through. I was crushed, but I came up with a new plan pretty quickly. I must have been seven or eight years old by the time I was set on the course that has led me here today. That little version of me would be so proud if she could see me today.
Damn it, I'm delaying.
