by Atha, DL
Instead, I pictured Ellie the last time I had seen her. Her honey hair swaying as she walked to my mom’s car, blowing me goodbye kisses.
The fibrillation lasted longer than I would have thought possible as my dying heart struggled to maintain its hold on humanity, but I finally felt the ventricular fibrillation give way to small little jerks until it finally lay silent in my chest.
A moment of panic engulfed me when the organ I had always counted on didn’t restart. Within a couple of seconds of flat-lining, I felt the forward flow of blood throughout my body just stop and settle.
The intense pain I had experienced previously ebbed with the final silencing of my heart and yet I remained conscious. I had died as a human, but I had survived. I had survived Asa.
Laying there on the ground, I began to laugh and cry blood-tinged tears, out of happiness instead of sadness. Jumping to my feet in one movement, I threw my arms wide, roaring my triumph to the world. It reverberated in the night, echoing out for miles, stopping all the sounds of the forest with its alien sound.
Feeling alive and immensely strong, I was about to celebrate my survival with another roar of delight when my eyes landed on the now-dead human.
There had been a price to my survival. I stared at him for a couple of minutes, burning the image into my mind in case I ever forgot that price. In case I ever tried to forget him or Ms. McElhaney and anyone else who had fed Asa while I struggled to live.
Glancing down at the two bodies lying in the clearing, I knew I had work to do. I decided to leave the human where he lay so he would be found. I did try to arrange him in a respectful position, smoothing his clothes down and his disheveled hair back into place. There was nothing I could do about his neck, it gaped open into the night.
Open and mangled, it would be easy for anyone to see the viciousness of the attack. But at least his family would be able to bury him, although they would never know what happened to him.
After I finished, I stood looking down at him, wishing there was something else I could do, but I had converted too late to save him.
Pulling the stake out of Asa, I went to toss it aside before I realized I should probably take it home. It would look very conspicuous lying out here in the woods next to the human. Pulling it up and down my pant legs, I removed as much of the blood as possible. Then I stood there not quite knowing what to do with it.
To be honest, the stake scared me. Like the way a gun had made my hands tingle when I was still human. Starting to stick it down my pants, I changed my mind several times before deciding to just carry it in my free hand. I certainly didn’t want to accidentally stake myself.
Leaning down, I swung Asa’s remains up over my shoulder and loped off towards my house. Looking for a good burial place along the way, I settled on a low lying spot in an area of the forest covered by pine trees, off the beaten four-wheeler trails.
Laying the stake aside and using both hands to clear the old pine needles out of the way, I dug through the cold dirt, making pretty good time until I had a fair-sized hole about four feet deep. His dead eyes stared up at me with his mouth slightly agape, and I desperately wanted to get him into the grave.
Closing his eyes with my free hand, I gently placed him into the wet of the grave and began to fold the dirt in, wishing I had something to place between him and the earth that covered his face.
It was more than he deserved, I decided. I could have let him rot in the sun, but I buried him for the human he had once been. For his mother, father, and the sister that had lost him so long ago. I tried to mask the disturbance in the landscape as best I could, but I was sure that if someone looked for it, they would find it. I didn’t think there would be a body left to discover when they did.
Glancing up at the sky out of habit, the movement was wasted as I knew there was little time left. I could feel the sun although it wasn’t up yet. My skin crawled with the knowledge of the coming sunrise and wasting no more time for Asa, I raced home through the trees and to the security of my safe room.
I did slow down and stop just once as I passed by close to the human camp. I could hear them on their cell phones talking about their missing family member, presumably to the police. Grief and guilt ripped through me and I struggled to remember I hadn’t caused his death. I was merely a witness. I could do nothing more for him and so I began to run towards home again.
Our trip during the night had taken us several miles into the forest, but since I was not tracking a human this time, I made the trip in less than five minutes with time to spare. Stepping out of the woods that bordered my property, I sprinted across the pastures. Without even stopping, I slipped into the pond and out of my clothes, letting them sink into the murky depths of the old pond, taking with them the excrement of my conversion.
Taking two more strokes, I was at the edge of the pond and in mid-stroke I came up out of the water and ran the rest of the way across the pasture. Up onto the deck at the back of my house, I landed gracefully, the water dripping down my cool skin.
Out of habit, I exhaled a sigh of relief. I was home. Alive. Well something like that. Turning to give the night one last glance, my gaze landed on the trail I had taken home. It was as visible and clear through the dewed grass as if I had marked it purposefully from the woods to where I now stood.
Panic hit me as I realized that human eyes could probably see it just as easily. Then I remembered the stake. Having placed it down beside the grave while I dug, I had left it there.
I would have to worry about this later as I could not only see the earliest glow of the sun just beginning to clear the horizon, I could feel it tingling on my skin. Jerking open the door, I raced through the house and flung myself into the safe room. My last truly coherent thought was to slide the lock into place and then I collapsed onto the floor.
Feeling myself slip into nothingness, I grasped at lucid thoughts, but I was too heavy and my surroundings too thick. Like trying to pull your fingers through marshmallow cream. Tunnel vision set in and I could see the world getting farther and farther away. Using both hands, I clawed at the empty air in front of me, inhaling and exhaling large volumes of air as I tried desperately to hold on to the day and reality. It was like dying all over again, and just as suddenly as it started, I was waking up.
fourteen
A doorbell. I was pretty sure that was what I was hearing. Very annoying, but I followed its incessant high-pitched yet hollow chime back to reality. I clawed my way through the blackness, following its sound. My eyelids flying open, I awoke to find myself lying on my back in the darkness of the safe room. Had I dreamed the doorbell? I could no longer hear it, but it had been real enough that I knew it wasn’t imagined.
Memories of the preceding night caused me to sit up abruptly. I was a vampire. My life as I knew it was over, but Ellie would be here tonight. The sole reason for my survival would finally be back safe in my arms.
Anxiety overtook me at the thought. Asa had said I would want her, want to kill her, and I felt myself tremble with fear. What if he was right?
Letting my senses expand out from the small room where I was sitting, I listened intently, forcing myself to ignore all of the background noise that existed in the old house.
Finally able to calm myself, I could hear the beat of two hearts at the front door. One high-pitched and fast. The other slower and deeper. And something deep inside me knew it was her. She was here with my mother.
I considered just sitting there in the dark until my mom gave up and took Ellie to a hotel in town. She wouldn’t stand in the dark of my front yard for very long, but despite my fears, I longed to see her. So with trepidation and anxiety, I left the safety of my room, grabbing a robe on the way, and walked towards the front door.
The doorbell was ringing again, followed by my mother’s sharp rap on the old oak door. She called my name in that tone that said, “I’m annoyed but worried at the same time.” Using all of my restraint to walk calmly to the door when I really wanted to rip
the door off of its hinges, I managed to not go to such extremes, but just barely.
Swinging the door open with only a fraction of my strength, I tried to look casual and not as though I had been dying to see her.
“Hey Momma!” she called as she bounced up into my arms. Burying my face in the scent of her hair, all of my fears simply melted away. I would never as long as I lived, smell anything so good, and I could never hurt her.
Asa had been wrong. Nothing in the world could make me want to hurt her. Wrapping my now powerful arms around her, I gave her an easy squeeze.
“Hey, baby girl. I’m so happy to see you.” She would never know how much, and I tried not to let my emotion color my words too much. I needed to sound normal.
“What did you do to your hair?” My mom was looking at me like I had sprouted a tail. A typical reaction from Mom that would have needled me a week ago, now it just caused me to laugh.
“I got the bug to change it,” I replied, making quotation marks in the air, laughing at my own medical humor.
Mom just frowned. “Well if change was what you were looking for, you hit the nail on the head. Next time, don’t go so drastic. OK, help us get the suitcases. We thought you were never going to let us in. We’ve been standing out here for thirty minutes. Where have you been? I told Ellie I wasn’t standing here in this creepy yard in the dark for much longer. Are you listening to me?” Her voice died out now and I realized I was standing there smiling so much, I probably looked intoxicated.
“Of course I’m listening. I was just thinking how good it is to see you both,” I answered, trying to tone down the smile. “I was sleeping and I guess I didn’t hear the doorbell.” I shrugged my shoulders at her. It was the best excuse I could come up with on such short notice.
“Well, you didn’t hear your phone either. I went against my good judgment driving out here without talking to you first but I'm trying to be more rational about this place.” Mom declared as she walked from the entryway into the living room, pulling one of Ellie’s suitcases. Stopping abruptly, she cried out. “Oh my gosh!” The handle of the bag slipped out of her hands, banging against the floor. “What happened in here?” Her face was white as she turned towards me.
Honestly, housekeeping was the last thing on my mind and I hadn’t realized just how bad the house looked, but now as I looked around the living room and saw it was an abysmal mess. “I had a break in.” Again it was the best I could come up with at the moment.
“Have you called the police?” she demanded, her voice still a little tremulousness.
“Of course,” I replied, matter-of-factly. “They came but said there wasn’t much they could do.”
Walking into the kitchen still surveying the damage, I could see the shock on her face. “Did he eat you out of house and home too?” she asked, gesturing to the counters piled high with empty boxes and wrappers and the open and barren cabinets.
“No, Mother. I just… Well you know. I stayed at home after the break in, mostly. The police said not to clean up till they gave the go ahead. So, I, um. You know, just hung out here. It’s ridiculous, I agree I made such a mess. I know. I guess I was a little overwhelmed.” I gave her my best pitiful me look.
“I’ll say it again although it always makes you mad. You and Ellie should come live with me. This place just gives me the creeps. It’s no place for a single woman. Anything could happen out here.”
How right she was. The anything had happened. If she only knew, I mused silently to myself. “You know, Mom, I may take you up on that. You were right. Right about this place the whole time. Don't ever change.” Smiling to myself, I realized for the first time in too long how much I had missed her. “I’m glad you’re here, Mom. Let’s go into town and get something to eat. There’s some things we need to talk about. I’m considering some career changes that I need to talk to you about.”
Mom was looking at me incredulously now. “What has gotten into you? Two weeks ago, you would have never thought of living with me,” she noted, as she walked closer to me. I watched as a slight shudder worked its way down her spine and she stopped in her tracks. Taking a step back, her hand came up over her heart, and she whispered, “Annalice, there’s something different about you.” Her voice shook slightly.
Well, I guess you just can’t keep anything from your mother.
About the author
DL Atha, having the good fortune to have been raised in rural western Arkansas, resides there still with her husband and three children where together they enjoy the farm life.
She earned her MD at the University of Arkansas, and currently enjoys the practice of hospital medicine and wound care which she performs full time in a nearby town.
Blood Reaction is her first novel and she is currently working on her second.