by Dani April
After last night with Derrick, she was starting to believe she was a monster. If he hadn’t stopped her when he did, she wasn’t for sure what would have happened. Would she have killed him? She had no answer to that question, just like she had no answer to other questions. Why was she a vampire? How had she become a vampire? Who had made her a vampire? And why had they left her alone in the world to suffer like this?
She hadn’t meant Derrick any harm last night. Her passion had just gotten the better of her. Even though he wasn’t the man she had been searching for, she thought she probably could have grown to care for him. But vampires were dangerous creatures. They were killers. And that’s exactly what she was now. She was a vampire.
From her seated position on the floor, she looked across the room beneath a lab table in the center. There was a safe under there. That was the last place in the lab she hadn’t checked. She scrambled across the floor and pulled out her ring of keys. Her hands were shaking as she tried a half dozen on the lock, and none of them fit.
When she came to the last key on the ring, she was grateful when it fit neatly in the lock and turned it over smoothly, opening the door to the small refrigerated safe. She was further relieved when she saw the dark sacks of blood hanging from a rack in the back of the refrigerator. All she had to do was to take a couple, and it would last her for the month. The hospital would never miss them, and they would keep her alive.
Suddenly the overhead lights were flipped on, and a man was stepping inside the lab with her.
“What the hell are you doing in here, nurse?”
She had been caught red-handed.
Chapter Six
Still on her hands and knees, Marty scrambled back across the floor of the lab. The man walked around one of the specimen tables and loomed above her. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, and then she recognized who the man was. His name was Barry, and he was part of the night maintenance crew. He was a young guy in his early twenties, and as she looked up at him, she realized he was just as frightened by what he had walked in on as she was of his intrusion.
“They don’t keep any drugs in this lab,” he told her.
“I’m not looking for drugs,” she said and was offended by his suggestion. “What makes you think I would steal drugs from my own hospital?”
She was still clutching the bags of blood between her fingers. He nodded down at the evidence. “Why would you want to steal that?”
She began to shoot back at him and then was silent. She was at a loss for words. Why would anyone care about the yucky fluid contained inside the bags she was holding?
“I need this. It’s a matter of life and death to me.”
“If somebody needs a transfusion that bad, I think they ought to come into the hospital.”
“It’s not for a transfusion.”
“That’s all those bags are good for.”
Marty picked herself up off the floor and brushed herself off. She was lucky it was only Barry who had found her. If it had been anyone with authority, she would be in serious trouble now.
“What are you doing in here, Barry?”
“I came in here to change the florescent lightbulb in the ceiling up there.”
That made sense since it was part of his job. Maybe he had not come in looking for a blood thief. She reached over to the table where her purse was resting. She opened it up and slipped the two blood bags inside. Then she looked back up at him for his reaction.
“You could get into a lot of trouble for that, Marty.”
“Are you going to tell anyone?”
He thought about it for a moment. He seemed to be debating with himself. “No. I won’t tell on you. I like you, Marty. But you’ve always seemed lost and out of place to me. I think you’re kind of a misfit just like I am. I suppose that’s why I like you.”
“Thank you.” She reached up to him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Well, I guess I should be going and let you change that lightbulb before we both get into trouble.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Before she left she turned back to him. He was still staring after her. She met his gaze and saw his thoughts. “I wish I was the type of guy to use this situation to my advantage. She is so hot. I’d like to throw her down on that table and fuck her right now.”
She smiled and reconsidered him. Though his thoughts were crude, Marty felt they were also honest and sweet in their own way. She regarded his body under the tight fitting T-shirt and jeans he wore. He was definitely cute. The muscles of his lean body called to her, and the blood she carried in her purse had never seemed more distasteful.
“What time do you get off work, Barry?”
“About three or four, just whatever time I finish up.”
“My shift ends at four. Tonight’s payday…have you got anything you want to do with your check?”
“Just fill my truck up with gas.”
“Why don’t you go out with me?”
“You mean at four in the morning?”
“Yes. I’m a night person. How about you?”
He looked down at the tool belt around his tight waist. “Nurses generally don’t go out with guys like me.”
“I’m not a normal nurse. But I guess you already figured that out about me. You’re right about me being a misfit. Maybe the two of us are alike.”
“Yes, I can tell.” He fumbled absently with a tool hanging off his belt. His muscles rippled under the shirt. “Maybe you’ll even tell me who needs the blood transfusion.”
“I’ll tell you everything, Barry. At least everything I know. Wait for me at the south entrance at four.”
“It’s a date.” He gave her a crocked grin, and she turned and hurried out of the room before she spied anymore of his inappropriate thoughts regarding the usage of her body.
* * * *
Back at her station, Marty passed a restless night waiting for her shift to be finished. It was a slow night on her floor and provided her time to bring up the web browser of her computer. Fortunately, the hospital had not installed a firewall to block access to outside websites. Marty used the Internet for all the help it could provide in her search for her past.
She had been surfing through dozens of sites in the last year devoted to the paranormal. Most of them were just fiction fans that had set up websites to popular movies or TV shows, but a few seemed to provide more insight. She had met one online contact in particular who seemed to sympathize with her plight, and, more importantly, seemed to believe her story.
Tonight when she checked her e-mail, she saw there was a reply in her in-box from her paranormal contact on the web. When she had contacted them last, she had basically come clean with them and told them the truth surrounding her circumstances. Double clicking to open the e-mail, she held her breath for what their response would be to her crazy tale.
Hello Marty,
Thank you for sharing your story with me. Please rest assured that I believe what you had to tell me. I understand you must be going through hell right now. Please don’t feel that you are alone in your plight. There are others with your condition living out in the world. Though few in number, they do indeed exist.
Amnesia is actually a common symptom for the newly made. What you describe to me in your correspondence sounds perfectly natural. The transformation from human is a difficult and painful one for both the body and the mind. Your newly acquired powers are going to be slow to manifest themselves, and will be extremely weak at first. Don’t worry. In the years to follow, they will grow with your age.
Your hunger will be overpowering at this early stage. No matter what you eat, you will never seem to get enough. You will always be left with an unhealthy appetite and wanting more. This is the biggest danger you face at present. You must eat to sustain your own existence, but if you overfeed, you can very easily take the life of a human being in the process. It will be a balancing act for some time to come.
What troubles me about your particular situation the most is that yo
ur maker should be there with you to guide you through this very difficult time. In your last e-mail, you asked me if I knew who this man might be. Unfortunately I can shed no light on his whereabouts or identity. I can only hope for your sake that he will resurface in your life shortly before things become more out of control. If I were you, I would continue to exhaust all efforts to find him, as he will hold the key to both recovering your memory and learning to survive in your new life. I will make discreet inquiries on my side and alert you forthwith should any information on this man come to light.
At this point, you may be asking yourself why I have chosen to believe your story when doubtless there have been many others who thought you were insane after hearing your tale. The reason for my trust is simple. I was once a vampire myself as you are today.
Yours truly,
Peter von North
Marty thought she could feel her heart beating faster in her chest as she read the words of her online friend. Reading this e-mail had made her feel better than anything had in a long while. There were, indeed, other vampires out there in the world living among the humans just as she was doing now. Her maker was one of them.
That was the key to unlocking the mystery. She had to find her maker.
Chapter Seven
At five minutes after four that morning, Marty crawled into Barry’s truck. He shut the door behind her. The hospital lot they were parked in was dark, but Marty had no trouble seeing around the interior of the old pickup truck.
There were clothes strewn around the seats. The floor was littered with empty cans of soda and plastic coffee cups. The back of the truck was packed with bags of more clothes and other personal items belonging to the hospital handyman. When she reached out to touch the dashboard, there was a fine layer of dust accumulation.
“Sorry about how my truck looks,” Barry said as he climbed in next to her.
“That’s okay. You should see my house. I guess neither of us are very good housekeepers.”
“I’ve lived in this old truck ever since I got kicked out of the place I was staying at last month.” He looked down, clearly embarrassed by his plight. “Now that I’ve got regular working hours at the hospital, I’m going to try and rent a room somewhere.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Barry. Believe me, I’ve got a lot of problems in my life, too. If the only problem I had was finding a place to live, I’d be doing okay.”
Barry nodded. “So where do you want to go? There aren’t a lot of places open at this hour.”
“I was hoping you could take me to get my paycheck cashed.”
“Right now? At four in the morning?”
“I know an all-night moneylending place downtown. They’ll cash my paycheck for me. They only withhold ten percent.”
“Don’t you have a bank account?” He looked at her suspiciously. “Nurses make a decent wage. Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just start up an account in the morning when the bank opens?”
“Not for me.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t go to the bank or anywhere else in the morning.”
“And the reason is?”
There was a long moment of silence in the truck. Marty didn’t allow herself to breathe. She knew this moment would arrive. She had to force herself to be honest. Barry was waiting for her to answer.
“If I tell you something crazy, will you promise to believe me and not judge me?”
He was almost ready to open the door and get out of the truck. “Look here, if you’re wanted by the police or something like that, I can’t afford to get involved with you. I mean, I really like you, Marty. We’ve been friends at work and all. But I’m trying to get my life straightened out, and I can’t get involved with anything crazy.”
“I’m not wanted by the police.” Marty took a deep breath. “I’m a vampire.”
He began laughing but started the engine of his truck anyway. He clearly did not believe her, and she couldn’t really say that she blamed him. “Okay, that’s cool. That would explain the blood I saw you swiping from the lab earlier.”
“Yes, that’s right. I need blood to stay alive just like you need food.” She knew she still had a long way to go to convince him of her sincerity. He was still just laughing at her.
He put the truck in reverse and then drove as they started out into the night. “So where is this payday loan joint anyway?”
She gave him directions.
* * * *
Marty got her payroll check cashed, and then Barry stopped off at the drive-through window of an all-night fast-food place and got a basket of buffalo wings and barbecue sauce. Marty paid for it since he had no cash. Then he drove her back to her house. She checked her watch, something she always did now, so on guard to the sunrise was she. It was still before five. They would have time.
“Come on in,” she invited him.
“Sure you don’t want any of these?” he asked her, stuffing his mouth with another wing. “They’re out of this world.”
“I can’t eat your food.”
Inside the house, she lit candles for them. Barry cleaned off a spot on the coffee table in the living room and began devouring his meal. It made Marty hungry to watch him eat, but of course, her hunger was not for chicken.
“This looks like a house a vampire would live in.” Barry was making another joke. He still did not believe she had a very serious problem.
She sat down across from him in an old rocking chair. “I want to be honest with you about everything,” she told him. “You took a risk coming here with me tonight. I like you, and I don’t want to tell you any lies about me.”
“I like you, too, Marty.”
“I am a vampire, Barry. In the daytime when the sun rises, I sleep beneath the floorboards just over there in that corner. I’ve been stealing blood from the hospital to keep myself alive. But recently that hasn’t been enough for me, and I feel myself growing weak. I could barely finish my shift tonight, I was so tired.”
He set aside his food and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. He was starting to seriously regard her words for the first time. She had his attention now at last.
“I think if I don’t have some real food—I mean real vampire food—soon, I am going to die. I don’t have anyone. Nobody knows about my secret. To be honest with you, I am more scared than I ever thought was possible.”
“You’re for real about this aren’t you?”
“One hundred percent.”
“How long have you been a vampire?”
She lowered her head into her hands. “I don’t know. I have amnesia. I don’t have any memory of being turned into a vampire. All I remember is my life as a human. That life was spent mostly right here in this house with my dad.”
Barry looked around at the old, candlelit room they were sitting in. “Well, Marty,” he began, “it doesn’t look like anyone has lived in this house in many years.”
“I’ve been here,” she countered. “But I haven’t exactly been living here.”
“How old are you, Marty?”
She swallowed hard. “I think I’m almost seventy years old.”
He grinned. “You look in real good shape for a seventy-year-old lady.” Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Hell, I always did have a thing for older women.” He was still struggling to believe what she’d told him, but as she spoke with him more, he was getting closer to belief.
“I only have memory of my first twenty-four years up until just before I became a vampire. After that there is nothing. I don’t know how I got to be like this or who made me what I now am. Except that recently things have started to become clearer.” She caught his gaze in the flickering light. “Last night I picked up a man at the concert. I brought him back here for sex. He was a total stranger.”
“Did you tell him about…you know, your problem?”
“No. I wasn’t honest with him. He thought I was a monster and ran out of my bedroom.” She got up and went to sit next to him on the cou
ch. “That’s why I’m telling you all of this. If we go to bed tonight, I want you to know why I am taking you there.”
He looked at her. She could read a mix of lust and confusion behind his eyes. “Why, Marty?” he asked her.
“I don’t just want to have sex with you…I want to drink your blood.”
They let that hang in the air between them for a moment. He moved closer to her on the couch. He reached down to her and placed a hand on her knee. The feel of his palm was rough above the white fabric of her slacks.
“You want to bite me?” he asked and moved down to place his lips against hers. He tasted as rough as he felt, but at the moment she didn’t care. All she cared about was her insatiable hunger.
“I want to drink your blood, Barry,” she told him. “I want your permission to drink some of your blood tonight while the two of us are having sex.”
His lips were back on hers. He was more insistent this time, and his hands were already roaming her body. “You’ll just take a little?”
“Just a little,” she assured him between kisses.
“Will it hurt?”
“I don’t know. You’re my first.”
“Okay, then you’ve got my permission.”
“Thank you.”
He got up from the couch and began taking off his shirt. A single shrug of his thick forearms and the shirt was on the floor at his feet. His body looked glorious in the orange light cast by the burning wax.
Then his hands were loosening his jeans, letting down the zipper and unfastening the snap. He was not wearing shorts beneath and stood naked before her when he lowered them to the floor. The size of his swollen cock gave Marty pause. It was impressive, and the juicy, thick muscle standing in the air before her sent her hunger screaming over the edge, driving her insane.
She got up and came to him but stood just a couple feet out of arms reach at first. She just wanted to take in the beauty of his body and savor the moment. The buttons tore on her shirt as she took it off in frenzied movements. The rest of her clothes followed, and she stood naked in front of him.