James didn’t believe the rumors when he’d first heard them.
That a vampire was responsible for the recent murders happening in this lowly part of town.
He listened, bussing plates beside a table of teens decorated with heavy steel, who went on about bodies found broken and torn open, as though their flesh had been raped with saw blades—all of them bled dry.
Like everyone else, James laughed it off, pretending to find amusement in their tall tales, but on the inside, he wept.
He was tired, so very tired.
The only thing James ever wanted was to be a good father, but lately, the weight of God’s plan had slowed him down at the prime of his life. He worked night and day, endless hours at endless jobs in hopes they might have a little left over to buy anything other than instant noodles and canned tuna for dinner. But, his kids were teenagers now, they needed more than milk money to walk among their peers, and he’d already caught his daughter sobbing after being bullied for her stained jacket and dirty sneakers.
She looked up at him, her mascara-streaked eyes melting in the frailest of sorrow—James wanted to die.
Now, as he stood at the mouth of an alley on a dead winter night, Death had taken the form of an angel, a beautiful young man caught in a snare of mind-numbing lust that made him appear all the more desirous.
He was moaning, and James averted his eyes in fear he’d stumbled upon two lovers fucking in the darkest part of the city.
But, that moaning turned into screaming, a scream that could only be summoned from an unimaginable pain tearing through flesh and bone. Raw and unfiltered, it shattered the night before drowning under thick rivers of blood.
James looked.
He didn’t want to, but a human’s morbid curiosity forced him to stand and stare as the victim was brought to the ground with enough force to sever his spine.
James had never seen anyone die, but he imagined this was how everyone prayed they wouldn’t go, scared and screaming.
The young man descended upon the body, shredding apart his neck as flesh fell away like peeling an orange. The sound was similar as well—the first bite of tender muscles and the slitting of his aorta. Blood spilled across the snow, turning into bright red patches under the only street light still flickering.
Fear clung to his consciousness, dropping a cold shiver down James’s neck that made him forget the pain of his frostbitten fingers or the numbing toes.
He—it—had become something then, and James was too afraid to look away; instead, he focused on the pieces of skin torn away and chewed dry, sucked off all blood and swallowed in mouthfuls.
The vampire, that’s what it was, raked its claws across the man’s scalp, revealing a glistening skull under globs of hair rooted to chunks of flesh. It continued to feast, making noises that’d drive a mad man sane, wet and hot gulps following every hoarse, feral breath and savory lick.
Then, James moved. He’d kept perfectly still all this time, but the moment his foot twitched—it was looking at him.
James went still again.
His eyes widened to the point of pain, and there was no voice inside his head telling him to run but to stay.
The vampire remained part of the night, its body cut in half by shadows and street light. Its lower torso seen, clothed in torn jeans hanging loose around narrow hips, but anything above its blood-stained hoodie lay shrouded by darkness.
Though, its outline, its shadow, didn’t look right, like there were extra joints and lengths that could no longer pass as human.
It was lovely, an embodiment of power and miracles—the answer to his prayers.
“P-Please,” James whispered through clouds of frost. “Please, listen.”
The vampire didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“My n-name is…James.” His babbling stuck to the dry roof of his mouth and burned his chapped lips. “I want this…you. What you are.”
No response.
“You…are everything,” James continued, tears welling up in his eyes as a flood of emotions hit him all at once. His life, the life he forced his children to rot in was nothing but a pit of his self-hatred and pathetic insecurities to which there was no escaping. “I…I wish for it. A way out. Not death, but its servant, like you. Please…”
No answer.
James’s breath stifled, tears blurring his vision though he fought to blink, fearing the vampire would flee—or kill him slowly.
But, neither his words nor tears had an effect.
The vampire remained as still as stone, all but the blood dripping off various parts of its body.
James’s heart thundered with desperation.
“W-What can I say? What can I do? Please, tell me what to—”
His words were interrupted by a sudden noise—a long, agonal gasp bubbling beyond the blood.
James felt his body ache with fear. He swallowed, tasting bile on his tongue as the sound resonated through the alley.
Then, it stopped and what followed was a voice that might’ve come from the corpse at their feet, the words of a dying man whose last breath would never come.
“You don’t know what you ask for.”
James stood. His lips quivered, but whatever he intended to say fled back into this throat and refused to budge.
“I-I do.” His words were a prayer’s whisper, and James wasn’t sure if the vampire had heard him until another noise confirmed it was listening. “I do, I swear it. Please, let me join you.”
The vampire began feeding again, finding a fatty spot to rip open. Blood spurted, bones cracked and popped out of place, and it pulled something wet and slick out of the body.
James watched the shadows, seeing only fragments of the creature as if the night intended on keeping its secrets.
“I could…be of use to you too.” The chewing stopped, and James continued after licking his cracked lips. “I…can’t imagine there are…more. It must be lonely for you. Surely you’d…want some company?”
For a moment, James could only hear his heart and the distant city before it spoke.
“Do you know what I want?”
It turned to him with eyes flickering like candlelight.
“Tomorrow.” A word soaked in blood. “An end to what never ends. Now, go before I kill you too.”
James wanted to flee. It took everything in him not to run home where his kids waited, but he thought of them lying on mattresses in shared rooms and eating instant noodles fresh from the microwave. They deserved better than him.
“I just…I just want to help my kids,” James said.
“Can’t help them if you’re dead.” Another bite.
James looked to the ground, defeated and drained of hope. If he pushed too hard—would it kill him? But, if he fled, there was a chance he’d never become strong enough for his kids. Perhaps one day, they’d find his body after he’d become too tired to fight the battle within him.
No, he didn’t want that.
His fists tightened, clenched so tightly it began to hurt.
And James couldn’t hold the desperation back any longer.
“I-I want this! Please! I will do whatever it takes! Just give me this gift! I could…do so much for my family. I could be—”
A force slammed into his neck, then tightened to prevent James from crying out in pain. Instead, he gagged, unable to catch a proper breath as he was lifted into the air by the jaw. His spine popped, a warning there was too much weight hanging from the vampire’s grip.
Its claws pierced the tender skin under James’s chin, drawing slivers of blood that flowed down his neck as gently as a kiss.
James wheezed. His face burned hot where blood flowed within bulging veins in his forehead and temples. He feared the lack of oxygen would kill him before the vampire did or before it agreed to bless James with the hunger.
The vampire looked up at him. Its face was cast in protective shadows that only allowed its eyes to peer through the veil.
“…p-p….pain…” James gasped, his eyes filling with tears. No air. He was going to die. His thoughts began to dissolve into grains of sand, falling into the blank space of his subconscious.
“Oh, yes,” It crooned, voice convulsing. “There will be pain.”
The vampire threw him several feet into the alley, and in his daze, James could only flail like gutted cattle, trying to breathe.
And he was afraid.
He pushed up on his knees, his fingers throbbing black and blue from the cold. His incoherent pleas became sobbing as he crawled toward the mouth of the alley, toward the street, toward home.
But, the vampire descended onto him, breaking his nose against the asphalt and ripping into his throat violently.
There was no bite, just the tearing of James’s flesh by rows of teeth dissecting his back from his shoulders. Claws curled through the meat of his face, dragging his mouth open and inserting a point deep into the soft corners of his eyes.
James screamed. He screamed and screamed, then begged for it to end.
The vampire fed from his wound, licking furrows in his muscles and the flesh hanging off exposed bone. Its tongue entered James’s throat from the hole it had dug out and stroked the walls of his trachea.
Cold air currents filtered through his body, a chill that dulled the pain though James could still feel the blood leaving his body in heavy gulps. The vampire was killing him. He was dying.
Something hot and thick ran down his cheeks. James assumed they were tears until the zinging taste of pennies dribbled onto his lips.
He licked them clean and felt at ease.
A snap turned his head, not to the side, but aimed at the sky in the opposite direction. The noises echoed in his head, or perhaps they were born there after the vampire broke into his skull to feast upon brain matter.
James was still alive, feeling tremors of pain and the humming aftershock of each bite. He couldn’t move his limbs nor control where his eyes turned, but he imagined his kids and felt unafraid for a trickle in time.
Then, the vampire touched his brow and stroked his hair, the touch of a lover after the throes of death taunted James with consciousness. He wanted to reciprocate by touching the vampire’s face if only to admire how beautiful James knew it was.
But, his hands were severed, and his arms snapped into ivory pieces scattered across the alley—so James admired the vampire, looking up through blurry eyes at a red-smeared face twisted in hunger. The features of a young man ripe with innocence and longing, milky hair, eyes like pomegranate flesh, vibrant and glistening.
Its narrow hips pressed into what was once James’s waist, grinding in a slow tease before leaning down close enough to lick the points of his exposed ribs. His intestines surfaced and quivered under the snowy wind like serpents slithering across the dirt.
The vampire licked James until he was a mindless heap staring at a distant sky filled with paper stars. It then sliced its neck into a breathing smile that spilled blood onto his lips.
“Feed from me.”
James couldn’t move, but he could drink.
And he did.
Thicker than wine, more fragrant than blood, the taste could tempt a corpse.
James took every heady gulp painfully down his throat. His tongue licked the wound and slid inside, moving around and making the vampire moan, not in that horrible, gasping voice, but one of sad hymns and crystal bells. The reaction startled yet aroused James, who continued doing as the vampire liked, hoping it wouldn’t stop.
He drank himself drunk, a feeling as dazed and euphoric as a night of raw sex that another emotion couldn’t match. It was the peak of all sensations. Every nerve in James’s body was singing, screaming with pleasure.
No, not his limbs—he was screaming.
James had only become aware of the pain after the vampire’s presence faded. He was no longer drinking but screaming in agony, far worse than having his body torn to pieces.
Now, it was all coming back together.
His veins lashed out from his mutilated torso, reattaching themselves to dismembered limbs and pulling them to where his flesh could heal. But, his bones were moving inside him—rearranging, breaking, and moving until each one fit like a puzzle. The sound was akin to an intrusion of cockroaches running in sync under his skin.
James could finally move after his body had healed itself. He rolled onto his knees again, staggering and swaying as his teeth began to throb and split into gaps. They painfully pushed up out of his gums and dropped against the pavement, still bloody and clinging to gum.
“O-Oh…god! Oh god, please!” James cried, tears—or blood—pouring down his face. His head felt swelled, thrumming with migraines and concussions that rained down upon the rest of his damned body.
Especially his mouth.
Oh, Christ, the pain.
James’s teeth were gone, all forced from his mouth by unseen pliers and replaced with still-growing points. He couldn’t close his mouth. The discomfort was unbearable.
But, the hunger, the thirst, grew as thick and fresh as the teeth now pointed stumps behind his lips.
Shadows writhed inside his eyes, slowly consuming his irises and turning the world a darker shade. A ravenous shade.
He stared into the alley, quiet and desolate.
The darkness fooled him with hallucinate creatures and phosphorescent waves of sensations that weren’t his own but weaved endlessly through the industrial complexes and chaos of this city.
The pain was gone.
The hunger remained.
He—whoever he was now—saw the corpse lying several feet away from him.
His pupils shrank, his teeth ached, and he frantically crawled closer to where it rested against the snow.
He licked every marrowless bone with desperate, demon-long strokes in an attempt to feed.
Yet, nothing remained.
N-No! No! I need it, fuck! I need it!
He searched the ground like a starving dog, scooping up handfuls of snow in hopes there was blood left.
Still, there was none.
The voices in his head—actual voices—laughed, sobbed, and screamed vile, vicious things to him. He squeezed his skull, groaning and pounding on his temples in an unclear rage.
What’s happened? Who am I? Who…are they?
“Dad?”
The voices, the pain, it all stopped the moment he heard someone calling to him from the street. Their bodies were filled with warm, red terror—three of them, teens, standing several feet away.
They stared at him, noses bitten by the cold and expressions furrowed with uncertainty, as he stood, lifted off the ground by the Devil’s puppet strings, and approached them.
That’s right. I’m a dad. I’m their—
His thoughts faded.
And every trace of the man named James slowly ascended into the night as the children began to scream.
Comments (8)
See all