by Alan Spencer
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Lenora pleaded to him, parting the black strands of her disheveled hair from her eyes. “We should think about this longer, please. Stay with me. Think it over more.”
Ruden was forced to be assertive. “Stalling isn’t an option. "
He parted her overcoat to demonstrate his point. “You’re skin and bones. How much weight have you lost?—twenty pounds? When you have to pay people to donate blood to you by the pint and to keep their mouth shuts, you don’t get to drink much, do you? The world used to be ours. People aren’t the helpless victims they used to be, not with everybody carrying guns, and knives, and God-knows what with them. I'm sure there's a section of military dedicated to hunting us down. Someone will come one day and try and snuff us out, but I'm one step ahead of them. I swear they'll fear us again.
“But it's all for blood, Lenora; it's always been for blood. Every hunt, I drink less and less. That means I’m hungrier; I'm thirstier. I’ll become a madman, and when that happens, I’ll end up dead. Without the blood, we’re uncontrollable beasts. There has to be a solution, and I’ll find it.” He cupped her face lovingly. “You support me by letting me go, for now—only for now. I need solitude. No interruptions or anything to sway me from quitting my work."
She shoved him from her and then quickly regretting the choice and drew him close again. Her weeping was re-anointed. “I know it’s only for now, but what if it’s for years and you don’t return?"
“This isn’t goodbye, I promise. It could only be a few months, who knows? Stay positive."
She lowered her face and kissed his lips tenderly, running her hands down the back of his neck. “I love you. Yes, you’re doing a wonderful thing, but it's still hard to let you go."
“But you know I’m coming back.” He kissed her hand, confident he could keep her no matter how long it took to finish his work. “Failure or not, I will come back to you.”
“Promise me again.”
They cuddled for minutes, absorbing the warmth the winter strived to steal. He whispered in her ear, “I promise I’ll return, no matter what happens.”
“You have to go now." She spoke low so as not to spark her tears. “But remember you’re all mine.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love you, Lenora. It’s all for you, darling. My work will reap serious rewards."
She playfully licked her lips. “When this is over, I’ll fuck you in blood.” She softly squeezed his abdomen. “Like I said, I miss you already.”
“I love you, Lenora.”
"I love you."
She exited the factory.
With his lover gone, Ruden entered the abandoned warehouse and peered inside to his partners who were huddled together in waiting. He kept his presence secret for now, wishing to learn their true feelings about his plan to create a blood solution. They would become an active think tank in the years to come, a collective conscious, on the behalf of all who were bloodthirsty.
He focused on Hector Culvert first, a man who stood alone against a pillar smoking a cigarette. He had no one else to say goodbye to. He’d drip drained his mother and father at their apartment in the suburbs of Chicago hours ago. He stored their blood in a plastic bin for research purposes. Hector was a student of anatomy and psychology; someone who happened to be bloodthirsty and met up with Ruden who was also interested in a blood solution.
Closest to Hector, Frank Henagar, sat on an empty crate. Frank had also sacrificed his family like Hector did. He was a biochemist; he’d created fertilizers for farms before meeting Ruden. Lenora had turned him bloodthirsty two years ago; she had coaxed Frank into an alley of a local bar called “Mooney’s Pub” “She flashed her tits in the hallway of the bar’s bathroom,” Frank reminded Ruden on a regular basis, “and I took the bait. I strolled into the bathroom, and she spat the blood into my mouth during a kiss.” Frank had a thing for Lenora, but Ruden trusted his lover.
Joseph Finkle, an anatomy student from Germany, had procured the most blood in the group, and he wasn't afraid to boast it as he walked over to Frank and shared his accomplishments. “Fifty bodies are mixed up in the barrels in my truck. I only had to kill half of that figure. I stole the rest from local morgues. I could drain the stiffs with a butterfly needle instead of wasting it down the drain. I'll say it’s a good thing we’re going into hiding soon. Every time I see a cop, my heart nearly goes into cardiac arrest. I always think they're onto me. Hell, it's been that way for years."
Dr. Philip Stone was the last of the five on the team. He smoked a sizeable cigar, the curls of smoke obscuring his face under blue and gray streaks. The man’s specialty was brain surgery. Dr. Stone had a likeness to Albert Einstein with his frock of wild white hair, though the man’s voice was thick with an Anglo-German accent. He also had a background in phlebotomy. He tested for gangrene and aided in decisions to amputate the limbs of American soldiers during World War II. He’d open his semester classes with the introduction, “I saved a lot of asses—and arms, and legs, and hands during the war!”
Dr. Stone wandered over to Hector to share a few words. “Do you think this will work, or has Ruden lost his mind? Blood deprivation will do that to a healthy male.”
“I’m willing to try anything,” Hector replied. He was a proud partner in Ruden's ideologies of self-preservation. “My ex-girlfriend was shot down by a cop for decapitating a homeless guy in order to suck on his stump. She had the craving bad. I told her to subdue it by making the right friends. Have your good friends give you a taste a day, and you’re covered. It’s like donating blood in small increments.”
“Many of us can’t utilize moderation.” Dr. Stone disagreed with the notion. "We've observed moderation for far too long. Holding back is what creates the monsters out there. I’ve mangled a few bodies in my time, though I’ve only been like you for less than a year, thanks to Lenora and Ruden. Those two idiots were naked in the corpse fridge on my campus fucking each other’s brains out. After they spit the blood in my mouth, they made me clean the place up before we left that night. And here I am working for the asshole.”
"He might be an asshole," Hector chimed in, " but I'm sick of sucking blood out of plastic tubes or taking sips from superficial wounds."
Ruden enjoyed listening in, especially Hector’s take on the situation. Hector had studied the phenomenon of blood-to-mouth infection for many years. He swabbed the throats and mouths of his cohorts and studied the bacteria that formed in Petri dishes. The results revealed that a bacteria could be passed onto others and instantly addict them to the taste of blood. Hector explained that’s why they harbored an instinct to cough up blood into a victim’s mouth; it was their way of recruiting and preserving their kind.
The blood had a biological effect as well. It enlivened the blood cells of the body. Increased the immune system. Strengthened the cardiovascular and muscular system—even the endocrine system. Hormones, pheromones, and endorphins became potent and grew in larger numbers, including the sperm count in males—though females were rendered infertile by the process; they discharged matter that resembled a heavy period, as if the ovaries were dismissing themselves from the body. Hector had determined they weren’t meant to procreate, only infect.
The deformities were what truly drove Ruden to arrange the meeting in Chicago. Facial deformation kept them in the shadows. Heightened vision caused their retinas and cortex—the ball and socket—to increase in size by nearly one hundred percent. Hector called them “hungry eyes.” The circulatory system produced new arteries and blood carrying vessels to and from the heart. These vessels became so large they often raised up against or ripped through the skin. Dr. Stone once complained of having an artery burst in his neck during one of his lectures. These physical changes had only been a serious symptom for the past four or five years, but it was advancing without signs of remission, and whatever the cause, they had to come up with a resolution.
Ruden moved on from his worries and watched Joseph
sip from a steel flask, a blood and whiskey mix. Again, Ruden could hear every word as Joseph talked freely. “Where are we going into hiding?”
“Ruden says he’s got a location already.” Hector licked his lips, eying the flask until Joseph was nice enough to offer him a pull. “It’s a small town in Kansas. Ruden says there’s an underground bunker underneath a cider mill. The hick built it during the Cold War. Afraid the Soviets would blast us out of the water for good. In there, we'll stay undetected."
“A cider mill, huh?” Dr. Stone was next to take a drink from Joseph's flask. “I haven’t had a good juicy apple in years. Apple pie either. I’m sure we’ll take breaks in between work and enjoy the scenery. Maybe during Halloween we can walk freely as we are. We’ll blend right in.”
Joseph slugged down another mouthful from his flask, happy to have it back. “I bet there’s some nice farmhand action in those parts. Hayseed bitches won’t know what hit ‘em. Cornfields create a lot of places to hide bodies.”
“Country ass!” Frank whistled. “Maybe we can chain up a few of them and drain them of their blood. Have some fun with them too. Who knows, maybe they like that shit out there in Kansas. Tell them it's how people do it in the big city."
Dr. Stone disapproved of their banter. “You better treat the women like goddesses. If you’re going to use them, at least allow them pleasure. If not, I’ll cut your head off myself. Ruden doesn’t appreciate those abuses either. This is his show; you go by his rules or you can turn back right now. We’re doing this for research. You want to walk in public without starting a riot or having a militia hunting with you hammers and steaks and throwing holy water at you? Annoying as it is, someone will find out we can die by conventional weapons, and we're dead. We’re creatures ugly as sin, Frank. We have to save ourselves before the blood becomes too hard to procure. There's only so many of us left."
“How good of the old man to keep us in line,” Joseph scoffed, rolling his eyes and refusing to give up his personal ambitions. “We’ll see how you feel after months of work without a break. You’ll want to cut loose and enjoy some female company.”
Ruden finally approached the group, being satisfied with what he was hearing. “Okay boys, we’ve got two trucks. We drive until we get to where we're going, maybe take a piss break or two in between stops, but that’s it. I’m not sure if Hector’s shared with you the location of our think tank. It’s in Smithville, Kansas. The bunker is at the bottom of a wishing well. Hand-built. A friend has shown me pictures. We can make it our own and furnish it to our liking. Thousands are depending on us to find a way around our deformation. Remember that. We must work fast. We can’t fail."
The group waited for more of an explanation, but instead, Ruden led the group to the trucks. He was eager to reach their new stomping ground. “Follow me onto the interstate. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us...
15
Ruden drove the Mazda truck faster after hearing Lenora's thoughts relay back to him. After another fifteen minutes, he reached the Sunshine Motel's parking lot. Nobody was outside of their rooms, the hour being so late. He kept to the shadows and skulked up to the front office. A woman stared at the television with her feet propped up against the counter. He looked her in the eye, deciding he wanted to use her for his bidding. She gasped at the first sight of him, overcome with horror at his monstrous complexion through the glass. She fainted, falling backwards out of her chair. She was sprawled out on the carpet and unconscious. Ruden picked her up over his shoulders and hurried to room 9 where Lenora stayed.
Lenora, knowing he was outside her room, opened the door and guided him inside, unsure of what to do with herself in the presence of her lover who she hadn’t seen in three years. Instead of talking, he asked her to help place the woman on the bed. Finished, they stood in front of each other, looking at how the years had changed them.
His lover was draped in a black see-through night gown. Her hair was straight and jet black with gray highlights. She’d lost weight, nearly emaciated skin and bone. The veins were thin beneath her skin, like deflated tapeworms, her body sickly without a normal dose of blood. Though she’d feasted recently, it wasn’t enough to mask her long term deterioration. Her eyes had shrunken and were crusted dry at the edges. The skin was a milky quartz hue streaked with purple patches as if parts of her had expired.
“I waited for you,” she whispered, almost tipping over onto her knees, succumbing to tears, her body unable to register the wild emotions bursting throughout her. He held her in his arms as she spoke. “You’re the only reason I held on for so long. Without you I had nobody; I had no reason to live.”
He clasped her hands, desperate for forgiveness. He wanted it back to the way things used to be before his research took him underground. After a soft kiss, he announced his reason for coming out of hiding. “I bring you blood, blood that you’ve never tasted—revitalizing blood.”
She was skeptical of his solution. “Where is this blood? Show me what’s kept you in hiding for three years. Why has it taken so long for you to return?”
He fled to the truck to answer her question. Moments later, he lugged a barrel into the room. Her gaze fell upon the rusted out eyesore; she was confused and disappointed. She didn’t make the connection, and how could she, he thought, it was a stupid barrel.
Her nose arched. The whiff of blood, the promise of strength, of human wine, perked her up.
He stepped up to the barrel and presented it to her. “I’ll show you my solution.”
Ruden dug his nails into the lid, prying it open and ripping it off with the peel of steel. She attempted to shove her face and hands inside, instantly enticed, but he restrained her by the arms. “Let me show you what this can do first before you take in too much.”
He scooped a handful and dribbled it over the female clerk’s lips. She was immediately stirred from sleep, her tongue licking in mania. “Mmmm! Unnnnn! More!”
The woman dove for the barrel, but he grappled her to the floor by her frizzy hair. Her face contorted into rage and hunger—emotions new to her inexperienced life. She slumped against the headboard of the bed, trying to steady her breathing. The woman peered up at the monsters and spouted questions. “What do you want from me? What have I tasted? I’ve never had anything like it. What the hell is it?”
“You desire it?”
She hissed, “Yeeeeeeeeeeees!”
“It’s special blood. It takes work to create the opulent taste. If you want more, then you will do as I tell you. With such lust in your eyes, you’re now capable of murder and acts of mutilation in my name. Be warned, you defy me and you shall be turned into the very blood you wish to gormandize. You shall bring bodies to the cider mill at the edge of town. Make sure they’re dead and nobody catches on to you. Kill by any method of your choice, but I repeat, do—not—get—caught.”
Her eyes shifted spastically as she ogled Ruden and Lenora and the barrel of blood interchangeably. “And if I obey, you will feed me more of what you’ve given me?”
“A lifetime’s worth." He clutched the woman’s face, then threw her backwards by the jaw.
“Now go to it! Collect bodies and deliver them to the cider mill!”
The woman raced from the motel room. A car’s engine revved up and headlights crossed the closed curtains shortly after, the tires peeling out.
Lenora stared in wonder, replaying the scene in her mind. “The blood, it’s changed her. She’s hooked. You didn’t spit it down her throat. What did you do?”
“You’re weak,” he apologized for making her wait to drink. He guided her frail body to the barrel. “Replenish yourself. You’ll understand everything soon. For now, drink. You'll know everything very soon.”
She maintained no reserve, throwing out both hands and plunging headfirst into the barrel. Her legs dangled from the edge in a ridiculous show. He propped the barrel straight as she thrashed within, her body a fish in a grizzly bear’s jagged maw. Lenora came up for breath with a face glaze
d in what she gorged upon. The carpet was spattered from what trickled from her gown in heavy trails.
Satiated, she motioned for him to join in on some fun. “Follow me to the bathtub, and bring the barrel. Let’s take a bath.”
He moved to the bathroom, stopping the drain and pouring the contents of the barrel into the tub. Crimson pooled to the brim. Lenora was behind him, tearing through her gown, her olive green eyes now burning an Abyssinian cat's green. Veins rippled and forked along the skin, sections lacerated by the force. She crawled into the tub, lapping the red up from her body once she was entirely inside. She licked her body like a feline its fur coat as she kept playfully delving and dunking her body in the sanguinolent bath.
He stripped and bathed with his bloody mistress. Stepping in, her clutches were warm, sticky, and inviting. They exchanged blood between kisses, spitting it into each other’s mouths, their tongues overflowing with the crimson. She moaned with masochistic energy and inserted his fingers between her legs. Her slit was wet with arousal, slick with blood, the cleft gushing with fervor. He massaged and fingered her to ululation; he reached ten inches deep inside her before touching the cervical wall, his entire fist sucked into the orifice.
She rolled her head back and bit her lips to suppress the crippling orgasm:
“Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!”
Lenora removed his fist, and choosing to straddle him instead, she rode his cock. Harder, faster, she pumped, peeling the tile squares from the wall one-by-one with her fingernails. The blood ingestion sped up a female’s orgasm, each penetration delivering triple and quadruple climaxes to the point she frothed.
