When he had opened his eyes and focused on the opening in the window curtains, he had caught sight of a small cloud in the distance, and like a telephoto lens, his eyes had brought the cloud closer, so much closer in fact, that he had felt himself drifting into it the way an airplane drifted through clouds. Then he had thrown back his covers, inhaled deeply, and recognized that he still carried the scent of the woman he had fed upon the night before. Everything about her stuck to him, was in his very skin: the perfume she wore and the scent in her shampoo, especially, and when he had combined that with the memory of how she had tasted, how delicious had been the inside of her mouth, her juices, he sighed and stretched like a newborn baby.
How wonderful it had been to be able to feed on one so healthy, with blood so rich. The memory had stimulated him and had filled him with every kind of natural hunger. Today, he had eaten normally and he now recalled how the thought of bacon and eggs, soft rolls and butter, and steaming hot coffee had made his stomach churn in such anticipation that he had been unable to linger a moment longer in that bed.
He had also wanted to jog, to feel his muscles expand and his heart pound. And he had wished he had another woman beside him to make love to normally. He would take no more from her than he would give to her.
"I promise," he had said aloud, as if there had been a skeptical woman beside him.
Then he had risen from his bed feeling a foot taller as usual and had put on his exercise clothes. When he had first driven into this town, he had noticed the nice park with the jogging track circling it. Faces and names drifted in and out of his memory like leaves carried in the wind. For a moment they were there, and then they were gone and he couldn't recall them no matter how hard he tried or how much he wanted to remember. Yet incidental things, like the park, lingered long enough for him to recall them precisely. Why this would be so, he did not know, but he rarely questioned it. He rarely questioned anything about his life even though he understood he was different from every other human being around him.
He had stepped out of his new motel room and looked about with interest. Because he had come here so late, he had really seen it for the first time this morning -- the scenery, the parking lot, the office, and the pool. He had arrived here in the dark, tired, but fulfilled and eager to pass into a restful sleep. But when he had stepped out and inhaled the clear, cool air, all of his systems went into full gear and he quickly became the wonderful and efficient machine he always knew he was capable of being.
In the park he had appeared to be just another one of them: rosy cheeks, heart pumping, legs moving in stride, his lungs expanding, his blood moving efficiently through his veins bringing oxygen, taking away waste. Of course, he wasn't really just another one of them. They didn't have his capacities and they couldn't reach his sensual heights.
Yet, they would never notice any difference simply by looking at him. If they could, they would be frightened away and he would die of starvation, age instantly.
He didn't know why all this was so and at the moment, he didn't care to think about it. What was important was he knew what things he was supposed to say when he went out on a hunt, and he knew where to go for whatever he wanted; but unlike everyone he met, he had no photographs of family, no relatives to talk to. If they pressed him, he made it up -- invented parents and brothers and sisters. Actually, he drew from his victims.
Lately, much of it was getting jumbled and that worried him a bit. Was he really remembering his own past, or was he dipping into the well of identities he had absorbed in one way or another? One day it occurred to him that he might not exist at all, not in the sense anything else existed. He really had no personal identity. He was a conglomeration, a union of a myriad of DNAs. His body was so infused with the essence of his victims, their corpuscles, their genetics, that maybe he was merely the sum total of his prey. In an ironic sense, they had absorbed him; they had seized and possessed him and not vice versa. He was nothing without them.
Because of this he resented them in the same way an addict might resent the substance of his addiction. He couldn't deny the need, nor could he stop himself from seeking it, but he despised it at the same time.
What would he do if he didn't have the need? In what direction would he go? As it was, his periodic hunger controlled and governed his every move. It provided all his ambition for him and created the subjects and natures of his dreams. In his mind there was an overall design, a road map only he could see and follow. It had brought him here, to this place, these mountains in upstate New York. If anything amazed him about himself, it was that instinctive knowledge of direction, that power, that force that literally took hold of his hands and arms and made him turn the steering wheel to the right or to the left. Sometimes, he thought he saw a red line before him leading the way, even in broad daylight. It disappeared as he drove over it. At night, it glowed with neon brightness, the light thumping, thumping, thumping behind his eyes. He was hypnotized by his destiny, mesmerized by the predetermined design set forth by some magical power. He reacted and acted on stimuli in a precise, given way each and every time.
Now, as hard as he tried, he couldn't even remember when he had first come here or how he had gotten here. Things just seemed to happen. Something had triggered him to leave where he was. He was being chased, and he had packed up and come here. It was the closest thing to fear he felt, this sense of being pursued. Something was out there that would do him harm and he had to make distance between it and himself whenever he could. It bothered him that he couldn't identify it specifically, but he blamed that on his difficulty to tap into his own history. He was truly an amnesiac.
Vaguely he understood that he had done many different things during his short but rich life. However, as soon as he had done them, he had put them into some dark closet in his mind. Whatever was necessary to do was done. It was as simple and as worry-free as that. In fact, he never once thought himself unlucky or freakish. He mourned no one, loved no one, suffered no anxiety except the anxiety that accompanied his hunger, for there was always the fear that he would not find suitable prey. However, he had come to recognize this as a natural thing, something to help drive him forward and be successful. If he were too nonchalant about his need, he would fail, and he could fail only once. Again, that was something he knew instinctively. No one taught him. There was no mother, no father, no sister or brother beside him to advise him. When he bothered to think of all this, he wondered why not, but after a short while, he would forget why it mattered and stop wondering. There was too much to do, too much to enjoy. Just like it had been this morning.
How sweet the air had been, how bright the day. He had gone through his stretching exercises quickly in the parking lot at the park. Who could deny that he wasn't the paragon of all creatures, a higher form of life? Look at his face, as young and handsome as it was from the day he was created. And aside from the agony he experienced when his hunger came, he had never had a sick day or a bodily pain, at least none that he could recall. Why, he had never even experienced the common cold. There were no medicines in his bags, not even aspirin. That was significant in and of itself, wasn't it?
When he looked at himself in a mirror, he could see that he had never had a cavity in his teeth. Of course, he couldn't recall ever having seen a doctor or a dentist, so he assumed he was just as he was created, perfect, complete, the epitome of life itself. And it made him proud. He showed it whenever he ran, his head high, his chest out, his arms perpendicular to the ground, pumping the air as he took his stride, his feet gliding over the turf, a veritable Mercury sailing through the parks wherever he was, his eyes bright and fixed on the way before him. He always sensed that other joggers were looking at him enviously as he passed them so swiftly and with such ease.
He wanted them to look at him. He understood that vanity had always been a part of whom and what he was, for what was more a proof of his love of life than his love of himself? It was the nature of an organism to be self-centered, to spend its li
fe searching for ways to satisfy its needs and keep itself healthy and alive. Animals that worked for other animals had shorter life spans. This realization came to him one day when he stopped in a meadow and watched bees working around a hive. The individual sacrificed itself for the good of the whole. But what was its reward? It didn't live to see or to enjoy the fruits of its labor.
Enjoyment and fulfillment were the only reasons for life, and who could deny that both of these were enhanced when the individual cared only for himself?
There was more of everything for him. He lived to please himself. The weaker and the infirm called that greed or lust, but they were hoping to feed off the success of the stronger, weren't they? In that sense they, too, were selfish. He loved himself even more for being able to justify that love, and anyone who had seen him on mornings like this one, the morning after a feed, would step back in admiration, in awe, shaking his head, wondering who he was and how they could be like him. He had jogged through the park, past the inferiors like a beautiful fish swimming through a sea of covetousness. They had just wanted to touch him, to be beside him, to learn from him or take from him. But he was too fast, too graceful, and too clever to permit any of them to do so. As soon as one drew too near, he had driven his feet harder into the soil and had lifted his body away. In moments he had been gone and he had known they had been left shaking their heads and wondering if they had imagined it or they really had seen him.
They would know. Oh, they would know, but only one at a time, and after that knowledge, they would be drained and discarded, left behind like some emptied cartons. He was convinced they existed only for his pleasure and nourishment anyway. He saw them the same way a bird sees worms. And just like a bird, he suffered no guilt when he fed. Indeed, he felt it was coming to him. Why else was it there? Why else was he here?
Questions like these rarely bothered him anyway, and whenever they did, he brushed them aside as he would brush aside some annoying insect. It was just as pointless to stop and wonder why there were mosquitos. Don't wonder about them, destroy them and go on and on and on, he thought...
Just like he was doing now.
Just like he would always do.
Filled with the wonder of himself, he had glided ahead toward the rising sun and into its gradually expanding pool of warmth. Even that existed solely for him.
Late in the afternoon he had read the newspaper while he had sat in a booth in a small Italian restaurant and sipped some white wine. Every time he read a newspaper or turned on the news, it was as if he had been on a journey in space and had just returned to earth. He devoured the headlines and stories like one who had been kept hostage by terrorists for years. He knew that he needed the knowledge and the information in order to conduct himself well in the present. People wouldn't understand if he didn't know what month, day, or year it was, or if he didn't know who was president or what major events like earthquakes or revolutions had just occurred.
Most of the knowledge he had, he had inherited anyway, if inherited was the right word for it. Inherited implied so many things. It was all just there, at his beck and call. What difference did it make that he couldn't remember how it had gotten there?
When he came to the news story about the young woman who had been found dying in a motel room and read the details, he consumed them with a detachment that would cause anyone who saw him reading to think this was the first he had heard about it.
He sipped some more of his wine and then looked up to smile as the young, buxom waitress with light brown hair brought him his order of lasagna, the special of the day. She had guaranteed him it would be good.
"The pastas homemade here," she pointed out.
He was charming; it came natural to him to be so.
"It's rare that you get a meal that tastes homemade when you are traveling," he replied.
"Where are you going?" she asked. Her name tag on her uniform said Kristin. What a nice name, he thought. Had he ever experienced a Kristin?
"Oh, Canada, I guess."
"You guess?" Kristin had a nice smile. She couldn't be more than twenty, he thought, still fresh and vibrant and full of promises. He envied the man in whose ear she would whisper them, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought about love. The concept flashed past him -- wanting someone who wants you forever and ever. What a strange idea; it was like having a milk bottle that continually refilled itself after he had consumed its contents. Wouldn't he love that bottle forever and ever?
Kristin was still standing there, staring down at him, smiling.
"Huh? Oh, I'm on vacation. Sort of a free-wheeling one. I go wherever I have an inclination to go. No set schedules, no previously booked places. It's nice here. I might stay a while," he added and began to eat.
Kristin laughed at how casually he spoke about his future, but he saw that she envied such freedom, such abandon.
"I wish I could do something like that," she said. "But I've got to save up for college or believe me, I wouldn't be here. I ran out of money and had to leave for a year to earn some."
"Very ambitious of you," he complimented. She smiled modestly.
"How's the lasagna?"
"Very good. You told me the truth," he said winking. She blushed. What innocence. It made his heart sing.
Yes, he thought. He would stay here a while longer. There was something wonderful and pure about this area now. It was uncluttered, uncrowded, peaceful, and slow, the villages quiet and quaint, the inhabitants moving at a tranquil and serene pace, traffic nearly at a crawl. There was none of the hustle and bustle of the cities, and the people who lived here, because they were relaxed, were friendlier, more inviting. More important, they were more trusting.
"I just checked in some motel last night," he said, "but maybe I'll hang around a while. Know of a good rooming house or something, where I could rent a room for a week or more?"
"Oh yes," Kristin said, her hazel eyes brightening. "My grandmother runs a rooming house and it's off season now so you could get one very cheaply."
"That sounds great."
She told him how to get there. And then she added, "I live there with my grandmother."
"Um," he said, enjoying every succulent bite of his homemade lasagna. "Maybe I can talk you into showing me around one day."
"On my day off," she replied. "This Thursday."
"Maybe we'll have a date. My name is Karl," he said, offering his hand. He was working his way around the alphabet again and he was on the K's. She placed her small, soft palm and fingers into his, and he closed his hand over hers slowly, staring down at it as he did so, looking like one who couldn't believe his luck. The sensuous way in which he brought his skin to hers and held her hand sent a tingle through her breasts. She felt her heart quicken. Her physiological reactions took her quite by surprise. Never had she stood smiling so foolishly at a man before. She was very self-conscious and shifted her eyes from side to side quickly to be sure no one around had noticed. But everyone in the restaurant was busy with his or her own thing.
Finally, he released her hand, letting her draw it from his gracefully, the tips of his fingers grazing the tips of hers. It sent another tingle through her bosom, a tingle that seemed to escape through the tips of each nipple. He had such a soft, inviting mouth, she thought and imagined her mouth pressing against his, his tongue searching for hers.
"Hi," she finally uttered and giggled nervously, hating herself for sounding so young. "I'm Kristin, Kristin Martin."
"Kristin is a lovely name. I don't recall ever knowing a woman with that name," he said happily. The way he said it made her think that if he had known another Kristin, he would pay her no attention.
"My grandmother actually named me. My parents were arguing over Christie and Carissa and she suggested Kristin."
"What happened to your parents?" he asked. Parents always interested him, probably because of the vagueness surrounding his own.
"Car accident," she said. He could see that the memory was fresh enough to
bring tears to her eyes.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you the only child?"
"Yes."
"So am I," he said.
She smiled.
The chef hit a bell.
"I've got another pickup," she said.
He smiled and watched her walk away, watched the way her hips clung to the light blue uniform, how her buttocks swayed and her shoulders turned. The female form was truly the most beautiful sight on earth, he thought. All of them, every one of them, no matter how tall or how thin, how short or how fat, were beautiful to him. He found something to admire and something to desire in each and every female he saw. That even went for young ones, especially girls just becoming women. Was that part of his special power, his ability to see the promise in a young girl's body?
Why worry about it? he thought and shrugged. Why worry about anything?
He finished his lasagna, had some coffee, and then went looking for Grandmother Martin's rooming house at the west end of this small hamlet called Loch Sheldrake. It consisted of one long main street and a number of side streets, most of the homes vintage late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Grandmother Martin's large home was no exception. It was easy to find because it was so architecturally distinct.
It was a three-story Victorian with rusticated stone foundation, lower story porch supports, and tower. The walls of the upper stories were clad with textured shingles. The steeply pitched roof had intersecting cross gables and multilevel eaves. The windows in the lower level of the tower had Romanesque arches and the windows of the third story were all Palladian windows. There were two gabled dormers, both with three ribbon windows.
He thought there were at least five or six acres of land surrounding the house, and noted a small pond in the rear with a gazebo beside it. How picturesque, he thought and for a moment had a flash of memory that suggested he had lived somewhere similar in his youth. Was that his memory or someone else's? What difference did it make? The important thing was it left him with a residue of nostalgia and made him all the more eager to rent a room.
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