Blood Reaction A Vampire Novel

by Atha, DL

  “Promise me you’ll keep your cell phone with you.” She expected an easy victory here, but I was not giving in to that one.

  “NO! Absolutely not! I want no contact with the hospital while I’m off. They always call and I am not carrying my cell. I promised I would be careful and not ride at dark. That’s as good as it gets, Mom. Now, listen. Have fun and call me when you head back this way in a few days with Ellie. Enjoy your time with her, Mom. She's growing up fast.”

  She was angry. I could tell by the flavor of the silence on the other end of the phone. I could almost see her setting her lips in a thin line, wanting to say more but afraid she would say too much.

  Another thump from upstairs caught my attention again. I was scared, but I didn’t want to alarm my mom so I told another lie so I could get off of the phone.

  “Hey, Mom. Ms. McElhaney’s at the door. She’s probably brought me some homemade bread. I’d better go.” I continued to stare up the stairway, listening intently and trying to get a better angle, but still seeing nothing while Mom talked.

  “Oh, you remember her. She’s the little old lady that lives in the first house when you turn off the highway. She doesn’t have much family at all and she spends all of her time writing down the license plates of the cars that use this road. She knows I’m going to be here by myself. She’ll probably endanger everyone who lives out here by driving down to check on me every day.”

  Now pacified that someone besides herself knew that I was here alone, Mom warned me to be careful again and said her goodbyes.

  “Tell Ellie I love her,” I ended, clicking the phone off gently. I hadn’t told a complete lie. Ms. McElhaney did know I was spending the week alone. We had talked about it last week.

  “Why did I ever buy this old house?” I asked out loud to myself. I would never admit it to my mother, but I had admitted it to myself now for at least the hundredth time since moving in. The second story always unnerved me a little, especially at night. I very seldom had a reason to go up there since mine and Ellie’s bedrooms were both on the first floor of the massive old house.

  Fighting to control my breathing, I rationalized the sounds. It’s just a squirrel, I thought. Calm down. “How many times have you done this to yourself?” I reasoned out loud.

  Shortly after moving in, I had heard a similar thump. Frantically I had called the police just sure that someone was breaking into the top story of my home The female police officer that had responded to my frantic call had looked at me as if I was a discredit to the entire gender.

  But the woman had searched the old home and not being able to find anything, she had walked heavily down the stairs and told me to have the trees cut if the thumps were going to bother me anymore. She had made it pretty clear with her expression that she expected not to be bothered like that again.

  Maybe letting my mom win on the issue of the house wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all, I thought to myself and for a brief moment, I was mad at that realtor all over again. Next time I bought a house, I would be much savvier and I would get a different realtor. I sighed again. I knew the anger was misplaced. It wasn’t his fault that he was such a good salesman and I was a complete sucker. He was just doing his job.

  Samuel, who had trailed me in from outside, stood like a statue beside me, his ears at attention. He had heard it too. His only movement was a small inclination of his head to the right accompanied by a low whine.

  As much as I hated the thought, I knew that I had to go up there and take a look around. Walking into the living room, I grabbed the panic button for my alarm system from an end table where I always kept it when I was alone in the house and proceeded to climb the stairs to the second story.

  “Calm down,” I kept reasoning to myself. I had made this climb many times since the first squirrel incident and everything was always fine. It would be no different this time. I really needed to get those trees cut back. I liked squirrels, but this was just getting out of hand. I would call a tree trimmer tomorrow I decided.

  Making it to the second story landing, I peeped around the corner into the hallway and to no great surprise, there was nothing there. I always kept the hall light on and it illuminated every nook and cranny in the long hallway. That was definitely not living green, but I am just way too chicken so the hall light stayed on upstairs every night. Obviously, the presence of a hall light wouldn’t do any good if I did have an intruder, but it made me feel better regardless.

  There were three large bedrooms upstairs, all filled with the old rickety antique furniture that the previous owners had left.

  My imagination went wild thinking of all the places someone could be hiding in the rooms. But I walked into the first one finding nothing amiss. I didn’t go so far as to look under the bed and I was proud of myself for that bit of rationality, but I did check behind the doors.

  The second bedroom was essentially the same but I noticed the air temperature in the room was a little cooler, just barely perceptible. Almost like one of the windows had been opened for a couple of minutes. Walking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the southern side of the house, I pulled back the lace curtains and checked all three.

  Unexpectedly, I found one was unlocked but all three were closed, not even opened a crack. Maybe there was more of a draft when the lock wasn’t in place, I decided. Now I’m a stickler for window and door locks so I knew that I hadn’t left it unlocked. It was probably Ellie, she loved to play up here pretending to be a princess among the white antique furniture. I would have to remind her to lock the windows when she finished playing.

  Turning to leave the room after securing the window, I felt the hair on my arms raise and a cold chill chased the length of my spine. I froze in place momentarily, but then skipped out of the room as quick as I could.

  Standing in the hallway with my back against the wall facing the bedroom, I could see the reflection of the room in the dresser mirror on the wall opposite me. Nothing seemed out of place and nothing moved except the ceiling fan and the faded white lace curtains ruffling gently in its breeze.

  Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. The closet door was cracked open slightly and a shaft of light reached into the dark space, shining on nothing in particular. I tried to get my nerve up to go back into the bedroom, but I just couldn’t do it even though the momentary terror had passed quickly enough.

  Finally rounding up what nerve I had left, I checked the third room; finding nothing, I quickly ran back down the stairs.

  Samuel was still standing in the entryway watching me as I raced down the stairs. He had not trailed after me, which was very odd behavior for him. I hadn’t noticed before, which was good because I probably would have lacked the courage to climb the stairs if I had realized he wasn’t behind me. His ears were still cocked forward and his hackles were up.

  Knowing that there was no person upstairs since Samuel wasn’t afraid of anyone, I rationally chalked it up to squirrels and walked back to the kitchen to stir the sauce.

  An uneasy feeling clung to me, but there was nothing out of place, nothing missing, and nothing to indicate that someone had been or was in the house. The doors were locked while I was out riding and the second-story windows in the old house were really too high for the average criminal to bother trying to reach.

  Even if someone wanted to climb up, it would have been almost impossible to do it quietly or without hurting themselves. An easy reach for squirrels that could walk the long limbs of the old oak trees like tightropes, but the branches that got close enough to the house certainly wouldn’t hold a man.

  Letting logic be my guide, I took a deep breath and put the thumps out of my mind. Giving the sauce a quick stir, I poured a glass of raspberry fruit wine and headed into the living room, where I took a seat on the old but comfortable couch.

  Samuel had given up on watching the stairwell and rejoined me in the living room, laying spread out just to the left of the couch. I flipped through a few magazines and po
lished off the glass of wine.

  I was just about to get up and pull the spaghetti sauce off the burner when a sensation so familiar and so menacing swept over me that the hair on my arms literally rose and the overwhelming, irrational fear washed over me. Again. The exact same fear I had felt in the woods and upstairs, but this time it was so much more intense that the other episodes paled in comparison.

  I’ve been scared before but it was definable moments with definable fears. Suspicious people in parking lots, unexpected visitors at the door of my house, or near-misses on the interstate. But there was nothing definable about this fear except the degree of it that washed across every sense of my being.

  Feeling my heart skip and my breath catch in my chest, I froze instantly in place by instinct alone. There was no conscious thought to the act and time seemed to stop as if I was an observer in my own horror story and I could step outside my body for a moment and watch the scene as it inched by me.

  Unable to move or utter a word, there was little else I could do other than sit there and let time drag by me. And although I had no idea what the danger was, I knew it was emanating from one direction. I could feel it behind me, but I couldn’t find the courage inside myself to turn around and that was the most frightening feeling of all. The feeling threatened to suffocate me, but breathing provided no relief.

  As the seconds ticked by, the fear became more and more palpable and my hands started to tremble. The tremors crawled up from my hands to my forearms and up my shoulders then radiated downward into my chest and abdomen. My legs were shaking at this point as well and I knew I was going to die because I could feel death in the room.

  I would have said that as a physician, for the most part I was pretty familiar with death. But I realized now that in reality, I knew little about it. Comfortable death, the kind that carries the old and infirm away, the kind of death that brings peace, that kind of passing I knew something about.

  But my gut told me that my death, the one that I would die tonight, was going to be the definition of violence. It was hatred, rage, and jealousy all rolled into one and there would be nothing peaceful about it except that it would eventually be over.

  Having been fully focused on the terror coming from behind me, I finally took note of the spasmodic barking coming from my left. Sparing a glance, I could see Samuel was making a stand. Foam spattering from his mouth, eyes wide, hair standing up like a mantle around his neck, he looked rabid. He was not moving forward, but he was not backing down either.

  In the next second, silence took over the house and Samuel lay on the floor, his paws jerking spasmodically as his eyes rolled up. I still had not moved except to take that quick glance at Samuel.

  Feeling an unusual sensation to my right, I glanced forward and it was then I saw him out of the corner of my right eye. Sitting on the couch not two inches away from me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees in mockery of my own stance, he looked straight ahead as if he were merely a spectator and not the cause of this terrible scene.

  Automatically, I jerked back and as far away from him as I could, not quite making it to the end of the couch. It was then that I opened my mouth to scream for the first time. My lips were dry and very little sound came out at first, but eventually I worked the paralysis out of the muscles of my larynx and the terror was released. It did no good as there was no one to hear me. The nearest house was at least four miles away.

  Maybe he knew that or maybe he didn’t care. At that point, I wasn’t sure. Having lost all of my breath and the ability to create any more sound across my raw vocal cords, I could do nothing more than lay there and watch him, death itself, observe me. He must have scrutinized me for only a minute or so, but it felt like an eternity.

  Finally he spoke, and the normality of his voice was incongruous with the terror he inspired. “I was afraid you were going to end up like your dog so I am glad you quieted before I had to break your neck too. Noise like that can drive me to early violence. My hearing is so sensitive and I would not want you to ruin my meal. I am voraciously hungry tonight.”

  I was about a sentence behind him the entire time, each word sinking in a couple of seconds after he said them. Confusion hit me when he mentioned food and I looked automatically into the kitchen at the spaghetti sauce I had been cooking.

  I should have pulled it off of the burner by now and it was starting to burn on the bottom of the pan. I could hear the quiet sizzle that would soon get louder and the pungent odor of the burning sauce was now filling the house.

  Realization and a new-found hope hit me suddenly. In a few more minutes, it would start smoking, setting off the fire alarms, which were tied into the house’s security system. It was the only part of the system, besides the panic button, that was active even when the system was disarmed.

  The panic button! Hope glimmered but then faded just as quickly as there was no way to get to it now. I had put it down on the stand at the bottom of the stairs a few minutes earlier. I had laughed when the alarm representative had told me to always keep it in my pocket.

  “You never know when it just might save your life,” he had quipped cheerfully as he handed it to me. The idea had seemed a little overboard at the time, but now it became evident that the overly happy alarm man was brilliant.

  But I still had a chance. If the smoke alarms went off, the fire service would be dispatched immediately. It was the only agency that could not be turned back with a code word. The trucks would come until the return was ordered by the fire marshal and I had met him before, usually when I was cooking, and he was always very thorough. No turn-around orders from him until he had surveyed the scene with his own eyes.

  Maybe I would survive after all. Turning my head slightly to the right, I could see the alarm on the ceiling. The urge to watch for that first glowing red light indicating it had been triggered became almost impossible to ignore, but I pulled my eyes away from it as quickly as possible, vowing not to spare it another glance. It was certainly my only hope, however small it might be.

  Thinking desperately of any other possibilities, I remembered the gun my ex-husband had left me, but it was locked in the safe. Fighting the urge to glance back at the stove, which might give me away as easily as the fire alarms, I turned my attention to him instead of what might save me.

  My eyes fell first on his mouth. His lips were pulled back in a full smile, framing one-half inch paired fangs on each side that stood in sharp contrast to where his canines and incisors should have been. They were shiny, wet, and sharp at the tips. His lips were arched and colored a deep red, standing out sharply against his very white teeth.

  I lost track of time as I stared at those fangs, having a hard time getting past them and the barriers that my mind was throwing up. Only partly believing what I was seeing, I finally was able to look up into his eyes and despite looking human, there was little that could be called human about them.

  Deep green like the pastures of May before the rain has become scarce, the irises seemed to have more depth than usual, the pupils were darker and wider. Cold and hard, I could see in them his eagerness for what was to come.

  I’m a rational person and not prone to flights of fancy. I believe in God, but have never believed in any other kind of supernatural. I live and exist in a very real world. But what was sitting across from me was not human. That fact I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt and the hope that had been building in my mind drained out of me in one moment, replaced by despair. The fire marshal would show up, but I would already be dead and he would probably die as well for all his trouble to come here.

  He must have recognized when my logic had been replaced by reality and he began to slowly lean towards me. Attempting to move as far away from him as possible, I shifted in response, only to realize there was nowhere to go but forward. Without thinking about it but acting on pure instinct only, I jumped forward, trying to evade him.

  Logical thought would have kept me sitting on the couch not believing what I was seei
ng. Instincts are usually stronger than logic but they did me about as much good as logic would have. I made it only a couple of feet before he reached down and caught my right instep in his left hand and in one quick jerk, he lifted me completely up in the air and slammed me back down onto the floor.

  I hit the floor solidly on my back, the air knocked out of my lungs, but I just managed to keep my head from whacking the hard surface. Lacking oxygen to put up any fight, I lay there struggling for breath as he loomed over me, blocking the rest of my vision. Slowly, he dropped to one knee, I was sure he did it slowly to prolong the terror, then he dropped down to his hands to where he was suspended over me. His every movement seemed calculated to cause as much fear as possible.

  My breath had returned and I began to scream until he pushed the air out of my lungs again by dropping his body onto mine. He was heavy, heavier than his frame appeared. There was little opportunity to struggle as he had pinned my arms over my head and I had to use what little air I could get in to maintain my hold on lucidity. I’m not sure why because I probably didn’t want to be lucid through what was coming, but it was a self-preservation step that my autonomic system was in charge of and I couldn’t stop.

  He switched both of my wrists to his left hand and with the other he brushed my hair off my right shoulder. With a flick of his wrist and essentially no effort, he ripped my t-shirt at the shoulder. He paused then for just a moment, looking into my eyes, as he he slowly lowered his head, his eyes unfathomably cold as they locked onto mine. I couldn’t look away.

  Fangs grazed my neck and seemed to follow the course of my carotid from my clavicle up, yet he didn’t bite. His movements were slow and lazy; I was sure he was playing with me. I lay completely still, not knowing what might or might not provoke him and unwilling to chance anything either way.

  For a brief moment, he paused in his movements before grasping my hair with his free hand, bringing it to his face and inhaling. “What a myriad of smells you are.” With a savagery that was sudden in its intensity and surprising given his former stealth, he pulled his head back and then flung it down suddenly, driving his fangs into my neck, through the muscles covering the carotid artery.