Diary of a Blood Drinker

by Robert Arellano

  The neighborhood was quiet and all I heard were kids playing in the park down the street. As I walked up to my door I noticed that, even though the morning sunlight was uncomfortable, I was able to tolerate it as long as I keep my sunglasses on. I also realized I had left my keys in the car. I didn’t need someone questioning me about breaking into my own house. I looked different now and might not be recognized. I walked around to the back and easily forced open the door. After entering, I turned down the air conditioner and plopped down on my easy chair to reflect on what I had been through.

  In a flash I realized I could never go back to work. I could never see anyone I know. My sister and my remaining family members would not recognize me. My fellow workers would not know who I was. Even my neighbors would wonder who this stranger was that was living in my house. To everyone that knew me, I did not exist.

  I sat down at my computer and started searching for something that would give me a clue about what was happening to me. I entered key words into a search engine – blood, blood-drinking and anything else that applied to what was happening to me. What came up in my searches mostly had to do with stories about vampires. There were descriptions of unique things about vampires such as a big thirst for blood, especially human blood. It mentioned a heightened sense of sight and smell. It also mentioned a great increase in strength, and the ability to move at a much quicker speed than normal.

  Most stories mentioned that these creatures were monsters and would kill for the purpose of satisfying their thirst for blood. I read that they were nothing more than heartless wild animals. Everything that I read was a work of fiction that some author or another had made up. There was very little difference between the stories I found. After reading and learning all I could about vampires, I came to the realization that I might be one of them. I sat there with all this information staring at me not knowing what I was going to do.

  In order for me to exist, I would have to change my life drastically. The most immediate and important thing would be to figure out where I was going to find a source of food. I needed to have money but with no visible means of income. I had some savings and some equity in my house. Could I sell it? If I did, where would I live? According to my research there was never a mention of how vampires could afford to live in mansions. There was no mention of how they enjoyed all the expensive comforts that I could not afford, even if I was normal. And how could I disappear off the face of this earth without somebody noticing. No matter how I looked at this, I was in trouble.

  Worrying about it is a waste of time if this illness goes away.

  In the meantime, what I am going to do when the hunger strikes me? I feel certain that I can control it, but I need a source of food. I can’t run down to the local fast food place and order a meal. I can’t roam my neighborhood looking for pets or people that I can feed on. I have to find food far from here, but my transportation is in the middle of the desert.

  I had some bottles of juice in the refrigerator, so I decided to try drinking again. When I opened the door the smell hit me so hard I had to slam it closed and back away from it. I realized that my food and drink could not be bad every time I tried it. It had to be my heightened sense of smell that was causing me to react so violently. It had only been a few hours since I had fed, but I knew I would need to do it sooner or later. I decided that my best option was to get to the heart of town and see what I could find there. If I had to, I could go back to the stockyard and find another animal to feed on.

  I put on some clean clothes, a cap and sunglasses, and walked down to the corner. I caught a bus that went into the city. Four other people were there. There was a young couple sitting in the back, giggling, and I could smell that they were sexually excited. There was a strong odor of cheap perfume on the elderly woman reading a book. The middle-aged woman looked agitated, like she had some major problems in her life. She kept looking around and sometimes would mumble. Even though I could hear her clearly, I could not understand what she was saying.

  Which one of these people would I choose if I had to feed right now or in the near future? Who would I do the least damage to? How could I get away with it? I was not even sure that I could take blood from a human. Fortunately for them and me, I was not hungry enough. I decided that the Skid Row area downtown would be the place where I would attract the least attention. When the bus stopped there, I got off.

  I was a few blocks from where I wanted to go. As I walked I passed side-street markets. One sold fruits and vegetables. Ordinarily I would have stopped and shopped but the smell was not pleasant now. All the produce smelled like it was rotting. Next door was a meat market. I could smell the blood of the meat on display. I wondered if it would contain enough blood to sustain me. I was also concerned about how the blood from dead meat would affect me.

  As I got closer to my destination, the strong odors of urine and alcohol assaulted me at almost every doorway I passed. Around the corner I heard snoring, moaning, and sometimes crying. I had never spent time in this area, but I knew that if I were to survive, this would be the place to do it.

  As I walked, I wondered how long this condition of mine would last. Were the stories I had read true? Would I age? Would I live forever? Could I die or could I be killed? If I drank the blood of a terminally ill person, would I get that disease? I was scared, yet excited, about my new developing senses. How far would they progress?

  I was full of questions I had no answers to and I was afraid that I would not be able to control the urges that this ailment brought on. I was so afraid I would turn into a monster that would create havoc in this city if I could not control this urge to drink blood.

  Chapter 4

  I walked around for hours, experiencing all my new senses. My whole body was tingling with feelings of strength and confidence that I had never had before. I felt as if I was walking on air. The extra pounds I carried around before did not exist. I was feeling healthier than I did when I was a teenager. I was in control of my hunger but I felt myself getting weak. I walked down a dark alley and found a man sleeping on a cardboard box. I smelled sweat, urine and beer rising up from him. I bent over him and bit into his neck.

  Fear, sadness, anger, images of a young woman, a baby boy, the smell of gun powder, death, hot desert and a sense of despair; all this and more came surging into my being as I drank the blood of this man. I saw and felt a large portion of this person’s life flow into my body. At the same time I felt myself being renewed. I felt stronger than I had before; all my senses were keener than they had ever been. I also felt sad knowing what led this man to be in the position he was in now. I sensed someone running towards me, yelling at me to get away from the man. I stood and ran towards the street. I was moving so fast things around me were at a standstill. When I crossed the street it felt as if the cars were standing still and I was easily moving among them. My first feed on human blood made me realize that I was either a fortunate person or doomed for life.

  I stood across the street, watching to see what would become of what I had done. Soon, I saw a man and a woman helping the man I had just violated walk down the street. I tried to sense if there were any bad effects of the blood I drank. Other than the metallic taste in the blood, and the man’s emotions, I felt wonderful. I was confused and afraid knowing that I could drink in his life experience as well as satisfy my hunger. Was this going to happen every time I fed on a human being? Why did this not happen when I fed on the raccoon and the cow earlier? I hoped that these questions would be answered as time went on.

  I wondered why the man I had fed on did not die. I was interrupted while feeding and must have stopped before I took too much of his blood. I realized that if I was in control, I could stop before the person died. I had to get back home and start working on changing from my way of life into this lifestyle. Could I just run home? How much energy would I exert and how soon would I need to feed again? I decided to take a bus.

  Once home, I decided I had to do something about how I was goin
g to live. I could rent my house and have a small income from it, but where would I live? The best thing would be to sell it. I had a good amount of equity in it and I could contact any realtor that did not know me and just sell it. I had some easy-access money in the bank but my priority was to be close to my food source while remaining fairly invisible. I would have to move to a place where I could make some easy money and where I could move around easily without the chance of running into someone that I knew.

  I got the ball rolling on liquidating my assets. After considering the pros and cons, I decided that the best place to live would be in the town that never sleeps – Las Vegas. Until I could figure out what my capabilities were, living in downtown Las Vegas would give me access to people, money, and an address in a fairly confined area. Most important, no one would know who I was.

  This all took a few days to accomplish. I knew that, in the meantime, I could easily get victims to feed on in Skid Row. That was a long way to travel so I had to find someplace closer. I knew that some homeless people slept in the park down the street. I found myself there one night keeping an eye on a woman that would place a sleeping bag under some bushes and crawl in for the night. I waited until I could hear her sleeping. I moved close to her and attacked her. As I was drinking her blood I could feel her heartbeat. The more I drank the slower it got. When I felt that it was getting too slow, I released her and walked away. I was concentrating so deeply on her heartbeat I did not experience any emotions coming from her.

  There was nothing in the house that I needed except for a few clothes. I left instructions with my realtor to contact a salvage company and sell what was saleable and get rid of whatever could not be sold. I told her I would contact her at a later date to settle the sale of the house and its contents. While packing my few things I thought about my mode of travel. I wondered what had happened to my car. If I was lucky, it had been driven to Mexico and disappeared.

  I called the company I worked for and resigned. Fortunately, there were no questions asked and my final wages would be automatically deposited into my bank account. I walked to the corner, caught a city bus and headed to the bus terminal downtown.

  Chapter 5

  On the bus to Las Vegas I felt relaxed and reassured that I had made the right decision. I was not hungry yet and no one bothered me during the trip. The smell of perfumes and body odor was overwhelming now that my senses were so acute.

  There were many elderly women and men that were on their way to Las Vegas for a few days of fun. I could hear whisperings between couples that were doing this trip for the last time, hoping that they could afford it. Some couples were talking about what they would do if they won lots of money. Others talked about their kids and how they wished they could help them more, but they needed to take care of themselves first. A few talked about the last time they had been to Vegas and what fun they had. There were a couple of pretty young ladies that were on their way to work for a few days. They talked about how much money they could make by entertaining the right men. Even though I had my own big problems I felt sorry for many of the people on that bus.

  Wait a minute – blood-sucking vampires that feed on human beings are not supposed to have feelings. Even though I had not taken a life yet, I knew that, at some time I might get into a situation where I would not be given a choice. What the hell is going on here? Is it possible that I had to train myself to be a monster?

  The bus dropped me off at the depot in downtown. It was morning, it was hot and I knew that it would get hotter throughout the day. There were people rushing around trying to get into taxis with their luggage. Others were flagging down cars that were there to meet them. Most of them seemed to be walking towards one of the many casino hotels in the area. I started walking down the street looking for a place to stay. I found a motel that rented rooms by the hour or day or week, so I decided to check it out.

  There was a young woman behind the counter and I told her I needed a room for a couple of nights. She asked me for my I.D. and credit card. I thought for a moment and decided that I did not want anyone to know where I was. I told her that I had lost my wallet and all I had was cash. Luckily, she was okay with that and asked for my name and a $100 deposit. I made up a name and checked in. I was lucky – I would not be able to do that at a large hotel.

  I walked into the room and was hit by the strong smell of cleaners, semen and other body liquids. Now I understood why the rooms were rented on an hourly basis. The room had a vibrating bed and there were nonstop X-rated movies showing on the television. I turned down the air conditioner as cold as it would go. I lay down on the bed that had seen better days and dozed off for a while. When I woke up, I realized that I really did not need much sleep. I did get tired, especially when I was weak from hunger but, for the most part, I could go on without rest for long periods of time.

  Las Vegas would give me anonymity for the most part. There was a pool of vagrants all year round that I could feed on. I could move around and not attract any attention. Most everyone had a personal agenda and would not pay any attention to me. There was an opportunity for me to make some money to live on without any interference from any tax agency, but most of all, many people that came here could disappear without too much notice. What I needed to do now was to create an identity that no one would question and get the proper documents. Living a somewhat normal life in a normal society, did not give me the experience to do something like that. I needed to figure out how I was going to accomplish this. I also needed to get acquainted with the area to see where my next meal would come from. I was beginning to get hungry and I would soon have to feed.

  I was walking along Fremont Street downtown. It was almost like daytime because of all the lights coming from the casinos. I was trying to get used to the loud traffic noise and music coming from various establishments. It had been several years since I had been there and much had changed. The crowd seemed to be quite a bit bigger than what I remembered. There were people playing music and displaying their talents and a few walking around asking for handouts. This area was too well lit and there were too many people making it impossible for me to get the privacy I needed.

  I walked north of the area through some alleyways when I heard some yelling and whimpering of what sounded like a woman. I walked in the direction of the sound and, behind a parking structure I found a man arguing with a woman. He was beating her as she tried to get away from him.

  Before I knew it, I was on his back, biting my fangs into his throat, drinking my fill of his blood. I heard screaming and I smelled the blood of the woman that was on the floor. I felt anger and greed and other emotions coming from him as I attacked. My heart was pounding. I felt euphoria that I had never known. The realization hit me of what I had done in front of a witness. I dropped the man and I knew that I had taken too much blood and he was most likely dead. I don’t know if it was the rage of seeing him beat her or that my hunger was so great, but I was not in control.

  I looked down at her. She cowered as I put out my hand to help her. I checked on the man I had attacked and found that he was dead. I stood there for a moment wondering what I should do with her when I heard people talking and walking toward me. I quickly scooped her up and ran away from the approaching people. I moved so fast that the woman did not have a chance to scream or protest in any way. I stopped when I felt sure I was safe and checked on her. I heard her heart pounding. I could smell that she had urinated, but what I smelled most was the strong perfume and the makeup she was wearing.

  I asked her if she was okay and she nodded. She started crying and asked me what had happened. I told her that she was safe and to just sit and relax. I bought some water at a soda and water dispensing machine and brought it to her. We moved to a dark corner and continued our conversation about how she was being punished by her boyfriend for not making enough money for the evening. Then she asked how he was. I told her she would not have to worry about him anymore and I wanted to know what she had seen. As she was telling m
e that it was all very confusing, I heard people running and yelling. At a distance, sirens from either an ambulance or police car blared. I walked her out the back of the structure, gave her some money and put her in a cab.

  Too many things had gone wrong. There was a dead man. There was a witness that I hoped would not remember what had happened. Depending on what they found out about the man’s death, there would be a lot of questions asked. I did not need this. I swiftly moved away from the area and went back to my motel, trying to put everything that had happen into perspective. My life was becoming very complicated. I had yet to solve some problems when others started to pop up. I had to get my act together and start figuring out how to solve these problems. I realized that if I was hungry, I was not in total control of my actions and would be most likely to do something stupid. But for now, the hunger was satisfied and I could take time to reflect on what I had done and what I had to do next.

  I may have saved a person’s life, but in doing so, I took another. But if I rationalize this further, I saved two lives, one being my own I am beginning to wonder if this gift or curse is worth living with. It is exciting, yet my conscience is playing hell with me. I don’t like the idea that for me to survive, I need to take a life, yet I know that I don’t have to kill someone when I feed, my only concern is controlling myself and just taking what I need.

  What I needed now was to take control of my life. The next morning, I contacted my realtor and she told me we had a reasonable offer on the house. I told her to sell and to have the money wired to my bank account. I also told her to email the papers I had to sign and I would get them back to her. Retrieving the paperwork would not be an issue. All I had to do was to find a library and use one of their computers. One thing’s taken care of. Next, I need to get some kind of identity.