Thirst No. 1

by Christopher Pike

  He takes a deep breath “Feverish. Cramping.”

  I nod. “You need blood.”

  He takes time to absorb my words. “Do you really drink people’s blood? Like in the stories?”

  “The stories have germs of truth in them, but can’t be taken literally. As a vampire, you do need blood to survive. Yet you do not need to kill the person you drink from, and your contact with them will not change them into vampires. You can also live off the blood of animals, although you will find it unsatisfying.”

  “Do I need blood every day?”

  “No. Every few days. But at first, you will crave it every day.”

  “What happens if I don’t drink it?”

  “You will die horribly,” I say.

  “Oh. Do I still need to eat regular food?”

  “Yes. You will get hungry as before. But if need be, you will be able to survive for a long time without food. You will also be able to hold your breath for incredible lengths of time.”

  “But what about the sun? You sat out in the sun with me.”

  “Yes. But that is not something you want to try yet. The sun won’t kill you, but it will irritate you, at least for the first few centuries. Even now, after five thousand years, I’m not nearly so strong while the sun is up. But forget everything else you’ve heard about vampires. Crucifixes and white roses and running water—none of those will bother you. Bram Stoker was just spicing up his novel when he wrote that stuff.” I pause. “Did you know I met him once?”

  “Did you tell him you were a vampire?”

  “No, but he knew there was something special about me. He autographed my copy of Dracula and tried to get my address. But I didn’t give it to him.” I raise my wrist to my mouth. “I am going to open my vein. I want you to suck my blood for a few minutes.”

  He fidgets. “Sounds kinky.”

  “You’ll enjoy it. I taste wonderful.”

  A moment later Joel reluctantly accepts my bleeding wrist, but he is no Ray. He has seen plenty of blood in his line of work and it doesn’t make him sick to his stomach. Indeed, after a couple of minutes he is sucking hungrily on my wrist. I have to stop him before he is sated. I cannot allow my strength to wane.

  “How do you feel?” I ask as I take back my arm.

  “Powerful. Aroused.”

  I have to laugh. “Not every girl you meet will be able to do that for you.”

  “Can we be killed with a stake through the heart?”

  The laughter dies in my throat. His question brings back the agony of the wound I suffered when my house exploded and Yaksha supposedly died. The chest pain is still there—yet, since drinking Yaksha’s blood, it has receded. I wonder what Yaksha would think of me now that I have broken Krishna’s vow against creating more vampires. After I have killed so many innocent people. No doubt he would say I am damned.

  I miss Yaksha. And Ray. And Krishna.

  “You can be killed that way,” I say quietly.

  Ten minutes later we reach the gap in the mountains and I veer north, climbing in altitude. The pass is almost a mile above sea level. The police helicopters are now thirty miles behind us, blinking red and white dots in the night sky. We have at most four hours of night left. Before then, I must find shelter for Joel and a place to sit quietly and plot my next moves. Scanning left and right, I consider dumping the helicopter. The cliffs of the pass offer more hiding places than the desert will. Yet I don’t want to set down so soon. Another idea has come to me, one that may throw our pursuers off.

  What if I were to crash the helicopter into a lake?

  It would sink and hopefully leave no sign behind.

  The plan is a good one. Fuel dictates I choose the closest lake, Big Bear or Arrowhead. But once again I resist heading into the snowy mountains. As a newborn, Joel will not fare well there. I remember how sensitive I was to the cold after Yaksha changed me. Vampires, serpents, the offspring of yakshinis—we prefer warmth.

  I need a sand dune oasis with a lake in the center of it.

  We plunge over the pass and into the desert.

  The bleak landscape sweeps beneath us.

  Time passes. I cannot see anyone following.

  “We can’t stay up here forever,” Joel says finally.

  “I know.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “Lake Mead.” Hoover Dam—it is only twenty minutes away, I estimate.

  But I have waited too long.

  Five minutes later I catch sight of two military helicopters, coming at us from the west, not the south. Because my eyes are so sharp, I see them far off—sixty miles away. I feel it is still possible to reach the lake. Yet I know they have spotted us, that they are tracking us on their radar. When I alter course slightly, they do likewise. Joel sees my concern but doesn’t understand it at first. Even changed, his sight is no match for mine.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “We have company,” I say.

  He looks around. “Can we reach the lake?”

  “Possibly.” I ask in jest, “Can we fight two Apache helicopters?”

  “No way.”

  I guess at the type of craft that pursues us, but a few minutes later I see that I was right. My knowledge of the Apache isn’t extensive, but I have read enough to know that we are facing the most lethal attack helicopter on earth. The two choppers move close to each other, on a direct intercept course with us. Black as the desert sky, with wide hypnotic propellers—they are clearly faster than we are. Their machine-gun turret and rocket launchers hang from the sides like dangerous fists. They sweep toward us for a knockout punch. Joel sees them.

  “Maybe we should surrender,” he suggests.

  “I never surrender.”

  They catch us three miles short of the lake. The wide flat expanse of water is clearly visible, but it could be on the other side of the moon for all the good it can do us now. That’s what I think at first. Yet the Apaches do not immediately lock on their weapons. They swoop above and below us, dangerously close, ordering us to land.

  “Somebody has told them to take us alive,” Joel observes.

  “Who?”

  Joel shrugs. “The order could have come from the President of the United States. But I suspect the commander of the base where these helicopters originated has given the order.”

  “We only need to get to the water,” I say. “They couldn’t imagine that we’d try to vanish underwater.”

  “I can’t imagine it. Can we really hold our breath a long time?”

  “I can go an hour.”

  “But what about me?”

  I pat his leg. “Have faith. We should have died a dozen times tonight and we’re still alive. Maybe Krishna hasn’t deserted us after all.”

  “If they open fire in the next minute we might have a chance to ask him directly,” Joel says dryly.

  The Apaches buzz us a couple of times more, then grow tired of the cat-and-mouse game. They lay down a stream of bullets across our path and I have to slow sharply to avoid being torn to shreds. Still, they could blow us out of the sky whenever they wish. Yet they hold back, although they don’t want me flying above the lake. They try blocking our path and I have to go into a steep dive to stay on course. We come within several feet of the ground and Joel almost has a heart attack.

  “You are one mean pilot,” he says when he catches his breath.

  “I’m pretty good in bed as well,” I reply.

  “Of that I have no doubt.”

  These military men are not like the LAPD. They expect their orders to be obeyed. They may have instructions to take us alive, but they also have orders to prevent us from escaping. A quarter mile from the water, they open fire with surgical precision and suddenly our rotor blades are not a hundred percent intact. Our copter falters in the air, but stays up. The noise above us is deafening. Yet I continue on toward the lake. I have no choice.

  “Get ready to jump,” I tell Joel.

  “I’m not leaving till you lea
ve.”

  “Nice line. But you have to jump as soon as we cross over the water. Swim for the far shore, not the near one. Stay under water as long as possible.”

  Joel hesitates. “I don’t know how to swim.”

  “What?”

  “I said I don’t know how to swim.”

  I can’t believe it. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

  “I didn’t know what you had planned. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Joel!”

  “Sita!”

  I pound the chopper dashboard. “Damn! Damn! Well, you’re just going to have to learn how to swim. You’re a vampire. All vampires can swim.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me, and I’m the only authority on the subject. Now stop arguing with me and prepare to jump.”

  “You jump with me.”

  “No. I have to wait until they fire their lethal blow—that way they’ll think I’m dead.”

  “That’s crazy. You will be dead.”

  “Shut up and crack your door slightly. When you reach the far shore, run into the hills and hide. I’ll find you. I can hear a vampire breathing ten miles away.”

  The Apaches are still determined to prevent us from reaching the water. One swoops overhead and literally drops itself directly into our path. I have to go into another steep dive to avoid it, which is easy to do because the craft is ready to crash anyway. The water is now only a hundred yards away. The Apache behind us opens fire. They mimic my earlier strategy. They blow off our tail rotor. I immediately lose control. We spin madly to the left. Yet the water is suddenly below us.

  “Jump!” I scream at Joel.

  He casts me one last glance—his expression curiously sad.

  Then he is gone.

  Pulling back hard on the steering bar, I try to gain altitude, partly to distract them from Joel and partly to stay alive. It is my hope they didn’t see him jump. My chopper swings farther out over the water. A mile away I see Hoover Dam. There is no way I can make it that far. The chopper bucks like a hyperactive horse on speed. Cracking my door, I take hold of the shotgun and blast at one of the Apaches as it swings nearby. I hit the top blades, but these suckers are tough. The military chopper banks sharply. Then the two helicopters regroup, hovering behind me, twin hornets studying a wounded butterfly. Over my shoulder I see one pilot nod to his gunner. The man reaches for a fresh set of controls, no doubt the firing mechanism for the rockets. As I throw my door open wide, an orange tongue of flame leaps out from the side of the Apache. My reflexes are fast, blinding by human standards, but even I cannot outrun a missile. I am barely free of my seat when the rocket hits.

  My chopper vaporizes in midair.

  The shock from the explosion hits with the power of an iron fist. A fragment of burning metal cuts into my skull above my hairline, sending waves of searing pain through my whole system. I topple like a helicopter without a stabilizing propeller. Blood pours over my face and I am blinded. I do not see the cold water of the lake approaching, but I feel it when it slaps my broken side. The molten shrapnel in my head shudders as it contacts the dark liquid. A burst of steam almost causes my skull to explode. I feel myself spiraling down into a forsaken abyss. Consciousness flickers in and out. The lake is bottomless, my soul as empty as dice without numbers. As I start to black out, I wish that I didn’t have to die this way—without Krishna’s grace. How I would love to see him on the other side—his divine blue eyes. God forgive me, how I love him.

  TWO

  I awake with a pale wash of light panning across my face. Opening my eyes, I see it is the searchlights of hovering helicopters pointing down on me. Only they are high in the air, and I am many feet underwater, on my back, on the bottom of the lake. Even though unconscious, my mind must have had the wisdom to halt my breathing. I don’t know how long I have been out. My head still hurts but the pain is bearable. It is obvious that the personnel in the helicopters cannot see me.

  I wonder how Joel is, if he escaped.

  My left leg is pinned under the wreckage of my chopper. It is good because otherwise I would be floating on the surface, probably with many bullet holes in me. Pulling my leg free, I roll over on my belly and begin to swim away from the lights, not sure at first if I am moving deeper into the lake or closer to the shore. My desire for breath is strong but not overwhelming. I know I can swim a long way before I’ll have to surface. They can’t scan every square inch of the lake. I am going to escape.

  Yet there will be no freedom for me if Joel is not free.

  Ten minutes later, when the lights are far behind me, I allow myself to swim to the surface and peek. I am far out in the center of the lake. Behind me, near the shore where my chopper was blown out of the sky, the helicopters still circle, their beams still focused on the water. Close to this spot, on the shore, are several trucks, many uniformed people, some cops, some army personnel. Joel stands in the middle of them, a dozen guns pointed at his head.

  “Damn,” I whisper. “He really couldn’t swim.”

  I cannot rush in to save him. I know this yet I have to stop myself from making the attempt. It is my nature to act quickly. Patience has not come to me over the centuries. Floating in the center of the black lake, it seems to me the years have only brought grief.

  Joel is ushered into an armored truck. Men on the shore are donning scuba gear. They want my body, they want to see it before they can rest. I know that I must act quickly if I am to track Joel. Yet I also know I have to stop killing. They’ll be looking for any suspicious deaths in the area as a way to confirm I am still alive. A throbbing sensation in my forehead draws my attention. I reach up and pull away a chunk of shrapnel that has been working its way out of my skull. Before the infusion of Yaksha’s blood, such an injury would have killed me.

  I swim for the shore where Joel is being held, but a mile to the left, away from him and the dam. I am a better swimmer than most dolphins and reach land in a few minutes. No one sees me as I slip out of the water and dash into the rocky hills. My first impulse is to creep closer to the armed assembly. Yet I cannot steal one of their vehicles to follow Joel. Fretting about the growing gap between us, I turn away from the small army and run toward the campgrounds. Even in the winter, families come to Lake Mead to enjoy the nature. Overhead, an almost full moon shines down on me. Just what I don’t need. If an Apache spots me again, I swear, I am going to jump up and grab its skids and take it over. My turn to fire the rockets.

  The thoughts are idle, the mental chatter of a natural born predator.

  I find a family of three asleep in a tent on the outskirts of the campground, their shiny new Ford Bronco parked nearby and waiting for me to steal. Silently, I break the lock and slip in behind the steering wheel. It takes me all of two seconds to hot-wire the vehicle. Then I am off, the window down.

  Throughout my long life, hearing has always been my best sense. I can hear snowflakes as they emerge from a cloud two miles overhead. Indeed, I have no trouble hearing the army’s motor parade start their engines and pull away from the lake. Probably the commander thinks he should get Joel to a secure place, even before the body of the blond witch is found. I use my ears to follow them as they move onto a road that leads away from the lake. Yet, with my nose in the air, it is my sense of smell that is the most acute. It startles me. I can smell Joel—even in the midst of the others—clearly, in fact. I suspect this is another gift of Yaksha, master yakshini, born of a demonic race of serpents. Snakes always have exceptional senses of smell.

  I am grateful for this newfound sense because I can accurately trail the military parade from a great distance. These people are not stupid—they will check to see if they are being followed. Once again I am struck by my ability to sense their thoughts. I have always been able to discern emotions in mortals, but never ideas. Yaksha must have been an outright mind reader. He never told me. I know for sure the people up ahead are checking their backs. I allow the distance between us to grow to as much as fifteen miles
. Naturally I drive with the lights out.

  At first the group heads in the direction of Las Vegas. Then, five miles outside the City of Sin, they turn east onto a narrow paved road. The column stretches out and I have to stay even farther back. There are many signs: RESTRICTED AREA. I believe we are headed to some sort of government base.

  My hunch is confirmed less than an hour later. Approximately fifty miles outside of Las Vegas, the armored vehicle carrying Joel disappears into an elaborately defended camp. I speed up and take my Bronco off the road, parking it behind a hill a mile from both the road and the camp. On foot, I scamper toward the installation, growing more amazed with every step at how complex and impenetrable it appears. The surrounding fence is over a hundred feet high, topped with billowy coils of barbed wire. Ordinarily I could jump such a barrier without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, the place has manned towers equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers every two hundred feet. That’s a lot of towers. The compound is huge, at least a half mile across. In addition to the towers and fence, there is a densely packed maze of three-foot high electronic devices—they resemble metal baseball bats—stretched along the perimeter. I suspect that if tripped they emit a paralyzing field. Vampires are sensitive to electricity. I was once hit by a bolt of lightning and spent the next three days recovering in a coffin. My boyfriend at the time wanted to bury me.

  One side of the compound is devoted almost exclusively to a concrete runway. I remember reading about a top-secret government installation in the desert outside of Las Vegas that supposedly tests advanced fighter craft, nuclear weapons, and biological weapons. I have a sneaking suspicion that I am looking at it. The compound backs into a large barren hill, and I believe the military has mined deep into the natural slope to perform experiments best hidden from the eyes of spy satellites.

  There are Sherman tanks and Apache helicopters parked close to barracklike structures. No doubt the weapons can be manned in ten seconds. One thing is immediately clear to me.

  I will not be able to break into the compound.

  Not and get out alive.