Thirst No. 4

by Christopher Pike

  I need to drink. I’m not feeling psycho or anything but my thirst is starting to aggravate me. It’s probably one of the reasons I was so short with the police.

  I call an old private-eye friend of mine who is up in years and hard of hearing so he doesn’t notice anything odd about my change of voice. I ask him to get me Lieutenant William Treach’s personal information and the PI calls back within the hour with the cop’s home address and other assorted details.

  Matt told me before leaving that afternoon that he would help me hunt that evening but I’m in no mood to wait for his return. Also, I want to make it clear that I don’t need his help. Otherwise, he’ll try to stop me from going off with the others when they travel to the Bay Area. I leave him a brief note saying I’ve gone out and not to worry.

  Matt’s rented me a car and I drive to Lieutenant Treach’s neighborhood and park two houses down from his residence. The sun has recently set and the shadows are lengthening. Rolling down the window, I sit quietly with my eyes closed. Before entering Teri’s body, my hearing was my most potent sense, the one tool I could always rely on when things got tough. Although Teri’s ears are not nearly as keen as my originals, I’m relieved that I’m able to hear what’s going on in the Treach household.

  Treach is not home yet. I listen as Mrs. Sandra Treach talks on the phone with her sister in New York. From the conversation I’m able to discern that Sandy, as her sister calls her, is the head of surgery at a nearby hospital. This interests me because surgeons often do transfusions during operations, and the head of the department would probably have relatively easy access to the clinic’s blood bank.

  From experience I know about blood banks and the quality of blood that can be found in such places. In the past, for the most part, I’ve stayed away from that source of nourishment. It’s not merely the components of blood that feed a vampire, but the life essence itself in the blood.

  What this essence is would be difficult to describe scientifically. In the West, they don’t have words for it. A Chinese acupuncturist might call it chi. A yogi from India would refer to it as prana. Whatever it is, it exists, and blood that has been stored for several weeks usually has a low charge. However, it is better than nothing and if I can get ahold of a few gallons it could save me a lot of grief while we travel to California. I hate the thought of constantly having to put my life on hold to satisfy my thirst.

  I decide to strike now while William is out. But I wait until Sandy finishes talking with her sister. I don’t want to be waved away at the door because she’s on the phone. Leaving my car, approaching the house, I listen as Sandy fiddles with an assortment of pots and pans. This venture is something of a test for me. Finally I’m going to see how much of my psychic abilities I have left.

  Sandy answers quickly, after I ring the doorbell. Like her husband, she’s about forty, tall and slender, but there the resemblance ends. The woman has bright red hair—it is close to orange—and wonderful green eyes. They sparkle; she is the kind of person that glows. And here I expected to find a stuffy old doctor.

  “Hello. Can I help you?” she asks.

  “Hi. My name’s Teri Raine. I met your husband today. He came to the hotel where I’m staying. He’s investigating a missing employee there.”

  “Teri, yes, I know who you are. Bill called me after he spoke to you. He said you were delightful. You were in the Olympics, weren’t you?”

  “That seems to be my main claim to fame.”

  “Well, of course, you won a gold medal and set a world record. How many women your age can say that?”

  “Not many, I suppose. Look, I know it must seem kind of weird to stop by your house, but I was sort of short with your husband today and I wanted to talk to him about something I remembered from when that guy vanished. Would he be home by any chance?”

  “He’s not here right now but I can give him a call. Would you like to come in a sec? I’m just starting dinner.” She opens the door wider and gestures for me to enter.

  “That would be great, thanks,” I say as I cross the threshold. The home is three stories tall, custom designed, with lots of open wood beams. I assume it’s Sandy’s salary that paid for the place. The woman bubbles with energy. I follow as she leads me into the living room and offers me a seat. Once again, I’m not surprised she trusted me enough to invite me into her home. Teri’s fame and her wholesome looks work wonders with complete strangers.

  Yet the inevitable question quickly comes up. Sandy wants to know how I happen to know where her husband lives. I’m sitting across from her when she asks and I catch her gaze and let my power flow through my eyes.

  “Bill gave me your address,” I say softly. “He told me to contact him if I remembered anything about the missing young man.”

  Sandy stares back without blinking, and I know I have her to some extent. Yet it is all a question of degrees. I need to start with small orders and lies and work my way up.

  “Bill is puzzled about the missing boy,” Sandy whispers.

  “The case is puzzling. But I’m here to help Bill.”

  Sandy smiles faintly. “That’s good you can help.”

  “I want to help because I’m a good person.” Although I channel the energy through my eyes, I experience its source as a magnetism that radiates from my forehead. It projects out from me like an invisible hand. My grip on Sandy is not nearly as firm as it would have been in my old body, but I’m pleased that she’s repeating what I feed her.

  “You are a good person,” she says. “Can I get you something to eat? To drink?”

  “Soon. Tell me, when will Bill come home?”

  Sandy blinks and frowns, not a good sign. “He’ll be home soon. But he’ll wonder why you’re here.”

  “I’m here because Bill invited me here.”

  “Oh.”

  “When you say he’ll be here soon, how soon do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure. In a half hour.”

  “Good, that’s good. Now close your eyes, Sandy.” She immediately shuts her eyes as I continue. “Listen to the sound of my voice. My voice is all you hear. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You work at Springfield Hospital. You’re a surgeon there. In fact, you’re the head of the surgery department.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have access to the blood bank at your hospital?”

  The woman frowns again and I fear I’ve made my question more complicated than it needs to be. Of course, as a surgeon, she would not get the blood herself.

  I’m not used to taking so much time to hypnotize a victim. Usually I just say a word or two and people do what I want. I feel my hold on Sandy wavering. However, I know if I weaken her physically—and I can think of the perfect way to do that—she’ll respond to my commands more readily.

  “The blood is there,” she says. “The nurses bring it when we need it.”

  “Good. If I drive you to the hospital, will you be able to get me in the blood bank?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the evening, how many people work in that department?”

  “Usually there is one person on duty. Sometimes two.”

  “Good, we’ll drive there soon. You want to drive to the hospital. You want to go with me.”

  “I do.”

  I get up and stand above her. “Before we leave I want you to relax in your chair. Just relax and go to sleep for a few minutes. You won’t awaken until I tell you to. All right? Now sleep, Sandy. Sleep deeply.”

  The woman doesn’t speak but her breathing grows heavy and I know she’s out cold. Ideally, I would have waited until after I had her out of the house to drink her blood. The threat of her husband coming home cannot be taken lightly. Yet my thirst clouds my judgment. I figure if I can just drink a pint or two, and take the edge off my discomfort, I’ll be better equipped to handle the situation at the hospital.

  Sitting beside Sandy, I tilt her head back and expose her jugular. Her skin is thin and pale—I can
see the pulse of the vein through her flesh. I’m hungry but I’m in control. I’m not going to make the same mistake I did with Ken. That’s why I turn away from her neck and reach for her right wrist instead, twisting the back of it upward, toward my mouth.

  I don’t possess the fangs the popular vampires always seem to be flashing but Teri’s teeth are sharp and as I bite down a delicious flood of red fluid fills my mouth. Like Ken, Sandy must take care of herself—her blood is intoxicating. I’ve opened the vein most depressed people slit when they try to commit suicide. The flow is ample but it’s nowhere near the flood I unleashed when I bit into Ken’s neck. I’m able to monitor to the ounce how much blood I suck from Sandy’s body. I do catch myself moaning, though, unconsciously, and have to make a point to stop.

  I’m through drinking and spilling a few drops of my own blood on Sandy’s wounds—which instantly seals them—when I hear a man coming up the front steps. I know who it is for I remember the sound of William Treach’s gait from a few hours ago.

  “Damn you, Sita!” I swear at my own foolishness. I should have listened to my head, not my thirst, and gotten Sandy out of the house before feeding. Now I will have to deal with Bill quickly, not necessarily an easy task. He’s not just an armed cop, he’s smart, and he won’t be lulled by my enchanting eyes and sweet voice. If he catches me standing over his unconscious wife he’ll draw his gun and shoot.

  I can’t let him see me. I have to knock him out quick, or else kill him. But I’m suddenly troubled. I don’t want to kill him, not now, not after being in his home and meeting his wife. Since I specifically came to his house to eliminate him as a threat, the feeling is totally illogical. Yet that doesn’t make it any less real. I can’t just make it go away. At the very least, I need more time to think about the situation. As he reaches for his doorknob, I rush across the room and hide behind the front door.

  “Sandy, I’m home!” he calls as he opens the door. His focus is toward the rear of the house, in the direction of the kitchen. I’m able to come up behind him and wrap my right arm around his neck before he can so much as blink. There is a curious irony to my tactic. The choke hold I apply to his neck is the one most often used by the police. But with my strength, it works extremely fast and I’m able to close off the blood supply to his brain and render him unconscious in a few seconds. He sinks quietly to the floor.

  Duct tape! Don’t leave home without it. I have brought my duct tape with me from yesterday. It’s on the front seat of my car and I hurry outside and hastily retrieve it. I bind Bill to a leather chair in the living room. It’s heavy, not easy to move around, and it’s comfortable. I tie him up before he has a chance to regain consciousness, going so far as to tape his eyes shut.

  But I worry about my binds. No matter how thorough I am, he’s a cop and he might escape. The best thing to do would be to drug him but I have not brought any narcotics. Then it strikes me. I’m in a doctor’s house! Chances are they have some kind of drugs on hand. Rushing upstairs, I check out their medicine cabinet and find a bottle of Ambien, a popular sleeping pill, plus a bottle of Percocet, a relatively strong painkiller.

  I discover an enema bag beneath the sink, and crush four Ambiens with four Percocets, and pour the powder in the bag with twelve ounces of water. The advantage of the enema bag is that it comes with a rubber hose I can directly feed into Bill’s stomach. This way I don’t have to resort to using needles, which Sandy does not appear to have on hand anyway.

  I run into a small problem when I cut the tape on Bill’s mouth open. He must have woken up when I was upstairs preparing the drugs and now he’s only pretending to be unconscious. He almost bites my finger off when I try to slip the tube into his mouth.

  “Stop! Who are you?” he snaps.

  I have already told his wife my name. I told her because I’m a public figure, and my name was the quickest way into their house. But I made that decision a half an hour ago, when I was planning to kill them both. Now I’m not sure what to do.

  I grab a pillow and muffle my voice. “I’m not here to harm you. But I need to knock you out. It will be easier if you cooperate.”

  “Where is my wife?” he demands.

  “She’s resting on the living room couch. She’s unharmed. If you listen closely, you can hear her snoring.”

  He does stop to listen. Sandy snores loudly.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asks.

  “I can’t explain right now. But you have to trust me, I mean you no harm.”

  He struggles in his chair. “Who are you? You sound familiar.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t want to know me.”

  I drop the pillow and slip behind him. He hears me move but there’s nothing he can do to stop me from slipping my arm around his neck again. He goes out quicker this time, and a minute later I’m sliding the petroleum jelly–coated rubber tube down his throat and holding the bag above his head so gravity will drain the solution of drugs into his stomach. I leave his duct tape slit open. I don’t want him vomiting in the night and smothering.

  When I’m done with Bill, I return to Sandy. I don’t shake her awake but use the power of my voice. I instruct her to open her eyes and lead her outside to my car. Night has fallen and the street is old and devoid of lights. The dark provides us with plenty of cover. I steer her by her arm and once she’s seated in the front, with her seat belt on, I ask her for the hospital address. I know it already but I want to start engaging her, getting her ready for the performance she’s going to put on at the hospital that will hopefully bring me to the blood bank.

  “At the hospital you will tell people that I’m your niece,” I say as she sits fixed-eyed beside me.

  “You are my niece, Teri Raine.”

  “No. Say I’m your niece, Kim Treach. Say Kim, Sandy.”

  “Kim Sandy.”

  “No. I want you to call me Kim. From now on, that’s my name.”

  “Kim.”

  “Yes. Kim Treach. And when we reach the hospital, if anyone asks what you’re doing there, say you have to catch up on some paperwork.”

  “I do have to catch up on my paperwork.”

  “When we reach the hospital, I want to go to your office first.” Sandy is dressed for a casual night at home. I want her to get her doctor’s coat on her, have her badge in place.

  “We will go to my office,” she repeats.

  We reach the hospital ten minutes later and our entry goes off without a hitch. Sandy’s office is on the fourth floor and she has brought her keys. While she is changing into her hospital clothes, I hurry back down to the security area and find a sole guard overseeing a bank of monitors. Before he can even get a good look at me, I belt him in the temple and knock him out cold. Then I turn off all the hospital cameras and remove the digital cards they were transferring their data to. Now the hospital will not even have a record of Sandy and me entering the hospital.

  I return to Sandy and find her dressed and ready to go.

  Yet I run into a mental block I find difficult to overcome.

  Sandy is a surgeon and like most surgeons she’s used to calling down for blood before or during an operation. She’s too important to actually run to the basement and collect it herself. The habit is so ingrained in her that when I suggest we’re ready to pay the blood bank a visit, she reaches for the phone.

  “I’ll call them and tell them we need blood,” she says.

  “There’s no need. We’ll get it ourselves.”

  “I can call. They’ll take my call.”

  I take the phone from her and put it back down.

  “This is a special case, Sandy. We need to get extra blood and we need to take it out of the hospital.”

  She frowns. “Why?”

  One simple word, but it’s enough to shake my world. The woman should not be questioning my orders. I struggle to come up with a scenario that might fit a pattern already locked into her brain. It doesn’t help that my thirst has returned and I’m feeling pissed o
ff. Obviously, I didn’t drink nearly enough of Sandy’s blood.

  What’s so cool about craving blood and having the urge drive you crazy half the night? I remind myself to tell Seymour that he’s crazy to want to be a vampire, especially a newborn.

  “There’s been a major train accident outside of town,” I say. “Many people have been injured. It’s so serious that triage units are being set up near the track. A lot of people are so badly hurt they can’t wait until they reach a hospital. They need immediate care. It’s your job to get as much blood as possible and take it to the scene and start operating on people.” I pause and focus on her eyes. They have turned bloodshot, another fact I’m not wild about. Could I be damaging her? “Do you understand?” I ask.

  “How did this happen, Kim?”

  “Teenagers were fooling with the track controls and derailed a train. We need the blood and we need it now. Let’s get it.”

  I manage to get her in a nearby elevator and push the button for the basement. It’s half past eight. Most of the patient visitors have gone home but the hospital isn’t as empty as I would like. It probably would have been wiser to wait until midnight to try to steal the blood. Tell that to my thirst. The blood I drained from Sandy is beginning to feel like a mere mouthful.

  There is only one guy manning the blood center. At first glance I feel relieved. He’s young, maybe twenty. He looks neither very strong nor very intelligent. He just looks bored. Unfortunately, he flashes a smile when he sees Sandy, and it’s obvious he knows and likes the woman.

  “Dr. Treach, I thought you went home hours ago,” he says. His name badge reads GARY STEVENS. “What are you doing here?”

  Sandy replies like a zombie robot. “There’s been a major train accident outside of town. Many people have been injured. It’s so serious that triage units are being set up near the track. A lot of people are so badly hurt they can’t wait until they reach a hospital. They need immediate care. It’s your job to get as much blood as possible and take it to the scene and start operating on people.” She turns and gestures to me. “This is my niece, Kim Treach.”