I Walk Among You

I WALK AMONG YOU

When the girl is dead I let her body fall to the ground and lick the last of her blood from my lips.  She tasted like strawberries and my belly is full of her life energy pulsing around inside me.  I leave the alley and head across town.  The streets are filled with people heading home after a night of drinking and I can smell the blood coursing through the veins of every one of them.  Each person smells different.  I sniff the air and catch a whiff of all the delicious scents.  Strawberries, chocolate, lime, mint, toffee, banana, treacle, hot bread and gingerbread.  My mouth waters.
         
A group of students pass me.  They’re drunk and talking loudly.  A beautiful girl hangs back.  She’s unsteadier on her feet than the rest and alcohol seeps from her pores.  It’s the smell of her blood that catches my attention.  Sweet, delicious and syrupy like freshly baked donuts or sponge pudding.  I move effortlessly through the crowds until I’m behind her.  I pull her away from the crowd and slit her throat with my fingernail before she has time to make a sound.  I drain her blood and let her body fall to the ground.  I scale the building behind me before anyone looks around and am leaping across the rooftops before the screams start.
         

*****

I’m at my house on the outskirts of the city in moments.  The house is old, run-down and edging towards shabby.  The kind of place humans pass every day and never give a second glance.  That's the way it has to be.  I couldn't survive if humans came knocking on my door every time a body turned up.  The house has been in my family line for centuries.  I crawl into bed and sleep for many hours while the sun shines in the city and the body in the alley is discovered.
         
I am what humans call a vampire.  That's not really my true nature.  Vampire is just a word humans made up because they’re afraid of my kind.  They think naming us, shining a light upon us will keep us from their door.  Words can't hurt my kind. 

I am timeless, ageless, limitless and sexless.  I was born not made.  It's not like in human movies.  Nobody sires my kind.  Count Dracula did not tear my throat out and make me drink his blood.  It doesn't work that way. 

I was never human.  I've never walked in the direct sunlight.  I've never fallen in love.  I've never eaten human food.  I don't wear a black cape or have white hair.  I can't turn into a bat and fly about.  I don't like the smell of garlic but it won't scare me away or burn me.  I can't enter a church but have never seen the need to.  Crucifixes don't burn me but they reveal my true face to the person holding them.  You can't drive a stake through my heart because I don't have one.  You can try beheading me but I move so fast you'd never catch me. 

I am the handsome man who buys a beautiful woman drinks in a bar then lures her into an alley.  She knows death has come for her when I bend my mouth towards her.  I rip her throat out before she has time to scream. 

I am the beautiful woman who dances like an angel until all the men in the room are in love with her.  I choose the one that smells the best and lead him outside by the hand.  He comes obediently like a little lamb.  He looks at my face and knows I am every nightmare come true as I chew him open.

**********

It was dusk by the time I woke up.  I sleep during the daylight.  It doesn't set me on fire like those lame horror movies mocking my kind.  It can drain my energy pretty quickly.  It makes it much harder for me to stay hidden.  Plus it makes it obvious how pale and slight I am.  My skin appears pasty white and devoid of breathe in the harsh light of day.  My eyes become tiny red blinking dots.  The life force I'd taken from my two victims the day before was already beginning to ebb away.  My skin was starting to turn white.  My eyes ached.  My mouth was dry and parched.  My throat was swollen and sore.  I’d have to feed soon or my skin would start peeling off.  I decided to feed outside of the city and give time for the fuss over yesterday’s dinner calm down before I claimed another. 

I’m not afraid of being found out you understand.  If a human saw me I would be out of sight before they came after me.  Even if one got lucky and followed me home it wouldn’t do them any good.  They would find my house abandoned and covered in inches of dirt.  It would look like no one had lived there for centuries.  I would walk right past them and brush up against them and they’d never notice.  They’d leave empty handed.  I move faster than the human eye.  Humans have sometimes seen me from the corner of their eye but I’m just a memory by the time they turn around.

It’s harder for me to hunt with police swarming the area.  Extra precautions need to be taken.  I must wait until darkness falls and stay in the shadows until someone passes close enough for me to grab and disable before they make a sound.  I can’t be selective about who I choose to feed on.  I can’t take my time and wander the streets until I find someone who smells so good I need to have a taste.  I’d have to make do with whoever stumbled across my path.  I’d have to drain them quick and move like lightning before the police got wind.  It’s more hassle than it’s worth.  When the police are sniffing around I prefer to get my food in another city.  I’ve drained quite a few in this city over the past few weeks and the police are getting nervous.  Best to drop from their radar until they realise they’re getting nowhere and leave. 

I need to feed every night.  I need to drain at least two humans to sustain me for 24 hours.  I prefer to feed on young humans.  Those in their twenties of younger.  Children are the best because they’re blood is so fresh.  Old people leave a bad taste in my mouth.  Their blood is thicker and weaker.  I would need to drain five or six to sustain me for just a few hours.  I only drain them when my choices are limited. 

*****

I stand by my window and look at the city spread open beneath me.  There are white chalk marks on the ground where the two bodies were found.  The police are walking about the city talking to people.  I climb up to the roof of my house and look around.  I’m trying to decide where I should go hunting.  I sniff the air.  I pick up a delicious creamy, fruit scent and take off after it.  The scent is coming from a great distance, far outside the city so I know I’ll be safe perusing it.  I leap between the roofs of buildings are I follow the scent.  It leads out of the city, across the motor way and through another city and small village to a large wooded area. 

The smell led me to a small group of children sitting round a camp fire whispering and giggling to each other.  There were no adults in sight but I could hear voices some way off heading towards the children.  I’d have to be quick.  I started singing in a beautiful, quiet little voice.  The child nearest turned away from her friends and ran towards the sound of my voice.  I’d ripped her throat out and laid her cooling body on the ground in moments.  Her blood was innocent.  Addictive.  It made my head spin.  One by one I lured the children into the woods and fed on them.  With every drop of blood that passed my lips I felt stronger, younger and my skin hummed with electricity. 

The last child was a chubby boy of nine or ten with huge eyes like saucers.  He took one look at his dead friends and struggled in my arms.  He gave a low wail of terror as my mouth pressed against his jugular and stared biting.  I heard shouts and running footsteps.  I drained the blood from him and fled as a small group of adults crashed through the woods and started screaming.  I was on the roof of a building looking down at them before they emerged from the woods.  I jumped to the roof of the next building and moved like lightning before they even knew I was there.  I sat on the roof of my house and watched the city until I saw daylight approach then I crawled into bed and slept for several days.

*****

Human blood is delicious.  That’s why my kind craves it.  We ache for the taste of it like humans ache for drink, drugs or chocolate.  Blood doesn’t only keep my kind alive.  It makes us helpless addicts to its sweet, warm taste.  We take great risks to feed because the smell of someone’s blood gets inside our head and won’t stop whispering.  We feed on sickly old people and animals because blood, in any form calls to us.  It is a voice, whispering inside us forcing us to work its fill.  We can follow the smell of a particular human anywhere for any distance.  It doesn’t matter how far a person goes they can never escape us.  We always catch up with them and feed.  I once tracked someone to another country and ripped their throat out when they were getting off a plane.

*****

There are no police in the city when I wake up.  The local radio station says they’ve given up searching for a suspect and are putting it down to an outsider passing through.  There’s a small mention of a group of children from another city being mauled to death by a large, unidentified animal on a camping.  No connection is made to the two dead people in my city.  Tonight I can go back to my usual feeding ground.

I decide to be a beautiful woman tonight.  I haven’t drunk the blood of a man for a little while.  Testosterone always makes me jumpy.  I’m still humming from feeding off the children and want more.  My pale skin is irresistible and looks like bone china under certain light.  I put on a beautiful short black velvet dress with lacy sleeves, leave my pale legs bare and put on black heels.  I put a streak of red lipstick on my mouth and wear a string of exquisite pearls.  They were my mother’s. 

She was royalty among our kind.  A vengeful human set her on fire when I was a child.  Her screams woke me but she was ash by the time I got to her.  She was careless.  She let a man see her when she fed on his daughter and her greed got better of her.  He set her alight as she drank the last of the girl’s blood.  I will never be so reckless.

I’m not worried about not attracting someone’s attention.  No man can resist my female guise.  I am beautiful, pale, delicate and fragile as a rose.  Everything about me is designed to seduce.  The colour of my black hair against my pale, flawless skin.  My eyes deep blue pools men want to drown in.  My luscious red lips.  My pale, smooth skin like fragile china.  My smell.  The way I move my body.  My voice.  The soft, velvet touch of my skin.  Everything I am lures humans in.

I walk from my house to a pub on the edge of the city.  It’s a rowdy sort of place with cheap alcohol and loud music.  I’ve fed on its customers many times though never in the same form.  I can change my appearance at will.  There are slim pickings tonight.  A bunch of old men playing snooker.  A few men and their wives.  None of them smell remotely tasty.  I sit at the end of the bar, buy a drink and notice everyone stare at me.  The men’s cheeks flush with lust and their throats dry up.  The women flash me looks of anger and slip their arms, like a protective shield around their husband’s.  They have nothing to fear from me.  I seek more nubile flesh.  The door opens and a young man staggers in.  He’s drunk already and singing.  He smells like bananas and hot fudge and I lick my lips. 

I turn to look at him and he’s mine.  He staggers over and sits beside me.  He buys me a glass of red wine and talks inanely about dull human things.  I peer into his dark green eyes and realise I’ve found an exquisite treat. 
He’s a virgin.  Virgin blood tastes the best but it’s sadly rare.  One drop could sustain me for weeks.  When I drain him I won’t need to feed for months. 

I smile and laugh over his pointless chatter.  He buys me another drink.  A slushy human song starts playing and I lead him onto the dance-floor.  I press my body against him and he grins.  He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into him.  I kiss him and he swoons.  I see a vein pulse on his neck as it pumps blood around his body and I lick my lips.

‘Come’ I whisper

I take his hand and he follows me outside to a narrow alley running adjacent to the bar.

‘Here’ I said

‘Sure’

I kissed him again.  I felt the heat of his body.  His hunger comes off him in waves and makes me dizzy.  He roughly pushes me against the wall and pulls at my dress.

‘Calm down’ I whisper

I kiss him and lift up my dress.  I’m not wearing any underwear.  His eyes widen.  I fumble with his zip and boxers and he enters me before I get them all the way down.  He’s too young and eager.  He thrusts inside me, pulls at my skin and tugs at my dress.  I press my mouth against his jugular and start biting.  He gives a high-pitched scream of terror, pulls out of me and runs towards the alley.  I take after him.  He can’t reach the street or it’s over for me.  I grab him and pull him screaming backwards.  I see the vein throb at the side of his neck and slice it with my fingernail.  His jugular tears open and blood sprays my face.  I drink the flow until he stops.  His heart stops and I keep drinking.  His blood tastes exquisite.  I force myself to pull my mouth away.  I can hear shouts and footsteps coming towards me and flee.  I leap to the roof of the pub and jump across the roofs to my house. 

The disgusting human’s blood is all over me.  My hair is matted with it.  My beautiful dress is streaked with it and ruined.  The dress is glued to my skin and I manage to peel it off.  My skin is sticky with it.  I burn the dress in the big fire in my living room and sob as I watch the flames curl across it and turn it to ash. 

I fill the Jacuzzi in my bathroom and get in.  I scrub my hair until the water runs clear.  I scrub my skin until it’s raw and clean.  The water in the bath is pinky red and I feel queasy when I watch it drain away.  I crawl into bed and pass out.

*****

I’m very sick the next day.  I have very little energy and can barely get out of bed.  The virgin’s blood was delicious and I drank too much.  I drank after his heart had stopped.  I didn’t drink much, just a few drops but enough to make me sick.  I need to stop feeding once I feel the heart-beat slow down.  The blood of a dead human offers no nourishment.  If I’d drunk more there could have been serious consequences. 

I lie in bed sick and feverish for several days drifting in and out of consciousness.  My skin dries up and becomes flaky.  My lips are pale and lacklustre.  My throat and lips are badly burnt.  I’m reduced to crawling about roofs feeding on cats, birds and homeless people to stop myself wasting away. 

*****

I start to feel a little better and decide to feed on something a little more up-market.  I go to a bar in another city looking like a man this time.  A beautiful woman with fiery red hair follows me outside.  She doesn’t even whimper when I slit her jugular and press my mouth against the flow.  She dies in my arms with a smile on my face and I walk home.

Not all humans are afraid of my kind.  Some seek me out in the shadows and places that stink of death.  I am irresistible to them.  I am the dark dream their soul aches for.  When I come for them in the darkness they offer me their throat in the moonlight.  They open their creamy thighs and let me sink my fangs into their soft, supple flesh.  They sob in pleasure and ecstasy, not pain when I feed on them.  They leave their windows and doors open for me.

I walk among your kind every day.  I smell the blood pumping through your veins, coursing through your body and lick my lips.  I am the shadow following you along a dark street.  I am the voice, whimpering in the darkness.  I am the blurry figure you never get a good look at.  I am the icy fingers brushing across the back of your neck.  The half heard words in a storm.  The chill that brings your flesh out in goose bumps.  The unseen thing you run from in the woods.  The reason parents don’t let their children out at night.  The beauty called death. 

THE END