Vampyres, Prt 4

Hey all, this is the fourth installment of my Vampyre story. Please note that from here on in it gets rather odd and unique. The poem at the head of the chapter is by roon.

If you have any poems that you think would fit at the head of any of my chapters, please let me know through AIM, PM, comment, or guestbook. Basically every way you can contact me.

I was becoming hungry. I could feel it in my bones. I was restless, and would jump at any animals that came near. I ignored the hunger as best I could, but soon it became too much. I stood. Losing all of my rational thought, I walked under the branches of the biggest willow tree.

I waited.

At some point my eyes tingled and turned from green to a bright blood red.

I waited for a long time, never moving, never making a sound. Eventually a doe and her fawn came into the clearing. I watched as they lay down in the center, their ears flicking back and forth. The mother nuzzled her baby fondly, and I felt a pang of grief. I had never known my mother. She had died giving birth to me.

Still I waited. They fell asleep, the mother’s neck across her baby’s back. I felt some of my grief coming back. I suppressed it however, and crept over to them. They were so peaceful in their sleep, their alien features relaxed and worry-free.

Suddenly a bout of hunger came over me. I leaned over and bit the fawn on the neck. It shuddered but didn’t wake. Blood poured into my mouth. I drank it greedily. The blood tasted odd, salty yet sweet. It didn’t taste all that good to me, but I didn’t hate it.

I sucked the fawn dry, then turned to the doe. I wouldn’t allow it to feel the grief of seeing its child dead. I bit her as well. I may be a monster, but I wouldn’t be a cruel monster. After I finished I left, vanishing into the trees.

Chapter Three

Seattle

There’s a glass wall

Between myself

And I,

Which separates a

Dream from

A lie,

I stare into that

Looking glass,

Wishing

I could change places,

Wishing

I could find that magical

Wonderland,

Where I could be set free,

Where I could lose

Myself and I,

Where I could,

For once,

Be me.

Seven Hundred Years Later, Present Day.

I was sick of this. Sick of being a monster, sick of being hated and feared. I had watched quietly as the human race grew in power and knowledge; inventing things that, in my time, would have been considered witchcraft. I was amazed at how much one race could change in less than a millennium. I observed as humans waged war against one another, first with guns and knives, then with nuclear bombs and flying machines. I was there when black prejudice ruled the streets and Martin Luther King fought it. I looked on, as JFK was killed, unable to do anything to stop it, for I had made a promise to myself. I would not interfere with human affairs.

For if I did interfere, I would have been discovered, and that would have been the end of me. I had seen what humans did to the unknown. Anything that they knew nothing of was hated and feared. Humans fear death, because it is unknown. Humans fear the supernatural, because it is unknown. Humans portray the unknown as evil or dangerous, therefore nobody bothers to discover it.

Humans made movies and stories about us, all of which showed us in a bad light. As time wore on, Vampyres became vampires, and we became more and more horrific in the human mind. I was appalled at how human music had changed over the years. Current ‘music’ seemed to be people screaming into a microphone, or people simply putting their complaints into song.

Humans, in my opinion, were nothing but lazy, rude, greedy people who didn’t appreciate what they had.

I’m sure you want to know what happened to me after I fed for the first time. The Vampyre Prince and his followers chased me all over the continent. I continued evading them somehow, and after several hundred years ended up in a city called Seattle, in the state of Washington. I seemed to be safe from them there. It was a large city, its western edge spread on Elliot Bay, its eastern edge on the shores of Lake Washington. Seattle was famous for its coffee, as well as a tower that they call ‘the Seattle Space Needle’. It is six hundred and five feet high, with a rotating disc on the top. The disc has a restaurant in it, and the disc spins once an hour. I spend much of my time on top of the needle, reflecting, thinking, and looking at the view as it rotated under me.

I had become confident in my own abilities, perhaps too confident. There I stood, on the top of the needle at midnight, looking out at the city below me. I had changed my outfit long ago, and I now wore a black pair of pants with a matching long-sleeved shirt. The wind was strong up there, but not strong enough to knock me off. I stood there for a moment, wondering if what I was about to do was a good idea. I didn’t wait to make a decision, and leapt from the top of the building.

The wind whistled in my ears and pulled me this way and that, threatening to smash my body into the side of the tower, but shoving me into the opposite direction when I was just inches from the metal. The ground rushed towards me at an unexpected speed. I had just enough time to force myself into a vertical position and bend my knees. I hit the ground hard. The shock of the impact vibrated up my legs. Rather than absorb the energy, I expelled it by way of rocketing skyward, almost half of the height of the needle. I landed on the roof of the nearest building.

I laughed out loud. If there was one advantage to being a Vampyre, being able to jump from high buildings without being killed was it. I ran across the rooftops, making no sound at all. I was soon in the back alleys of the city. Like all cities, it had its glamorous side, but there was always a dark and dangerous part to even it out. This was my part of the city. I knew it like the back of my hand. This was where I fed, and where I stayed during the daylight hours. I dropped from the roof of the building I was on, landing in the dark alley without a sound. Some people came around the corner.

There were three people, all of them of average height and overweight. One of them had a beer bottle in his hand, and he was hobbling and giggling. I melted into the shadows. The group was soon only a few feet from me. The drunken man wasn’t speaking, but his giggling became louder and louder. I felt my eyes turn from green to a bright red as my hunger grew. I waited until his back was turned to me, then I slipped out behind him, silent as a whisper. Suddenly I leapt at the drunken man, knocking him to the ground. I didn’t wait for him or his friends to react, but buried my teeth in the thick sinews of his neck. His friends yelled and ran, one pulling out his cell phone. The drunken man struggled for a second, then hung limp. A moment later his beer bottle rolled down the street, clattering on the pavement. I was long gone before the police arrived.

***

Officer Larter entered the sheriff’s office cautiously. The sheriff was sitting with his back to the door. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me sir.”

The sheriff looked up. “What is it Larter?”

Larter shuffled his feet and looked down. He was new to the force, and was rather shy around the other officers. “We’ve received another report on those strange murders.” Suddenly he had the sheriff’s full and undivided attention. “What? Who?”

“A man by the name of Lenny Drog, sir. Apparently his two friends were walking him home and he was killed. We also found a photo from one of the last attacks.” Larter put a laptop on the sheriff’s desk. On the screen there was a picture. It showed a man lying on the ground, his face a chalky pallor. In the top left corner of the picture, there was a black blur. “Can you sharpen that?” The sheriff asked. Larter pressed a few keys. That was why he had been accepted onto the squad; he was good with electronics. The image showed a person with black hair running away from the scene. The sheriff stared at it. “Are you saying that a human is committing these murders?”

Larter nodded. “It would seem so.”

The sheriff took a deep breath. “I’m going to the scene of the latest attack.” Larter didn’t argue, and gave him the location of the murder. The sheriff stood and went to his police cruiser, climbing inside. He sped off. A few minutes later he arrived. There was caution tape all around the area, and there were already several officers. The sheriff got out of his car and ducked under the tape. The body was lying in the middle of the road. He squatted next to it. The man looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties. His face was frozen in an expression of terror, and pale as cracked ice. There was not a drop of blood to be seen anywhere. One of the officers came forward. “Sir?”

The sheriff looked up. “Yes?”

“We’ve had somebody examine the body, and we received the same results as the last attacks.”

The sheriff sighed. “Exactly the same?”

“Yes sir. Not a drop of blood in the entire body, and the same odd holes in the neck.” The sheriff looked at the man’s neck. Sure enough, there were two black holes about an inch apart. The sheriff shook his head. “We need to find out who is doing this, and stop them.” Then he had a thought. No, that’s impossible. He thought to himself, shaking his head. Is it? He stood. “Get me Mr. Jeyren.”

***

I was drunk.

There was a pleasant buzz in my head and limbs, and I felt giddy. I really shouldn’t have fed off of him. I thought with a giggle. I was sitting sideways in a gray loveseat.

After I had finished feeding I had made my way to where I stayed during the daytime. It had been a place where teenagers had come to hang out many years ago. It was a tight squeeze between some boards to get inside.

It was always dark inside, which was why I stayed there. One of the many things that I had discovered during my long years as an immortal beast was that Vampyres have night vision. Inside it was light enough to see.

It was furnished with a couch, a loveseat, several chairs, and a cooler. On the walls hung several pictures that I had collected over the years, and on the ceiling was a single light bulb that didn’t work. I giggled again, and began humming. I hadn’t been so happy since I knocked the Vampyre Prince off of the empire state building.