Viata de Vampir

Viata de Vampir Chapter 3

"Southern Hospitality"

"Why are you stopping, Edgar?" I asked myself without breath. "She's a human... a mortal. On the wrong stretch of back roads at the wrong time. Leave her." I instructed my conscious, but something inside me halted my movement. After all these years of acting heartless, vengeance-driven, and monstrous... did I still possess a hint of humanity?

Could I still contain humanity?

I knelt down beside the woman -my vampiric eyesight aiding my vision, as the only form of light in the area was the full moon overhead- and rolled her over on to her back as gently as I could. Her face came into view, and almost instantly a single tear welled in the corner of my eye. Memories of a tragedy decades upon decades before came flooding back to the surface.

"Elizabeth." I whispered.

*****

September 27th, 1821

I had only just emerged from the coffin -years later I would assume the elder 'pire had placed me inside for to change- and in to a clouded downpour when one word... no, one desire came flooding to mind.

"Home." Accompanied with that whisper were the overwhelming sensations of dread and panic.

I ran.

A hard, nearly blinding, rain fell yet I ran for the comforts of home.

However, I was not greeted with the comforts I so longed to possess. Instead smoke, cries, flaming embers, and ash were my unwanted welcome. The townspeople pursued me, even after I cried out to them.

"Demon! Monster! Devil!" They screamed to no apparent end, and my pleas fell upon hate-consumed, deafened ears.

"What the HELL is wrong with you all, you murderers!" I screamed, though they failed to listen. The townspeople -with their pitchforks, shovels, and knives- were out for blood, so I did what I thought was right... I ran away. I ran away from my home, my livelihood, and my love. As I ran I screamed back at them, though I doubt they heard.

"Elizabeth's inside!" I pleaded."My wife is in the house!"

The fact that I -to this very day- regret my decision to run, instead of trying to save my beloved Elizabeth is the reason I now stopped.

*****

The young woman's features -even through all the blood and gravel that coated her face and torn skin- were strikingly similar to Elizabeth's. I froze, and for the first time in a long, long time I felt fear, and perhaps a hint of pain. I could hear her heartbeat slowing at a drastic rate, almost to the point of ceasing. Her frail human form was so close to death that if the Grim Reaper were a physical being, he'd be reaching out his skeletal hand for her in that moment.

With only slight hesitation, I bit down with my skilled fangs upon the veins that lay on the inside of my right wrist. The slow leaking, deadened, black blood from this self-inflicted wound I held to her lips, and with my left hand pried open her mouth. Drop after drop of blood fell to the back of her throat, and I sighed wearily at the split second decision I had just made. This was not my place to make this decision. She has the right to choose... the right I was denied. Or did she?

The minutes seemed to tick by like hours, as I waited by her side for some form of response. In the distance I faintly heard police sirens on the approach, and realized their final destination was right next to me in the form of a twisted, mangled automobile and a woman on the verge of death.

Quickly, I scooped up her limp form in my arms and placed her in the back seat of my car. Before closing the door I paused just a moment, listening to her body. Absolutely no sounds of life escaped her. My only option was to take her. No way would I leave her to the local authorities. After all, vampiric blood was now inside her lifeless corpse, my vampiric blood, and I couldn't take the chance. Less than thirty miles away -hidden deep within the Tennessee woods- was one of my residents. I'd take her there.