Winter Thirst

by Ilia Bera

  What she could apparently never ever have.

  “Damn my life,” Hanna muttered.

  Hanna’s hands were buried deep in her pockets and her chin was pressed tightly against her chest as thick snow built up on the hood of her oversized jacket.

  The colourful Christmas lights strung through the town centre seemed to flicker as Hanna walked past, as if she was sucking the life out of everything she was near—God reminding her that she was cursed.

  Ding Dong!

  The tall clock tower, which stood erect at the centre of the town, rang prominently as the small hand reached the eleventh hour. The ringing reverberation echoed through the monolithic mountains. Hanna looked up to the open window above the large clock piece. Her beautiful angel of a mother used to sit happily up in that window, next to her perched gargoyle of a father.

  “Murderer!” a voice called out from behind her.

  Hanna spun around to see a group of twenty-somethings standing about a block away, pretending to not have heard a thing—obviously the culprits.

  Their group was composed of two tall, slender men and two tall, pretty and popular looking women. Each member of the young group was smoking a cigarettes outside of the town’s favourite little bar.

  The vocal attack was certainly directed at the little Wilkinson girl.

  Hanna turned around and continued to wander away. As she did, giggling erupted out of the youngsters.

  Hanna stopped.

  This was far from the first time she’d been the victim of such an attack. Every time, she simply walked away, letting the unfair ridicule marinate into her abused soul.

  That particular night, something was different. Hanna turned around and started to walk towards the giggling youth.

  “What was that?” she asked quietly as she walked towards them. Her body was tense and she maintained her sheepish demeanour. Her heart pounded against her chest quickly as she confronted her problems for the first time ever.

  There was a moment of silence among the bar patrons as they smiled at one another. “What was what?” one of the young men asked.

  “What did you say?” Hanna asked, walking directly up to the group.

  Each one of the youngsters was at least a full foot taller than the short Hanna.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, scoffing as he turned back to his group of friends.

  Hanna stood as the friends looked down on her, trying their best to not laugh directly in her face.

  “Say it again,” Hanna insisted quietly.

  “What was that?” one of the girls asked.

  “Say it again.”

  “Speak up.”

  “I said, say it again,” Hanna said, still in her quiet, timid voice.

  The friends all laughed at Hanna’s inability to raise her voice, even when confronting her abusers.

  “Go back to your haunted house,” the alpha boy said turning briefly towards Hanna.

  Swiftly, Hanna reached up and grabbed the boy by the collar and held him tightly with impressive strength. The boy tried to shimmy himself free, but the young vampire’s grip was too strong.

  “Let go!” the boy said.

  His friends began to laugh at his expense, not seeing any threat in the attack.

  “I said let go!” the boy said again as he grabbed Hanna’s wrist with his hand, trying to pull her off of him unsuccessfully.

  “Say it again,” Hanna said.

  “What?”

  “Say it!” Hanna said, finally raising her voice.

  “You’re a fucking psychopath!”

  Hanna threw the boy against the icy cement below with impressive force, eliciting a loud snap out of a bone in his arm.

  “Ah! Fuck!” the young man yelled out loud as he pulled his body into a defensive fetal position.

  “Hey!” one of the girls yelled, stepping forward to defend her friend. She reached out to shove Hanna away.

  In the blink of an eye, Hanna swiped at the girl’s chest, ripping through her coat and cutting into her skin with her nails.

  The female twenty-something winced and stumbled back, grabbing her chest with both of her hands. Blood began to seep through her ripped coat.

  “What the fuck!” the girl yelled out.

  The remaining two friends hurried to their friends’ rescue, pulling them away from the furious young vampire in a panic.

  “Get away from us!” the unscathed boy yelled out as he pulled his broken friend along the icy sidewalk.

  Hanna’s eyes began to glaze over as the reality of what she’d done began to set in.

  Her body became light and she became overwhelmed with a light-headed sensation. Colours began to fade away from her vision, and her world became a blurry black-and-white mess.

  Then, her eyes suddenly honed in on the blood seeping through the female aggressor’s winter coat. The blood was an incredible shade of deep red—a particularly delicious colour. It’s aroma was sweet; Hanna could practically taste its glorious, robust flavour from ten feet away.

  Hanna’s legs began to tremble as her head began to spin out of control.

  Hanna looked around. Down the road was a police cruiser, turning around the corner.

  “Hey! Over here!” one of the friends yelled out to the patrolling officer.

  Blood literally dripping down her hands, Hanna wasted no time. She turned around and began to run into the guise of the falling snow.

  The officer noticed the waving youngsters and turned on his sirens.

  “Call an ambulance!” the unscathed woman yelled as she applied pressure to her cut friend’s wounds.

  By the time he pulled up to the injured kids, Hanna was long gone.

  THIRTY-SIX

  the cravings

  Hanna did not stop running until she was inside of her house. Her heart was beating at its maximum limit, and her head was spinning in rocky, nauseating circles.

  She took a long breath in, trying to control herself. She fell against the wall as her legs continued to tremble. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself down.

  But even through her eyelids, she could see the glowing red blood of all of her nearby neighbours. She could see the elderly man sleeping two houses down with his elderly wife. She could see the newborn baby a whole block away, who had just been brought home the night before. She could even see the blood of a young deer prancing through the nearby woods.

  Quickly, Hanna pushed herself off of the wall, leaving behind a long streak of the female youngster’s blood. She looked around, and then noticed the blood on the wall. She looked down at her hands.

  A drop of blood fell off of her fingernail onto the cold floor below. Trembling, Hanna lifted her bloodied hand up to her lips. Gently she ran her finger along her bottom lip, wiping the blood along the tip of her tongue.

  Suddenly, she began to feel the perfect euphoria pulsing through her veins. She wanted more.

  She had to feed.

  She threw her coat onto the ground and sunk down to the floor, planting her face into the palm of her hands.

  “Go away! Go away!” she repeated over and over. Through her closed eyes, and her trembling hands, she could still see the distant glow of the neighbour’s blood.

  The pulsing carotid artery of the old man taunted her, nearly one-hundred yards away. “This can be yours,” it teased. “In mere seconds, this can be yours.”

  Her hands trembled and her knees buckled. She looked back down at the dried blood on the tips of her fingers. She couldn’t resist any longer.

  Hanna turned around and ran back out into the street.

  Wheeeeooooo!

  A distant police cruiser turned around the corner of a nearby street, likely on its way towards Hanna’s home. Hanna stood motionless for a moment, her brain momentarily shutting itself off as her vampiric instincts began to take hold.

  Da-Dum! Da-Dum! Da-Dum!

  The aged neighbour’s heart was begging Hanna to end its elderly life.


  The old man couldn’t have more than a few years left...

  Stumbling through the deep snow, Hanna began to make her way to the neighbour’s home. Suddenly, the elderly woman next to the old man rolled over and snuggled into her long-time husband.

  Hanna stopped—she couldn’t do it. She refused to be a monster.

  A red and blue flashing light began to glow through the thick blanket of falling snow. The cruiser was near.

  Into the woods—Hanna began to run behind the row of houses which sat nestled on the edge of a forested mountain. Knee deep in freezing snow, Hanna’s insatiable thirst overpowered the undeniable cold.

  Within moments, she found herself within meters of the young baby deer; the solitary doe. Before the lonesome animal could even turn its head, Hanna struck, and she fed.

  The animal’s blood was far from satisfying, but it was enough to control her. Hanna winced as the bitter, unripe and almost sour flavour entered her body, chilling her rapid fire nerves.

  Disgusting.

  As Hanna’s carnivorous cravings subsided, reality seeped back to her. The quickly cooling deer’s blood was quickly becoming more tart—more acidic. It burned her throat as it travelled past her stiff tongue.

  Colour returned as her sight began to deblur. At her knees was the dead doe. Upon seeing its young lifeless face, Hanna turned to her side and spat out the blood that remained in her mouth.

  The awful taste lingered.

  The red drained from her eyes, and tears began to form in its place. It had been a long time since she’d caved to her cravings; a long time since she’d had a taste for blood. She hated it. The very thought of it made her hate herself.

  She looked up towards the sky. The snowy treetops were obscured by the falling snow above; flakes falling into her cold watering eyes.

  Life isn’t fair.

  As Hanna stared up into the sky, no one stared back down. She was alone in a giant, cruel universe.

  A few hundred yards back, she could hear the police cruiser pass her house and disappear into the buried town of Snowbrooke.

  Instead of standing up, Hanna fell back, into the deep cold snow. She stared up into the empty, falling snow. If it were possible to freeze to death, she would have let it happen. Unfortunately, she didn’t even have the luxury of death.

  Slowly, she closed her eyes, letting the thick snow cover her motionless body.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.” A dark, hoarse voice reverberated through the tall, moaning pines.

  Hanna sat up swiftly and looked around.

  “Who’s there?” she said, her heart beginning to pound against her chest wall.

  “Embrace it, Hanna. Embrace yourself.” The strange voice echoed over and over, as if bouncing back and forth off the icy slopes of the surrounding mountains—but the voice was clear enough, as if the lips from which it emanated stood directly next to her ear.

  “H—Hello?” Hanna stuttered as she brought herself up to her feet and looked around. She pulled her arms in close to her body as a chill sunk deep into her thick skin. Certainly, she was hallucinating. That’s it—a hallucination.

  A cold breeze whistled through the swaying trees, lifting a layer of snow up off of the ground, and swirling it around the exposed young vampire.

  “Come to me—be with me,” the wind seemed to whisper.

  “Who are you?” Hanna demanded. “Leave me alone.”

  Two hands fell upon Hanna’s shoulders. The assailant’s fingers were long and slender, with ragged, sharp nails. The skin on the hands looked ancient—practically rotting off.

  Hanna spun around swiftly, but there was nothing there; nothing except for the eternal cold.

  She began to stumble back towards her house, pushing her way through the deep snow.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  cold reality

  A strange, almost ethereal force was calling out to Connor in the hospital as he finished signing his mother’s insurance and transfer papers. Something was wrong, and Connor could feel it—something to do with Hanna.

  “Are you okay?” Ava asked Connor. Connor hadn’t realized, but he had zoned out, mid-conversation. A sudden sick feeling, deep in his gut had developed and his eyes completely glazed over.

  “Connor?” Ava prodded again.

  Connor looked slowly up at the young nurse. “I think I have to go,” he said monotonously.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Uh, yeah. I just—I just need to go.”

  Ava stood tense, frightened by Connor’s sudden change in emotion. He’d flipped like a switch, completely unexpectedly.

  “Can I do anything?” Ava asked.

  Connor quickly through his coat over his body and turned to leave. “I’ll be back,” Connor said, not having heard Ava’s question. He was too distracted by the dread pulsing through his veins.

  “Something is wrong with Hanna,” his intuition said to him, over and over and over again.

  The sensation of panic was overwhelming. Connor’s heart-rate increased sharply; his heart slamming against his chest. His breathing became quick and shallow, and he had the powerful desire to run as fast as he possibly could. He needed to get to Hanna.

  He ran out of the hospital without acknowledging anyone, and he headed straight towards Hanna’s house. He didn’t bother to do up his coat, despite the blood-freezing temperatures. He didn’t bother to put on his toque. He simply ran as fast as his athletic body could. And as he ran through that insufferable cold, some invisible, cruel hand clenched his heart tightly. The ghost, which calls himself dread, breathed his frigid breath viciously down the back of Connor’s neck.

  Teeth clattering and skin burning from the cold, Connor arrived at Hanna’s decrepit house. He made no hesitations running straight up to the door.

  Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

  “Hanna!” Connor called out. “Hanna—Are you okay? Open up!”

  Connor’s heart was beating ferociously in the pit of his stomach.

  “Hanna! I’m coming in!” Connor called out.

  He reached for the dilapidated door knob and pushed the old door open. A swirl of old dust blew out the door and whirled around with a plume of falling snow.

  Connor stepped into the old creaky house. “Hanna!” he called out.

  The house was uncomfortably empty—painfully forlorn. Every step Connor took elicited a loud, deep groan out of the seemingly ancient structure.

  As Connor closed the door behind him, all of the old dusty curtains, which hung in front of the plywood boards against the windows, blew up from the ground in a swift panic, releasing large plumes of thick dust into the dry, stagnant air.

  Between the all-encompassing darkness and the thick walls of dust, Connor couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of himself. He reached forward, looking for a light switch.

  “Hanna! It’s Connor! Are you home?” Connor called out again.

  Then, he found the switch. A light flickered for a moment before dimly lighting the old, moaning mansion.

  Murderer

  The haunting words were spray-painted prominently on the entrance wall of the house, over the remnants of other nasty labels. Connor slowly scanned the mural and then his eyes landed on a peculiar sight...

  Long finger streaks of dark blood, swept across the wall. The blood appeared fresh. On the floor below was Hanna’s coat, with blood around the wrists.

  Connor began to walk through Hanna’s home. His eyes were wide as the cold air penetrated his sensitive skin.

  Demon Child

  Another vandal had left their mark near the end of the hallway.

  Connor stepped into a large empty space, which at one point in time was a living room. Now, it was nothing more than the resting place of some malevolent spirit—an evil forlorn den. The old, rotting walls seemed to lean inwards, suffocating the room. There was no art on the walls—and the only window in the room had been smashed and subsequently covered up with an old, mouldy piece of plywood.

>   Connor stepped towards the window. There was only a small crack along the left edge of the plywood which provided visibility to the outside. As Connor scanned the old piece of wood, flashing red and blue light spilled through the long crack.

  A police cruiser had pulled up to the front of the house.

  Connor’s heart stopped for a moment. He swiftly scanned the room. He ran across the living room towards the kitchen, which circled back into the hallway he came from. There was no back door. Every window was sealed.

  Panicked, he stepped back up to the boarded living room window.

  Constable Hendricks stepped out from the cruiser, with a walkie in his hand.

  “Roger that—I’m at the house now,” Hendricks said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Backup is on the way. Proceed with caution,” dispatch replied.

  Hendricks walked up towards the old house. As he stepped up to the door, he stepped out of Connor’s line of sight.

  Connor scanned the house again—there was absolutely no escape.

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Connor quietly hurried down the hallway and looked around himself. Then, he saw the open door leading to the staircase. Without hesitation, he hurried up the stairs.

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  “Hanna Wilkinson! Are you home? This is Constable Hendricks. I need to ask you some questions.”

  Connor ran over to an old closet, which seemed like an ideal hiding spot. Carefully, he ducked down and tucked himself around the corner, out of sight from the hallway. He buried his body into a series of old dusty cobwebs while he waited for the officer to leave.

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  “If you’re home, failure to answer the door will result in charges of resisting arrest!” the officer called out.

  “Arrest?” Connor muttered to himself.

  “Miss Wilkinson, this is your last chance to open the door!” Constable Hendricks called out.

  There was a moment of anxious silence, and then front door creaked open.

  Connor could hear the house groan as the constable stepped through the aged house.

  Bleep! Bloop!