by Bryan Smith
Rick placed a hand on her shoulder. It was a light touch, but she could feel the strength in his grip. This was a big, strong guy. He had confidence in spades. Too much, really. He was the kind of guy who thought nothing could hurt him because nothing ever had. “Relax. It’s gonna be okay.” His smile was nearly disarming enough to make her forget what was happening. “I promise.”
She heard a car door thump shut and turned to see Grant approaching them from the direction of the black SUV, another gun in one hand and a big flashlight in the other. He and Rick exchanged nods and started off toward the line of trees.
Lashon followed them for the first several yards. She was nearly overcome with frustration, but by this point she realized there was no stopping them. “Guys…please be careful. Don’t get yourselves fucking killed.”
Another smiling backward glance from Rick. “We’ll be fine. Wait there, okay?”
Lashon gave up. She stopped following them and stared helplessly after them as they continued across the clearing and then disappeared through the line of trees. She caught shadow glimpses of them moving around out there now and then. The flashlight beam was intermittently visible, as well, darting from place to place in a seemingly random way.
She gasped as someone came up beside her and placed a hand gently between her shoulders. A glance to her left showed Ashley standing beside her. She relaxed a little. The lovely pale-skinned girl smiled and said, “Why don’t you come inside while they look around? You could clean up and have a drink. Maybe change into some clean clothes. I have some things I think would fit you.”
Lashon stared in silence at the line of trees for a long moment. She could still hear the guys thrashing around out there, but she could no longer see the flashlight beam.
She sighed. “Maybe I should do that.”
“Come on, then.”
Ashley’s hand moved to the crook of Lashon’s arm and tugged at her, a gentle nudge to steer her back toward the house. Lashon allowed herself to be pulled in that direction. It really would be nice to get inside a nice, warm place and into clean clothes. It might make her feel human again. Normal. Maybe things would be all right, after all. Perhaps Chainsaw Maniac really had provided the basis for this world. But did it necessarily follow that everything that happened here would occur as it would in an idiotic cheap slasher film? She was no longer so sure about that. This was a real world. Tactile. Tangible. These were actual, flesh-and-blood people.
Ashley gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Things are gonna work out fine. Don’t you worry.”
Lashon managed a tired smile. “Maybe you’re right.”
And, of course, that was when the first ear-piercing scream rang out from the woods.
Chapter Fifteen
Kira stared at the mirror and screamed.
At first she thought the impression a trick of the light, but now she had gotten right up to the mirror and was holding her mouth open wide. There was no denying the disturbing reality. She felt for the sharpness, carefully, with the tip of her tongue, lightly touching a protrusion that had not been there before. Frowning, she just as carefully probed the other side of her mouth and found an identical protrusion.
Fangs, she thought. Fucking fangs.
I’m a goddamn vampire.
She turned away from the mirror and glared at the smiling creature who had turned her into a monster. He was still shirtless, but he had slipped back into his trousers and was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“What have you done to me?”
He stood and padded across the hardwood floor toward her on his bare feet. He kept smiling and gently brushed one side of her face with the back of a hand. “Mmm, you are exquisite.”
Kira didn’t shrink away from his touch. Despite her anger, the touch triggered an echo of the overpowering arousal she’d experienced earlier. “I know. I’m a fucking goddess. Now how ’bout you answer my question, asshole?”
He shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious what I’ve done?”
“I think you should spell it out anyway.”
“Very well. During the course of our lovemaking—”
She snorted. “Lovemaking? Is that vampire code for rape?”
His expression darkened. “I did not rape you. You loved every second of it. You cried out for more. Begged for more. I know you remember.”
She did remember. Very well. She felt more echoes of desire as a series of vivid images flashed through her mind. The vampire poised above her, his muscled torso shifting and twisting as he rode her harder than she ever had been before, making her scream herself hoarse with each devastating thrust, driving her nearly mad with ecstasy.
He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand again. “Yes. I see that you do.”
She pushed his hand away and brushed past him. She kept going until she reached the other side of the room, where she intentionally put the bed between them. Then she folded her arms over her bare breasts and glared at him. “You’re right. I remember everything. I also remember I had no control over any of it, including how my body reacted to you. You have powers. Vampire fucking powers. And you used those powers to make it happen. Which means you forced yourself on me. Which means—”
“ENOUGH!”
His booming voice startled Kira. The force of it made her stagger backward a step. It was the first time she had seen him display undiluted anger and it was a fearsome sight indeed to behold. He crossed the room so fast he was an almost-invisible blur.
Kira gaped as he materialized in front of her. “Holy shit. That was…freaky.”
He seized her wrists and pulled her close. She found herself focusing, at least for a moment, on the pale blue hue of his lips. Despite the apparent danger—and despite the terror she felt—she found herself wanting to kiss those lips. To draw the especially ripe bottom one into her mouth and chew on it. For starters.
She tilted her head slightly, blinking rapidly as she stared up at him.
Damn. Seriously, what’s wrong with me?
Because though she was fighting hard to hold on to her anger and her misgivings, she wanted him again. More than that. She needed him. How could she still be so weak, now that she was no longer human? He put a hand on her throat. Lightly, without squeezing. Regardless, the touch rendered her almost senseless with renewed desire.
He seemed to sense her thoughts. “I am your maker. You will always want me, just as you will always serve me. So, enough with your impudence. It is not becoming in a new bride.”
“New…bride?”
His hand moved from her throat down to her breasts, which he caressed for a moment before dragging his fingertips down the length of her belly to the moist spot between her legs. His touch electrified her, made her twist and moan. He leaned into her and bent down a little to kiss her on the neck, his lips grazing the spot where the now-vanished puncture wounds had been. Then his mouth moved to her ear and he whispered things that frightened her, even as his roving hands continued to stir her lust.
“Yes, you are my bride. My first true bride in many years. Others have come and gone, but they were trifles, never intended to rule beside me as a near equal. But you are special. I sensed it when I first set eyes on you. You have great potential. I will teach you the pleasures of blood and ruthlessness. And you will learn to love it all. To revel in the pain and pleadings of the lesser beings. Our pitiful playthings. The stinking humans.”
It was quite a speech. And she might have giggled at it under other circumstances, say if it had been a piece of dialogue in a cheesy old movie. But mirth was the farthest thing from her mind in that moment. Because she knew he was telling her what he truly believed. And, worse yet, she believed what he was saying. Believed it totally. She was almost eager for it. She should have been appalled by the notion, but she was not. A dim part of her hoped this was because she was so turned on, rather than the more unsettling possibility that her conscience had deserted her along with her humanity.
She climbed up on the bed, crawli
ng backward until her arms were splayed across the pillows bunched against the massive headboard.
He stared down at her and smiled again. “You desire something, bride?”
She just stared at him, her eyes blazing with erotic need. “You know what I fucking want.”
He did.
And he gave it to her.
Monroe came to, flat on his back on a narrow twin bed. The mattress was hard and uncomfortable. The ceiling above him was concrete, painted white. He was still quite woozy upon waking and opted for the moment to remain in his supine position. He rolled his eyes around a bit and saw that the walls were decorated primarily with rock band posters. The Cure, Bauhaus, Killing Joke, the Cramps, Fugazi and the Misfits. There were also posters for the movie Eraserhead and something called The Church of the Subgenius.
A frown slowly dawned as Monroe absorbed all this. The punk and alternative décor would all have been very cutting edge a quarter century ago. Perhaps he had somehow been transported back in time to 1987 or whatever. Time travel was an absurd notion on the surface, but it made as much sense as anything else that had happened.
He stared at the ceiling again, focusing this time on its solidity. On its undeniable reality. After several minutes of this, he shifted his focus back to the rock band posters, noting the creases in them and the way most of them seemed to curl up a bit at the corners. These were old posters. They had been folded and put away for a time before being displayed again on these dorm-room-like walls.
Though he still hadn’t moved, he could see enough of the room to determine that it was very small. Yet another poster, this one showing a collection of imported beer bottles, adorned the closed door to the room. Against the wall directly in front of him was a small desk, upon which was an assortment of books, papers, and an old-fashioned dual-cassette boom box. A wrinkled postcard-sized image of Axl Rose was pinned to a bulletin board on the wall directly above the desk.
1987, Monroe thought. I am definitely in 1987. Somehow. God help me.
He tried to think of any reasonable way of explaining his current situation. Other than time travel. Nothing immediately presented itself. Then his brain tripped across a random fact he found immediately perplexing. He had been bitten numerous times. His flesh had been fucking ripped into. So he should still be in some degree of pain, right?
Right. Fucking-A, right.
But he wasn’t in pain. At all. In fact, despite still feeling a touch groggy, he actually felt pretty damn good.
Well, shit. That’s weird.
He started probing at his flesh with his fingers, feeling for places where he clearly remembered being bitten. There should be holes. Gashes. Wounds still weeping blood. But all he felt was perfectly smooth flesh. Weirder and weirder still. In the course of his probing, he also determined he was wearing a garment of some sort he hadn’t been wearing before. The texture of the material was all wrong.
He lifted his head slightly and saw that he was wrapped in a blue bathrobe with the sash cinched shut at his waist. He also saw his bare feet sticking over the edge of the small bed. He couldn’t help noting how very pale his feet looked, with a faint tinge of blue around his toes. This made him frown again, because his first thought was of autopsy scenes in television crime shows. Tie a tag around one of his big toes and he’d be a dead ringer for a corpse splayed on a stainless steel autopsy table. Because those feet definitely looked like the feet of a dead man.
This triggered another memory flash, Tom Cruise telling him he was sorry but they had to…had to…
Monroe gulped.
They had to kill me before turning me into a goddamn vampire! Oh Jesus! Oh shit! I’m a goddamn bloodsucking fiend!
This thought obliterated the remaining vestiges of his stupor, and he sat bolt upright in the bed and screamed. And then screamed again. The sound resounded explosively in the little room, making him cringe. He regretted the primal reaction immediately. It was so loud it would surely bring some other undead denizens of the fucking night running in here to check up on him.
I have to get out of here, he thought. Have to escape.
But before he could turn his thoughts to the practicalities of making that happen, he was distracted by another sound in the room.
A whimper. Somewhere off to his left.
He frowned yet again. The sound was small and pitiful. Barely audible at all. And short-lived. He immediately recognized that whoever had made the sound was striving hard not to make it again. Something else odd struck him. He could smell the person. Not just their scent, but their fear, too. It was rolling off her in waves. Yes, it was a female. Somehow, he knew that without even looking at her.
He turned his head and saw her cowering in a rear corner of the room. She was nude and she was chained to the wall. She was slim, but with a nice figure, hips that swelled pleasingly and breasts that were large but not quite into porn-star, double D territory. Her lank blonde hair hung to her narrow shoulders and looked like it had not been washed in days. She had a pretty face. The kind of face that looked beautiful even without makeup. Big blue eyes, striking cheekbones, and full, ripe lips that practically begged to be kissed. She was trembling. Her whole body was. It made her look like an animal trapped outside in the cold. She was in a squatting position, with her back pressed hard into the corner.
Monroe’s mouth hung open as he stared at her. His mind went sort of blank for a period of time as he drank in everything about her. It was only when he felt thick droplets of drool collecting in the corners of his mouth that he snapped out of it. But he remained entranced by her. Not just by her physical beauty, but also by her obvious terror of him. He was disturbed to discover he found her fear arousing.
He glanced at the closed door and frowned, surprised that his screams had brought no one running. There could be no doubt someone out there had heard him, yet they were choosing to leave him undisturbed. Which caused him to wonder whether this whole scenario might be some kind of game the other vamps were running. Some kind of twisted initiation rite.
He looked at the girl again.
She cringed and let out another helpless whimper.
What he was thinking made sense. In a fucked up way, of course. She was a gift to him. He was meant to take her. To use her as he saw fit. Which, being a vampire, likely included a wide array of unsavory and depraved acts.
Part of him really wanted to do depraved things to her.
He felt a reflexive pang of guilt at this realization. But it wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. The change had done something to his conscience. He believed he still had one, but it felt weakened at the very least. It made him angry. He hadn’t asked to become what he was now. It was better to be human. Better to have compassion. Better to be normal and live in the sun, than to be some skulking night predator.
Wasn’t it?
He rose from the bed and crossed the room to squat in front of the cowering girl. She cringed again and tried to press herself farther into the corner. An effort in vain, of course. There was nowhere for the poor thing to go.
He peered curiously at her. “I think I’m sort of meant to, uh, you know…rip your throat out and feast on your warm blood, or some shit like that.”
Sudden tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “Please…”
Monroe felt a twitch at his crotch and had another disturbing revelation. The begging of a helpless victim was also a turn-on. He supposed this was a common thing in all vamps. It was messed up as hell and he did feel a slightly more intense stab of guilt at the knowledge—but the guilt didn’t make the feeling go away.
He wanted her.
In every way possible.
He wanted to fuck her.
And he wanted to tear her apart and wallow in her blood.
But he wanted to scare her some more first.
He touched her chin, relishing the way she jerked away from him.
Then he thought of Kira.
And the warped smile gave way to yet another frown. Kira
. Jesus. He had almost forgotten about her in the midst of all this madness. She was still out there somewhere. And perhaps was going through something very similar to what he was experiencing. Except maybe she was on the other side of the equation. Maybe she was naked and chained up in some other room, cowering and crying while a vamp sadistically toyed with her.
He stared at the crying girl in front of him, feeling very cold inside now.
It took a tremendous effort of will, but he made himself stand up and walk away from the girl. He sat on the edge of the narrow bed and looked at her again, this time feeling little of the lust that had nearly overpowered him moments ago.
She sniffled. “Please don’t kill me.”
Her voice sounded very small and frightened, almost like a child’s. Its fragility made him wince. He shrugged. “Part of me really wants to kill you. Like, really, really bad. But I’m gonna try hard not to.”
This sent more tears sliding down her face. “Please…”
“Don’t beg!” His voice made her flinch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so sharp. It’s just that the begging makes it worse. The craving. Look…what’s your name?”
She sniffled again. He saw her throat working as she struggled to speak. The tenderness of the flesh there was excruciatingly tempting. He couldn’t help thinking of how it might feel to take a bite out of it. She apparently sensed the direction of his thoughts because she at last managed to push out the words. “Marnie! My name is Marnie. Please don’t kill me.”
“Jesus. What did I tell you about that? No begging. Not if you want to live.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Shit, girl, don’t apologize either. None of this shit is your fault.” He frowned. “Also, try really hard to stop crying, okay?”
Yet another sniffle. “I…can’t help it.”
“Yeah. I get that. Just try, okay?”
She met his gaze for a long moment and at last managed a small nod. “Okay.”
Monroe couldn’t help savoring the exquisite lines of her body again. She really was quite a beauty. It’d be a shame to destroy such a work of natural art. The vampire part of his nature would delight in it, of course. He would have to work very hard to hold the beast at bay.