by Bryan Smith
And now the woman was scowling at him, a mixture of alarm, disgust, and disdain flashing in her eyes.
David stroked his chin and continued to ogle the blonde woman. All he could think of was how much he’d love to feel those giant tits crushed against his chest. Only thing better would be the subsequent feel of her mangled flesh sliding down his gullet followed by the warm rush of her blood.
A blur passed before David’s eyes. He heard a loud snap, followed by an agonized cry. The gun went spinning across the room. It banged against a closet door and dropped to the carpeted floor with a quiet thump. And now the blonde woman’s right wrist was broken and hanging at an obscenely unnatural angle. She scooted backward in the bed, cradled her mangled limb against her chest, and screamed. The man tumbled sideways, falling prone on the far side of the bed. He gaped at the sight of his woman’s broken wrist. His gaze jumped from Narcisa to David and back again, his face a study in wide-eyed, uncomprehending horror. He was a classically handsome type, with a chiseled jaw, piercing blue eyes, and short, spiky hair. The good looks and the athletic physique made him the kind of guy David would normally envy and even kind of hate. David knew he was okay-looking enough in his own right, but nowhere near this dude’s league. This was the kind of guy who would always have whatever he wanted. Nice clothes, nice house, nice car, good job, and, of course, the hottest girl around. And he would certainly have more than enough scratch to buy that girl the flashiest, most expensive engagement ring possible, the kind David had been so desperate to give Janine.
Janine. Jesus.
It was the first he’d thought of her since being released from the chains. Thinking of her was like a slap in the face. A hard one. The terrified man’s expression changed, became almost hopeful. Which was ridiculous. He was going to die. How could he not know that? But Janine’s abrupt intrusion into David’s thoughts must have caused his face to convey doubt about what he was doing. And, in fact, it did stir a mild flicker of conscience. He experienced a dizzying moment of surreality, during which it struck him as insanely absurd that he was a participant in an apparent torture-murder scenario. The sensation deepened as he imagined what Janine would think if she could see him now.
Mr. GQ slithered off the bed, stood erect, and backed up until he was against the wall. He glanced nervously to his left, where the bedroom door stood open. Any moment now he’d be making a dash for it.
David gave his head a hard shake, clearing it—at least temporarily—of thoughts of Janine. A nasty, smirking half-smile twisted one side of his face. “Not thinking of making a run for it, are you?”
The man was shaking. Tears leaked from his eyes. “Please. You don’t want to do this. I know it…I—”
“You don’t know shit.”
The man must have read something else in his expression now, because he dropped any further pleas for mercy and made an abrupt break for the door. David hurried after him, tackling him in the hallway. He was laughing as he took the man down, an evil, nasty madman’s cackle. He’d never moved so fast when he was alive. The man was screaming and thrashing, but David held him down easily, savoring the feel of the struggling thing beneath him. That’s what humans were to him now. Things. And this son of a bitch certainly wasn’t his superior in any way that counted at this point. His charmed life was over. No amount of money or charisma could save him from his fate.
David dragged the guy back through the open doorway and flung him across the bedroom. One problem. He’d held onto the guy’s wrist too tightly and his arm came off at the socket. A bright arc of blood spattered the bed, the ceiling, Narcisa, and the woman with the broken wrist as the man’s body flew through the air and smashed against the far wall. Narcisa was off the bed in an instant, eager to drink deeply from the man’s severed arteries before he could bleed out. Her mouth opened and elongated before clamping over the wound. The man’s head thumped back against the wall and his eyes glazed over as Narcisa fed, quickly draining the life from him.
The woman’s screaming was getting louder and shriller. She sounded like a goddamned air raid siren. Time to put a stop to that. David didn’t know where this house was or how close it was to its nearest neighbor, but it couldn’t be a good idea to let that continue. He jumped on the bed and pounced on her, slapping a hand over her mouth. Her eyes bulged from their sockets as she continued to scream against his palm, which effectively muffled the shrill sounds. He positioned himself comfortably atop her, utilizing his vampire’s strength to pin her in place, then he used his free hand to grip her broken wrist and twist it even further out of shape. He heard a grinding sound. Bones twisting and cracking. But he was careful not to use too much force. He wanted to hurt her, but he didn’t want her hand to snap off. He wasn’t ready to make her bleed out just yet. He wanted this to last.
An image of Janine’s face abruptly appeared in his head..
His body abruptly went rigid.
I’m a monster. Oh, Jesus, I’ve become a fucking monster.
For a single flashing second, he felt like crying. But the pang of conscience was even shorter-lived this time. He made a mental note to quiz Narcisa later regarding how long he could expect to deal with these lingering traces of departed humanity. They were a serious drag as they were happening and were getting in the way of his fun. Just as her man had done, the woman detected the brief flicker of doubt by looking in his eyes. She stopped struggling.
Which was awfully considerate of her.
David’s mouth snapped open, jaw unhinging as his teeth sharpened and lengthened. The woman’s eyes went wide again. David tore a side of her slender throat open and clamped his mouth over the ragged hole. A hot gusher of blood filled his mouth and he drank deeply of it, greedily, as if he could never get enough. Which, come to think of it, was probably true. He drank and drank, keeping at it as the woman’s body went still beneath him, until after she was dead and he’d suctioned out the very last drop. Sated, he pushed himself away from her and sat back on the bed, resting his head against the headboard. He felt warmer than he’d felt since the change. There wasn’t the slightest trace of a chill. He smiled and savored the feeling, knowing it wouldn’t last nearly long enough.
Narcisa crawled onto the bed, slithered over to him and straddled him. Her voice was a husky, hot whisper against his ear as she leaned into him, brushing his chest with her erect nipples.
“Fuck me.”
David smiled. “Mmm…okay.”
She mounted him, guiding his rigid cock up inside her wet center. Within a few moments, there was screaming in the room again. More than once as their lovemaking continued, David snuck glances at the dead woman next to him.
Stared at her unmoving eyes.
It made it better.
* * *
They fucked another time before leaving the house, this time in the shower with the water cranked to its hottest temperature. The scalding water sluiced the blood from their bodies as they writhed against each other and hungrily clawed at one another. Sharpened nails opened gouges in their flesh that wept blood but healed instantly. It was the most intense sex David had ever experienced and as it was happening he wished it would never end. While it was happening, Janine didn’t exist. Nothing mattered but Narcisa and this incredible experience they were sharing.
But it did end and, inevitably, thoughts of Janine returned.
And this time they didn’t abate instantly.
They were back in the bedroom now, sifting through the dead couple’s respective wardrobes in search of suitable clothing. The blonde’s clothes were a little big for Narcisa, who was shorter and more slightly built, but the difference wasn’t so pronounced that she couldn’t wear them. David and the dead man were the same approximate height, but Mr. One Arm had been thinner and his clothes were a snug fit. However, they would do until he found more appropriate attire.
Narcisa watched him as he sat on the edge of the bed and tried on a selection of the dead man’s shoes. “You’re thinking about her.”
<
br /> David grunted. “Huh. You can still read my thoughts, even though I’m like you now, but I can’t read yours.”
“I’m many hundreds of years older than you. It will be a long while before you are able to read anyone’s thoughts, let alone mine.” She pursed her lips. “And you’re evading the question.”
Another grunt. “I wasn’t aware there was a question. Sounded like a statement to me.” The athletic shoes he’d slipped on were too small. He tossed them aside and tried on a pair of hiking shoes, brown Timberlands. “But, yeah, you’re right. I can’t seem to keep her out of my head. She just keeps popping back in. It bugs the shit out of me.”
“Oh?”
Narcisa’s tone was neutral, but David knew he had to tread carefully here. She’d already made it abundantly clear there could be no room in his life for anyone other than her. Which, now that he was able to think about it with a clearer head, was sort of strange, considering she’d only set eyes on him for the first time less than a day ago.
Unless—
He frowned.
Unless that wasn’t the case at all. It really didn’t make sense that she’d focused on him so intently after chancing upon him randomly. Otherwise he’d be just another dead body piled atop a towering mountain of carcasses in her secret place.
“I’ve been watching you for months.”
Oops.
Mind reader. Right. He was really going to have to stay cognizant of that. “Um…”
She shook her head. “Never mind that now. You were saying how it bothers you that you keep thinking of the cunt you’d been wasting your time with.”
“Well…I don’t think I phrased it quite that way, but…yeah.”
She was staring at him very intently now. It was hard not to squirm under the power of that gaze. It took every shred of nerve he possessed not to look away. “There is a solution to this problem.”
The Timberlands were a more acceptable fit. Still loose around the toes, but better. He stood up. “And what would that be?”
She smiled. “We cut out the problem at its root. We go see this cunt and…” The smile broadened. “We tear her to pieces and drink her blood together.”
“I see.”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“I…” David fidgeted, shifted his weight from one leg to another. She would know if he lied. That was the problem. He sighed. “I honestly don’t know.”
Narcisa moved a few steps closer to him. “This does not make me happy, David. You may require further discipline. Would you care to spend more time in chains?”
He was trembling now. As much as the thought of killing Janine troubled him—and he was surprised to discover it troubled him immensely—the thought of being deprived of blood again bothered him more. “No. I’ll do whatever you say. Whatever’s…necessary. I trust you. If you think this is how I’ll get past this problem, then that’s what we’ll do.”
She laughed. “Of course we’ll kill her, David. I wasn’t seeking your approval. Killing the cunt has been on the agenda from the beginning. Of course, I could’ve done it already, but it’s important to me that we kill her together. It’s the only way we can bond in the way I want. And it’s the only way I could come to truly trust you.”
David nodded. “I understand.”
The fucked up thing was that he did understand.
Completely.
8: OLD TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
On the freeway now, heading into the suburbs of Atlanta. It was past midnight and the traffic heading out of the city wasn’t too heavy. Narcisa sat behind the wheel of the BMW Z4 convertible, one hand on the wheel with the stiff wind blowing her midnight-black hair straight back. The car belonged to the blonde woman they had killed. The blonde woman he had killed, David reminded himself. That one was solely on him. It was still hard to think of himself that way. As a killer. But the oddness of it didn’t make it any less true. He’d spent a few moments riffling through the dead woman’s purse prior to their departure from the house. Her name had been Anna Cooper. According to her Georgia driver’s license, she’d been barely twenty six years old at the time of her death, having had a birthday just a week earlier.
Her license photo showed a young woman with a radiant smile. A winning smile. He’d never seen anyone look so good in their driver’s license photo. It was almost kind of nauseating. Not enough so to confirm her as deserving of a horrible death, of course, but it did make him feel somewhat better about it, albeit in a really twisted way.
“Humans don’t deserve your sympathy.”
David flinched. He’d been lost in his own thoughts, but now he glanced over at Narcisa. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes locked on the road.
“It’s not sympathy. Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
He shrugged. “What do you expect? I’m new to this whole killing thing.” He recalled the sense of sick exhilaration he’d felt as he’d played with the dying woman’s broken wrist. “It’s definitely not sympathy, at least not more than a mild echo of it. I enjoyed killing her. I can’t deny that. And yet there’s this nagging little trace of a conscience now and then. It’s that remnant of humanity that makes me curious, that makes me need to understand what I’ve taken out of the world.”
Narcisa’s head inclined slightly forward, a noncommittal half-nod. “I vaguely recall similar feelings when I was turned, but that’s been so long ago now.”
He stared at her for a long, silent moment, “So…how long ago, exactly, was that?”
“Too long ago to make sense to you, David. So long ago we are almost literally from different worlds.”
David frowned. “Then why—”
She eased the BMW into the right lane and hit the blinker switch. David glanced to his right and saw a green exit sign looming just ahead.
“Um…what are we doing?”
“Stopping. Obviously.”
He watched the green exit sign whiz by, his brow furrowing as the BMW’s speed began to decrease. “Reason?”
She smiled without looking at him. “There’s an all-night diner near here. Quaint little place. I…” She chuckled. “…dined there some time ago.”
The car slowed some more, leaving the highway as its tires kissed the exit ramp, a gray loop that curled around behind a stand of tall trees. David saw bright neon through the trees. The diner, he assumed. “When you say you ‘dined’ there…”
“I slaughtered a half-dozen so-called innocents. This was before your time, back in the 1970s. I haven’t been back since.”
“And you’re returning now…why?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Nostalgia. A wistful desire to revisit the site of fond memories. We’re in a little suburb called Alpharetta. Unimaginative press types dubbed my previous visit here ‘The Alpharetta Diner Massacre’.”
David grunted. “I suppose you’re planning a belated encore performance.”
“Of course.”
“How many people are we gonna kill tonight?”
“Many. Very, very many.” She glanced at him. “Does that trouble you?”
“Killing doesn’t trouble me. Possibly getting caught does. Surely we’ve each had enough blood tonight to last us a while. Doesn’t it make sense to strike fast one time, like we did back there at that house, then lie low for a while?”
A broad smile spread across Narcisa’s face as she tossed her head back and laughed without any of her usual reservation. Then she looked at David, a big smile still stretched across her face (though he noticed there was no hint of mirth in her pitiless eyes). “You’re still thinking like a human. Getting caught isn’t a concern.” She reached out and touched his face, her fingertips tracking a cool path along his jawline. “New vampires are so adorable.”
David frowned. “Do you make new ones often?”
“Depends on your definition of ‘often’. I am surpassingly old. I last turned a human a decade ago. She was a disaster. An unruly, rebellious, insolent child.”
>
“What happened to her?”
“I destroyed her.”
David drew in a slow, shuddery breath and carefully released it. “Oh. I see.”
The BMW pulled into the diner’s mostly empty lot. Narcisa parked the car behind a big Ford F-150. She turned the engine off, twirled the keyring around a finger, and patted him once on the cheek. “Oh, don’t worry. You’re nothing like her. You’re far more mature, for one thing. That’s why I watched you for so long before drawing you in. I needed to be certain you were the one for me.”
David felt uncomfortable again. He shifted in his seat, stealing quick glances at the brightly lit diner as he fidgeted beneath Narcisa’s steady gaze. “How did you…”
“Choose you?”
“Yeah.”
“Fate. You caught my eye one day several months ago while I was out people-hunting in the same mall where you were shopping for the cunt’s engagement ring. That day you were engaged in something marginally more sensible.”
David frowned and scratched his chin. “I was?”
She nodded. “You purchased a large television from an electronics store.”
“Huh. Funny. I remember having the strangest feeling that day, as if someone was watching me. I kept looking around, trying to figure out who it was eyeballing me.” He laughed once, a humorless sound. “I chalked it up to paranoia. I guess I should’ve trusted my instincts.”
Narcisa shrugged. “Sometimes they really are out to get you, as the saying goes. The people I track only see me if I wish them to. That day I elected to stay invisible. So I could study you. And that’s what I did, David. I followed you everywhere. Saw how you lived your life. Came to know all the things you cared about. By the time I decided to draw you in, I knew you inside and out. And I liked what I’d discovered. I knew I had to have you, had to make you mine. Forever.”