Vampire Manifesto (27 page)

I could smell the beads of sweat as they trickled down the side of his temple. Taste the putrid smell of his breath on my tongue. That’s when the urge overtook me.

It was so overpowering, so all encompassing that it worked its way through every sinewy fiber of my being. All I wanted was blood. I had already licked my lips clean, savoring? Yes, savoring, that’s the word I would describe it. Savoring the taste of it.

I craved more.

No matter how hard I tried to fight off these murderous designs of filling my mouth full of this man’s blood, to the point that it over flowed out the corners of my lips, I couldn’t. My throat burned for more and my body tensed as the Cop came closer, gun in one hand, handcuffs in the other.

That vein!

I couldn’t take my eyes off it!

The way it throbbed in concert with the thundering in my ears. I let out a growl, but it didn’t come out as any sound I had ever heard of before in my life. It was bestial in nature, Predator like. So disturbing in fact, the Cop froze in his tracks.

Nevertheless, by then it was already too late.

I lunged at the man, or rather my body did. Everything was on autopilot, my body trying to satisfy what my conscience mind state was unwilling to comprehend.

My hand wrapped around his wrist and when I tightened my grip, I could hear the bones crunching underneath the sheer force of it, crumbling like so much brittle timber weed. The gun went off. I could feel the breeze generated by the bullet across my check as the round whizzed past only centimeters from my face.

He tried to scream, but by then I had already buried my face in his neck. I could taste his skin on my tongue. It was salty with sweat and fear. I could feel him struggling against me, fighting with every ounce of strength he possessed; yet it was pointless. My free arm wrapped around his waist, pinning his body against mine.

Now I considered myself decently strong for my size, but this guy had at least a hundred and twenty pounds of muscle on me easy. But my grip was steel coated in iron, dipped in that metal they made Wolverines skeleton from and I held him in place, despite his fervent struggles, as easy as one would hold a pillow to the chest.

I had to pull myself away from the body, physically forcing myself to recoil.

I wanted more. I wanted to gorge myself on his blood, to devour it totally. I released my grip around the Cop’s waist, the limp corpse slumping to the ground unceremoniously. His throat was torn out and blood flowed freely from the wound, almost incensing a frenzy from me as I backed away slowly from the dead body.

What had I done?

I just murdered a man. Killed another living, breathing, sentient being with my bare hands. And not only that, but I drank his blood as well. Yet instead of disgust, there was only…satisfaction?

Connor what have you done to me?

I felt even stronger now, a seemingly unending amount of adrenaline coursing through my system, filling each limb with grandiose potential. I thrust my hands into my pockets. I could hear sirens and it was enough to put me into action.

No way was I about to wait around for reinforcements to arrive, not after murdering one of their own. I glanced around and saw one of the many security cameras aligning the wall of the Fruitvale Bart Station. The Security Office was to my left and I made a beeline towards the door, turning the handle.

Locked.

I turned harder, this time slamming my shoulder into the door as well. To my utter astonishment, the door tore free from the hinges, my shoulder placing a sizable dent in the metal door. When I released the handle, there was just a mangled lump of metal where the doorknob should have been.

What the hell was happening to me? All I wanted to do was sit down, to try to replay the last ten minutes of my life, try to grasp the ramifications of my actions tonight, but I knew now wasn’t the time.

I scanned the room and found what I was looking for aligned against one of the walls. Two Cop cars pulled into the Bart parking lot, their actions being recorded and displayed on one of the many monitors in front of me. It was a canine unit. I could smell the German Shepard from here.

How is that even possible?

I gave the security equipment a once over then pressed the eject button. A small, black plastic DVD tray opened in front of me. I removed the disk and placed it in my pocket. Countless episodes of C.S.I. Miami and Law and Order taught me that homicides caught on video equals a life sentence with the possible option of a needle in the arm.

And I never did sit well with needles.

The scent of gunpowder coming steadily closer caused me to run. Fourteen blocks. That’s how long it would take for me to be safe, however safe one could be when wanted for homicide and being hunted by a pack of Werewolves.

Everything around me looked wrong.

I just left the Bart, 15 maybe 20 seconds ago. I hadn’t even reached a good sprint, yet the address I was running to was less than two blocks away now. There it was right there. I could see it! Twelve blocks in under 30 seconds! This has to be a dream. But even that didn’t make sense; everything was just too real, my emotions to raw for it to be fabricated, so it can’t be that.

Yet here I was, already done with the two remaining blocks in less time it took me to think two blocks. I kept moving, barley pausing at the security gate. I hit the first step leading to the second floor and jumped, my intent on taking the steps two by two.

Instead, I landed on the second floor catwalk!

I glanced down the stairwell, calculating the distance from bottom to top. There was no way I should have made that jump. It was just too far, too many steps involved. I’m hallucinating. The blood, the dead cop, how fast I made it to my apartment and now this? My clothes were still damp with blood, sticky to the flesh and I could still taste that Cops blood in my mouth, sliding down my throat like human Bloody Mary.

And yet…

I bounded up the second floor steps, landing on the third floor catwalk without even the slightest hint of sound. Amazing! I fumbled for the keys, my hand shaking from sheer excitement as I tried each one until the door unlocked and I ducked inside. It was dark; none of the lights in the entire apartment was on, yet I could see perfectly fine. Like my eyes no longer needed illumination to operate. I just stood there, unmoving, marveling at how calm I've remained throughout this entire ordeal. So calm in fact, that I began to question my own sanity.

I could tell the place was empty. Not because I checked any of the rooms, I was well aware of the fact that I hadn’t moved an inch, in like, the past 15 minutes, but rather I didn’t hear or smell anyone inside the apartment. It was like my senses were on blast at the moment, the nerve endings ablaze as my body calibrated my system for the massive information blitz that had assaulted my newly enhanced abilities.

Where the hell was Connor? He said he would meet me here. Maybe he’s running late? Maybe he got here before I did and left? Maybe he never got here at all and they killed him? Whatever the case, I needed a shower. Badly. My head was beginning to swoon again. It was the blood splattered against my clothing. I hadn’t paid attention to it until now, but the smell was almost potent in toxicity.

I took my shirt off, holding it crumpled like in my hand, staring at the blood stained mass of cloth. I brought it to my nose, burying my face into it as I inhaled deeply, the blood craving momentarily overriding my natural state.

Before I knew what was happening I was licking the damp blood with my tongue and when I was finished, after there wasn’t another drop of blood on my entire shirt that I hadn’t licked, I removed my pants and repeated the process all over again.

Now one would think that the act of licking blood off your own apparel would and should freak me out, disgust me in one shape, form or fashion, but it didn’t. Not only did I move, see, and smell differently than my former self of just twenty-four hours ago, but my thought process had been altered as well.

Fear was almost nonexistent at this point, chipped away to all most nothingness. Despite what I tried to convince myself earlier, everything that was happening tonight was real and I was wanted for the brutal murder of a Police Officer, yet somehow I just didn’t care. I wasn’t fearful of retaliation, of being corned in some random alley, surrounded by revenge driven Cops, that event didn’t even register a 1.0 on the, things you really don’t want to happen to you, scale.

Don’t even get me started on Bartholomew Kruger and his Wolf Pack. They just seemed inconsequential at this point, their threat level demoted into oblivion. Nothing could touch me, nothing could hurt me. The sense of overwhelming power that was coursing through my system was intoxicating. Is this how Connor feels all the time?

I examined myself in the bathroom mirror, the amount of detail I was able to identify mind-boggling. Everything was sharper, crisper, as if up until now I had been living my life with the clarity of VHS tape. But now my 3D HD eyes were open wide.

I still looked like me…somewhat at least.

There were differences however, though it was difficult to pinpoint each exact one individually, rather than the portrait as a whole. I was still me, but the reflection that stared back was a prettier, photoshopped version of myself. Everything was smoothed out, not a blemish or wrinkle evident. My bone structure seemed more prevalent, my face taking on a more chiseled appearance.

It was the eyes that stood out the most, their color changing entirely. Now my eyes originally changed color by nature, yet now they sparked a bright blue, as if someone had replaced my iris with sapphires that seemingly sparkled like diamonds when the light danced across them at just the right angle.

I felt tired, really tired all of a sudden, as if the rush from the blood had finely began to ebb. I climbed in the shower, letting the steaming water stream onto my face. I washed my body, not stopping until the river of blood at my feet whirl pooling down the drain changed from diluted red to clear.

I neither dried nor wrapped a towel around my body when I was done. Scooping up all my bloody clothes, I tossed them haphazardly in a black trash bag, tying the bag off in a knot as tightly as I could, tossing the bag in the closet, my intention to burn everything later.

The bed was nice and net, pillows still fluffed from whenever they were last made. The alarm clock next to the nightstand blinked: 5:15 am. I climbed into the bed, underneath the covers. I closed my eyes and attempted to sleep. Unconsciousness over took me almost immediately, the inky blackness somewhat an eerie welcome and yet, in the comfort of REM sleep; even the Dreamscape had changed for me.

I was fully aware of everything. The fact that I was dreaming, the fact that I knew I was dreaming, to the fact that I knew, I knew I was dreaming was just so strange. In this dream, there were no Vampires trying to kill me, no Dreamself version of me wielding the Blade of Osiris demanding I answer her questions. Instead of a forest grove, I walked the back alleyways of some unnamed metropolitan masterpiece. It was dark, yet on the horizon I could briefly make out the rising morning sun between the metallic glass and iron skyscrapers that surrounded me.

There was a faint scent lingering in the air, something on fire, burning. I tried to follow the smell, attempting to use my new prenatural senses to track it back to its source.

There was a sharp pain in my thigh. At first, the sensation intrigued me. Even bodily pain for me was different. It didn’t hurt at first, but it just as quickly became unbearable as it began to travel up my leg and into my torso. The pain was excruciating and the smell, that scent was everywhere now, it flavored the air with the aroma of burnt flesh and…cotton?

Even through all the pain, I was still able to dissect the burning cotton stench commingled with all the others. I snapped awake, fighting off the stifling scream that was building in my chest.

The bed was on fire!

I was on fire!

My leg and part of my stomach was ablaze, the mattress underneath me acting as kindling. I jumped up, my mind frantic. I raced to the bathroom. No sooner had I thought the word, I was already there, moving so fast that I didn’t even see it happen, the only evidence being the burning footprints scorched into the carpet.

I turned the shower on, letting the water dose my body. Steam and smoke was everywhere as my skin hissed and crackled. As good as the cool water felt against my charred skin, I couldn’t prolong my time there any longer. I raced back towards the bedroom, but it was too late, everything was ablaze at this point, the heat from the inferno so intense that the bedroom windows buckled then shattered, shards of glass exploding everywhere, raining down on the street outside like razor sharp confetti.