A 'Vampire Red' short story by Alex Severin.
ORLANDO, FL - 1.25am - NOVEMBER 24th
Paul heard the throb of the music coming from inside the Death Row club. It was like a heartbeat, strong, steady, exciting.
He sat alone in the diner across the street, his nose buried in a well-worn book. His copy of Bloody Love by Lily Transyl was already tattered, the spine rubbed and cracked, the cover creased, and some pages dog-eared from folding them over to keep his place.
Certain paragraphs in the book had been marked with luminous yellow highlighter pen. But now, after reading Bloody Love so many times, Paul barely needed to consult the text any more - he could recite page after page without faltering and swore that he knew the entire book by heart. And he was sure that Lily Transyl could read his mind, he was sure that Lily had written Bloody Love just for him. It was the book he had always wanted, the book he would have loved to write and the book that he would treasure forever. And tonight, he would do what he'd always wanted to do, inspired by Lily's words, sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was telling him to carry out his will.
Paul's body seemed to vibrate with excitement, anticipation tightening each muscle with deliciously painful little knots.
God, please let her be there. Please let her be there. I need this.
He waited patiently.
Each time the music swelled as the front door of the club was opened, Paul would feel a shock of electricity running through him as he searched the throng of bodies for her.
She called herself Belladonna.
He tapped his foot rapidly on the floor, on edge with anticipation, as he read and chewed on his black-lacquered thumb nail. He tutted at himself, worried in case a chip of nail polish was wedged in his teeth. It would absolutely ruin the look of his custom fangs if they were covered in flakes of bitten off nail varnish.
Paul's heart almost shot into his throat as he saw her curvaceous, killer body strut out into the night air as if she owned it, as if the very street she walked on belonged to her.
Dozens of people outside spoke to her as she passed by. She said nothing, but threw them a smile and carried on her way down the street.
Her skin glowed in the moonlight and the humid night air made her body shimmer with a touch of sweat. Her clothes, black shining rubber, looked fluid. Paul imagined smearing black liquid latex over her body, smoothing his hands over her curves, the swell of her breasts and the tight buds of her nipples.
"Gothic flesh," he whispered, and licked his lips.
As he stepped out into the night he began to perspire profusely, his clothes wet through in moments. He trembled as adrenaline raced through his system.
Tonight's the night.
Tonight they will come.
Belladonna took the same route from the club every time. She was always alone. Paul had often wondered why she was always on her own - such a stunning, fuckable chick would surely have her pick of men or women, or both.
He picked up his pace as she reached the dark alley she always took. Paul had the notion that she was inviting an attacker, practically goading him to do his worst.
He was mesmerized by her form, bathed in alternate flashing red and darkness from a buzzing neon sign that read Live Sex! and entranced by the gentle sway of her ample ass as she sashayed down the alley. He imagined taking a bite out of it as if it were a huge, fleshy peach, and instead of sweet, sticky juices running over his face, there would be the piquant taste of her blood.
The degradation of his surrounding aroused him - he knew what went on in this alley, day and night. Blood crushed into his cock and he adjusted himself as his skin-tight leather jeans became uncomfortable.
He inhaled deeply and smelled the scent of piss, old and new, and his eyes rolled as the thick soles of his black boots squelched onto a spent condom. A discarded hypodermic smashed beneath his feet and he wondered if there was death in the blood residue on the needle.
He looked down a dark side street, just off the rancid alley and saw bodies writhing together among piles of festering trash. His lip curled in disgust but all the while his cock grew steadily harder.
Belladonna half-turned her head and slowed her pace - she knew somebody was following her, somebody who was breathing heavily, breath baited in anticipation of something. She rolled her eyes.
Paul was sure she was allowing him to catch up with her after he'd been distracted by the side show in the garbage.
Ever-so-slowly, she turned around.
Paul stumbled backward against the slick alley wall as his knees buckled and all the strength drained out of his body.
Her eyes were wild, the irises black and shining. But there was something behind her eyes, something feral, something ancient, that shone, iridescent like illuminated amber - the glint in a cat's eyes catching the light.
She grinned at him as she reached out and grabbed him by the throat, effortlessly raised him clear off the ground and slammed him into the wall. As his mouth opened in a vain attempt to scream, she could see his custom fangs glistening with his excited saliva.
As she spoke, he could see the gleaming white tips of two pin-sharp incisors.
"What you gonna do, badass, bite me?"
Paul tried to scream but she was squeezing the air from his throat, crushing his larynx and his vocal cords.
"All you fucking wannabe vampires - you're giving us a bad rep."
The vampire stabbed her sharpened black nails into the flesh of his throat, tearing away skin and flesh and fat. She put her mouth to the pissing red wound and drank.
Belladonna rubbed his cock through his leathers as she fed on him, and laughed as he reached out, desperately trying to grab her right tit. His body spasmed then stiffened in the throes of orgasm even though he knew he was dying.
Paul's moans of pain and pleasure were an eerie gargle that rushed from the gaping hole in his throat.
"Damn, you're fuckin' hardcore!"
Belladonna laughed uproariously at him, her face painted with an expression that was close to admiration. She shook her head, grinning as she hooked two fingers into his mouth and under his tongue and yanked down hard.
She let go of him and his shocked body slid down the wall and landed on the piss-stinking alley floor.
As the vampire looked at her latest victim, she felt a fleeting stab of pity for him - an old habit she had not quite lost. He was so young and she wondered, momentarily, what he was like, what he did for a living, if he had a lover who would mourn him.
Then she spat on him. He was meat. Cattle to be herded for her sustenance. He was no more to her than a cheeseburger was to him. Food. Nothing more.
She walked away without a backward glance at the sack of skin-covered bones she left behind. He was all but dead now, drained of blood, no more than a pile of bones and ripped flesh.
The poetic irony of his demise did not escape him as death began to shroud him.
He had spent his whole life longing for his belief, his strongest faith, to be proven beyond any doubt - that vampires - real vampires, immortal vampires - existed.
His plan to draw himself to the attention of a real vampire was that if he drank human blood, slept in a coffin, lived a nocturnal existence, and showed dedication and respect for such a life, that his wish for immortality would be granted by them.
Paul smiled at the cutting irony of his murder, but the sensation didn't feel right. He reached up a shaking hand and touched his face; his brow knotted as he felt for his chin, only to touch his upper teeth and feel his tongue lying against his opened throat. Belladonna had ripped off his lower jaw and now all that hung from his face were strips of torn skin and ragged flesh. He choked out a gargled laugh, an unnatural sound that made his own skin crawl. The sound was wet sucking and dry blowing as blood and air escaped straight from his lungs and our through the hole in his neck, and out into the night air.
I did it. I did it! I'm gonna be a real vampire now . I'm gonna live forever.
Paul reached out and grabbed hold of his discarded jaw bone. He was certain, that if he held it in place before he died, it would miraculously reattach itself and be good as new when he woke to his new life as an immortal vampire.
The last drop of life ran out from the torn artery in Paul's neck; he slumped, dead, face down in a pile of human shit. The last thing he heard was the rattle of his jaw bone hitting the ground beside him.
© Alex Severin 2004
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