““The pain will leave you.” She confirmed. “Seven days of light, Lillian, and then it shall only be the darkness that is your world. You have lived in one of those days already. Six more and you shall kiss the sun goodbye forever.”
““What does that mean?” I cried out in alarm. “I don’t believe in vampires.” I shook my head in mad denial. How could what she was telling me possibly be true? Vampires? I had read about the creatures once, Gail and I had, in one of her dime store novels. We hadn’t been able to sleep afterward and later had insisted that we had seen shadows against the bedroom walls.
““That is too bad, young Lillian, because you are becoming one. There are others as well, but you must beware of them. Vampires are solitary creatures. We do not live in covenants like many presume, like the story tellers insist. No, we are creatures that survive on our own, and if we come across each other we are constantly watching our backs. Vampires fear each other far more than they fear the mortals.” She explained, but I was still trying to wrap my mind around the word vampire.
““I’m not a vampire.” I insisted. I didn’t want this, not any of it. I swore that it couldn’t be happening to me. It was just a dream, a nightmare! I was still lying in my itchy bed, the fever still raging. It was all a delusion! Yes, I was sick again. That had to be it!
““No, young Lillian. It isn’t a nightmare that you are experiencing, though at times it may feel as such. You are as real as I, and in time you will learn all that you need know to survive. I will teach you.” She promised.
““But, I’m not a vampire.” I shook my head in denial once more. She turned to me then, smiling a beautiful smile even as her glowing eyes died off like ambers, being replaced with the blue melanin that naturally was there. I breathed in deep though I could not feel the air expand my lungs. Strange. This was all very strange and frightening.
““I’m sure that you have noticed some changes. The sun felt hotter against your skin today, did it not?” she asked, and I thought about her words. Yes, the sun had seemed to burn against my flesh. I looked at her, understanding a little more as she spoke. “Your face, your eyes, your skin, it is all different. Is it not?” she went on to say, and my eyes widened in understanding.
““And what of the cat that you just made a meal of? You drank the animal’s blood, Lillian. It fed you. It is not the only creature that you will feed upon.” She promised, and I felt myself gagging. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I was going to be sick.
““Your mortal mind does not like the idea, but your mortal mind is changing by the hour. Soon, it will not even bother you what it is that you must do.” She vowed, and I stared at her in disbelief.
““Who the hell are you?” I shouted at her.
““My name is Gina Giovani.” She told me. “I am two hundred and seventy years old, young for a vampire, but old enough to know my way about in the nightly world. You, Lillian, are just a babe. I will teach you. You will come with me this night.”
““No!” I shouted, stepping back away from her. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to go anywhere with you!”
““In six days you will die without me.” Gina warned strongly. “The sun will turn your body to ash and there will be nothing more of you.” She warned.
““It is what I deserve. I have become evil! Like you!” I screamed at her hatefully. She looked away as if I had hurt her then, and I almost felt guilty for my words. She had come to me when I had needed her and now I was turning my back on her, but the things that she spoke of were so unbelievable. I could not phantom such ideas.
““You will change your mind.” She said calmly, and before I could look up, I felt a sweep of wind wash over me and she was gone. I stood there, stumbling badly over my feet, over my thoughts. I could still taste the salty blood from the cat on my tongue, and what I had done to the poor animal came flooding back to me. Tears of regret spilled from my eyes as I turned and went back toward the house.”
Nicole’s hands were trembling so badly that she nearly dropped the journal three times. Vampires? She shook her head in denial, but when she closed her eyes she could still hear her parents’ screams, and then the insane laughter from the ones that had killed them. She had been hidden away that night. Her mother had pressed her behind a huge, green, trash dumpster and had instructed her to be very quiet and very still. Nicole could still remember how hard she had shook with fear, hearing those screams pierce the night and when the dumpster had gone flying away from her, the eyes, those white eyes in the distance…
Nicole swallowed the fear rising in her throat. The journal had been in the man’s jacket. He had been there that night. Had he come to fight off the vampires? Her heart beating away from her, Nicole asked herself if she was really buying into this shit? Vampires? She scoffed at the very idea, but those eyes, those white eyes. The journal had spoken of white eyes. But what did she know? She had only been seven years old for Christ’s sake! She could have imagined those eyes, she reasoned. Then why was her heart beating so fast? Why was she trembling? Why was she holding her breath as if she had at last stumbled upon the truth? Vampires…
Nicole’s bright blue eyes fell to the pages of the journal once more. Scanning down to where she had left off, she clutched the journal with white knuckles and began to earnestly read again.
“After I had cleaned myself up, I went back to my room and sat there, staring at the walls and trying to determine if my mind was safe or not. So much had transpired for my young mind to absorb, but as each new day passed, I grew stronger and wiser to what it was that I was becoming.
“Widow Winters did not miss the change in me.
““You should eat, Lillian.” She called to me one night from across the dinner table that she had permitted me to sit at with her on the fifth night since Gina had left me. I wondered about her, Gina, the vampire that had made me. Yes, I believed her now. How could I deny what I felt happening to me more and more every day? I could do things that I had never been able to do before. If I concentrated hard enough, I could pick a heartbeat out from a great distance away. I could actually hear the blood running smoothly through veins. It called to me daily, nightly as the hunger clawed at my insides. I hadn’t surrendered to the hunger again since I had taken my faithful friend: the cat’s life. I vowed that I never would, but with each passing day, I found that I wanted it more and more, and it was becoming harder and harder to resist. Where had the one who had made me gone? Would she be back? She had told me that I had six days left. It was now down to one. Tomorrow would be my last day as a mortal, I thought almost calmly. I looked at the sunlight now and it burned into my eyes. It warned me of things to come. It was my jailer, my executioner, and it waited for me to walk me to the gallows.
“As a mortal, I had not feared death. I had even welcomed it. As my immortal self grew, I feared death more than anything else in my existence. I looked to Widow Winters over my untouched wineglass. Her dark eyes bore into me and I could read the fear that she did not speak of in the swift beat of her heart.
““You’re so pale.” She mentioned in a trembling voice. Yes, I was pale. I had not fed. I refused to feed. I fought the raging hunger as valiantly as any young girl could and so far I had won.
““I’m not hungry.” I lied to Widow Winters, but my hungry gaze fell to the pulse beat in her throat. I could see the life in her flesh, in her skin. I could smell it in her hair. The beat of her heart called to me. It beat to the music in my head, growing louder and louder until I wanted to cover my ears to keep it out. It was driving me mad! Subconsciously, I traced my lips with my tongue.
““Stop staring at me so.” Widow Winters shrieked in alarm.
““So?” I lifted my gaze, meeting the terror in her eyes.
““Something has changed about you, Lillian.” She acknowledged. Yes, something had, I agreed silently. I was stronger. I was immortal, or I soon would be, I thought almost absently.
““Where are Miss Willi
s and Miss Samantha tonight?” I asked of her, tearing my gaze away from her throat as the hunger inside of me grew to alarming measures. I did my best to fight it off, to overcome the hunger with my mind that was still human. I tried to reason with the hunger. I tried to talk it out of what it wanted me to do. The beat of Widow Winters’ heart grew louder, and I covered my ears. It was deafening. I grew crazed. I turned sharply and tipped over my wineglass. Widow Winters gasped from across the room.
““What is wrong with you, dear girl?” She practically shouted from across the long table. I stared at the ground, not wanting her to see me. I was sure that I was not presentable. I could feel it: the change that was trying to come over me. I looked to my hand and I saw that my nails had sharpened against the table, digging long furrows into the wood. What was this? Something new, I wondered curiously as I felt newfound strength oozing through my every limb.
““I don’t feel so well.” I said, and she stood, overturning her chair. I gripped the table tighter, fighting off the hunger with what willpower I could muster up.
““Dear God!” Widow Winters shrieked. “It’s about time.” She said, and I shook my blonde head in confusion. What was she talking about?
““Time?” I croaked out.
““Yes! Time! Die already!” she screamed at me, and I was so shocked by her words that my head shot up.
““Die?” I cried out, still fighting against the hunger that wanted me to do what I had been reborn to do.
“A cruel smile slid into place on Widow Winter’s pink-fleshed face as she morbidly watched me, and then suddenly, I could hear her thoughts in my head as if they were my own. My face furrowed in confusion as her thoughts caught my brain.
““Die!” She shouted inside my mind. “Die, won‘t you? I’ve been poisoning you for months. I thought you would die nearly a week ago. I called the doctor here to watch you do so, so that he would think that I had done all that I could to save you, my dear niece.”
““No!” I covered my ears as her sickly twisted thoughts rushed to me. “I’m your niece?” I asked out loud, unbelieving the voice that I had heard in my head. All of these years, I had thought that Widow Winters had taken pity on me, the orphan that I had become after my father’s death. She had taken me in when I had had no one, but she had made me her servant! “Your niece?” I asked again in shocked disbelief.
““How did you know that?” she shrieked furiously, and she started toward me. “Why aren’t you dead yet?” she demanded in extreme agitation.
““Because I died five nights ago, dear aunt.” I rose to my tall height, towering over my small aunt with strength that came upon me as swiftly as the fierce winds of a storm.
““What did you say?” she shrank back in alarm, holding up defensive hands.
“”You tried to kill me. Why?” I demanded, walking toward her with intent. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she picked up a brass candle stick from the table to bash my head in, I was sure. I looked upon her with hatred, hatred for the years of lies, for the years I had spent in cold and filth beneath the stairs while she and her daughters had lavished in wealth! “Why?” I shouted at her.
““Because you have more money than the Duke of Winchester and the Earl of Havenmore put together!” she shouted at me wildly. I knew the names. I had even met the Earl of Havenmore. He was a delightful man. I had looked up to him when I had been a child of five and he would visit my father. My father, I thought suddenly. It was difficult to recall those times. I had been so young, but if the Earl of Havenmore had visited with my father, then surely my family could not have been that bad off, I reasoned.
““My father had wealth?” I asked carefully, and it was her thoughts that came to me first. I could read her like an open book, but I despised the words that adorned the pages. They sickened me!
““Your father had nothing.” Her thoughts told me in disgust. “Not when my stupid sister married the man, he didn’t. He won the first of his fortune on a silly bet, gaining himself a prize thoroughbred stallion that would win race after race and earn your father the means to buy more of those beastly creatures. Soon, his empire began to build and his retched name became well known throughout London and all of England. He became a horse breeder and all of society came to him to have their mares bred to his stupid, prize stallions. He invested his money well. He was in favor with the King. He gained it all quite by luck and my silly sister’s life that had been nothing when she had left with your pathetic, ill-bred father had suddenly become so much more than my life would ever be.
““I hated her, your mother. That is why I poisoned her. That is why I killed her. Of course, I started with your brother, Philip. I had the girth on his saddle cut that morning before your father had taken him out for a ride. It was all planned from the beginning. First, your brother who would stand to inherit all if his father died, and then your mother, my sister. I poisoned her slowly, so that no one would know. Then all that was left was your father who had begged me to take you in if anything were to happen to him. He wanted the best for you, his spoiled daughter.” The sarcasm, the loathing that spilled from her was unbearable. The hatred that she felt for me was returned ten times fold. Her words came to me in rivers, and I listened in horror to it all as she contemplated her last murder. “Of course, I promised to take you in and fool that your father was, he made me your guardian in event of his death. If anything happened to him then all of his fortune would fall upon you upon your eighteenth birthday or your marriage. I managed to keep you filthy enough over the years that no man would want you. I had thought to have you dead before now. You see, you stupid twit, if you die, and you will, all of your fortune becomes mine.”
“She moved toward me with her candlestick raised. I could read in her thoughts that she thought I was too weak, that the poison she had thought to have fed me over the last few days in the food that I had not touched was killing me. The knowledge of the truth hit me full force. She was my aunt: Widow Winters. She was also the murderer of my family!
“Enraged, I rose with all of the strength of the immortal that I was becoming, and I stalked her. “Murderer.” I hissed, unaware that my mouth had not moved, and that it was my thoughts that found her mind. Her eyes widened in fear and confusion. She ran at me to attack me, but I got to her first, and I changed in the blinking of an eye. Fangs slit through my mortal gums, tearing and bleeding upon my lips, and my eyes took on a glow that was the last thing that Widow Winters saw before my vampire fangs found her neck and bled her dry.
“It was a clumsy, raged kill, but her blood fed the hunger that had been starving at the pit of me for days. It brought me power and strength once more and with disgust and ease I shoved her lifeless body away from me. I was disgusted and appalled both of the monster she had been and of the one that I was becoming. Her eyes were still wide open in shock as she fell away from me and came crashing to the floor. I spit blood down upon her lifeless body in hated disgust.
““Murderer.” I hissed aloud. She had killed my family. I would still have my parents, my brother if not for her, I thought as emotion raged within me for probably the last time. I had had my revenge, but I did not feel any better because of it.
“Unexpectedly the side doors burst open and Miss Willis entered the room and screamed at the sight before her.
“Mother!” She cried out in sobs, and she ran to her mother’s side. She looked up at me with tears flooding from her eyes, and she screamed in horror. “You killed her! You killed my mother!” she shouted at me, and then I heard footsteps running down the hall. I turned. I had nowhere to go. The only door that led out would be filled with servants and guards in no time.
““This way, Lillian.” I suddenly heard Gina’s voice in my mind. It called to me from the huge, stone window at my back. I ran to the window in my fright, and I did not stop. I jumped straight through the opening, feeling the wind rush against me as I tumbled clumsily down the three stories toward the earth. I landed crouched on my b
are feet, unhurt with no idea to how I had done so. I looked back up at the window to see Miss Willis standing there, staring down at me in shocked amazement.
““She’s evil!” she sobbed hysterically. “A demon!”
“I stood. I ran, and I did not look back. I could never go back, I told myself. I knew that now. I was what Gina had made me: a vampire. I had to find the vampire, Gina, or I would never survive. Suddenly, I wanted very much to live even if it was as a creature of the night. I had killed someone, someone who had deserved death, but still, I was a murderer. It had felt good, draining the wicked woman’s life from her. It had felt like sweet revenge. If I had it to do again, I knew that I would. Her blood pulsed through my veins. It made me feel alive if only for a brief moment, and I hadn’t felt alive in days. I knew then that the only times I would ever feel alive again was when I fed, when the blood of another pulsed through my veins. I had felt it with the butler’s cat. I felt it even more with Widow Winter’s blood warming my insides. My rebirth as a vampire had officially begun. I had to find Gina, my dark mother. She would save me from my ignorance. As she had told me, I was a babe in the world of night. She would teach me all that I needed to know to survive. I stopped. I listened to the music pouring into my mind. It spoke to me. It told me which way it was that I should go. I followed the music and soon I found her: my dark mother, the vampire, Gina.”
Terrified by the story she had just read, Nicole set the journal aside. It had to be a hoax, she reasoned, but the damage had been done. She closed her eyes and she was seeing white-eyed creatures with long, bloody fangs and hearing the tortured screams of her parents. She shook her head in denial. She was being silly, stupid even. Vampires were not real, she told herself. Any fool knew that! Then why was she trembling so badly? She had let her imagination get away from her, that was all, she reasoned.
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