by H. T. Night
I nodded my head and thought how yummy hippopotamus blood must taste. My sarcasm was less that and more deadpan seriousness.
“Hey man, you care if I crash on your couch a couple hours? I’m really tired.” Steve almost never stays over at my place.
“Sure, man,” I said. “I slept most of the day, so I’ll just go online and check out some stuff.”
“Just be careful. What you find out may scare you.” Steve looked at me and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked all night. Steve was a situational smoker.
“Steve?”
Steve remained seated as he smoked his cigarette. He took a deep inhale and offered me a hit. I shook my head. Sometimes I’ll take a drag for old time’s sake. Steve stared at me and didn’t say anything.
“What?” I said. I mean, Steve could be thinking anything at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if he said anything was true at this point.
“What else is true?”
“Hunter, after this conversation, I never want you to talk to me about your vampire affairs or anybody else’s vampire affairs. I’m telling you. You’re making it very unsafe for us... for me…by continuing to talk about it with a Tandra.”
“Tandra?” I asked.
“That’s what the Mani call humans,” Steve said.
“Of course it is.”
Chapter Nineteen
4:00 a.m. Saturday Morning
Steve went inside and was sound asleep and snoring in about fifteen minutes. I envied a guy that could shut off just like that and rest. It must be something. I wanted to go on the internet and look a couple things up, but I couldn’t focus my mind. I was starving. My hunger was going haywire. I paced around my home incessantly like I would die if I stopped. I was so bloodthirsty I didn’t know if I could control it anymore. I needed to ‘drink’, but the flanks just weren’t cutting it anymore.
You’re a vampire, you fool; you have been starving yourself since your Donna Delight Sundae.
It was so hard to believe. Talking to Steve tonight seemed like a joke, a dream. Sheer nonsense, and yet, here I was, salivating over the thought of biting someone. I needed to control myself because there would be no biting. I wasn’t a monster. I didn’t know the men who bit me, but I certainly wasn’t joining a vampire gang to start hitting up local tourists for a sip on their jugulars. But that was the way to go if one was going to do that. A tourist? What the hell was I saying?
I would have to figure out a whole new way to live. The first order of business would be to find a fix before I quite literally murdered someone. I sucked on a flank as I considered my options. Where could I go where I had an unlimited source of blood? I was opposed to killing anyone, and the thought of stalking a deer in the woods just seemed appalling.
It occurred to me then that blood banks would have more than enough blood to keep me satisfied. But how could I get it? Steve said he knew a guy on the inside, but he also said it was damn expensive. How can I get it for cheaper?
Volunteering could be an option, as long as I was given access to where the blood was stored. I had credentials; I wasn’t just someone walking off the street. It could be possible. I felt a sting of guilt at the thought that I would be taking blood that would be better used to save someone’s life. On second thought, if I took the blood, I too would be saving lives by curbing my thirst. Mainly, my own.
I made a few calls around nine in the morning. I needed to see what was available to me. There was a blood bank just a few blocks away from me that was more than happy to have me come over that very day and help them out. Like, right as we were speaking. I was game. I needed to bundle up. My craving for real human blood was so off the charts that I was willing to risk some seriously painful sunrays.
Steve was still asleep on my couch. I let him sleep. He and I had had a conversation for the ages last night.
I put on some SPF 80, some sunglasses, and bundled up as much as I could with a hoodie and my Home Depot gardening gloves. I made a mad dash for my car, and even with all my efforts, the sun still burned. I was not ever meant to be out there. I carried a medium-sized satchel to store my blood in.
I drove to the blood bank and hurried inside. Once inside, I asked the receptionist where the bathroom was. I undressed quickly and tried to compose myself until my skin cooled.
To be honest, I was a mess. I shouldn’t be running around in the sunlight. I craved blood so badly that it brought tears to my eyes, and I’m no crier.
Okay, I’m a crier.
I went to meet with the coordinator named Heather, who happened to be a pretty blonde girl with a bubbly spirit.
“Hunter, I’m so glad that you could devote some of your busy schedule to help us out here.”
“Yeah, no problem.” I felt like an idiot, but I powered through it.
“I’m going to have you shadow one of my technicians until you get the hang of how things work around here.”
“Sounds good.”
I was starting to panic at the thought that I might not see any bags of blood today. I didn’t want to start getting bitey. We walked over to another girl who was taking blood from a teenager’s arm. The whole area smelled of blood. It was driving me insane.
“This is Angela. Angela, meet Hunter; he’s going to be shadowing you.”
“Oh cool. Nice to meet you, Hunter,” Angela said. “Actually, Heather, do you mind showing Hunter where we store donations? I’m probably going to just have him take trips back there for me. I can get more done that way.”
“Sure.”
I almost kissed Angela after she said that. I followed Heather to the back, where there was an enormous refrigeration unit that held bag after bag of blood. I smiled so widely I had to hide it.
The front room had two windows with curtains. I made my way over to the curtains and did my best to tuck out the sun. It was like dealing with a hot stove. It was horrible. Luckily, the back room had no windows. That was where they kept their very important refrigerator unit.
I found out that ten percent of the bags never get used and those are the bags that are placed in the very back of the refrigerator unit. They were considered questionable. I tried to ignore why the reason these bags were questionable, and I knew my best bet would be to slowly lift some of those bags. No one would notice.
On one of my trips to the back, I noticed a set of keys that were on the wall. One key had the words ‘backdoor’ taped to it. I took it off the key ring. I walked to the backdoor and locked myself out, and then I used my new key to let myself in. I was going to go home and get a couple of these copied. Then when no one was looking, I would put the original back. I wasn’t a crook, but I had to do what I had to do.
I would feel less guilt know the bags were never going to be used. Was it stealing? Yes. Did I have to do it to survive? Yes. Was I actually hurting anyone by doing this? No. Those were the three questions I could answer that would make it okay for me to finger a few of these bags.
First of all, there were over a hundred bags in this refrigeration unit. I got to the back at the end of the day. There were seventeen bags there consider questionable.
I took eight when there was no one near the refrigeration unit and brought the bags to my car when I left at 6:00 p.m. It was already dark, so I didn’t have to worry about the sun. I had put in almost nine hours of volunteer time. I was about to feel good about myself when I reminded myself why I was there in the first place. Blood. Glorious. Blood.
I already had a cooler waiting for the bags. I came prepared.
I put the bags in the cooler, put the keys in my ignition, and I was off to home. I couldn’t wait to drink the blood. I was dying. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I pulled into a mall parking lot. It was huge so my car would not be noticable. I parked my car and pulled a bag out of my cooler.
I couldn’t help myself. I bit the bottom of one of the bags and just began sucking the blood as if I was eating an Icee Pop. Holy shit, it tasted good. I didn’t plan to, but I dran
k half the bag. It was delicious.
I found a rubber band in my car and tied it around the bag so it wouldn’t spill all over the cooler. I started up my engine again. I just had the best energy drink of my life.
Chapter Twenty
7:00 p.m. Saturday Night
That night when I returned home, I placed my seven and a half bags of blood in the fridge. I would only be volunteering once a week, so I needed to make sure I had enough, and it had to be plenty.
Smiling I took out a wine glass and filled it to the brim from the bag I’d just cut open. I downed the blood in thirsty gulps and I moaned at the taste of it. My heart beat forcefully against my chest and waves of pleasure just coursed through my body, making me feel more alive than I ever had before. The feeling I had while I drank the blood was similar to how it felt when I first entered a woman. I had never felt more deliciously satisfied than at that moment. I poured the remainder of the bag into the glass, and finished it with a giant smile of satisfaction on my face.
That night, I fell asleep easily after my blood cocktail. It had the effect of drinking a glass of warm milk followed by a Xanax before bed. My eyelids drooped, and off to sleep land I went.
I slept extremely well after I dropped off at about 5:00 a.m. But as the afternoon hit, so did my R.E.M. sleep. That was a bad combination.
My dreams went from a pleasant and relaxing experience to a very intense and anxiety ridden seizure. I opened my eyes and I could see my room, but I was also locked into my current dream, and my current dream was once again about Felix.
I felt a heaviness to my dream when Felix would enter. Not only was I fighting over misfired electrons causing my seizure. I was also dealing with the heaviness of a nightmare.
I didn’t understand his methods or why he killed. They seemed like senseless killings, and only someone truly heartless could do such a thing. He had a coldness to him that I experienced while at the pizza parlor; he had a certain detachment from people, and that’s why he was able to kill so easily.
This dream had Felix leaving his apartment with a backpack slung over his shoulder. His hair was wet and he looked very sketchy. He was wearing a blue windbreaker with a pair of blue sweats. It wasn’t clear where his destination was, but he seemed determined to get there quickly. He went down street after street, cutting through alleyways as he went to what could only be described as a crack house. It stood crumpled and ruined, and could easily have been condemned.
Felix didn’t bother to knock on the door. He let himself in, and he walked straight into a bedroom filled with mattresses. There were three people in the room, and they were so high on heroin that they could barely sit up straight. Their paraphernalia was all over the floor and on the mattresses.
“Where the hell is my money, Brandon,” Felix said to a completely naked guy passed out on one of the mattresses. “I gave you the drugs a week ago and I have seen nothing.”
“Hey man, no worries. I’ll get it, I promise.”
“I want it now. Right now.”
“Uhh, I don’t have it, man. I don’t even have my clothes.”
“If you don’t have the money, then give me my shit back now.”
There was a girl in the room that was getting nervous despite her high and moved slowly towards the door, trying not to draw attention to herself.
“I don’t have the drugs either, man. Look, I’m sorry. We had a party and got a little carried away. I was gonna sell another batch to get you the money, but I didn’t do it yet.”
“You piece-of-shit, drug-addicted losers.”
“Easy, easy, man. Have a hit with us. Just relax.”
“Relax? You fucking idiot. I need the money this instant. You fucked me, Brandon. You fucked me hard.”
“Shut the fuck up, you melodramatic bitch.”
“What did you call me?” Felix said, crazy pissed.
Now Brandon was a little bit nervous. He tried to change his tune. “Look, Felix. No disrespect. You know I’m good for it.”
“I know you are.” Felix reached into his backpack and pulled out a black handgun, and shot Brandon in the head.
The other two girls in the room screamed and pleaded for Felix not to kill them.
Felix didn’t. He reached into Brandon’s pants, right from his dead, bloody body, and pulled out his wallet. Felix quickly noticed that there were several thousand dollars in the wallet. Felix smiled. He looked at the girls and said, “Look what your lives cost.” Felix counted $2200 out. Then Felix grabbed his backpack and put the gun in his hip pocket. He fled the crack house, and I immediately came out of my dream seizure.
I woke up then and quickly grabbed the pad of paper beside my bed. I wrote down everything that I could remember. The thing about these visions was that they didn’t disappear like dreams did. All the details were still there when I opened my eyes. If my dreams were real, then the murders must have already happened. I wondered if it was an immediate reality. Was I watching the murders live as they happened, or had it been done earlier in the evening? Or weeks, or even months ago?
The experiences confused me. How much blood did this guy have on his hands? He was certainly a modern-day serial killer, because in the few days that I knew he existed, he had killed three people. They were in my dreams. But he has killed three fucking people and would have killed two more if that poor sap Brandon didn’t have loads of cash in his wallet.
I was the only witness to it. How did this tie to me and my vampire abilities? I was unsure and confused at the gift I had. I was not sure what I was seeing. All I knew was the guy I was seeing in my nightmares was alive and had the same name in real life. That was enough to make me think there was truth to these terrors. What truth? I wasn’t sure. I just knew what I saw.
Chapter Twenty-one
6:00 p.m. Sunday Evening
I planned that night to go visit Felix at the pizza parlor in the hopes that he would offer to hang out. It was a crazy thought, but one I was willing to entertain. I needed to get a read on the guy, find out what made him do what he did. I did not want to see him killing for the rest of my life. He was a young guy. He would probably live another fifty years, at least. That sounded like a lot of dreams.
How could he not have been caught by now? Was it because he only killed people in the drug world? Were they easily forgotten by the system? I thought I should talk to Steve and certainly Munson about these murders and see if they had heard about them.
I wasn’t looking forward to hanging out with Charles Manson, but I hoped I could figure Felix out and have him stopped. I hoped he wouldn’t try to involve me in anything. Serial killers weren’t the best at walking around and not killing people.
I sat down with my coffee cup and poured myself a cup of blood. It was like electricity every time I drank it.
I waited until sunset and then dressed to go out and meet Felix. On my way there, I considered calling the whole thing off and visiting Donna instead. I could not get that girl out of my head. I needed to deal with Felix, however, if I hoped to have a normal life again.
Ha! Normal, who are you kidding? Vampires aren’t normal. Your days of a normal life are over.
The fact that Donna hadn’t called my cell probably meant she was winning the good fight.
I groaned, frustrated that I had decided to walk home the night I was attacked instead of calling a cab. Was this the gift bestowed to me by God when I cried out to Him that night? How was this the answer to all my prayers?
It’s true I had barely thought about my old patients since the dreams. Just Donna had occupied my mind, and she wasn’t legally my patient. But we had our boundaries. At least we did till the last time we saw each other.
This whole new dream problem certainly did manage to take my mind off of things, but it wasn’t exactly what I had been looking for. I now had a world of issues that I had no idea how to deal with.
How am I ever to return to work when I can’t go in the sunlight?
My thoughts shifted when I
walked into the pizza parlor and saw Felix at the counter. I had wondered if he would be at work today after a murder the night before, but apparently that wasn’t enough to keep the boy from going into work. I put my game face on and headed to the counter. Felix recognized me immediately. “Hey, what’s up?” Felix said to me. I could tell he recognized me.
“Not much,” I said. “Bored out of my mind. I’ve just been going for a walk. Can I get a slice?”
“Yeah, sure.” Felix got a slice of pepperoni pizza and placed it on a paper plate with a few napkins.
I paid for it, not knowing what else to say. I headed to one of the tables in the parlor and sat down to eat, trying to look as bored as I possibly could.
I didn’t bother to look up when I saw Felix approach my table.
“I get off in fifteen if you want to hit up a party with me. I got a few scores to make, and you might meet a honey there.”
I finally looked up. “Sounds cool. I’ll wait right here.”
Felix returned to work, and I hoped that the scores that night weren’t going to be bloody ones.
Felix wasn’t at all what I expected. I tried really hard to find the killer inside of him and couldn’t. He didn’t act creepy, he didn’t say weird things, and he had lost that cool detachment that he had in all my dreams. I was starting to wonder if the dreams weren’t real at all.
I worried that some of my outpatients would be at this party and that I would be recognized as a fraud. That would be all I would need at this point in my career.
But, luckily, I didn’t know a soul at the party, my age probably having a lot to do with it. It was a twenty-something crowd. Let’s face it, my twenty-something days were long gone. I kept my distance from Felix as he made his scores, not wanting to get involved or to have people assume I was a dealer as well. I watched Felix from afar, shaking my head in bewilderment. There was no fear on the faces of these people when he approached them, and they all seemed to genuinely like him. He high-fived people as he entered a room and even flirted with a few ladies.
