Thrall (A Vampire Romance)(2)

At some point, I wore a ring on my left hand. There’s still a slightly paler band around my finger where it used to be. I don’t know if I was married, or if it was just a class ring. I’m pretty sure I went to college. I’m the right age and I get little flashes now and then. I like to read. I only get the chance when a guy’s apartment has books in it. Or they have a Kindle. I love those, if I can figure out the password.

I realize I’m stalling. I double check the garbage bags I used to wrap up the corpse in the bathtub and hope the smell won’t draw any attention for a few days. I hope that the police will call it a suicide when they find him and they won’t start looking for me.

I stop at the door, and rest my hand on the knob. I’m going to go out and find someone to murder. I would cry if I could make tears.

Before, when I was new at this, I used to pray. I figured if by some cosmic joke this could happen to me maybe there was some greater force out there that could turn me back. The more I had to kill to keep myself alive, the more damned I felt, until I realized what a joke this is. I’ve never met another like me. Nor have I met any werewolves, or seen a ghost. I might be the only one in the world.

All I know is this: I don’t pray anymore, but I want there to be a God so I can hate him. He let this happen to me.

Out on the street, the air is cold. I can’t really feel my body cooling down but I know it is. I’m aware of heat, of cold, of the breeze in my hair, but I don’t feel them, not really. It’s the same when I get hurt. I sense injuries but I don’t feel pain. If I try to eat everything tastes like ash and the textures are excruciating. Eating a saltine cracker is like chewing up razor blades and a bowl of soup might as well be acid. It’s even worse when it inevitably comes back up.

What I can feel is the pulse of everyone around me. Walking down the sidewalk means a constant bombardment of sensation. The sound of breathing, the feel of body heat and a constant shivering sensation as I feel the blood pumping through the people as they get close to me.

I slice through the crowd with ease. People move out of my way and look at the ground when they pass and they don’t know why, and I can feel their shivers, see the hairs prick up on the backs of their necks.

I have to go to a different place tonight. If too many guys disappear after visiting the same club people will start looking, and they will notice them all talking to me, or worse, leaving with me. Then the grainy surveillance camera stills come out on the news, and then they find me. I have no illusions about what would happen. I’m not indestructible. I’ll die if someone shoots me. Even if they take me alive, they won’t believe me. They’ll leave me in a place with windows, and come morning find a charred, greasy stain where I used to be.

So after tonight, I will move on. I will not stay the night. I will take a bus to another city. Somewhere north, maybe, where the days aren’t so long. I often wonder if there’s a way I can get into Canada. Just go and go until I hit permafrost. Maybe I can dig in and let it freeze me and this will be over.

There’s a line to get into the club. It’s worse now, the hunger. I can feel it pulsing in my throat as the bass from inside rolls up my legs. I don’t want to stand in line and wait for the velvet rope. I can’t pay the cover.

I don’t know if it’s magic or pheromones or something about my eyes, but the bouncer working the door sees me and I look him in his eyes and it happens. There’s this push, like trying to rub the wrong ends of two magnets together, and his jaw goes a little slack, and he motions me forward. I skip the line, the rope goes up, I walk into the club, and the hunt begins.

Awful, absolutely awful. The lights, the pounding, the constant movement. I cut through to the bar and find a place to sit and motion the bartender over. He doesn’t ask for my ID when I meet his eyes and do the mind trick. He just gives me my favorite drink, a screwdriver. I take a few sips and let it burn down my throat and know I’ll be dealing with it later. I have to keep up appearances. Blend in, and wait.

This is when it sets in.

There might not be another guy tonight, or tomorrow. I might bend my rules, go soft on my standards. I might make an excuse. I want to laugh at myself for thinking I can justify the death of every human being it takes to keep me going. People have to die so this thing can keep going for another few days at a time.

The only thing that keeps me at it is the knowledge that sooner, or later, the thirst takes over. I will lose control, and I will hurt someone that doesn’t deserve it. Someone innocent. A woman or a child. When my veins turn to glass and frozen fire rips through me and melts away what’s left of my humanity, everyone else is just a pulse.

I should stop myself, permanently, before someone gets hurt, but I can’t. I’m scared.

The first one spots me. I see him first. Too old for this place, he’s a wannabe lothario, badly imitating the dress of the dudebros and failing to pull it off. He buttons up his polo shirts and wears his chain like a necktie and he has skinny goose legs under his out-of-fashion cargo shorts. A quick glance in his eyes and I feel it, like a distant memory. There’s a woman at home and he wants to f*ck someone younger and tighter to spite her.

That’s no crime. I can’t kill this one.

He sidles up to the bar and I let him because every time this happens I’m closer to just taking the first one and giving up on justifying my actions.

I want to scream, somebody help me, but I already know no one will.