by Atha, DL
“You seem exceptionally thirsty,” Asa commented, studying me too intently for my taste.
“Well, I have to replace my blood volume. I’m just being careful so I don’t get dehydrated. I don’t want to shortchange you,” I told him before starting to drink again.
Starting the car, he pulled slowly back onto the road and drove towards town. I finished up the bottle of pop and started on the second while downing a candy bar. He was right. I was extremely thirsty and hungry. I had also felt shaky over the last few hours, a symptom of low blood sugar. Pretty certain that my body needed the extra sugar for the cellular conversion, I ate the second candy bar too.
Having eaten two candy bars and two sodas, I felt full for the moment. Getting food off of my mind for the first time in a while, I suddenly realized how claustrophobic I was. I so badly wanted to stretch my legs and get outside for a little while. “Do you mind if we stop for a little while so I can get some exercise? There’s a hiking trail up ahead that goes into the mountains that would let me stretch my legs. The restaurant will be open for a while.”
He shrugged his shoulders in indifference and I pointed out the trail as we got close. Stepping out of the car as soon as Asa had parked, I reveled in the slight breeze blowing in from the mountains. Reaching up, I rubbed the back of my hand across my forehead; I was startled to find I was sweating and my skin felt a little warm.
Realizing I was running a fever, I considered turning back to the car, but instead pivoted to face the trail into the mountains, not wanting to give Asa any cause to suspect anything other than anemia was bothering me. Taking a deep breath, I rubbed a few chills off my arms with my hands and began walking.
The cool breeze lifted my hair off my neck as it trailed down onto my back, causing chills to race along my skin where the light sweat had built up. My heartbeat had increased slightly to the point it was just at the cutoff to be called a true tachycardia. My joints and muscles stills ached slightly, but I forced myself to walk fast enough to not slow my ascent into the hills.
I knew this trail well. It was one that Ellie and I had climbed many times. Part of the Ozark Highlands Trail; it would eventually take us to a large overhang that was big enough to camp in. Legend said Native Americans had lived here and by the looks of the place, I had no doubt. A workout on a good day, I struggled to climb quickly enough that Asa wouldn’t recognize my weakness, but his perceptive ears were my downfall.
“Your heart is racing.” He made the statement with a tone that was accusing, which caused my heart to race even more with fear that `he recognized what was going on.
My stomach dropped to my knees. Of course he would know. That’s why every other human companion he had in the past had died. They were never allowed to complete the conversion.
Not planning on giving up, however, I stopped in the trail and turned to face him. “Of course my heart is racing. I’m walking up a mountain with very little blood. That’s also why I’m sweating and breathing heavy. For someone who’s killed a lot of humans by exsanguination, you sure don’t seem to know the signs.”
Crossing my arms across my chest, I tried to look exasperated as I waited for his response. Although he was walking about twenty feet behind me up the trail, he now caught up in the blink of an eye.
“I kill so quickly that there is no time for signs,” he intoned with his unblinking gaze leveled at me.
“What about your other ‘companions’?” I asked, making quotations in the air with my fingers. “Didn’t they get weaker the longer you stayed?”
He had walked past me now and I turned and had to hurry to catch up to him, which accelerated my breathing even further.
“They were not as lucky as you,” he answered back and then was gone. I couldn’t see him or hear him and so I stood in the path for a moment not quite knowing what to do. Finally, I decided to just keep walking. It felt so good out here in the cool of the night that I vowed not to let him ruin it.
“Lucky my ass,” I muttered under my breath as I resumed my walk.
The path was rocky but thanks to my newly enhanced night vision, I was able to make my way a little better than I would have in the past. I followed the trail around until I came to the Indian cave; heading inside its damp coolness, I rested until my heart rate had dropped a little closer to normal.
The muscles in my legs grew somewhat stiff as I sat there so I left the cave and continued on the trail. I kept walking without seeing a trace of him again. Coming to the vista at the peak of the mountain, I sat down on a rock and focused my vision on the points of light out in the distance. About twenty miles away, I could see the lights of several towns. Even at this height, they still looked fairly bright; maybe it was because of the contrast of the dark black of the mountains.
I was lost in thought when I felt the hairs on my neck and arms raise, accompanied by the pure terror of his presence and I knew he was there. Not having breath to spare on him yet, I didn’t speak. Honestly, I had little to say for once. The night was beautiful and even though I was technically dying, I could still enjoy it. I didn’t want his mouth or mine to ruin the peace of the moment.
Of course, that didn’t last long but for once it was the vampire that broke the quietness. “My former human companions died fairly quickly. I realize now it was most likely because it was too much of a mental and physical strain on them and they were unable to adjust. It is likely you will die more prematurely than I desire as well, although thus far you have outpaced them all. I wonder why that is?” He was looking at me while he spoke.
I could feel his eyes on my face so I turned to look at him. “Maybe you should make an effort to not knock me unconscious by throwing me to the floor or consider not wrapping your vice-grip hands around my throat. That might increase my shelf life.”
Laughing at my words, he answered back, “I suppose if I want to keep you around for much longer, I will have to be more careful with you. So I shall endeavor to not throw you around or choke you. As far as blood drinking goes, I will attempt to slow it down a little too, but unfortunately that just comes with the territory and at least I will get pleasure out of that sort of death. I would not derive nearly as much enjoyment if you simply hit your head and fell over dead. But tell me, why do you want to live longer? Why have not you just given up like the rest? You are going to die so how do you find the strength to go on with this charade?”
Turning towards him, I found he was staring at me with wide dilated eyes showing true interest now like I was the weird freak in a science experiment and not him.
“Tell me about the rest?” I asked, as interested in his response as he was in mine.
“You first,” he insisted, “and if your answer satisfies my curiosity, then possibly I will answer your question.”
Honestly, his questions didn’t deserve answers, but this charade, the one I was living now was my only chance. I nodded at him slightly, indicating my intent to play along. “This so-called charade is my life and therefore I don’t intend to waste any moment of it. Even if those moments are with you. Besides,” and I gave him my most serious expression, “I’m still trying to find a way for this weak human girl to kill you.” I ended my words with a smile, hoping to make him think I was just joking, but I couldn’t have been more serious.
“Now it’s your turn. What about the rest? What happened to them?” I asked, desperately wanting to know. “You said you killed them all.”
Leaning back against the trunk of an old oak tree in the dark, he now had all the appearances of a vampire. With his pale skin that stood out in contrast to the dark of the night, he looked slightly eerie. His eyes looked almost empty they were so dilated, and his mouth, so red in the lighting of my house, looked dark in the night, giving him a very leering smile.
“Yes,” he nodded slowly, “all five of them. My first was a young man, an attorney. I was crueler to him than the others. I think it was my great jealousy at his station in life, the same one that was robbed from me. He broke under the stress withi
n the first two nights and tried to escape.”
He laughed a low menacing laugh and rubbed his hands through his hair before continuing on. “He went during the day and I had to track him. This was before automobiles so it only took four hours, but I was furious. So furious that I took my time with him. He did not die well, which was good for me. I needed the release.”
Anxious to try to learn something from his previous conquests, I settled back into the hard curve of a rock and listened.
“My second was a woman. Beautiful and delicate the way wealthy women were back then. It was the 1880s. I found her along a small river in Louisiana. She had slipped out of her father’s house for a moonlit dip one summer night with her young man. Unfortunately for her, I beat him there. I did not bother to wait around for him. I will never forget her pale skin, nearly as pale as mine, against the dark blue of her satin gown. There was nothing she could really teach me; I just wanted her. I carried her back to a crypt where I had spent a few nights. I promised not to kill her suitor if she would cooperate. And I kept my word; I did not kill him, although he probably would have preferred it. I remember seeing a picture of him in the paper, he swung for her death.
“I tied her up and gagged her just before dawn every day. She was perfectly safe in the crypt, but I came back after the first evening to find her babbling. Her mind never came back so I snapped her neck a couple of nights later. Her blood was still good though. The madness had no affect on the taste.” He paused here with an amused expression on his face.
It was all I could do to not choke at his last words. He was definitely superstitious. That poor girl. I could commiserate with her terror. At least I was trapped in my own house and not some wet, rat-infested crypt.
It was getting chillier now and even my low-grade fever couldn’t keep me from feeling it. Noticing for the first time that he was wearing a jacket, I looked at it enviously, my own jacket forgotten in the car.
“Can you feel the cold?” I asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“It does not feel cold to me, but I can detect the change in temperature,” he answered back.
“Then why do you wear a coat?” I turned to look back down at the valley below.
“That is a foolish question, Annalice. Why wear clothes at all? Except to fit in, of course. I would look odd, do you not think, if I were dressed inappropriately in February?” For once, his voice didn’t hold complete contempt even though his words did.
Leaning forward, he slipped his arms out of his jacket and handed it to me. “I can see that you are cold.”
I reached for it willingly as I was starting to get pretty chilly. “How chivalrous of you,” I murmured quietly, sliding it over my shoulders and pushing my arms through the sleeves. It was fairly large and I pulled it tightly around me. Looking up at him, I caught a quick flash of anger on his face, but then it was gone just as quickly.
“Not to let you think that I am being kind, I just do not want you to catch your death of cold. I would much rather deliver it myself.” His voice was like silk when he said it, but was it possible that I had just seen a moment of actual kindness?
“So tell me about the third,” I asked, trying to get him back on subject.
“Again you are really very morbid,” he noted, turning to face the view from the mountain. “Of all the humans I have kept, I will admit that you are the most entertaining. The third was another young man. It was somewhere around the twenties to thirties. I was in Oklahoma. Cars were not quite common yet and the Great Depression was going on, so the law was lax and drifters were so frequent that no one looked at me that peculiarly when I walked the night. I had been traveling most of a month, going nowhere in particular, when I came upon this small ranch one evening sometime after midnight. It was owned by this very handsome young man. He was not wealthy, but not poor either. A very eligible bachelor during that time period.
“He was gone when I arrived and I helped myself to his bath while he was out. You should have seen the look on his face when he stepped into his bedroom and found me lounging on his bed. I played with him for a while, letting him think I was mortal. He fought quite admirably. He pulled a gun and shot me, at which point I fell down. I am a pretty good actor when I want to be and I let him walk up on me. I kept my eyes open and kept perfectly still until he leaned in over me. I am sure you can imagine what happened next.”
I looked over at him when he stopped talking. I most certainly could imagine what had happened next and in my mind’s eye, I could see the look on the man’s face when he realized his shot may have been true but his reality was not.
“How long?” I asked quietly.
He shrugged. “Just a few days. Long enough for him to teach me how to drive, use the telephone. Things like that, you know, the necessities of the time.”
The light breeze picked up slightly and chills raced across my skin, which was burning up now with a raging fever. My head and throat ached from the viral process and every joint in my body throbbed with pain.
“What did you do to him?” I asked, not because I wanted to know, but it would keep my mind off the pain and might help keep me resolved to see this through to the end. No matter what that might be.
“Why do you want to know? How does it help to torture yourself like this?” His exasperation was obvious in the tone of his voice.
“You say you don’t care so why do you mind telling me?” I retorted, just as irritated.
He laughed bitterly now. “How correct you are. Fine. He begged for mercy, but that is just not in a vampire’s character.” He paused now and my breath caught in my throat.
“Breathe, Annalice, I did not torture him. He was obedient to our agreement so I showed him what mercy I was capable of, which was to kill him quickly. I drained him and buried him in the hills of his homeland. Torture affects the taste anyhow.”
“But not enough mercy to spare him? He couldn’t have hurt you. Do you realize that?” I asked, unable to keep the emotion from my voice. I could picture all of these poor people just like me and I was angry for all of them. I hurt for all of them. The loss of their lives and now mine seemed terribly unfair. His low voice broke the train of my depressing thoughts and despite how badly I felt for his prior victims, I couldn’t keep from turning my attention back to our conversation.
“You humans come closer to finding out the truth behind every mystery each year and with those truths, the power to do something with the knowledge. I cannot chance letting anyone know of my existence. That is just the way it is. Surely your analytical mind can understand that.”
Despite how much I wanted to deny that truth, I couldn’t. If I were him, I wouldn’t want anyone to know about me either. But I hoped that I wouldn’t become the monster he had let himself become.
“Yeah, I guess I can. I can’t say that I understand why you need to kill them. It’s your decision to spend time with them and let them know what you are. You could get the same information by pretending to be human and developing relationships that don’t end in their death,” I answered, trying to keep my voice calm and even since I suspected my words were a little inflammatory.
“You hypocritical human. Humans drone on and on about being accepted for what you are, including all of your faults and flaws, but you extend the same courtesy to no one else. Your governments even try to rewrite history to hide the evil that your race has committed and you judge me for wanting a few meaningless humans to really know who I am, what I really am!”
His voice was razor-sharp with anger brought on by my answer. And although I didn’t move for fear that my slightest movement would put his rage into action, I couldn’t control my tongue.
“I don’t answer for all of humanity. I answer for myself and take responsibility for my own decisions. It seems that you should do the same.” I half expected not to finish my sentence before he ripped my throat out, but to my surprise he simply sat there, listening.
“Responsibility is a quaint human concept that no lon
ger applies to me. I am not a human. I am a predator and predators do not question the need to kill. We simply do it.”
I didn’t say anything back to him after that for quite a long while. Honestly, my fever was too high and I felt slightly nauseated. That along with the ache in my bones kept me silent. I had no idea what kept him silent and, honestly, I just didn’t care so long as he was.
Leaning back again into the crook of the tree, I stared off into the view from the mountaintop. Small pinpoints of light could be seen scattered throughout the mountains and off in the distance, groupings of lights representing the small rural towns could be seen trailing through the mountains, until ending in a bright area representing the city we had been heading to when we stopped at the country store.
I watched the lights now starting to glitter slightly through the fog that was developing in the valleys below. It was beautiful up here and I couldn’t convince myself to leave. The thought of going back to my prison made me feel even more ill deep down in the pit of my stomach.
“Fifty years ago, that valley would have been darker than the night at this time. I would have never dreamed it would have become this popular.” His voice coming from the darkness and combined with his stillness seemed disembodied and it startled me. It was the first time he had offered information without me begging it out of him.
“What became this popular?” I questioned. My curiosity was really going now and I looked at him intently.
“Electricity. I still remember the first time I saw it. I had gone to the World’s Fair in Chicago and these brilliant lights were strung up through a village that had been built inside the fair. Back then, the lights had more of a golden color and they were beautiful. Looking back on it, I realize the lights were not as bright as I remember, especially compared with the lights of today. But at the time, they seemed like a miracle to me, but terrifying as well. I realized the potential of humanity that night. You should have seen the inventions, the Ferris wheel, the Tesla Coil!”
Hard to believe that he was offering this much information willingly, I listened intently and despite myself, couldn’t help but be fascinated.
