Exsanguinate

by Killion Slade

  “Ah …oh, it’s okay. I … I just had out-patient surgery. I’m sorry, I was just leaving.” I quickly checked for a name on his blue shirt as I continued to wipe my eyes.

  He handed me his tissue pack. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He gave me a sympathetic smile.

  “Yep! Sorry again, Mario. Thank you for the tissues.” I walked away, slid the sunglasses down over my eyes, and pulled my hair out of the ponytail holder, letting the curly mane fall to cover my face. I pushed the buggy toward the checkout while wiping my cheeks.

  After loading my groceries into the trunk, I turned on the car and sat in the air conditioned driver’s seat. I checked the rear view mirror for any more blood.

  Unholy hell, my tears are blood? This is just like in my dreams. This is seriously not right. I need to check in with Dr. Laren.

  Suddenly a wave of exhaustion washed over me, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I didn’t want to sleep in the parking lot – I needed to get home. Now. Perhaps I should have stayed in the hospital for another day. Maybe Dr. Laren was wrong about me being healed after all.

  I hope I can make it home.

  The dreams continued to haunt me every time I slept. Again, I saw the mask of the face in the shadows of my mind. That elusive corner the light barely touched to cast the shadow. Darker than the blackest night, the movement in the pitch continued to stalk me – always waiting. The visage of the killer in that haunted house, the one who pursued me kept coming back to take what was rightfully his. Finally, a beacon of light and his face formed in front of my eyes.

  Bewitching, the Red Man covered in life-giving blood, emblazoned on my visual cortex time and time again. Never smiling, always looking lost, scared even, and then begging me for help.

  Each night as I slept I became compelled to keep moving forward – to find my prey just as he did. I would awaken with bloody scratches on my arms, my faced bloodied from the tears, exhausted and often still sleeping in my clothes. I knew my dreaming had escalated to handle the post-traumatic stress from the attack, but things seemed to be getting out of hand. It became apparent how I could no longer understand the difference between my dreams and real consciousness. Then who was I to determine which one was real in the first place? The only thing I knew was the hunger. The dreams were most vivid when my blood sugar dropped below the danger zone, and I was ready to pass out.

  The next night I found an easy target, a young couple making out down by the boat dock at Fairview Lake. Tall industrial fences bordered the old, abandoned Gulf Breeze restaurant to keep out the riff-raff, but it was well-known as a hot make-out place for adventurous teens on the weekends. Okay – so I once was one of those wild, adventurous teens, I knew it would be easy pickings.

  Thoughts of cover up flashed through my mind. Maybe I could dump their bodies over by the cove marina. Would that be an easy disposal out into the lake? I didn’t care. I needed to eat. To drink. Starved from the inside out, an unknown heritage powered me on, and ordered me to feed it.

  The teenagers’ hearts thrummed, pounding to the sexual acrobatics in the backseat. I focused in on them. Light flickered from a nearby electric pole, illuminating their naked bodies in the backseat of the car. Half of the light had been shot away leaving a tangled, dangling mess of luminescence.

  The incense of sex drifted over the night’s sea breeze. Driven by my unknown needs and the scent of their sex, I became desperate to drown in their life-giving blood. It beckoned me closer. I knew, at that moment, above all else, I needed to consume those kids just as the Red Man devoured the mermaid.

  In a heart wrenching attack, I watched as the slow motion movie unfolded before my eyes as I killed and consumed the two lovers and secretly desired more. With my stomach distended, I sat on the bank watching the bloody waves break at my feet, unable to understand my actions. Why would I dream the need to consume their blood in order to survive? I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and licked my fingers.

  That weird feeling came over me again. I didn’t have any way to explain it other than to call it the overwhelmings. It was as if my mind clouded over and I would pass out. Morpheus invited me into his arms once again.

  I woke up to the splash of the lake water on my face and the sound of the fog horn. Spitting out the lake water, I pushed up onto my elbow, my clothes and hair soaked and matted in brackish, bloody goo. I dragged my wet self up to the shoreline and looked around. Seeing the lifeless bodies in the car, I knew what had happened — again.

  The overhead lamp flickered with a faint red hue. I looked down at myself and realized why I must’ve been in the water. I stared at the crimson stains on my shirt, my hands, my everything. I tried to wash the kids’ pedigree off me, but it stained under my fingernails and around my cuticles. Irrationality set in. I wondered when I could feed again. An evil grin sliced across my face while my heart fell into further recesses removing all emotion from my killings. More – I needed MORE.

  I stood up and carried lover boy over to his car and set him by the rear tire. I realized it was Mario, the young man who had helped me inside the grocery store.

  What have I done? Why would he be in my dream?

  Straggling around to the driver’s door, I opened it and popped the latch on the truck. After loading Romeo-no-more into the trunk, I grabbed Miss Chickadee, who couldn’t have weighed 100 pounds drained, and I threw her into the trunk with him. As I stood looking at their vacant expressions, I wondered when this nightmare was going to end. Normally by this time, the freakish dream would have ended right after the exsanguination, but this time it didn’t seem to be fading away.

  I looked at the bodies of the kids sprawled below me with their throats torn out of their necks. I felt no pity – only wished they had more blood to offer me. Humans, somebody’s daughter and son – no longer. I had drained them faster than a rain gutter during a hurricane and wanted more.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I just ate these kids! Why do I consistently dream I have become a blood-thirsty monster?

  Knowing I should be waking up, I instinctively reached out behind the small of my back to pet Beano and reassure myself that all was still right in the world. Only this time, he wasn’t there.

  Something grabbed my outstretched arm and calmly said, “We need to talk.”

  Instantly I spun around, a low hiss caught in my throat as I crouched defensively. Amicula stood poised with an arched eyebrow high into her forehead.

  “Are you done with the hijinks?” she asked.

  Confused, I simply stared at her.

  What in the hell is she doing in my dream?

  “What’s going on?” I murmured, more to myself.

  “It’s quite simple actually. This is not a dream. Nor have any of the other killings you have been leaving around for us to clean up.”

  “Killings? You mean there are more of … of those?” I pointed to the dead kids lying in the trunk.

  “Here’s the Cliff Notes version, Cheyenne.” Amicula let out an exasperated sigh. “You, my dear, have been bitten by a vampire. Your natural hunting instincts have kicked into overdrive.”

  I took a moment to consider her words, but they didn’t make any sense. I stammered, “Hunting? Vampire? Instincts?”

  Amicula simply nodded.

  “Wait. Weren’t you my night nurse?”

  “Boy, you’re a quick one tonight!”

  “Listen, just give me a little more morphine, and I’ll get over this stupidity soon enough.”

  Chey, you need to wake the hell up!

  Amicula took a couple steps closer to me and I retreated.

  “Yeah sorry, guess I can’t do that anymore since you’re not in the hospital.”

  “What?” I shook my head trying to make sense of this craziness.

  “It was my job to make sure you were fed the blood diet while you were in the hospital. However, when that idiot doctor discharged you early, we didn’t have time to reach out to you properly. We’ve had to track you
down for the past couple of days. You’ve left quite a trail behind you.”

  “What blood diet?” I looked at Amicula as if she’d lost her mind. Those teens must have been high on bath salts or something in order for me to cook up this delusional concoction. “Couple of days? No – you’ve got it all wrong. I just went out to go get my dad some vitamins.” My nightmares had never been this long or unbelievable.

  “We’ve been watching you to understand how you might handle your first days on your own.” Noting her impatience with me, I watched as Amicula shifted her weight to her other foot. She continued in rather a bored tone, “You’re failing miserably.”

  Rubbing my temples, I tried to shake myself awake. I didn’t know what to say to this absurd nonsense, but somewhere in the back of my mind a true note rang out.

  “You’ve had your fun. Your feedings will become fully conscious soon. I can already see how you’re questioning what’s going on.”

  My hands itched from the sand. I wiped them on the back of my jeans to get the muck off me.

  “Sweet as this little scene is, Cheyenne, I need you to come with me, or the coven will have no choice but to exterminate you.”

  I took a step toward the bank and away from Amicula, even though I was a bit shaky on my legs.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Amicula asked.

  “I … I have to get back to my father. He’s expecting me.”

  “You left your house over forty-eight hours ago, Cheyenne. Your father is in trustworthy hands. No harm will come to him if you come with me.”

  Amicula clicked a button on her shirt. I heard a man’s voice speak to her through her dark blue blouse.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I have her,” Amicula said. “She just fed and is conscious. Where do you suggest I take her?”

  “Bring her to the marina. I will have assistance for you at the lower entrance,” the voice replied.

  “I need you to send the abstergers out for clean up,” Amicula continued. “It’s quite an untidy little mess she’s created, again.”

  I gawked at her.

  What the hell does she mean, again?

  “They’ve already been mobilized. Bring her to the Resurrection.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Resurrection

  We arrived at a yacht named the Resurrection not far from the docks from where I had murdered and consumed those kids. When we arrived, my clothes were stripped off me. I expected the worst. To be tied, bound and gagged. Holed up in a cargo bay with rats. Instead, what I found was a Jacuzzi tub bubble bath awaiting me. I was asked to clean up before meeting a Lord Stovall.

  Pretty confused, I finally opened my mouth to gain clarification on all the details Amicula had explained on the ride over. Despite the odd circumstances, the luxurious bath was welcomed. “Okay, so let me get this straight. I was attacked by a rogue, unregistered vampire at Halloween Scream Nights. I spent one week in the hospital while you fed me a blood diet of more vampire blood. I healed as fast as I did because of the amount of vampire DNA I ingested during my attack. Plus to top it off, you’ve been watching me murder and eat people to make sure I could take care of myself?” I pursed my lips. “So, bottom line is, I either choose to stay a vampire or I am to be exterminated?”

  “Well, yes. That about sums it up, Cheyenne. Great to see you’ve been paying attention. Here’s a scrubby to get under your fingernails. Oh, and you have a glob of yuck up by your ear. Be sure to get that when you wash your hair.” She handed me a wash cloth.

  “How do you expect me to make this kind of decision without understanding the full ramifications?” I looked at her as any sane person would look at Cthulu. “All I want to do is go home. I still don’t believe this is even happening. I am most likely dreaming this madness and should wake up any moment with Beano at my back, or I’m in the hospital having a lousy reaction to the morphine.”

  Amicula looked around the room. “This doesn’t look like the hospital to me. Cheyenne, you drove yourself home, remember?”

  “Look, I appreciate cleaning me up, but I don’t have time for this. I need to get home to my father and to find my sisters. They’re missing from that night I was attacked.”

  “Yes. We are well aware your sisters are missing.” Amicula made a sit gesture with her hand. “Scouts are in place to help you find them. I assure you, however, as tragic to your humanity as this change is, you are very much Vampyre now. You must make this decision if you want to help your sisters. Otherwise you’ll be dead. And, last time I checked, being dead isn’t exactly helpful to others.”

  “How long am I going to be held here?” I settled into the soapy water and used the soft cloth against my skin. “My father is sick, and I need to take care of him.”

  “Don’t worry about your dad. He’s being taken care of right now.”

  “Is he all right?” I sat up abruptly, splashing water onto the tile floor. “If any of you have hurt him, I’ll –“

  “Relax, wait a minute, don’t eat the last chip in the bag. He’s fine.” Amicula held up her hands. “We needed him to be safe while we talked you through this business. So rest assured – he’s doing quite well. Do you want to see?”

  I sneered at her but nodded.

  Amicula pulled out her smart phone and streamed a live shot of him sleeping in Dakota’s bed. “See, check the date and time. He’s been given sedative doses to help him not remember. Soon this will be settled. You’ll be assigned a pedagogue and be home to cook his supper. Albeit, a couple days later, but he won’t miss a thing. He might feel a bit confused when you get home.”

  I bit my lower lip.

  Amicula sat at the vanity and brushed her silken, black hair. “You see, Cheyenne, now that you know the Vampyric people exist, you need to know how to handle the lifestyle change and learn to control yourself. Right now you are endangering yourself as well as the rest of us by feeding and hunting on humans the way you are. There is a much safer way to obtain the sustenance you crave. If you continue, it’s a simple matter of time before you’re found out by the authorities. If that happened, then there would be no choice but to eliminate you. Such a waste, don’t you think? So, technically, if you want to live and find your sisters, this is the better way.”

  I swallowed trying to contain the bile in my throat. I sat blinking at her again. It seemed as if all I did lately was sit and blink at people. My mind weighed her argument, and I tried to understand the situation.

  “My choices sound like a death sentence no matter which direction I choose.” Anger grew deep inside my gut, twisting me in more knots than a sailor’s rigging. “Why did this happen to me? I don’t understand. Aren’t vampires supposed to be dead? Dr. Laren said I was alive and well. My heart is beating. I can feel my pulse right now under my thumb.” I lifted my arms up out of the water, my right index and middle fingers on my left wrist. “I’m breathing. How in the world can I be a walking corpse?”

  Amicula stopped brushing her hair and refocused her eyes to my reflection in the tub. “This is the most common question I get. It was Hollywood who told you that vampires are the undead. It is true, however, but that undead business does not occur until the vampire experiences the undeniable death. The true death. If you’re lucky, that won’t happen until much later in life.”

  “You’re saying I am some kind of living vampire?”

  Amicula nodded. “Of course, we’re all viable until we meet the undeniable death. But until then, you can consume normal human food and drink. However, you must feed the vampire DNA coursing through your veins, or you’ll go rabid insane. You’ll find a balance in your system in a few weeks. Human food might not be the most appetizing right now, but soon you’ll start to appreciate and experience flavors as you’ve never known them before. You’ll be amazed at the delicacies of the foods you’ve been eating and never knew how fantastic they were.”

  “Is that what happened to the rogue vampire who attacked me?” I sank back under the suds.
“He tried to go without human blood?”

  “Mmm, most likely. He probably had an attack of conscience and decided to go vegan. Now you’ve seen first-hand what that can do to you. Your body must consume human blood. Cow blood, or any other form is acceptable, but your cellular structure isn’t bovine. Cow blood won’t support your human cells. You must have the human cellular structure to support your vampyric host DNA.”

  I nodded. “So, no mountain lions or antelope will do it, huh? Bears, maybe?”

  Amicula actually smiled a genuine smile in her reflection. “You were one of the lucky ones in that attack, Cheyenne. We had to dispose of quite a few people who were injured by the rogue vampire. They either couldn’t accept the possibility of what had happened to them, or they didn’t get enough of the DNA to change them. A couple of the victims even begged us to kill them because they felt they were an abomination before Christ and would never be able to return to their lives.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “We obliged with their wishes of course.”

  My jaw dropped. “Of course.”

  “You, however, despite the natural tendencies for hunting humans already, are managing quite well. And there is this business of your missing sisters, isn’t there?”

  “What do you know about Sheridan and Dakota?” I shot straight up out of the water. “Where are they? Are they all right? Have they been turned into vampires, too?”

  Amicula lowered her palms again, motioning me to sit down and relax. “We’ll help you find them. No, we are not aware of any further changelings. You were the last one to leave the hospital.”

  I grabbed the shampoo bottle and sat back down in the water.

  “Truthfully, Cheyenne, no one expected you to leave because of your extensive injuries. But somehow you managed to get quite a lot of vampire DNA blood in your system. I must ask you about that sometime.”

  Memories flooded back to me like a melting glacier. “You were my nurse. You know where I live. What else do you know about me? Is my life no longer private? Am I in your vampire database now?”