by Adams, Nancy
“Did you—was it hard for you, when you were new at—being what you are?”
“Yeh, it was—at the firsts, anyway. I was older’n you are, though, and my village had been through some bad times. When I got turned, I’d been hungry as hell for months and months, and I’d been worried about my mum and dada. See, was the savages that bedeviled us, made it hard to hunt, or gather what grew, so once I was a vampire, I went after them red devils!” She smiled. “Wasn’t hungry no more!” she said with a laugh.
“But then they ran off, and we began to feed off the townfolk. That was worst, for me, on account o’ some of ‘em were folk I knew.” She ran a hand through her long dirty-blonde hair, and then grinned and tousled my own golden locks. “But I was livin’, see, and I knew I wanted to keep on livin’, so I drank. Horace taught me how to drink without killin’, and mostly that’s what we do now, but at the firsts I was with him that turned me, and we roamed all ‘round that region, takin’ as we wanted. We killed so many, Horace come to try to teach us his ways, and Gilbert, him that turned me, he tried to drive Horace off. Horace killed him, and let me tie up with him and Mad, and I been with ‘em since!"
“Madeline was with him before you were?” I asked. “But I thought you and she were the same age?”
She waved a hand. “Oh, we are, within a score o’ years, but she’d been turned near that long before me.”
I couldn’t help liking this girl, even though I knew what she was, and that she had willingly participated in murders—including my own, even if it was aborted at the last minute, and in a terrifying way. I smiled at her, and that’s when it hit me that we were alone in the dugout.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked her.
“Well, Rudy and Jenny, they’ve gone to get you a snack. Mad and Horace are outside roamin’ around. They’ll all be back soon enough.” She played with my hair again. “How you feelin’ now, ducklin?”
“Oh, I’m...” I stopped, because I suddenly realized that, other than my belly feeling a little empty, I felt fine; no, better than fine, I felt great!
“I feel—really good.” I stretched, and checked the place where Jen had shoved a finger right through my chest under my breastbone, and into my heart. It had hurt horribly when it happened, and ever since, but now it didn’t hurt at all.
It was completely closed, healed over without even a scar.
Suddenly, I was terrified. I felt perfectly normal, and wonderful—had Jen’s blood turned me into a grue? Or was it possible, just maybe, that it had done what Horace said it couldn’t do, and healed me?
A thousand thoughts raced through my mind in a rush. I realized that I hadn’t once thought about my parents or my two younger sisters since this began. What must they be thinking? Both Floyd and I had vanished; my car was sitting at the Farm Supply, so that would tie us together. Damn, how could I be so selfish! I felt anger, and directed it at myself for being so unfeeling!
What about my job? I wondered what they’d thought when I went missing, or what my former classmates might be thinking. Would there be a big panic in the area, or could it be they thought (oh, yuck!) that Floyd and I had run off together? God, was Floyd married? I don’t think I ever knew, but the mere thought that someone might think he and I had a thing for each other was enough to tick me off even more.
And that led to thoughts of Vince. He’d been my boyfriend through a fairly large part of my high school years—he’d damn well better not think I...
What was that smell?
I suddenly forgot all of the above, because something smelled absolutely wonderful! Delicious! I heard them, then, all four of the missing vampires, and Rudy came in first with a man slung over his shoulder. He was unconscious (the man, not Rudy), and Rudy laid him down on the ground there just in front of me.
Horace came in then, and the women right behind him. He looked down at the senseless man, and then at me.
“By now,” he said, “the hunger has begun. Your wide eyes and wrinkled nose suggest that it has, as well.” He pointed at the man lying before us. “There is your first meal as a grue, your very first victim. Will you feed, little Amber?”
I sort of rolled forward, so that I was kneeling beside the man, and I noticed that he was shirtless. The scent coming off him was—it was sort of like the aroma of a well-cooked steak, or a spicy sauce; my mouth was watering like crazy, the way it always does at Thanksgiving.
I tore my eyes away from him and looked up at Horace. “Do I—How do I—I mean, do I just bite him?”
He chuckled. “I think you’ll find your teeth sharp enough and your jaw strong enough, dear girl. Just do what comes naturally to you.”
I licked my lips and leaned forward—and the guy suddenly groaned. I pulled back quickly, and stared at him as he woke up.
It hit me that I could see him perfectly, as if daylight were streaming into the little cave, but he couldn’t see anything. He held up a hand in front of his face and squinted at it, but couldn’t see it, and when I waved my own hand in front of him, he didn’t react at all.
He struggled to a sitting position and was about to start feeling around himself, so I reached out and touched his hand. He jumped.
“Who’s that?” he cried, startled—and something inside me got excited at the sound of his voice, the knowledge that he was afraid…
“I’m Amber,” I said softly. I reached for his hand again, and this time he let me take it. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Ron—Ronnie. Where are we, Amber, and why’s it so dark?”
The excitement became a thrill when I heard him say my name. “We’re in a—a sort of a cave,” I said, and squeezed his hand gently. I leaned closer, and breathed in his scent, and it was incredibly enticing.
He turned toward the sound of my voice, and reached out his free hand to touch my face. “A cave? Why are we in a cave?” he asked, and his fingers felt my cheeks, my lips, my whole face, the way a blind person might do.
“We’re here,” I began, and that thrill built up again, built inside me like a rushing wind or a powerful engine rumbling. “We’re here because—because you’re my breakfast.”
“I’m wha...?”
Jennifer
I hate it when people die because of us, and especially when it’s directly because of me. I’d been glad when Horace turned me, and took me to live with him and the others, because he made it clear from the beginning that we tried to never kill anyone. I’d been slowly dying of cancer for more than a year, and I just wasn’t ready to let go of life, so when he offered me immortality on those terms, I took it.
But sometimes things go wrong. The first time was when Horace took me to New York, to set up one of his big business deals, and we went to a nightclub to look for donors—that’s what we call our victims, blood donors, because we only take a pint or so at a time. This particular night, Horace spotted a woman he wanted, and I was cozying up a guy, when another man came in and started trouble; Horace’s girl was his wife. They were split, but he was in a rage about finding her with another man, and punched Horace in the face.
He didn’t hit the guy back, but I could tell it was going to get bad, and when a couple of other men started calling him a coward and egging the other guy on, I told Horace we should go. We got up to leave, then, but these guys wouldn’t stop. Suddenly, one of them grabbed me and tried to kiss me, and Horace just went berserk. He grabbed that man and bit his throat out, and when the blood sprayed out all over me, I—I couldn’t stop myself. I grabbed another one and bit him, began drinking deeply, while Horace took a third one and drained him dry. Everyone else began screaming, and ran out the doors, but we couldn’t stop, just couldn’t stop…
It was less than ten minutes, but there were three men dead on the floor around us. Horace took my hand and we rushed out through a back door, then went up over the walls to the rooftops, and ran across them for a mile or more.
It was the first time I’d murdered anyone, and I’ve never liked it when a
nyone died because of me. And this man, the one we’d brought for Amber, he was going to die because of what I’d done to her. So his death would be on my conscience, too.
And the death of every other victim she had in the future. Hundreds a year, thousands and thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands.
And they’d all be my fault.
Amber
And the thrill spilled over and into me and through me, and I grabbed his hand from my face and pulled him toward me. It was as if he were hollow, a balloon, he weighed nothing—but when I opened my mouth and sank my teeth into his chest and bit down, OH!
My god, it was like taking a bite of London Broil! My teeth sliced through his skin like it was paper, his hot blood ran over my tongue and lips and down my chin, a sauce more savory than anything I’d ever tasted before. I pulled back and ripped a huge chunk out of his pectoral, saw his skin ripping as I tore it away, and then he screamed, and the sound was like adding some exquisite spices. His terror, his screams, they made each bite I ripped free and chewed up and swallowed taste like something a goddess would enjoy.
A vibration started down inside me, a rush like the one you get as you roll over the top of a roller coaster. I could feel every part of my body tingling, throbbing with an almost electric charge of pure ecstasy. I ate the big muscles of his chest, and a good part of his right arm, chewing each and every bite slowly, enjoying the feel and flavor of it in my mouth, the metallic scent of his blood and flesh in my nostrils. His biceps were big, he must have worked out, but all I knew then was how unbelievably good he tasted, and how excited I was at the knowledge that I was literally eating a living, breathing, screaming human being.
I’d read, more than once, that when people witness violent death, it excites them, turns them on, and oh, my God, I was suddenly living proof! I felt like I was about to explode, I was so excited.
Then, as his cries faded to whimpers and groans, another sound caught my ear—the sound of his heart. It was beating, but he’d lost so much blood that I knew instinctively that he was about to die, and suddenly I was struck by an incredible craving. That sound, that thrub-dub, thrub-dub was calling me like a telephone ringing, and I knew I had to have his heart.
Without even thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed his face with my bloody left hand and looked into his tear-filled eyes as I plunged my right into his torn abdomen, wrapped it around his beating heart and ripped it out. I brought it instantly up to my waiting mouth and took a huge bite; dark blood sprayed and ran down my chin and over my body, but I kept my eyes locked on his.
It took me four bites to finish his heart, but I swallowed the last of it as he coughed once, and his eyes lost some indefinable light. He was dead—and at that moment, I experienced the most intense thrill I had ever known.
Madeline
I’d never have believed that watching someone else feed would make me feel so—God, I can’t even think of a word to describe it. Energized, maybe, or electrified, but no, they don’t do it justice. All I knew was that watching that creature feed was one of the most intensely exciting things I’d ever seen. It made me want to go and find a man and ravish him the same way. I didn’t want to take care to leave him alive, I wanted to drain not just his blood but his very life into my mouth.
We weren’t permitted such pleasures, of course; Horace wouldn’t allow it, under normal circumstances, so we pretended to be moral creatures, rather than the monsters the whole human race knew us to be. And it chafed me, it did, such restrictions, even if I could see the wisdom of keeping our kind as secret as possible.
I satisfied myself in other ways; there are always men, if you can call them that, who enjoy having a woman abuse them, and I was very good at finding them. Submissives, they called themselves, but I called them what they were—wimps, pussies, little mama’s-boys who needed Mummy to spank! I made do with such simple substitutes for the real pleasures our kind was made for.
But this little bitch of Jen’s was going to kill every time she fed. It wasn’t fair.
I told Horace how I felt, but he said it wasn’t her fault, that if I wanted to blame anyone, I should blame Jen. Well, maybe so, but it was still all wrong; that girl could have it all, but I couldn’t?
It wasn’t fair.
Amber
And then I was coming down, coming back to my senses. Once again, my mind was racing, as I looked down at the grisly, half-denuded rib cage of the man I had just killed—and eaten. The first thought that hit me was, Oh, God, how could I have done such a thing?
The second thought was, Well, hold him like this, then take a great big bite there—only next time I want to try legs and thighs—I wonder how they would taste—
And then I blushed. I was shocked at myself, because the only real reaction I’d had to what I’d just done was one of satisfaction; I’d done what Horace thought I could not do, and as much as I had expected it to upset me, gross me out, offend my Christian sensibilities—I felt only well-fed, and to be brutally honest, I felt proud of myself—and maybe just a little bit fat.
Okay, a lot fat, at that moment.
Now, before you judge me too harshly, let me say this: in the midst of all these rolling thoughts and emotions, I did feel a pang of regret for Ronnie, the man who’d just lost his life in order to let me have breakfast, but the only real psychological effect of my new nature that I have ever discovered is a tendency to view the remains of one of my “meals” with detachment, with a feeling of, “Oh, that’s too bad, but you sure tasted good!” There have been occasional exceptions, but I have to admit that I’ve never been so upset that I regretted my acceptance—or at least not for long.
I suppose that makes me a monster. I prey on humans, feed on their flesh and thrive on their fear, their screams, even on that look in their eyes when they at last realize that it isn’t a nightmare. It’s real, and it hurts, and they’re really, truly, absolutely going to die.
So be it. I am what I am.
Again, most of this went through my mind in only a few seconds as I knelt over Ronnie’s body and licked the last of those wonderful flavors from my lips and fingers, moaning with a strange, epicurean delight—and then I glanced up and saw the staring, astonished faces of the five vampires. They were all looking at me.
Jen spoke first. “God,” she said, “that was—incredible!” Madeline swallowed and nodded, and Simone leaned close and sniffed at me, then licked my bloody cheek. Rudy only stared.
“Amber,” said Horace, “how do you feel?”
I looked down at the dead man—it wasn’t Ronnie, anymore, just a corpse—and thought quickly again through all that had already gone through my mind, then looked Horace eye-to-eye.
“I guess I feel like a grue,” I said, then patted and rubbed my bulging belly. “A very full grue.”
“And—emotionally?” He raised an eyebrow at me.
I pursed my lips and gave it one more hard think-through. “Well—I think that, as long as it isn’t someone I know, I’ll be okay—but I’m not sure what to do now...”
Horace nodded. “Then that is what we must discuss,” he said, “as soon as you clean up after yourself.”
I looked at the corpse again. “Um, okay—how?”
Horace grinned at me. “I’m teasing you. Normally you’d bury it, or hide it; this time, however, you can leave it where it is. We’re done with this place, so we’ll just cave it in on him. If he’s ever discovered, it will look like an animal attack, but you’re covered in blood and gore...” He pointed off to what I thought was the east. “There’s a lake over there, about a half mile. We’ll stop there so you can rinse off, and get you some fresh clothes later tonight. Come on, then.”
Chapter Four
Amber
Horace led the way out, with me following first. When we all got out, I heard a noise behind me and looked back to see Rudy leap up onto the little hillock into which the dugout had been cut. He yanked out a small four-inch tree—four inches thick, I mean—and used it
s rooted end to beat in the hill until it collapsed, then shoved the roots back into the resulting pile of dirt. He jumped clear, and landed beside us.
He grinned. “Think you can keep up?” he asked me, and they all took off running.
The night was bright, I thought, as bright as day, so I ran after them, sure I’d be left behind in a second or two—but the faster I ran, the more powerful my legs felt to me. It wasn’t like you see in movies, when someone runs super-fast, their legs wind-milling so fast you can’t see them. It’s more—well, my legs were so much stronger, so much more powerful, that every step was more of a leap, so that I covered ground the way a gazelle does. Not just steps, but more like bounds, and though I was moving my legs as fast as I did when I ran normally, each step was like twenty normal ones, and shortly I was even with Jen. She grinned at me, and ran faster.
So I passed her up. A few seconds later, I caught Horace, who was in the lead. He laughed out loud. “It’s bloody awesome, isn’t it? The power, the strength, the bloody endurance? And they’re but the beginning!”
I had noticed that I was breathing normally, and was curious—I’d never been much of a runner, but it didn’t really surprise me. I’d seen the vampires run for hours the night before, and now I was something similar to them myself. Horace had said that I’d be even stronger than them, and that I’d have some special powers. I was intrigued...
I tested it, pushed myself only a little more and easily moved ahead. Horace laughed again, and caught me, but when I tried again I left him behind without effort. I slowed until we were all close together again, and I saw Jen and Simone smiling at me. I smiled back.
We got to the water, and I was surprised when they all jumped in. They stayed near the edge and splashed around, rinsing and scrubbing off the dirt and specks of blood I’d splattered them with. They’d kicked off their shoes, so I followed suit.