The Blind Vampire Hunter

by Tim Forder

  I answered coquettishly, “Right here, in the middle of this crowd?”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me through the crowd, into an alleyway. Totally away from the eyes of the crowd, he disappointed me with, “So what did you have in mind, you little vampire vixen you?”

  I really thought this guy was going to be different, more commanding, more original, but then what could I expect from a guy who used that so old, over used line, “I want to bite your neck—really.” So I moved in, looked deeply into his eyes, and said, “I am going to bite you in the neck.”

  He was so tall I had to go up on my tip-toes to get to his neck. I had to give him credit, though, he did not move or even flinch as I sunk my fangs into his neck. I thoroughly enjoyed my second snack of the night. I had a tempting thought of sharing my blood with him, truly turning this big hunk of a man into a real vampire, and I might have if he had not introduced himself with that horrid opening line. When I left the alleyway and moved back into the crowd, I looked back at the remains of my second snack. He was still alive, breathing a little hard from the lack of blood, but fine otherwise and totally in rhapsody with his thoughts. This was turning into one memorable night.

  I was enjoying the night, the sights, sounds, and the smells of overexcited humans. Again my musings was interrupted by a very tall woman in a black leather outfit full of belts, buckles, and chains,

  “Hey bitch. You look like my kind of meat,” she said.

  For a moment I thought I was face to face with a real troll. Not all trolls are ugly, just like not all humans are ugly. I took a breath of air and was assured that I smelled human under the overpowering smell of leather and perfumed soap. Great, this over use of the female dog terminology included American women as well. Making a point of showing off an impressive whip in her hand, she added, “I have just the thing for you, bitch.”

  “Surely not right here in the middle of this crowd of people?” I almost whimpered playing her role with a smile as she pointed the whipped hand at a nearby doorway, the submissive role to her dominating dominatrix. Isabella’s play acting almost caused the dominatrix to slipped out of character. Regaining her composure she ordered, “Go in there and walk through the lobby without saying a word to anyone. Take the stairs up to the next floor. Stop in front of room 211, and I will let you in.” Blood from a woman is just as sweet as from a man. In my pre-vampire days I only used blood from women...for my baths. Over time I did develop a feeling of strangeness from getting orgasmic while feeding off a woman. It was even stranger when my female meal would get orgasmic in my presence as a result of being feed upon. But human blood is human blood, so I followed her directions to her hotel room....

  The door was slightly open, so I walked in. She was already in the room. While I could not see her as yet, I could smell her and her arousing sexual excitement. Must have taken the elevator while I took the stairs as I was instructed.

  Once inside, I walked to the center of the room before turning to face my next snack. She was standing behind the door, so she was in position to close the door behind me. When she slid the bolt lock, she turned and let loose with the whip very impressively, snapping it loud and sharp while not endangering me by really smacking me with it.

  I moved in, making eye contact with my snack over made up eyes. As I closed in, I heard the whip slip harmlessly to the floor. As I moved in closer, I saw no reason for ruining the moment with speech. I easily sunk my fangs into her neck and went on to enjoying the meal, despite the aroma of piss leaking down the inside of her leather outfit and onto the floor. The flavoring of fear pumping through her blood system was so engrossing that I lost myself in my feeding and forgot my oath that no meal would die this night. I held her up until I had bled her to death. After I had my fill, I let her lifeless form drop to the floor, now just as dead as her whip lying next to her.

  Before leaving the peaceful quiet of the room for the festive mayhem of Halloween in Georgetown, I made use of the bathroom to clean myself up. Hundreds of years old and I still could not get over no reflection in a mirror. Here I am, a beauty like no other, even if it is magically induced, and I could only enjoy it in the eyes and voices of my admirers. It is fortunate that in my current residence, the family only has mirrors in their bathrooms and their bedroom. I made a point of never going into their bedroom outside of the time I was shown the house. Of course, I have no problem never sharing a bathroom. A girl needs her privacy, doesn’t she?

  After making sure my vampire costume stood muster, I left the bathroom, re-entering the main room, now cluttered with a dead body.

  Giving the carcass no more thought than not tripping over it while walking towards the door, after all nobody will discover this body for hours, she grinned at the thought of lobby witnesses telling the police that her last visitor was a vampire. Unbolted the door, she left meal litter behind and left the hotel to be buried alive amid the revelries once more.

  The fun-filled night went on.

  Eventually it got late enough that it was almost impossible to find a sober snack. I really had had my fill for the night, with only one casualty the whole night. I went back to my room in Maryland. Satiated like a tick about to burst, I slept the sleep of the dead all through All Saints daylight. The following night, I was plenty ready to go back to the quiet of the graveyard shift at the theatre. Even more so, as the first of the double billing was a Japanese horror import called Crimson Countess. The billing sounded all too familiar, I had to see it for myself.

  A half hour into the movie, I walked into the closest of the two doors leading into the theatre that was showing the movie which had caught my interest. Just inside the door were Ted and Jeff, two of my usher/bouncers. Easing my way in, I told Jeff, “Jeff, take fifteen.”

  “Ok, boss,” he whispered in a stage hushed tone. He then eased out the same way I had eased in. To Ted, I whispered, “Any problems?” I smelled the residue of smoke.

  Ted whispered back, “We did have a smoker during the trailers, I gave him the option of putting it out or taking it out—he chose to put it out. No problems since.”

  As he spoke, I watched the big screen where a Japanese woman was bathing in blood. The camera kept moving from the bather to the funnel system with blood flowing from a corpse on a sacrificial slab, then back to the blood-bathing woman. Ted whispered, “Later in the movie the Crimson Countess gets more creative and starts using an iron maiden. The blood donors are put inside this iron maiden shaped like a naked woman. Within the front of the iron-maiden are a few well-placed spikes. As the iron maiden is closed, blood starts flowing out of the open toes and into the bath. Meanwhile, you hear these horrid screams coming from within. Really great stuff, especially when they open the iron maiden afterward, and this drained naked female falls out with all these bloody punches all over her, some in some very intimate places.”

  “Ted, have you seen this movie before?” I asked, wondering about how he knew so much about a scene in the movie that had not even been shown yet.

  “It was in the trailer for the movie.... Really cool.”

  Those were the days. Just think, when I was alive, l lived for my blood baths and now l ... keep unliving with my blood meals. Those really were the days. Bathing in all that rich warm blood. It was one way to keep the Hungarian chill off one’s body. I guess this movie isn’t any worse, or better than any of the others like Hammer’s Blood Countess, Countess Dracula and all the other movies based on my life. I have to admit, I never saw myself as a light-skinned, dark-haired Asian beauty. If they could only see me now.

  You know, it has been many-a-year since I have visited with my distant Cousin, Prince Dracula. Not a good time to go vacationing to England right now.

  Ted smells like he’s going to need a cold shower after this movie. Work will have to suffice for now. “Ted, walk the aisle, do your job,” I ordered. As he reluctantly moved down the theatre aisle looking for the little flare of a smoker or the glint of light on an unlawful bottle, I slipped ou
t to get back to running the place ... and the paperwork, always the paperwork. (I was thinking about Ted getting excited watching the film.) Ted. I should talk. If I continued watching that movie, I would need to go hunting tonight, and after last night’s smorgasbord, I really did not feel like hunting tonight—no, tonight I think I’ll dine at IHOP.

  After I closed the graveyard shift, I still did not consider hunting for a meal this night. I just went to IHOP to dine on Celeste. Celeste, always the willing meal.

  Chapter Twelve

  Celeste

  “No,” Celeste emphatically announced from behind the locked doors of the ladies’ room at IHOP. “You have been feeding on me now for months. It’s time you turn me.”

  “Turn you?” I asked.

  “Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean. I want you to turn me in to a vampire. I have a birthday next week. I’m getting old and losing my looks. I want you to turn me in to a Vampire before I get any older. I want you to turn me in to a vampire, now.”

  “You don’t know what you are asking. You always tell me how you can’t get your day started without that cup of coffee. As a Vampire you will not be able to drink or enjoy that cup of coffee anymore. What about those Apple Cinnamon Pancakes you love so much? You will no longer be able to eat those pancakes, or any other food. You will be trapped into a strict liquid protein diet. Have you considered a total diet of blood, human blood? Have you given any thought to having to survive on the blood of humans, killing your fellow human to continue your existence?”

  Putting her hand to her ample belly, Celeste disputed, “I could use the weight loss of a liquid protein diet. And I would not have to continue working at this dump. I would not have to work at all. I can spend my nights hunting and just enjoying the thrill of the kill.”

  “Celeste, you are talking to a vampire older than I would like to say, and I’m working.”

  “But you don’t have to work. You could be spending your nights just hunting for your meals, your free meals, I might add.”

  And that’s the crux of the problem. She has a dangerous vampire superiority issue. This attitude could not only bring unpleasant attention to herself, but to any vampires in her area—like me. Don’t I know about that, locked in my own castle until I died and was reborn; still locked in my castle, starving for blood, until I discovered how I could change my form at will and leave my castle prison.

  “Honey, do you really think you can just kill for your dinner? Have you ever killed for your dinner? Have you ever done any game hunting and then dined on your kill?”

  Showing signs of reluctance, she answered, “No.”

  At least I have her thinking. There may be hope yet. Then I said to her, “Think about it, have you ever killed anything ... let alone any one?”

  “You feed on me without killing me,” Celeste announced. “You have been feeding on me for months, so many times I can’t remember, and I am still here. What about that?”

  “Yes, I do feed on you occasionally, but I could not exist on these partial feedings. This is a partial feed, like a snack instead of a full meal. You can’t exist on snacking. When or if you become a vampire, you will not have the maturity to control the hunger to the point of snacking on your prey. No, you will kill your prey because you will become a predator, a killer. Are you really prepared to kill? One more thing. Can you handle the guilt after your kill?”

  “Possibly ...”

  “Possibly nothing. Go kill someone, then come back to me and tell me you are ready to become a vampire.” Knowing that Celeste was too kind-hearted to kill a fly, let alone a person, I continued, “GO, kill some person, steal their life, then come tell me you want to become a vampire.”

  Looking defeated, Celeste almost moaned, “I’m getting older. I don’t want to get older. I don’t want to get old.” Then she continued defiantly, “I still will not let you feed on me again unless it is to make me a vampire,” and after getting a second wind, she added, “Right here, right now.”

  “That’s impossible even if I wanted to. Becoming a vampire takes time and must be at the right place. You do realize you are asking me to kill you. You do realize you have to die to become a vampire.” Not totally true, I have heard of Living Vampires, Celeste does not have to know that. “Celeste, dear, we would need a place where you can die and be reborn. The process of dying and becoming reborn can take minutes, hours, or days. We would need a proper, quiet place where your dead body can rest in peace until you re-awaken as a vampire. This just cannot be done here within a busy ladies’ toiletry.”

  Her eyes widened when I said ‘kill here.’ She had not considered being killed. Push the point. She is not ready to die. “Are you ready for me to kill you, to feed on you to the point of permanently taking your life? Do you really want me to kill you, dear Celeste?” I emphasized my point by extending my fangs in her sight. Celeste had seen my fangs before, but she had never seen them as instruments of her death. She visibly flinched at their appearance.

  “There is one more point about which you need to consider. Becoming an immortal Ghoul.”

  “A what?” Celeste asked, doubt sneaking into her voice.

  “A Ghoul. A grave-robbing eater of the dead. A disgusting brainless creature shunned by even the worst of the creatures of the night. A creature of decay that exists on the decaying flesh of the dead. There is nothing lower than a ghoul and, for some unknown reason, sometimes a “turning’ goes wrong and the newly dead is not reborn as a vampire, but is reborn as a disgusting, decaying, creature ruled by a decaying brain that only wants one thing, to eat the dead. Do you really want to take the chance of spending immortality as a disgusting decaying brainless ghoul? Personally I would not like to see that happen to you.”

  Sounding a little defeated, she asked, “But if that did happen to me, wouldn’t you end my ghoulish existence?”

  Making a point of looking and sounding sad, I answered, “I really don’t think I could. I would have to touch your repulsive form long enough to end your existence. I really don’t think I could.” Sadly shaking my head, I added, “No I really could not touch you, let alone end your existence.”

  That’s giving her something to think about.

  I decided to put the last nail in the coffin, “There is always the possibility that something could go wrong and you will just die. Remember, while I know the procedure, which I learned by word of mouth, I have never seen, let alone performed, a ‘turning’. There really is a greater chance that something will go wrong, than that the turning will go right.”

  Sounding childishly defeated, Celeste replied, “Please leave. No snack tonight, just leave.”

  Feeling relieved, despite my lack of a snack size meal, I walked over to the ladies’ toiletry door, unlocked it, and quietly left for the subway. No meal tonight.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dr. Who

  Meanwhile, in the life of a future blind vampire hunter. Years ago when I changed my medical plan to a new HMO, I needed to pick a general practitioner, also called a primary care doctor. I looked down the list and saw Dr. Who. How could a sci-fi nerd like me pass that up? Pass up telling my nerd friends that my doctor is Dr. Who? No way.

  I became a little hesitant when I read that the doctor was a female, but I also read that she spent some time working at John Hopkins, so I choose her as my doctor. This pretty little Asian has been my doctor for about five years now. I only had to drop my pants for her once during that time. It was all very professional and no problem, as she is not a woman, she’s my doctor—my Dr. Who.

  Today I had a follow up on the growth which had been removed. It had been sent to the lab to be tested for cancer.

  I followed the usual procedure. After paying my co-pay, I sat out in the waiting area to be called in to see the doctor. This time when the nurse called me, instead of following her with my white cane, I asked if I could take her shoulder so that she could lead me into the examination room, easier being led then feeling my way behind her,
possible tripping her with the white cane if I get too close. She complied.

  After helping me up onto an examining table, she went about taking my temperature and my pulse. Both were fine.

  After a reasonable time waiting, Dr. Who knocked on the door and let herself in. As she walked in, she asked the usual, “So, how are you doing?” Then she sat down.

  I could not pass it up and answered, “Well, I have gone totally blind.”

  It sounded as if she almost missed sitting on the chair with that come back.

  Then she questioned, “Mr. Poisner, you serious?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Since the last time I saw you I went from legally blind to totally blind. I had been warned for years that it could happen, that a sudden activity of the RP could have me going to bed sighted and waking up totally blind. Well that’s what happened to me. I woke up one morning seeing nothing, nothing but grayness.”

  “You say ‘grayness’ and not blackness?” My Dr. Who asked

  “Seems strange even to me, but everything and the only thing I see is grayness. I have gotten so that I can tell if I am in a lit room or a dark room from the degree of grayness. I can tell the difference from being out in the sun compared to being out during the night. But that is all I can see.”

  “How are you copping with this change?”

  “OK. I am still adjusting. For example, I had my wife drive me to my appointment instead of coming by myself using Metro. I figure, given time, I will regain my confidence to travel outside the home by myself again someday. Of course I miss even the half-assed eyesight I had for so many years.”