BLOOD [Chapter two]

Death

So good you got to abuse it, so fast that sometimes you lose it
Corrupted – McFLY

I looked at a small picture of Sophie. She was smiling, her cheeks were red, and so as her lips; she was smiling like she always did, overflowing happyness. It was so contagius that I started to smile too, but it suddenly faded when I remembered what had happened to her.

And how that was my fault.

There’s always a line. A line traced between right or wrong, private and public, love and hate, good or bad, Evil or God, Heaven and Hell, life and death, dark or light, and many others. That line, can be thin, with no one noticing its presence, or it can be really big, making people afraid of what comes in the other side.

“Don’t cross the line”, everyone says. However… What would happen if you crossed it? Or, what would happen if you step on it? Would it make the natural balance of the sociaty to collapse? Would we be dealing with internal chaos? But there’s something, a tiny something, that makes everyone be appealed and seduced to see that line, the biggest error of the humanity: Curiosity.

Curiosity? Yes. I would consider it a sin. It makes you want to see things you shouldn’t, makes you do bad things, makes you seek for something that most of the times, it’s unworthy of time and energy. Men have the need to know everything, that’s why it never stops doing new descoveries, new researches, new technologics; all of this is just to have the power of knowledge.With that, they can control the most things we would never dream about, everything in the center of their hands. Nevertheless, there’s something the men will never be able to take control of. And that is Death.

No one can predict Death. No one can save someone from Death. No one can escape from Death. No one can stay in the thin line between life and death. But of course, there’s always one exception.

Myself.

Was I dead? Was I alive? Was I dead AND alive at the same time? And the most intriguing of all, can I die?

I’ve been asking this for a long time, but no one seems to have the answer for this. So, even me don’t have the answer for all the questions involving the Death.

Once I turned the way I am today, I never wished so much to die. I’ve already tried suicide, but the venom did not made me even sleepy; the knife I used simply made no effect at all, since I didn’t bleed out; I couldn’t die by suffocation because I could handle not to breath for a long time. So, there was no way I could die. Even sunlight didn’t kill me, it just made strange burns all over my body, that were healed with time.

Since the day I was “reborn”, my heart didn’t beat anymore. Breathing wasn’t something essential, but after a long time – like two, three hours – it starts to bothers me and I have to inhale again. As I didn’t bleed and there wasn’t any blood in my veins and my heart was like a cold stone inside my chest, I didn’t considered myself alive. However, I could talk, walk, drink and eat; everything a normal person would do. I considered myself alive by that.
So, was I dead or alive? Or I was just stepping in the line, and no one could push me on either way? Was I going to stay there forever?

Curiosity, the biggest problem of humanity. Knowledge, something that the humanity seeked.

Life or Death, something unreacheble for me.

And who am I?

Harry Judd, former drummer of the band McFLY. Vampire. Negligible creature. A monster. A killer. You choose what represents better for you.

Breaking some popular myths: silver or wooden crucifixes don’t affect me. My fangs aren’t long, but they are sharp and pointed. My skin isn’t so pale, and sunlight doesn’t bothers me. Ok, a little, when burns and rashes starts appearing on it – and also, I don’t sparkle like diamonds like some stereotypes emerging out there. I may have gotten a little stronger, but my appearence didn’t changed. I don’t transform into bats or rats, garlic doesn’t affects me, and I sleep, I sleep a lot; otherwise I would be tired and energy-less. And what’s the other way of getting it? Through food!

I can eat human food, but it never saciates my appetite. Speaking of which, I’m always hungry. And thirsty. I can spend the whole day eating normal food and I’ll be hungry. That’s why I can’t control myself when it comes to my kind of food…

Anyway, after that day, I never was the same again. And so as Dougie.

I woke up and I was at that same house. I felt weird, my head was spinning and I couln’t see straight. There was too many colors in the room for me to associate, too many shadows, too many traces, too many things… Too many information! I tried to cover up my eyes, feeling them burn behind my lids. My throat was completaly dry, and it was aching for water. There was a mix of sences; moisture, wood, rusty metal, the ferric smell of old pipes, seedy courtains… It was a confusion of to many data.

After my eyes were accustomed with the lightining, I opened them slowly, seeing that I had fallen off the bed and I wasn’t wearing any shirt or jeans – only in boxers. I frowned, confused, but I got up, feeling all my muscles tighthen as I tried to lift myself up. After that painful work was done and I was already on my two feet, I looked at the windown right behing me. And it was snowing – such a funny thing, because I remembered we were on the middle of the summer. It couldn’t be snowing!

It felt like I was on one hangover, but it was really worst than all that I have felt. After putting pants on, I went down the stairs, trying to find the boys, but they were no where to be seem. I went to Danny’s room, and I surprised myself on seeing that everything he had brought on his trip was there, in a strange way… Like all have been left behind. Like he was on a runaway and he left all behind. Intrigued, I went to Tom’s room, and found out it was exactly as Danny’s.

What the hell was going on there?

That’s when I heard a noise coming from Dougie’s room, sounding like a scream. Alarmed, I went in the direction of his room, jumping at two steps at a time on the stairs. I opened the door with such an strength that it fell on the ground, making a flump sound on the floor.
When I looked at the scene in front of me, my mouth fell wide open.

Dougie wasn’t alone in the room. There was a girl too; she had blonde, shoulder length wavy hair, that was covering partially her intense and blue eyes. She didn’t seem to notice me at first, she was too busy occupied having her clothes being taken off by Dougie, that was licking her on the neck. A shiver went down through my spine when I saw that there was blood dripping on his chin.

A shivered even more when I noticed that the girl was covered in blood, and Dougie was enjoying himself by licking it… And he seemed to find it very tasty and pleasurable.

The both of them didn’t seem to be bothered with my interruption, and Dougie smiled at me, moving away from the girl. I suddenly remembered her; she was one of the sisters that the car broke down… Was her name Lindsay…?

“Ah, Harry!”, Dougie said, looking up to me. His physiognomy was completaly different, he was smirking in a sinister way; and his eyes, once blue, were in crimson red. I never seen him like that… So dark, mysterious… “You finally woke up!”

He cleaned the blood that was dripping from his chin, and that was the time when I finally have captured that sweet, ferric taste that seemed to come from heaven. All of the sudden, my whole body was urging to taste it, to go near that girl and feel if the taste of the blood was so good from what I was imaginating. My throat was never this dry, and everything else on the room suddenly disappeared. All that I could see was that path on the girl’s bust, so appealing, so seductive… I felt a odd liquid run down my throat, it was hot and it made my thirsty multiply.

I needed to taste blood!

“We were beggining to get worried about you”, Dougie said, interrupting my thoughts. “How are you feeling?”

“Thirsty”. I answered without thinking twice, and I was surprised to hear my voice sounding hoarse.

Dougie laughed, in a coldly way, and that innocent, childlike boy I knew disappeared, fading at the echoes of his voice.

“I guess you really are” Dougie picked up his t-shirt and told me to follow him, and the girl on the bed blowed him a kiss.

“I’ll be waiting for you to come back, to finish what we have started”, she said, in a deep, seductive voice.

Bloody hell, that red liquid on her body was making me go mad! Agonizing pain, that made every muscle of my body to turn on her direction… I arched my back, like a cat preparing to attack, planning on a strike… But Dougie simply patted on my shoulder and pushed my out of the bedroom.

“Come on. I’ll show you some food”, he said, in a sarcastic tone; there was a cinic smile on his lips.

I got confused, but he simply ignored my face. We walked past Danny’s and Tom’s room, and I frowned. Where the two of them were?

“Dougie?”, I asked, when Dougie started leading me outside. He was only wearing a t-shirt and boxers, and I, only a pair of trousers, with no t-shirt on. It was snowing, but even though I couln’t feel it freezing… It felt like nothing at all against my skin. “Where are Tom and Danny? I looked up for them but I didn’t find them anywhere…”

Dougie stopped walking and turned around, and there was a machiavellian smile on his face. He showed no feelings at all when I mentioned their names, just that sarcastic smile.

“Humans.” Dougie answered simply, like I was about to understand everything he just said.

I loured, and Dougie sighed. He faced me again and them talked slowly, like a grown up talking to a child.

“They were humans.”, he repeated “They are our prey. And we are the predators. You do the math.”

“You are joking”, I said, not believing in a word that he had just said.. “What’s that crap about them being human, and us the predators? Are you drunk, Doug?”

Dougie smirked again, and laughed, like I just had said the most stupid thing in the whole world.

“You don’t know a thing, do you?”, he said, ironic “We… We have been changed, Harry. We are not the same again.” I guess I should have been staring at him like an idiot, because he sighed again and returned to explain me. “We, are like humans calls, vampires. We feist on their blood. And Danny and Tom were on the wrong time and at the wrong place…”

It all started to make sense to me. The urging desire to taste blood… The fastidous pains I have felt when I woke up, the thirstyness, the dry throat… And then, I remembered the night where I have sleept, and finally wake up this morning… Ashleigh, sister of that girl that was on Dougie’s bed, had crawled to me in that night… And she had bitten me.

“Are you talking serious?” I asked, startled. “Please tell me it’s just a joke.” Dougie shake his head in a negative way. “AND OH MY FUCKING GOD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO TOM AND DANNY?”

“I was hungry”, he said, plainly.

My face was pure shock.

“Come on, it’s time for you to eat something. You must be starving”, Dougie said pushing
me, holding my arm. I realized that we had walked a long distance, because the house we where was already far away from our vision. He pointed at a forest right in front of us.“This forest is near a village, and there’s always people passing by… The main thing is… Just let your instinct act for you, try not to thing to much.”

“What the hell are you saying?”, I asked.

“I’m giving advice to you, so you can pick up your own lunch. Now, have fun!” he said, patting at my shoulder and then turning back, on his way back to the house.

I would follow him if I haven’t felt my stomach to contort, asking and demanding urgently for food.

“Damn it”, I said to myself.

That’s when I scented that sweet smell again, the one that vigoroulsy made my head to spin and spin, knocking me out of the consciouness; I felt that strange liquid fall down my throat again, asking for blood. As Dougie said, I completaly shut down; weird shocks went through all my body, making me hunch my back, regardful for where that scent would be coming from. I sniffed the air, felling it coming from the Northeast. I ran into it direction, just to find an young-adult girl walking peacefully and stilly, with earphones and hearing to some loud song.

My lips curled into a smile when I started following her, and she didn’t seem to notice.

When she was already far away from the village, still behind the trees, I walked faster, and suddenly appeared on her front. She looked startled and frightened, and she let one of her earphones fall. I smiled to her, inhailing heavily to feel that sweet and itoxicating scent coming from her.

“What… What do you want?” she said, stumbling on her words.

Aaah… She started to get even more frighthened when I walked up in her direction. Her blood was being pumped faster, something that appealed me; it scent being more presentable. I couldn’t stop myself now, it was so addicting, intoxicative, that made my loose my mind and control, all I wanted was rip her into pieces and feel that sweet mead.

“Hello, there”, I said, and my smile open widened, and she seemed to be alert when she saw the row of razorsharp pointed teeth.

The last thing I saw was her terrorized face, and I launched into her direction, making her fall on the floor. I hold her wrists tightly, because she wouldn’t stop moving, and I think I broke her legs, because she was crying and yelling of pain. I didn’t care. I just wanted her to shut up so that I could enjoy my lunch – quoting Dougie.

She yelled her lungs out when I finally gave up on trying to make her shut up, and I approached her neck, planting my teeths on her smooth and dark skin. When I felt her blood start to pour down my mouth, euphoria was all I could feel. Better than any other food, more addicting than any drug, more intoxicating than other drink… It was pure bliss.

I stood there, suckin her blood, and eventually she stopped screaming and moving. I did not cared, I wanted more. But suddenly I felt it empty, and I released her wrists and crawled away from her, sitting next to a tree. My throat had stopped aching and my stomach wasn’t hurting from hunger anymore; I felt pleased, satisfied. I hated to admit this, but this was the best feeling I ever felt… Even better than sex.

I looked at the dead body in front of me; and I stopped my gaze at the girl in front of me. She looked young, like sixteen or seventeen years old; she had dark skin and curly black hair, and her eyes, opened and motionless, were as the same color of her hair. She was beautiful.

And now she was dead.

Remorse started to take control of me. I felt sick, like I was about to throw up. Have I just drank blood? From a poor young girl? Have I just turned myself a murderer? I stood up, confused, and sorry for the girl in front of me. I killed one person… Just because I was hungry. That didn’t made sense!

I started running, not nowing where I was going. I let my feet led the way, not worrying in trying to come back to the house. I remembered Danny and Tom, my best friends… They were now dead. Because of Dougie.

It was too much, too much for a guy – can I still be considered a guy? Am I human? – to handle.

Death is something no one can control.

Even me, the killer.

~ by Eduarda Morsch on December 18, 2009.