by Atha, DL
The vampire that turned Asa fed him his own blood from a glass. I had never drank Asa’s blood and I was still turning, but Asa said he would feed me his blood to turn me. So did I need to drink his blood? Was his blood required to complete the conversion, or did that just speed it up?
Thinking back through what he had told me about his last night of life, I knew he had not been exposed multiple times like I had been. He only received his maker’s blood. Vampiric blood must contain higher numbers of the virus compared to other body fluids so he needed very little time to be converted.
Certain that I would convert without his blood, the only questions were when it would be finished and if I could face him as an equal tonight? With only a few hours left until his return, my time was running out.
Sitting in the dark, I wished I had my computer so I could do some research on the Internet, but it was out in the den and I was unwilling to risk facing the sun. Reaching up, I flipped on the light switch in the closet. Even though I could see the shapes of most everything, I was still sitting in the dark. The closet only had a sixty-watt bulb, but I gasped slightly when I hit the switch. The light seemed brilliant and hurt my eyes, which I squeezed shut as tightly as I could against the light, but at least it didn’t burn my skin.
Giving my eyes a few seconds to adjust, I was able to look around the closet and I realized how unorganized this space was. Everything that had ever meant anything to me over the span of my life was tucked away somewhere in the confines of this room, along with all of my clothes and shoes.
The closet also served as the safe room of the house, so it was built of cement blocks wrapped together with rebar and then that was wrapped with quarter-inch steel sheets on the outside. The door was a heavy steel door that bolted from the inside. I had it added to the house shortly after I moved in.
This area was known for tornadoes and that was the only reason I had hired a contractor to build it. It was July, prime tornado season, when I had interviewed the contractors and tornadoes were my only safety concern at the time.
But the contractor had been just as concerned about personal security and home invasion when he showed me the plans. He had looked at me the same way my parents had when I showed him the house. Like I was crazy! I had overheard him telling his employees several times that a single mother had no business living in the middle of nowhere.
Looking around the room, I realized just how safe this room really was. Certain that the contractor wasn’t thinking about vampires when he built it, I wondered if it was impervious to them? Or maybe even better yet, would a vampire be safe in this room during the daytime? It was essentially a crypt. Could I use it to hide in until I was fully changed? That was a thought I hadn’t considered until I found myself now hiding in here from the sun.
Confident that my only hope was to be changed before Asa decided my fate, the closet was looking like my best option. Eventually I had to come out, but if I could wait until I was fully converted, at least I had a chance. But if I gambled wrong and he could tear this door down before I was changed, I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. I eyed the door speculatively, I had never been much of a gambler. I decided not to chance it.
I continued to sit in the closet just staring ahead of me, pondering vampires and my theories when it occurred to me that the safe room had a computer tied into the security system. The contractor had thought it essential to be able to email from the confines of the closet in the event the phone lines were cut or had been knocked down. Now in retrospect, I decided the man was a genius. I wasn’t planning on sending out in any emails, but I could certainly spend some time doing research.
Pulling open the security box, the keyboard was a small fold up variety. It looked tiny even after I got it opened up, but at least it was usable and I had access to the web.
Pulling up the search engine, I typed in vampire. I rolled my eyes when nearly three million hits popped up. It would take me weeks to scroll through these, let alone even read many of them. I needed to narrow this down. Choosing “becoming a vampire” as my next search, I got almost seven million hits! Disgusted, I went ahead and scrolled through several pages of these sites.
Disturbing was the only word I had to describe what I saw. Apparently, lots of people want to become vampires and even more claim to know how to become one, although I found very little information that seemed to be useful at all. It definitely didn’t seem relevant to what I knew about them. Well, I only knew one vampire, but the information didn’t seem to fit with what I knew about him.
I was pretty sure he hadn’t become a vampire by falling off of the left side of a wagon, or being the seventh son of a seventh son. Apparently, both were once thought to be common ways of becoming the undead. Had a chicken crossed his grave? Had he been excommunicated? Had his parents put a curse on him? Was he born with red hair? This was ridiculous and I was wasting my time.
I kept flipping through the pages but I was getting desperate, nothing I found seemed even remotely possible. Had I actually sunk to perusing the Internet for vampire tales, hoping to find something helpful? Well, yes I had. All I needed was a grain of truth, I reminded myself. Surely there had to be some small tidbit of useful information so I patiently continued to flip through the sites.
I was about two hundred sites in when something caught my attention. It was a link to a newspaper article dating back to the mid-twenties, printed close to Valentine’s day.
Located in the style section of the paper, a drawing of a middle-aged man was shown above the title that read “Man Claims to be 500-year-old vampire. There in black and white was a sketch of a man who appeared to be about fifty years old. His face was angular and he appeared quite tired. I read the article quickly. Short and sarcastic, the author was clearly condescending and was openly discounting the man’s story.
Not that I could blame him, of course, I wouldn’t have believed it either a week ago. It probably only made the paper because it was a love story and the author was desperately looking for a Valentine’s story with flair. He must have been really desperate to print this. How ironic that he had printed what would have been Earth-shattering news if he had only realized it.
Skeptical at first, I became pretty convinced it was legit about a paragraph into the brief account given by the man.
According to him, he had become a vampire after falling in love with a woman in the early 1500s. Having spent every night with her for about a month, he had died one night in her arms after she convinced him to drink from a small gash she had made with a knife on her left wrist. Thinking this was a poetic manifestation of their love, he had done exactly as she said, not realizing the consequences.
When asked if he blamed her, the man had told the author that looking back on the event, he now knew she had trusted him implicitly because direct feeding would have made her vulnerable. One of the few times that this was true.
According to the vampire, the process of conversion caused uncontrollable cravings in the one being converted, to the point they could drain their creator without realizing it or caring. Also, the blood provided extreme power in the last few minutes of life. Enough that they would be stronger than their maker, but only briefly. She had loved him completely, enough to put her life in his hands.
“Why was he revealing himself?” the author asked. “Tiresome, so awfully tiresome after the hunters came for her. So let them come for me now. I’m longing for her company,” the vampire had answered. That was the last line of the story. Underneath the article was an advertisement for a tonic that could cure any ailment. Talk about a hoax.
The article seemed to be the most legitimate documentation I had come across while searching the web. It explained why Asa’s maker had fed him distantly from a glass. Asa could have overpowered him if he had been able to get his hands on him. The alcohol had probably helped to subdue him as well.
Certain that Asa didn’t realize the reason for how he was turned, I was grateful he had never bothered to find
out more about himself. His lack of knowledge of his own kind was my greatest advantage.
But why? Why would his blood make me stronger than him? There had to be a scientific explanation. There always was. This wasn’t very different than the mating of black widow spiders where the male is rendered helpless and eaten by the female. Evolution’s way of making sure that the weaker one has a chance to survive. In this case, the human’s chances of being turned go way up, ensuring procreation of the species since they don’t give birth. At least, I didn’t think they gave birth.
My eyes were burning from staring at the computer screen so I turned it off for a while and leaned back against a small portion of wall space that wasn’t cluttered up. If he did decide to turn me, I was now certain I could kill him.
Basing my future on an article from the twenties may not have been the most logical thing to do, but the story had a sense of realism to me that was probably missed on its original audience. I was sure the man in the picture was telling the truth. I hope he got his wish, I thought to myself.
He had said, “Let the hunters come.” Who were the hunters and were there any still around today? Guessing you’d find them on the Internet, I tossed around the idea of using the search engine to find a vampire hunter but gave that idea up pretty quickly.
From what I had seen on the web, it would take weeks to find the real thing, and chances were they would be psycho when they did show up. Plus if they were real, they would want to kill me too. No, I decided I would take my chances alone with Asa.
It was really hard to explain how I felt physically. I didn’t feel like myself. Kind of like there was something inside me that needed to get out. Almost like I was wearing skin that was too tight, yet I felt strong, like I could run a race or bench press a few hundred pounds. And I was thirsty. Every other thought was of Asa.
Lifting my arms to my face, I inhaled deeply up the length of my limbs and I could smell him on me. My insides twisted and burned for him.
Feeling itchy and dry, I raised my arms up only to find layers of skin were beginning to lift off of me, reminding me of a snake shedding its skin. I lightly grasped an edge that had lifted near my wrist, gently tugging off a piece that stretched to my elbow. Expecting to find young pink skin like in a second-degree burn, I was surprised to find my new skin was pale and supple. I looked sort of like zebra with my old skin lying against the stripe of my new skin. Asa would surely notice this. Great, how would I cover this up?
Getting to my feet, I lifted up my shirt and saw it was doing the same on my abdomen and flank. Rubbing at the layers, I watched as flakes dropped to the floor. I needed to scrub myself as soon as possible. Maybe I would get lucky and could get into the shower before he came. For the last couple of nights, he hadn’t come right at dusk. Of course, tonight he was planning on showing me his true colors. Maybe I would be okay in the hour before dusk since the sun would be coming from the other direction and very few of the rays would make their way into the bathroom.
What else was going to happen to me before I was completely converted? When would my heart stop? I knew it would because I had surreptitiously listened for the beat of Asa’s the other night when I was getting exposed. I had not heard it. When I had held his wrists in my hands, I didn’t feel a pulse. A vampire’s physiology didn’t rely on the heart to pump blood. No longer needed, it would eventually cease to beat.
Asa had told me that vampires could be killed by a stake to the heart, but the why remained unknown. That didn’t make any sense and I sat there confused for a few minutes. I decided not to worry about it, science didn’t understand everything about human physiology, I certainly didn’t need to understand everything about the physiology of vampires. If all went well, I would have plenty of time to figure it out.
The clock on the security system beeped that it was 12 p.m. I still had a lot of time to spend in the closet. Strange but true, I didn’t have to fight an urge to leave the closet. It felt really natural to be in the tightly enclosed space. That must be an instinctual effect of the virus, craving closed in dark spaces during the day hours. So did that explain the common coffin theme in vampire movies? Probably. And the idea of a coffin didn’t really seem that bad to me.
The more I considered it, the more comfy the idea felt. If I survived this, maybe I would look into getting one. No, scratch that idea. No matter what, I wouldn’t get so dramatic as to sleep in a coffin. I laughed out loud at the thought. It felt good to laugh so I laughed out loud until my laughter began to take on a slightly psychotic sound and I stopped abruptly.
Tears, light at first, started to trace down the contours of my cheekbones. Reaching up to wipe away the first few that fell, I looked down at them on my fingertips. They were red tinged but otherwise they glistened like normal teardrops. It appeared that now my tears were mingled with blood. They continued to fall so I gave up wiping them away and let them fall where they would, staining my light blue t-shirt.
I simply sat in the closet and mourned my lost life. This was what was left to me if I survived, which despite my newly found advantages was still a big if.
Despite my previous feelings of ambiguity towards Asa, I realized I was happy to be his companion in only one way, to escort him to the grave. He deserved it for everything he had done to me.
Hatred for him surged through me along with my overpowering lust for him. No not him. For his blood. Recognizing the importance of separating the two, I tried to focus on my hatred of him. I would need that hatred to keep me going tonight if I was to survive.
He had taken everything. My life, my family, my career, and my future. What did I or what would I have left? The night? Which meant I had nothing. Could I really raise my Ellie and hold down a career in the dark? And even if I could, my precious daughter would age before my eyes and finally die, leaving me alone in the world. I would never enjoy a sunny summer day again. Never soak up the sunshine with my little girl along the beach. Never watch her play softball or ride her horse again.
Worst of all, she would never understand why and I couldn’t burden her with the knowledge. My heart ached and I could feel the crush of sadness on my chest. Maybe my heart would break and I would die of this sorrow.
Humans can die of a broken heart. It’s not just a myth. The Japanese call it Tako Tsubo. An emotional cardiomyopathy, and for a few minutes despair overwhelmed me and I wished I could die of it. At least Ellie would have a body to mourn
But I could feel my heart beating slowly in my chest. How much longer would it beat? Letting my hearing take over, I listened to its slow but still rhythmic beat. Right now, for the moment, its sound still connected me to Ellie and to her human world. I was still a part of her life. So despite its progressively worsening sounds of failure, I relished in the fact it was still functioning.
As many dying people do, I think, I had a lot of regrets. Things that I hadn’t done with her or for her and now that the end was near, I wished I had. Like all of the scrapbook supplies that were sitting in the corner of the closet. I had been meaning to make her a scrapbook pretty much since the day she was born, but I had never gotten around to it. Why not do it now? I decided.
Pulling out the supplies, I reached into a box about ten inches square, it contained all of the pictures, haphazardly arranged, I had taken over the years. I had always berated myself for not taking my pictures on digital cameras, but now I was glad I was technologically challenged when it came to pictures. Because now I had photos I could actually hold in my hands.
Flipping through them slowly, I divided them up into the different phases of her childhood. Starting with the pictures from her birth, I started to make the first page. I couldn’t help but stare at the first picture ever taken of her. Laying across my chest, she was beautiful and I looked so naïve. At least that’s the way it appeared to me now.
The second picture was of Ellie in my ex-husband’s arms. Normally, my vision would go red when I saw him or thought back to him leaving us. But I could no longer fe
el any anger at him. There were many more important things to worry about, I now realized.
If he had been here, he would be dead and for once I was glad for his sake that he had left. Ellie would still have a father and that was good. I stared at his face a moment longer and wished him the best.
Laying those pictures aside, a photo of Ellie on her first horse caught my attention. Auburn hair streaking out behind her in the wind, she sat as tall and proud as could be on that little horse. Tracing her outline, I was grinning as proudly as the day I had bought that horse. He was still grazing out in the pasture.
There were pictures of rodeos, T-ball games, school programs and holidays. Each picture brought blood-tinged tears or laughter and sometimes both. God bless her. I would miss her. I missed what she would become. I mourned for her first date, her prom, her graduation, her wedding. I even mourned for my grandchildren.
Three hours later, however, I had a very presentable scrapbook. Why had I not done this sooner? I had dreaded this for years and now in a matter of a few short hours, I had done it. I would put it on her bookshelf in her room tonight, and someday she would find it. If I didn’t survive this, it would be my goodbye to her. An idea hit me and at first I hesitated, but then deciding I had nothing to lose, I wrote a letter to her.
I told her about the day she was born, how I had held her in my arms and marveled at her perfection. I described her inquisitiveness and her raw energy. I recounted some of our best days together. I told her that I loved her, I told her that I knew I was dying, and that I made this for her to remember me.
I reminded her to take care of her grandmother, to work hard, go to college, and to be picky when it came to boys. She was worth the best, I told her, and lastly, I told her again that I loved her.
Folding the note up, I slipped it down behind one of the pictures in her scrapbook. I prayed she would find it someday. Not immediately, but in a few years when she might understand all the sentiment that I had tried to cram into those few sheets of paper.