Thirst (24 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

A PAST LIKE A SHADOW

There was nothing waiting for her at her home except for her own churning mind. The last place Hanna wanted to be was somewhere she would be tormented by her thoughts—reminders of who she really was: a loner, and an outcast.

Instead of heading home, Hanna began to wander the streets of Snowbrooke.

At the very least, the Arctic breeze kept her distracted from the image of Connor that lingered at the front of her mind.

“Damn whatever God could be watching me right now,” Hanna thought to herself. What could make her life more miserable?

Nothing.

Nothing except for a reminder of everything she wished she had—everything she does not have. It was beginning to seem like that was the whole purpose of Connor in her life—to show her what she was missing; to show her what everyone around her was so lucky to enjoy...

What she could apparently never ever have.

“Damn my life,” Hanna muttered.

Hanna’s hands were buried deep in her pockets and her chin was pressed tightly against her chest as thick snow built up on the hood of her oversized jacket.

The colorful Christmas lights strung through the town center seemed to flicker as Hanna walked past, as if she was sucking the life out of everything she was near—God reminding her that she was cursed.

Ding Dong!

The tall clock tower, which stood erect at the center of the town, rang prominently as the small hand reached the eleventh hour. The ringing reverberation echoed through the monolithic mountains. Hanna looked up to the open window above the large clock piece. Her beautiful angel of a mother used to sit happily up in that window, next to her perched gargoyle of a father.

“Murderer!” a voice called out from behind her.

Hanna spun around to see a group of twenty-somethings standing about a block away, pretending to not have heard a thing—obviously the culprits.

Their group was composed of two tall, slender men and two tall, pretty, and popular looking women. Each member of the young group was smoking a cigarette outside of the town’s favorite little bar.

The vocal attack was certainly directed at the Wilkinson girl.

Hanna turned around and continued to wander away. As she did, giggling erupted out of the youngsters.

Hanna stopped.

This was far from the first time she had been the victim of such an attack. Every time, she simply walked away, letting the unfair ridicule marinate into her abused soul.

That particular night, something was different. Hanna turned around and started to walk towards the giggling youth.

“What was that?” she asked quietly as she walked towards them. Her body was tense and she maintained her sheepish demeanor. Her heart pounded against her chest quickly as she confronted her problems for the first time ever.

There was a moment of silence among the bar patrons as they smiled at one another. “What was what?” one of the young men asked.

“What did you say?” Hanna asked, walking directly up to the group.

Each one of the youngsters was at least a full foot taller than the short Hanna.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said, scoffing as he turned back to his group of friends.

Hanna stood as the friends looked down on her, trying their best to not laugh directly in her face.

“Say it again,” Hanna insisted quietly.

“What was that?” one of the girls asked.

“Say it again.”

“Speak up.”

“I said, say it again,” Hanna said, still in her quiet, timid voice.

The friends all laughed at Hanna’s inability to raise her voice, even when confronting her abusers.

“Go back to your haunted house,” the alpha boy said turning briefly towards Hanna.

Swiftly, Hanna reached up, grabbed the boy by the collar, and held him tightly with impressive strength. The boy tried to shimmy himself free, but the young vampire’s grip was too strong.

“Let go!” the boy said.

His friends began to laugh at his expense, not seeing any threat in the attack.

“I said let go!” the boy said again as he grabbed Hanna’s wrist with his hand, trying to pull her off him unsuccessfully.

“Say it again,” Hanna said.

“What?”

“Say it!” Hanna said, finally raising her voice.

“You’re a fucking psychopath!”

Hanna threw the boy against the icy cement below with impressive force, eliciting a loud snap out of a bone in his arm.

“Ah! Fuck!” the young man yelled aloud as he pulled his body into a defensive fetal position.

“Hey!” one of the girls yelled, stepping forward to defend her friend. She reached out to shove Hanna away.

In the blink of an eye, Hanna swiped at the girl’s chest, ripping through her coat and cutting into her skin with her nails.

The female twenty-something winced and stumbled back, grabbing her chest with both of her hands. Blood began to seep through her ripped coat.

“What the fuck!” the girl yelled.

The remaining two friends hurried to their friends’ rescue, pulling them away from the furious young vampire in a panic.

“Get away from us!” the unscathed boy yelled out as he pulled his broken friend along the icy sidewalk.

Hanna’s eyes glazed over as the reality of what she had done set in.

Her body became light and she became overwhelmed with a light-headed sensation. Colors began to fade away from her vision, and her world became a blurry black-and-white mess.

Then, her eyes suddenly honed in on the blood seeping through the female aggressor’s winter coat. The blood was an incredible shade of deep red—a particularly delicious color. Its aroma was sweet; Hanna could practically taste its glorious, robust flavor from ten feet away.

Hanna’s legs began to tremble as her head began to spin out of control.

Hanna looked around. Down the road was a police cruiser, turning around the corner.

“Hey! Over here!” one of the friends yelled out to the patrolling officer.

Blood literally dripping down her hands, Hanna wasted no time. She turned around and began to run into the guise of the falling snow.

The officer noticed the waving youngsters and turned on his sirens.

“Call an ambulance!” the unscathed woman yelled as she applied pressure to her cut friend’s wounds.

By the time he pulled up to the injured kids, Hanna was long gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

THE CRAVINGS

Hanna did not stop running until she was inside of her house. Her heart was beating at its maximum limit, and her head was spinning in rocky, nauseating circles.

She took a long breath in, trying to regain her control. She fell against the wall as her legs continued to tremble. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself down.

But even through her eyelids, she could see the glowing red blood of all of her nearby neighbors. She could see the elderly man sleeping two houses down with his elderly wife. She could see the newborn baby a whole block away, who had just been brought home the night before. She could even see the blood of a young deer prancing through the nearby woods.

Quickly, Hanna pushed herself off the wall, leaving behind a long streak of the female youngster’s blood. She looked around, and then noticed the blood on the wall. She looked down at her hands.

A drop of blood fell off her fingernail onto the cold floor below. Trembling, Hanna lifted her bloodied hand up to her lips. Gently she ran her finger along her bottom lip, wiping the blood along the tip of her tongue.

Suddenly, she began to feel the perfect euphoria pulsing through her veins. She wanted more.

She had to feed.

She threw her coat onto the ground and sunk down to the floor, planting her face into the palm of her hands.

“Go away! Go away!” she repeated over and over. Through her closed eyes, and her trembling hands, she could still see the distant glow of the neighbor’s blood.

The pulsing carotid artery of the old man taunted her, nearly one hundred yards away. “This can be yours,” it teased. “In mere seconds, this can be yours.”

Her hands trembled and her knees buckled. She looked back down at the dried blood on the tips of her fingers. She could not resist any longer.

Hanna turned around and ran back out into the street.

Wheeeoooo!

A distant police cruiser turned around the corner of a nearby street, likely on its way towards Hanna’s home. Hanna stood motionless for a moment, her brain momentarily shutting itself off as her vampiric instincts began to take hold.

Da-Dum! Da-Dum! Da-Dum!

The aged neighbor’s heart was begging Hanna to end its elderly life.

The old man could not have more than a few years left...

Stumbling through the deep snow, Hanna began to make her way to the neighbor’s home. Suddenly, the elderly woman next to the old man rolled over and snuggled into her long-time husband.

Hanna stopped—she could not do it. She refused to be a monster.

A red and blue flashing light began to glow through the thick blanket of falling snow. The cruiser was near.

Into the woods—Hanna began to run behind the row of houses, which sat nestled on the edge of a forested mountain. Knee deep in freezing snow, Hanna’s insatiable thirst overpowered the undeniable cold.

Within moments, she found herself within meters of the young baby deer, the solitary doe. Before the lonesome animal could even turn its head, Hanna struck, and she fed.

The animal’s blood was far from satisfying, but it was enough to control her. Hanna winced as the bitter, unripe and almost sour flavor entered her body, chilling her rapid-fire nerves.

Disgusting.

As Hanna’s carnivorous cravings subsided, reality seeped back to her. The quickly cooling deer’s blood was quickly becoming more tart—more acidic. It burned her throat as it travelled past her stiff tongue.

Color returned as her sight began to deblur. At her knees was the dead doe. Upon seeing its young lifeless face, Hanna turned to her side and spat out the blood that remained in her mouth.

The awful taste lingered.

The red drained from her eyes, and tears began to form in its place. It had been a long time since she had caved to her cravings, a long time since she had had a taste for blood. She hated it. The very thought filled her with self-hate.

She looked up towards the sky. The falling snow above obscured the snowy treetops, flakes falling into her cold watering eyes.

Life is not fair.

As Hanna stared up into the sky, no one stared back down. She was alone in a giant, cruel universe.

A few hundred yards back, she could hear the police cruiser pass her house and disappear into the buried town of Snowbrooke.

Instead of standing up, Hanna fell back, into the deep cold snow. She stared up into the empty, falling snow. If it were possible to freeze to death, she would have let it happen. Unfortunately, she did not even have the luxury of death.

Slowly, she closed her eyes, letting the thick snow cover her motionless body.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” A dark, hoarse voice reverberated through the tall, moaning pines.

Hanna sat up swiftly and looked around.

“Who’s there?” she said, her heart beginning to pound against her chest wall.

“Embrace it, Hanna. Embrace yourself.” The strange voice echoed over and over, as if bouncing back and forth off the icy slopes of the surrounding mountains—but the voice was clear enough, as if the lips from which it emanated stood directly next to her ear.

“H—Hello?” Hanna stuttered as she brought herself up to her feet and looked around. She pulled her arms in close to her body as a chill sunk deep into her thick skin. Certainly, she was hallucinating. That’s it—a hallucination.

A cold breeze whistled through the swaying trees, lifting a layer of snow up off the ground, and swirling it around the exposed young vampire.

“Come to me—be with me,” the wind seemed to whisper.

“Who are you?” Hanna demanded. “Leave me alone.”

Two hands fell upon Hanna’s shoulders. The assailant’s fingers were long and slender, with ragged, sharp nails. The skin on the hands looked ancient—practically rotting off.

Hanna spun around swiftly, but there was nothing there—nothing except for the eternal cold.

She began to stumble back towards her house, pushing her way through the deep snow.