I was back in the lot behind the warehouse. I came back to look at the bodies and get a better close-up of the vampires.
I walked into the brush to the pile of dead… undead, I guess. It was all still so strange. Well, not strange, just weird to think or say out loud. I knew I was a monster, but they made movies and love stories about vampires. It was just strange to think that they actually existed. At one point, I thought that I was some kind of vampire, but then I realized that I was walking in the daylight all the time. I wasn't sure about the rules back then, but I figured that was true. Turns out, it was.
All three bodies were just where we had left them, piled near a small tree where the branches hung low enough to conceal them from sight. They were just waiting for the sun. Waiting to be burned from existence. At least that's what the hunters told me. I wanted to see it with my own eyes.
I smelled the bodies, taking in the concentration of countless blood sources. I felt so many different people there. It was like I was surrounded by three bodies and then twenty ghosts.
I looked at the woman who lay like a statue. I pulled her frozen lips back to look at her teeth. Just as I thought, her fangs were still protruding. I compared them to what I remembered mine looking like from the reflections I saw of myself as the monster. They were shorter, which was no real surprise, I guess. I was a lot bigger than any normal man, woman, or vampire once I transformed. I was a colossal, dark grey, mountain of dense muscle and tissue. I stood ready to maul and massacre anyone with massive talons and fangs.
I pulled open her eyelids. Her irises had lost their crimson hue, but the whites of her eyes were still bloodshot. She had green eyes; her human eyes. I wondered what she was like as a human, how old she was when she was turned?
Then, I realized that I didn't ask one of the questions that I had been thinking about the whole time I was with the hunters. Were vampires immortal? That's what all the movies and books said.
"Maybe if they didn't lose their heads," I said coldly as I rolled a severed head back to the pile.
I stood up from my crouching examination and was about to take a look at the other two and compare their features to hers. But I was interrupted when I heard a metal clicking noise. It was the same clicking that I had heard earlier when I was there for the first time. I turned around to the clicking, unafraid.
"Hello," a man said as he leaned against a tree, watching me as I examined the bodies.
He reeked of the same blood concentration as the others. He was one of them, a vampire that the hunters missed earlier. He was tall with dark hair and a narrow face. His eyes were hungry, but his face was intrigued. He couldn't be more than a hundred and sixty pounds.
He must have been hiding inside the warehouse, watching, waiting to make his move. Then he saw his friends' demise and remained unseen.
He had two small metal balls in his right hand, rotating them around each other, consistently. Every couple of turns, he would clack them together, making the sound I heard earlier this evening. He was there before, and he saw everything.
"Hello," I returned.
"Where are your friends?" he asked. He had a cold, murderous grin on his face, like this was just a meaningless task for him.
"Oh, don't worry about them," I said with an underlying threat. I tried to return the stupid grin he had on his face, but I don't think I could get past the undying need to transform and kill after the long night with the humans.
He chuckled lightly.
"Oh, I'm not," he answered. "Not yet, anyway. I'll go back to their house after I finish with you."
Fear for my new friends shot like a stray bullet into my mind. He noticed.
"I followed you after you all left here earlier," he said, very matter-of-fact. "You had me interested. Most people are afraid of us, even just at first glance. It's a subconscious pull we have on your kind."
My kind? Oh… he meant human.
"We are always looking for hunters to kill, but I wanted to see if you were worth the effort. Turns out I was right. You are strange. I lost you for a while… still not sure how that happened. So, I came back here, and even stranger, so did you. By yourself; very unusual, and also quite the error in judgment," he said, mockingly. "No matter, though. I will do this quickly before the sun comes up, and then wait to kill your friend's until tomorrow night."
I pictured it, him busting into the Chasse's house, rampaging through like an unstoppable killer as they sat unprepared. I imagined him ripping Carter's throat out, snapping Frank's neck, and drinking Eleanor's blood. I saw Autumn running up the stairs with Delilah, hiding underneath her squeaky bed frame, terrified. I saw her holding her hand over little Delilah's mouth as she forced her to remain silent. I saw him finding and overpowering her, forcing her against the wall as he sucked the blood from her throat.
No, I wouldn't let that happen to them. I had to see them all again. I knew it was wrong of me to think that, but at the moment, I didn't care. I kept imagining the scenario. Then, he would turn on the little Delilah.
The emotions Delilah brought out in me, the thoughts that I kept locked away, deep in the bowels of my being, fought to get out again. The things I couldn't think about, but also the things that drove me, made me want to slaughter this creature without hesitation.
The change started to grip me.
"No," I said in a low, deep voice.
"No, you say? But I've made up my mind, and who is going to stop me once I've made up my mind? Besides, your friends killed my friends; so now I kill them," he said, like it was only fair.
"You'll never make it there," I told him darkly.
He cocked his head to the side. Unsure of why I was so confident.
"Why is that, human?" he asked it with an entertained yet condescending tone.
"That's just it," I said, my eyes turning into black voids, my voice deepening into a low rumble, "I'm not human."
My body twisted and cracked, grew, and hardened. My skin darkened into the deep grey flesh. The only other thing in nature that shared the same hue as my skin was the darkest of storm clouds.
The vampire watched in confusion, but rested on his heels, ready to run at a moment's notice. He was too confident and too intrigued to run away like he should have. It was quite the error in judgment.
I laughed a monstrous chuckle at that last part.
My fangs shifted and set into place as my black talons ripped out of my hands. My muscles locked into place. The change was complete.
He was a shorter man now. After the change, I was even bigger compared to him. He didn't know what to do as he looked upon the hulking creature that stood in the shadows before him. I recognized the look on his face. It was the same look I had seen on countless criminals' faces, right before I killed them. It was a look of terror and uncertainty. He had no clue what I was.
I sprang forward, running as wild and fast as this body would allow. I smashed into the small man with tremendous force. He tried to brace himself and lean into me with all of his strength, but it didn't deter me a single bit. I heard bones snap the moment I touched him, swatting him back with a wild swing of my arm. He flew back about fifteen feet until his back met a large oak tree. More bones were crushed and splintered under his skin. He ricocheted off the tree and flew another ten feet through the cold air.
I didn't leave any second open for him. I was already running to him. I grabbed him by the throat only seconds after he hit the ground. He hadn't even gotten another breath in yet. I held him off the ground, so he was level with my fanged face. Terror gripped him.
"What am I?" I asked in an inhuman voice. I spoke slowly, hoping his mental faculties were still functioning.
He scrambled over thoughts as my grip cinched down more and more on his throat. He gasped at the pain, unable to form full sentences.
"I… I… I don't know!" he finally got out. People were so honest when they felt death's cold grasp reaching for them.
No answers. Useless.
I spoke in my deep, throaty voice that accompanied this form, and I said the same thing I said a few moments before, "You'll never make it there!"
I reared back with my free hand and ripped my hand of razors through his chest with one swift movement. I watched his eyes roll back into his skull as this undead creature died… again. Half of his shredded heart oozed in my clawed hand as his body lay limp in my grasp.
I carried his body over to the pile of vampires from earlier. I threw him like a ragdoll and left his corpse beside his friends.
I walked off a few feet and willed my human mind to come back. I felt my body pulling itself back together. My skin returned to its standard color as I shrank back down. My ligaments and joints popped and snapped back into place, muscles compacted, and fangs receded. I was me again.
I stayed there for a while, thinking and calming myself. I couldn't get the images I had created out of my head for a while. I just sat on the ground and relaxed. I hated seeing my new friends being killed, even if it was just a fake reality I had concocted in my mind.
I was stronger than these vampires, I now knew for sure. My strength was much deeper than the blood-feeding monsters. I could feel their power. The resistance was noticeably more robust than the humans I slaughtered, but not enough to matter to me. He was just as defenseless to me as the humans I had hunted before. I wondered if they were all this impotent, or maybe others were stronger than this victim.
The sun was already starting to peak over the horizon, and I didn't even think about it until I heard strange noises behind me. I turned to see the bodies smoldering. They were smoking like coals when you try to douse a fire with water. I could see embers glowing beneath their skin, their insides burning first. Suddenly, they all burst into flames. A raging inferno whipped into the air. A column of fire shot up into the trees, burning some branches above. Then, in only a few short seconds, they were gone. Not even bones were left.
I was actually surprised. Carter told me this would happen, but seeing it was unreal. Even the blood on the ground was gone, burnt away like gunpowder. It was a good thing that I cleaned the blood off my arms after I changed back. I wondered what would have happened.
I stood from my resting place, content with my new friends' safety.
I took a deep breath and then bounded off in a sprint of inhuman speed through the trees. I had to get back to the factory. Back to my lonely, desolate exile.