Living in Darkness (Bloodbreeders)

by Robin Renee Ray,

  “I don’t know what cracker barrel you fell off of,” I said, feeling myself become frustrated once more. “But do you have any idea how crazy this sounds?”

  “Keep your voice low,” Martin said, as he looked around cautiously. “There are others like us in this area, I can feel it. Those are the ones you must stay far away from, Renee. They are a bad breed and they will do their best to take you from me.”

  And with that, he took me by the arm and once again began dragging me around like a rag-doll. It’s not like he couldn’t just say, ‘come on let’s go over here’. No, he just did as he pleased, like most men did in that day. I guess my mother was right. My father was definitely a one-of-a-kind man. What must my father be thinking? This very day, he was forced to watch as his oldest child was put six feet under, and it was all thanks to the beast that stood beside me. The anger that had been building inside me all night finally boiled over with that thought. I turned on Martin, and yanked my arm from his tight grip.

  “After everything you have done to me and my family, I would rather burn in hell than go into that damned crypt.”

  He began to speak, but was stopped short by my fist slamming into his face. I put every ounce of anger I was feeling behind that punch. It rocked him back on his heels so hard that he almost lost his balance… almost. Instead, he came back at me with an anger of his own, the glow in his animalistic eyes were far more frightening than his hands around my neck.

  “Do it,” I pleaded. “Do It… Kill me. I would be better off dead than with you.” I could feel the tears beginning to well up in my eyes.

  “You are the most stubborn woman that I have ever met and I have only known you for a short time,” he said, his hands still encircling my neck. “I don’t know why I bothered with you.”

  “Why, Martin?” I asked. “Why did you bother with me?”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. I began to sob, and the vicious expression on Martin’s face was quickly replaced with sympathy. He slowly eased his grip on me and pulled me into his arms.

  “Oh, my beautiful Renee,” he said softly. “Believe me when I tell you that there are reasons for my actions, but there is little time at hand to explain them. Please come with me now, and I will explicate everything very soon, I promise.”

  As he released me, I slumped to the ground and continued to cry. He left me to my thoughts and walked to the crypt. He pushed open the solid cement door as if it were made of paper, then came back over to my side. He held his hand out to help me up, but I just laughed. I wiped the tears off my face with the back of my hand, and started getting up on my own, only to trip on the hem of my dress. Before I realized it, he had a hold of my arm, trying to keep me from falling.

  “I can do it,” I said, looking down at the hand on my arm. “So, if you don’t mind letting go?”

  I kept my eyes on his hand, not wanting to see what might be hidden behind his. I saw as his hand slowly fell away and then he walked back to the crypt door.

  “My lady, would you please come? Dawn truly is at hand.”

  “Fine, fine,” I sighed heavily. “I can see you’re not going to shut up until you get your way…” I mumbled under my breath, as I made my way toward him.

  He did a slight bow, and motioned for me to go in first.

  “Oh, huh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “You go first. This was your idea, not mine.”

  “I was merely trying to be a gentleman,” he replied, stepping through the doorway.

  “I think that time has come and went, don’t you?”

  Martin pushed the door closed behind us, as I tried to prepare myself for the worst. I was ready for anything at this point, spider webs, bugs, dirt, and of course, old Doc Hill’s dead wife. What I saw was about as far from that as it could get. There was a large concrete block in the middle of the room covered in candles. As Martin started lighting them, I could see that there were piles of straw covered with blankets on the ground, makeshift beds no doubt. Between the beds sat a small box that was being used as a table, and atop it laid a hairbrush and a small golden box. He must have been planning this for some time. Well, at least now I knew where his days were spent.

  “So this is what I have to look forward to?” I asked, sarcastically. “Straw beds, in a dirty old crypt?”

  “For now,” he replied, looking at me with tired eyes. “Renee, we must do what is necessary to survive. Then, I will take you to a home finer than any your mind could imagine.”

  “Oh really? Well, what exactly makes you think I would want to go with you? Did you really think I would just agree to all of this?”

  “You will understand more, but I am too tired to carry on. Please, let it be for now,” he pled, sitting down on one of the beds.

  Fine, I thought to myself. I dropped down on my so-called bed, and reached for the brush. My eye caught the golden box, and I hesitated, almost reaching for it. I felt Martin watching me, so I snatched up the hairbrush instead. He wants me to look in the box, I told myself, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction of getting his way again. I started taking down my hair, removing the countless pins that held the bun in place. The braid was wrapped so tight that my head should have hurt. My hair hung to my knees when not braided, and it seemed to take forever before I got to the point where I could actually brush it.

  “This is the first time that I have seen you with your hair down,” Martin said, as he reclined on his bed, not three feet from mine. “It is indeed a beautiful sight.”

  I ignored his statement and continued the tedious process of detangling.

  When I was about halfway through brushing out my hair, I became more tired than I had ever been. My arms and legs felt increasingly heavy, and when I could no longer as much as lift my arm, I dropped the brush and laid back. I rolled my head to the side enough to see that he was watching me as the pull of dawn took me under.

  Chapter 5

  The next night when I woke, there was an unbearable pain in my gut. Martin was gone, but he had left several candles lit and the door to the crypt open. I cradled my aching stomach with one arm and pulled myself up with the other, using the large concrete slab that set in the middle of the floor—in which I assumed Mrs. Hill was securely sealed—to keep from falling back down. The pain eased a bit when I stood, giving me the momentum to make my way to the open door, if just to look out. That is when it hit me: my grave is somewhere in this very cemetery, meaning my entire family was at my funeral just hours ago. Curiosity got the best of me, and I set out to find the burial site that everyone thought to be my final resting place.

  I walked row after row until I came upon a plot covered with freshly turned earth. My heart began to race, as my mind contemplated what it was about to see. I looked down, little by little, until my eyes rested upon an object not intended for its owner to see: my headstone. “Renee Crocker, February 17, 1910 - August 11, 1936. Beloved Daughter and Sister.” The pain in my body, combined with the shock of this sight was far too much for me to handle. I collapsed on the mound and began to sob, softly at first, growing into anger with every passing second. I began pounding my fist into the soft earth over and over, until I had no energy left to pound. Exhausted, I lay over on the grave. I was too tired to even think anymore. There was nothing left to care about.

  Suddenly, I smelled something strange, something I couldn’t place. Then, I heard a sharp sound coming from the woods on the edge of the graveyard.

  “Martin?” I called out, uncertainly. “Is that you?”

  I saw a figure step out from the shadows, but it was in no shape or form Martin. It wasn’t even male. The woman was about my height, but she walked with such confidence that I would have sworn she was three feet taller. Her coal black hair fell just below her shoulders in ringlets, and her clothing was unlike anything I had ever seen a woman wear. Her dark red shirt glistened in the moonlight, and the black slacks that it was tucked into appeared to be riding pants. The black coat she wore was long enough to dust the tops
of her knee high black boots with each step that she took. As she continued to move in my direction, I noticed three men following behind her. They, also, were obviously strangers to these parts.

  All of the men were very similar in appearance, so much so that one would have sworn they were brothers. Aside from the shirts, they were all dressed in a masculine form of the woman’s outfit; black pants, black coat, and black boots. The only thing that made it possible to distinguish between the men was their hair. The man directly behind the woman had very long, very straight brown hair topped off with a black sailor-type hat, whereas the one in the middle also had brown hair, but it was cropped short and he was hatless. The third man was blond, with shoulder-length locks and a large black-suede cowboy hat. All three men were taller than the woman, but the way they flanked behind her made them somehow seem small in comparison.

  I began to sit up as they came closer, when the woman held up a hand as if to stop me. “Don’t be afraid, my dear,” she said soothingly. “We mean you no harm.”

  “You’re like him,” I said, unable to disguise the fear in my voice. “You’re like Martin, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “But we are different. We only want to help you.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but all four strangers had stopped moving. The expression on the woman’s face was alarming. About that time I felt someone grab my arm and yank me to my feet. It was Martin.

  “Get behind me, Renee,” he snarled. “Now.”

  The strangers began to make a strange noise, similar to that of a cat hissing, and started moving back towards the wooded area they had come from, moving very fast. In an instant, all I could see was the faint glow of four sets of eyes, and then they too were gone. Martin turned to me. I thought at first he was angry with me, and I didn’t know why. He had a hold of both of my arms, looking me dead in the eyes. What I saw in his was so overwhelming that my knees buckled, the only thing keeping me from hitting the ground was the grip Martin had on me. He pulled me up, and held me close for several minutes. Slowly, he loosened his hold and started walking with me still cradled in his arms.

  “Renee, my sweet,” he said. “You must never wander off without me, do you understand?”

  “Why?” I asked. “Who were those people? I know they were like you but–”

  “Like us, Renee,” he interrupted. “Like us.”

  I let out a sigh, and continued. “Okay, like us. Anyway, they said they were different, that they wanted to help me.” He stopped walking and sat me down on a large tombstone that was in our path. He knelt before me on one knee, and took my hands in his, making soft circles on the backs of them with his thumbs.

  “Believe me when I tell you this. They would do, or say, anything to take you from me,” he stopped momentarily as if to compose himself. “I know you don’t trust me, and you may even hate me, but hear what I tell you and know it to be true. They are our enemy. If you see them again, you must promise me that you will hide.”

  This conversation, like the one we had earlier, was only confusing me more. “I don’t understand. If we are all the same, then why would they harm us?” I asked.

  “Not us, Renee. They would harm me by taking you. They know I could not bear it.”

  “How do they know? Do you know them? Have you seen them before?” I pulled away from him and stood up. “Tell me something… anything, please?”

  He stood and stepped in close, almost to the point of touching. I searched his face, pleading with my eyes to learn anything from this man, this creature, or whatever he might be. He brought his hand up and gently touched the side of my face. “You have so much to learn, and all the time in the world to learn it. We have already wasted far too much of this night and you must feed,” he said.

  “No, Martin,” I said, once again on the defensive. “I already told you I won’t do that, so please don’t ask me again.”

  “If you do not, you will die the true death, is that what you want?” he asked, frustration once again apparent in his tone.

  “True death? What does that mean? Do you really think it could be any worse than this?” I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth when the pain hit. My stomach felt as if it had been pummeled with a sledgehammer, and I was on the ground before I realized that I had moved.

  Martin picked me up carefully and made his way back to the crypt that had become my new home. When we were inside, he laid me down on my makeshift bed, and closed the stone door securely behind us. I lay there moaning in agonizing misery, tossing from side to side with my knees pulled as far up to my chest as they would go. “Oh Dear God,” I exclaimed. “I can’t take this, I’m on fire.”

  I felt as Martin kneeled close to my side. He removed his jacket and threw it across the room. “You will feed, Renee,” he said sternly, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt. He bared his teeth and bit down on his own wrist. I was sickened by the sound of him ripping through his own flesh. He held up his arm, watching, as it was taking only seconds before the crimson drops began to appear. The blood started flowing from the wound, and as it did, Martin placed his other hand under my neck, lifting my head towards the gash.

  “I won’t do it, I can’t. Please, Martin!” I begged, thrashing my head away, trying to turn my back to him. He grabbed me by the back of my hair, and before I knew what was happening, my head was yanked backwards.

  “You will do as you are told.” Martin stated firmly.

  He shoved his bleeding arm against my mouth so hard that I was unsure if the blood that I was tasting, was his or mine. I fought with every ounce of my being to get away, twisting, kicking, clawing, but he held firm. I tried to scream, but the thick fluid I could feel running down my throat, caused me to gag every time I gasped for air. I did the only think that I could think to do, I gave him what he wanted. I grabbed his arm with both of my hands, and bit down as hard as I could. Now the tables were turned. Martin was the one trying to pull away...in vain.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Stop it… I don’t want to hurt you, Renee, but I will if I must...I said, let go.”

  He backhanded me with such force, that my head slammed against the concrete curved wall, and was almost knocked unconscious. He stared at me in disbelief as he cradled his mangled arm. Within seconds I realized that I hadn’t come away empty handed. I had a souvenir, which was still in my mouth. Disgusted, I spat hard, and didn’t dare look at what now lay on the floor. I looked up instead at this man that I was really starting to hate, and began to laugh uncontrollably. I knew I must have appeared crazed, rolling around laughing wildly with blood coating my face. Martin stared at me for a moment, and then concurred with my actions.

  “You’re mad. Now we are stuck here for another cursed day in this,” he paused waving his good hand about “Horrible dank place.” Then he turned to walk away and that’s when I heard him say under his breath before collapsing to his bed, “Maybe I have made a mistake.”

  I am not sure why, but hearing him say those words caused my heart to drop. I watched as he leaned back and closed his eyes, his injured arm lying by his side, and I felt myself becoming filled with sympathy. Why, after everything he had done to me, would I feel this way? As I began to gather myself, I licked my lips and for the first time noticed the taste. The blood no longer had that sharp metal bitterness to it. Somehow it was sweet like the nectar from a honeysuckle flower, or fresh honey from a bee hive, tantalizing my taste buds. I was too exhausted to wrap my mind around the thought, of my emotional state of being buried alive, waking as a creature that I knew nothing about, to thinking the taste of blood was something that I could even consider wanting more of, so I didn’t even try.

  I looked at Martin and noticed that his arm continued to bleed profusely, and that he was making no move to stop it. I slowly got up, and made my way to his side, looking as ashamed as I felt. I held up the bottom of my dress up, and used my teeth to make a small tear in the fabric. I ripped the piece off of my dress, and gently
lifted his arm. What I saw when I looked closer at the wound shocked me so bad, that I immediately looked into his eyes, showing my revulsion. There was a large chunk of flesh missing, the very piece I had spat on the floor. I’m not sure what I expected his arm to look like after that, but it definitely wasn’t the gore that I looked back down at. I swallowed hard, trying to clear the thought from my mind, that it was none other than me that had caused it, and pressed the cloth firmly against bite. Remembering what my mother had taught me about applying pressure to try and stop the bleeding.

  “That doesn’t work on our kind. Just wrap it, and it will slow,” he said, no anger left in his voice.

  “I am so sorry, Martin. I had no idea I could have ever done...” I put my head down before finishing, “...something like this, to anyone.”

  He sat up and reached for my face, causing me to jump. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. He just smiled, and said, “Come, let me help you clean your face, as you have helped me of your own free will.” I was a little hesitant, but I let him. He placed his hand on the back of my head, much like he did moments ago when he was enraged, but this time he touched me like I was a porcelain doll, fragile and delicate. He pulled me closer, and brought his face to the point that I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin. I pulled back slightly, and asked, “What are you doing?” He shushed me softly, and proceeded to lean in. I closed my eyes as he lightly licked across my lips, and when he did a small sound escaped from deep inside me, a place that I had never ventured. I allowed my head to fall back, as he continued to lick the blood, first from my chin, then lower to my neck. My mind was overcome by the way he touched me. He brought out sensations in my body that I didn’t even know existed.

  He raised my head to look me in the eye, bringing his hand from the back of my head to ever so delicately caress my cheek. Using the other hand, he gently stroked his fingers down my forehead and over my left eye, making me flinch in pain as he lightly traced the mark he had made when he hit me. I had almost forgotten what had just occurred between us just minutes before, with his mouth roaming my flesh.