“There Are Far Worse Things Awaiting Man Than Death” –Dracula (1931)
I stood in my small kitchen, holding the phone to my ear, only half listening to Serenla blather on about her newest obsession: Atmosphere, an exclusive club in a warehouse along the Hudson. She was there now, in fact, and the beat of the music threatened to give me a headache right through the phone.
“So yeah, it’s like the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Serenla shouted into her cell, over the pulsating noise of the music.
I rolled my eyes. That was what she had said about her new car, and that had ended up bent in half around a fire hydrant.
“Alright, I’ll be down there in like a half hour,” I replied into my blazing red cordless phone.
“See ya there,” she shouted back.
We hung up. I moved to my window and looked out over a snow blanketed New York. The snow still fell in decently sized flakes, dancing to the ground in a seemingly endless waltz. I turned away from the picturesque scene to change in to club- appropriate clothes. I highly doubted they would let a young woman in with ripped jeans and an old sweatshirt over an equally ancient T-shirt. I pulled them off quickly, feeling the winter chill run down my skin like a lover’s caress. I slid into skinny jeans, black thigh-high boots, and a revealing shirt, all of which were presents from Serenla. She seemed to think that I should “have more fun.”
I sighed as I walked over to my mirror. Standing there was a young woman with flame red hair and blue eyes. She reached up and adjusted her shirt so that it didn’t look like everything was going to spill out. I shook my head and the woman in the mirror returned the gesture. She sighed and then walked away.
“What is the world coming to?” I said to myself as I grabbed my coat from the hook on the wall and shrugged it on.
As I opened the door, I picked up my fedora from the small end table and shoved it on my head. The door clicked shut behind me. I check to make sure it had locked, jiggling the door in the frame while turning the knob. Satisfied, I started outside.
Out on the snowy street two men stood close to a fire burning in a barrel. Neither of them paid any visible attention as I passed. Only the dog standing there watched me with chocolate brown eyes, contemplating bothering me for food. I broke eye contact with the animal and kept walking.
I turned the corner onto an empty street, my feet crunching on the snow-covered sidewalk. It was speckled with spots of pavement as the salt started to have an effect. My breath misted in the air, a temporary sign of my passing. I fancied that I heard another set of crunching footsteps following mine, and turned around to quell my paranoia. Ever since my roommate had moved to California, I had plenty of that.
There was nothing but empty street behind me.
“Told you so, you loser,” I muttered to myself.
I began walking again, a bit faster, fearing that my shenanigans would make me late. I stuck my hands into my pockets, having forgotten my gloves. The snow brushed my face and stuck to the wool of my coat.
This time I knew I heard footsteps, because they no longer followed the tempo of my own. I spun around.
Once again, I found the street empty. The misty clouds coming form my mouth began to come faster. I walked back the way I had come, following my footprints with my eyes. About fifteen steps back, the prints looked somehow different. I put my right foot into one of them and came to a startling realization. The print was about two inches longer than my shoe and differently shaped. Someone else had been walking in my footsteps. I looked around fearfully, but again saw no one.
The only possible place for someone to hide would be the dark alley between two buildings across the street. It would certainly be possible to hide there, but not to reach it from where I was standing without leaving a single print in the snow on the street. I jumped as a snowplow turned the corner. It blocked my view of the alley as it passed, and I relaxed a bit. But when the plow disappeared down the road, and the alley appeared in my sight again, I was struck with a strange and powerful mixture of fear and curiosity.
It was this force that propelled me across the newly plowed street, to stand in front of the alley’s mouth. The darkness yawned, the falling snow vanishing into blackness.
“Hello,” I murmured, tentatively looking around me.
The darkness did not respond. I stepped closer, trying to see what this black curtain could be concealing. No matter how much I strained my eyes, the bleak streetlights were still unable to illuminate the area any more. Giving up, I stepped back.
I hit something solid with my back. My breath was cut short. I turned ever so slowly, fearing what could be there. My mind ran wild with images of all the monstrous creatures that have ever haunted my dreams and reality.
It was simply a man, a bit pale, but not unusually so for wintertime in New York. I could breathe again and a tension in my back relaxed.
“Sorry about that, mister,” I smiled softly at him.
He smiled back and too late I became conscious of my mistake. His eyeteeth were tiny fangs, which looked razor sharp. I went to step back and he moved forward, much faster than I, simultaneously pushing me into the darkness of the alley and trapping me in his arms. My fedora fell to the ground.
Before I could even begin to struggle free of the vampire man, he slid his fangs into my throat, producing a faintness I had only experienced through Serenla’s drug experiments. I lost my blood slowly through those holes in my throat and in turn my life. Betrayed by my dark brother, the vampire man, I faded, faded away. A gossamer curtain spread itself over my sight and mind, beautifully accenting the falling snow.
Finished, the vampire man let me fall to the earth, my body mimicking the descent of the snow. The snow’s waltz now celebrated my destruction in a grim danse macabre. I hit the ground, my hair spreading out in an explosion of fire, amid the paleness of the snow. Snow alighted on my face, drawing out what little warmth I had left. A few drops of my red, red blood fell from the vampire man’s lips, cavorting with the snowflakes until it fell onto my jacket, where it was lost to the patternless black wool. I gazed into the window of sky in the box the roofs made above me. The darkness began to consume the sky and plummeting snow. As it ate my mind, I heard the familiar ring of my cell and faintly felt the vampire man take it out of my pocket.
“Hello,” the vampire man said as I was eaten by shades and shadows, “No, she can’t talk right now.”
