Dark Blood

by James M. Thompson

  Shooter nodded. “Wait until you see what she’s wearing today for the picnic. She’s covered herself from head to toe almost, and it’s supposed to hit ninety degrees today.”

  Matt glanced at Sam and her very skimpy sundress and sandals.

  “Did you ask her why?” Sam asked.

  Shooter shook his head. “No, I was afraid I might upset her. You know how worried she’s been about what that son of a bitch did to her.”

  Before Sam or Matt could answer, the door opened and TJ walked in. “Hey, are we going to go on a picnic or stand around here jawing all day?” she asked, grinning.

  She was dressed in long pants, a long-sleeved man’s white shirt, and had a wide-brimmed hat on with the large sunglasses covering her eyes.

  Sam glanced at Matt and then back at TJ. “Jesus, girl, what’re you wearing all those clothes for?” Sam asked, walking over to TJ. “You realize how hot it’s gonna be out at the park today?”

  TJ looked down at her clothing. “Well, you know how the sun makes my skin itch and burn. I don’t want to get sunburned.”

  Sam took her by the arm and led her back toward her bedroom. “We’ve got plenty of sunscreen, TJ. Come on and let’s get you in something a little cooler.”

  “Yeah,” Shooter said, a lecherous grin on his face as he tried to make light of the situation, “how about showin’ a fellow a little more skin?”

  TJ glanced back over her shoulder, returning his smile. “With your libido, you don’t need any encouragement, big guy.”

  After the girls had left the room, Matt said hesitantly, “She looks OK to me.”

  Shooter’s face sobered, his eyes still on TJ’s bedroom door. “Well, maybe I’m overreacting, but keep your eye on her and see what you think.”

  “Sure,” Matt said. “Now, let’s get this stuff loaded up while the girls are changing or it’ll be dark before we get to the park.”

  As Shooter helped Matt take the picnic basket and cooler out to the car, he said, “You know, Matt, I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never been to the Houston Zoo.”

  Matt grinned as he replied, “Then you’re in for a real treat. Just don’t stand too close to the monkey cages. They tend to throw shit at people who stare at them.”

  The picnic started off on a good note. Even though it was a Saturday and the park was already beginning to get crowded, the two couples were able to find a spot with a barbecue pit nestled in a shady grove of oak trees off by itself. There was just enough of a breeze to make the heat of the morning bearable.

  Matt spread the blanket while Shooter filled the pit with charcoal and got the fire started. TJ and Sam opened the baskets and got out the hamburger meat and fixings and began to cook the food.

  Matt handed everyone beers and before long they were eating hamburgers and potato salad and listening to Shooter regale them with tales of some of the more stupid things crooks had been doing lately.

  As Shooter talked, both Sam and Matt kept an eye on TJ, trying to be unobtrusive about it. Both wanted to see for themselves if there was anything in her manner to suggest their attempted cure of her recent infection with the vampire’s blood had been unsuccessful.

  They were soon relieved to find that TJ was acting perfectly normal and seemed to be enjoying the day as much as everyone else was.

  Shooter finished his story and his hamburger at the same time. He crushed the paper plate, stuck it in the waste barrel nearby, and brushed his hands off.

  “Now, let’s go see this zoo I’ve been hearing so much about,” he said. “I’d kinda like to see if the animals here are any better behaved than the ones I deal with every day down at the station.”

  The tour of the zoo began uneventfully, with the four friends enjoying ice-cream cones and sodas as they walked among the exhibits.

  “OK,” Shooter said, licking ice cream off his fingers. “Enough of the snakes and sea lions. Where are those monkeys you told me about, Matt?”

  Matt leaned over to TJ and whispered, “I told Shooter he might find some relatives in the monkey house, and he’s anxious to go see for himself.”

  Shooter put his arm around TJ’s shoulders and pulled her away from Matt. “Don’t be going an’ tellin’ her something like that about the future father of her kids.”

  “Hell, if that’s true, then we’ve got to go see the monkeys. TJ needs to see the kind of gene pool she’s getting involved with,” Matt said.

  Sam pointed to a nearby sign. “The Primate Compound is over that way.”

  They followed the signs and were soon standing before a row of cages containing dozens of different species of monkeys and apes.

  The animals were running and playing in their cages, climbing fake tree trunks and swinging from old tires hung from ropes, chattering and howling and squealing at each other.

  TJ moved closer to the bars, pointing to a chimpanzee in a corner. “Matt, is that the one you said was related to Shooter?” she asked.

  The chimp, seeing TJ’s arm out, ambled over to the front of the cage, expecting a handout. When he got close, his eyes seemed to fix on TJ and his nostrils flared. He sniffed loudly and his lips curled back from his teeth in a nasty snarl, revealing fangs three inches long.

  He screeched and began to jump against the bars, beating them with his fists and gnashing his teeth as he became more and more agitated.

  Others in the cage, reacting to his actions, rushed up to the bars, their eyes fixed on TJ while they screamed and screeched and jumped up and down with flailing arms.

  TJ’s eyes widened and her hands went to her mouth as Shooter pulled her away from the cages.

  “Jesus!” Matt said, taking Sam’s arm and easing her back. “I’ve never seen them do that before.”

  “Me either,” Sam said, her eyes moving from the monkeys to TJ, a worried, calculating expression on her face.

  “I’ve had enough,” TJ said in a hoarse voice, shaking her head and walking away from the compound.

  “Yeah,” Shooter agreed, glancing over his shoulder at the still-screeching monkeys as he led TJ away from the cage. “Let’s head back. I think we left some beer in the cooler that has my name on it.”

  The two couples were silent on the drive back to the apartment shared by Sam and TJ, each absorbed with private thoughts of what had occurred at the zoo.

  When Shooter pulled up in front of the apartment complex, he looked back at Matt and Sam. “I think I’ll take TJ on over to my place. I’ve got some new movies on video and we’ll just hang there for a while.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Sam said, glancing at the back of TJ’s head. “Our place needs a good cleaning and I’ll get Matt to stay and help.”

  “What?” Matt asked.

  She patted his thigh. “Just kidding, sweetie,” Sam said. “Maybe I’ll let you beat me at a game of gin rummy instead.”

  Matt frowned. “Well, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for tonight.”

  Sam winked at him. “OK. Come on in and we’ll discuss it.”

  When they got to his apartment, Shooter hastily picked up various bits and pieces of clothing lying around the living room and cleared a place on the sofa in front of the TV set.

  TJ, still somber after the incident at the zoo, made no comment about Shooter’s notoriously poor housekeeping, but merely sat on the couch and stared at the blank TV.

  Shooter, a worried frown on his face, turned the set on and said, “I’ll make us some popcorn and then we can watch the movies.”

  TJ looked up at him, her eyes meeting his for the first time since they’d left the zoo. She patted the cushion next to her.

  “Not now, Shooter. Come sit by me.”

  Shooter sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her head down against his neck. “You OK, babe?” he asked gently.

  TJ put her hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes. “I don’t know, Shooter.... I really don’t know.”

  Shooter couldn’t resist the look of hurt
and fear in her eyes. He bent his head and kissed her gently on the lips, whispering, “I love you, TJ.”

  Suddenly, as if a switch had been turned on, TJ reached up and put her arm around his neck and pulled him into her, opening her mouth and returning his kiss with an unaccustomed fervor.

  As her tongue flicked his lips and she leaned back, pulling Shooter on top of her, Shooter responded.

  He fitted his body to hers, his hand on her breast as they ground against each other. Moments later, TJ’s hand was on his belt, pulling and tugging until she had it undone and his shorts unbuttoned.

  Shooter wasted no time and within moments they were both naked, lying together on his couch, pressing tight. As he moved between her legs, TJ put her hands on his chest and shook her head. “Not yet . . . not yet . . . ,” she murmured.

  She pushed him over onto his back and moved her head down his body until her hair was brushing his groin. Shooter laid his head back and moaned as she took him in her mouth.

  TJ was like a wild woman, moving and moaning and groaning as she made love to him with her lips and tongue. Briefly, Shooter wondered what was going on. TJ had never been like this before, but then his thoughts were silenced by the pleasure she was giving him and he ceased to think at all.

  Just before he climaxed, he grabbed her head and pulled her up on top of him. She clamped her mouth to his as she spread her legs and took him inside her steamy wetness.

  When he groaned in final release, she moved her mouth to his neck and began to suck and chew once more as her hips pumped with his.

  Moments later, she almost screamed as she came with him, collapsing on top of him, her chest heaving.

  Neither noticed at first the small stream of blood trickling down his neck, or the droplets staining her lips crimson.

  Three

  As I approached my ship, I paused to admire the new name: Moon Chaser. Not as poetic as Night Runner, perhaps, but it would do—and the police weren’t looking for this one.

  This space on the New Orleans docks was not as convenient as the one on the Houston Ship Channel, since I now had to walk almost four blocks to get to the warehouse I’d rented to store my possessions in and to serve as a “safe house” in case the authorities got too close again. However, if I’d learned nothing else in over two hundred years of living on the fringes of society, it was how to make do with what I had.

  I entered the cabin and put the bags of groceries and supplies in the galley. The trip from Houston had used up most of the food and I liked to keep the refrigerator on the ship fully stocked in case of a hasty departure—another thing I’d learned in my years on the run.

  Once I was finished with my housekeeping, I brewed a pot of tea and went out on the deck to enjoy the night. The air was fresh and smelled of incipient rain, with subtle overtones of iodine and salt and rotting fish.

  I sipped my tea and took deep breaths, trying not to think of the pain of the last few days as my body had healed itself from the wounds I’d suffered. My Vampyre body’s ability to heal itself comes with a price—the process is both time consuming and extremely painful.

  I leaned back against the rail of the Moon Chaser and considered what I had yet to do. I’d already gotten the ship berthed and resupplied, and secured a warehouse and transferred all of my things there. All that was left now was to construct a new identity and find a position in the medical establishment that would enable me to carry on my research and find and track new victims who would be safe to feed upon.

  The thought of feeding caused the Hunger to begin to stir within me. My body was reminding me that the human food I’d eaten wasn’t enough.... I needed blood to fuel the repairs that had been made to my tissues, and I needed it sooner rather than later.

  In order to put the thought of blood and hunting out of my mind, I went to my cabin and opened the safe, using the combination 1-8-0-1, the year of my birth.

  I reached in and took out the new journal I’d bought when I found the police had taken the one I’d been working on since my Transformation into the Vampyre race. Luckily, there was nothing in the old journal to compromise my safety, other than the fact of my race’s existence. Knowing how bureaucracies work, I felt sure the police department wouldn’t allow themselves to believe that Vampyres actually existed. And even if they did, they would never allow the news to become public knowledge.

  That was one of the strange things about the human race: for the most part, they refused to believe in the existence of the Vampyre race. At least, the more educated, higher classes didn’t accept it. The peasants have always believed in me and my kind, and in fact built up an entire repertoire of talismans that would supposedly protect them from us, ranging from crosses to garlic to holy water. That these didn’t work, the poor victims only found out at the moments of their deaths.

  Perhaps, in the final analysis, the only thing that kept my new race from propagating and overrunning the humans was our own disgust at what we were and what we had become. It was this natural reticence to transform more humans into the horrific beings we were that kept us from taking over the world. For that, I was as thankful as the poor humans would be if they but knew the true facts.

  I sat at my desk and picked up my pen. Dipping it in the India ink I used for my journal entries, I wrote in the day’s date and began to write of the recent assault on my ship and the attempt on my life.

  When I got to the part where the police abducted my new mate, TJ O’Reilly, I paused. The pain of the loss was still too fresh to allow me to be objective in my reporting of the event.

  I put the journal away, fixed a fresh cup of tea, and went back out on the deck. I gazed at the moon, wondering if they would be able to stop the process of Transformation I’d begun by having her drink of my blood.

  I doubted it, for I’d been trying to undo my own infection with the organisms that cause Vampyrism for over a hundred years, without success.

  Thinking about TJ made my heart hurt. I hadn’t realized just how lonely my existence was until I fell in love with her and began the process of making her my own.

  Immortality didn’t seem quite so bad when I could look forward to spending it with someone I could love and cherish. Someone who wouldn’t age and die after a few years and leave me alone again. Now, without her, the years stretched before me like an endless black chain of desperation.

  I shook my head to clear it of such thoughts. There would be plenty of time to grieve over my loss of TJ—entirely too much time. I finished my tea and went back into my study to work on the paperwork that would be necessary for me to find a new position and to continue my work to somehow reverse the disease process that had turned me into a monster.

  Hours later I had my résumé ready, fake of course. Tomorrow I would approach a local clinic about a job. It shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. After all, I’d had plenty of time to become adept at forging credentials, as well as using makeup to cause my face to appear to age normally.

  As I prepared for bed, the Hunger began to make its presence known once again. The feeling started with a slight emptiness in my gut and was soon followed by an overwhelming urge to rend and tear and find the sustenance that my Vampyre body craved. Blood.

  Full in the throes of a feeding frenzy, I tore the door to my closet open and found my hunting uniform, black jeans and shirt. All the better to blend into the night that was my friend and ally in my search for the right victim to satisfy my craving.

  Since I was new in the city and had no prepared database of “safe” victims—those whose blood had tested negative for both AIDS and the “Mad Cow” prion—I would have to take my chances and feed on blood that might end up being poison to my system.

  Even though the heightened healing power of my Vampyre body was remarkable, I knew from my research and the deaths of many of my kind, that it could not stand up to the ravages of the prion, which caused Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD. Luckily, the disease was not nearly so prevalent in the United States as in the
European countries, where it was still known as “Mad Cow Disease.” Still, I would have to be extremely careful, if the blood lust the Hunger caused would let me.

  As always, I planned to try and take my victims from the lower strata of society.... This was a small sop to my conscience, which still caused me to feel terrible that my need would be met at the cost of an innocent person’s life.

  At times, when I was on a regular feeding schedule, I could control the Hunger enough to take only what I needed to survive and leave my victims alive, albeit with their memory of my feeding clouded so they had no recollection of the event. But now, with my body fresh from the ordeal of the extreme energy needed for the healing of my recent wounds, I knew that would not be the case. I would most certainly drain every drop of the precious liquid that meant life for me, and death for my chosen sacrifice.

  Still, I vowed to do my best to take only what I needed and to leave my new victim alive, to fight the almost unendurable urge, which was coursing through my body now, to rend and tear and destroy. It had been the trail of bodies that had led the Houston police to me and had cost me my freedom and almost my life in my last identity as Roger Niemann. If I could not prevent a recurrence of that pattern, I knew that I would not have enough time to complete my research—and possibly cure myself of the disease of Vampyrism—before I’d be forced to move once again.

  Feeling better and filled with a new resolve to try not to kill, I left my ship and began my search.

  As I strolled down Lakeside Drive along the wharf area, not having had time yet to procure another automobile for transportation, I kept my eye out for a bar or saloon that would be suitable for my quest.

  I wanted one that was darkly lit, so there would be few witnesses to my appearance should the police bother to question the patrons, and yet the place had to be of sufficient quality that it would be crowded with plenty of women for me to choose from.

  I don’t know why I prefer women to men for my victims, though either will do to satisfy the Hunger. Perhaps it is because for me the act of feeding is at least partly sexual in nature. Certainly, the adrenaline that flows into the bloodstream of the victim when they become horrified at what is happening adds a rather piquant spice to the taste of my meal; when the act of feeding is accompanied by a sexual act, it is much more satisfying.