As promised I'm delivering a delicious segment of a short story called "The Spy Who Bit Me". I will post a little bit every Friday through the month of October (but beginning today), and until it is done. And just in case you missed the week before's post, I will have a link back to it, so that you can catch up. Yes, I'm that thoughtful.
Now with no further ado... The Spy Who Bit me
When the sun is out two narrow panes of stained glass splash chips of apple green, crimson, amber and indigo across the unadorned white stone walls of my domain. But my nine by twelve chamber is dark now, and so I know the sun has set. I consult my watch. It isn't a very fancy watch, I'd actually got it at Walmart. Seems I have to buy a new one every few years, as the thing goes as dead as my heart. But this one is still working and when I press a tiny button the dial glows acid green. It's ten thirty. I've over slept! No wonder I'm hungry as hell!
Agitated, I climb out of the white satin-lined coffin, which has been my safe-haven for the past year and a half. As you must realize by now I am a vampire. No surprise there, right? My name is John R. Gilbert. The R. stands for Rudolph. Yeah, I rarely used it in life, for obvious reasons. The teasing and ribbing I'd gotten as a child was terrible. But you know what? I sort of had a hay-day scaring Freddie Orso and that puke-faced Arnold Dunken, after I became an undead, I was able to do a little pay-back. That was awesome! If only I'd had a camera with me at the time when I showed up to a barbecue and they thought I was a ghost.
Anyway I've been a vampire for about a dozen years now, and I have never met up with any of my kind. No. I didn't turn anyone. There really isn't anyone in Hornersville worthy of becoming an undead with me. So, yeah, it's been kind of lonely, but not so bad, really. I do my best getting my nourishment without sending off alarms in this small Midwest town. Not that the cops around here are all that bright.
Hunger is my primary motivation for getting up every night, as a member of the Undead Society. Before, it was just a paycheck—and I still had a hell of a time trying to get up to go to work when alive. In a way, things haven't changed all that much.
On this warm, June night, I'm terribly hungry because the pickings last night were slim. There was nothing but a sour, old bum on a park bench. . . ugh! I don't think he's gonna be missed by a whole lot of people. But I really hate having Old Bum Breath when I wake up the next evening.
But that was last night. Tonight there's no moon out. The sky is a soft black velvet, filled with crisp, white stars. Normally I linger to gaze upon this sight as I arise every night, but tonight I'm just too frigging hungry. I want to get down to the important business of repletion.
Off in the distance dogs are barking. It's calm with only a gentle breeze making a rustling sound through the leaves. It tingles my ears. My hearing as a vampire is very acute. My night vision as keen as any predator's. All my senses are jacked up, including that of smell, with which I now detect a possible victim right away. The blood scent is a warm essence, almost like a vague perfume that I can't quite describe. But I can tell for sure if the warm blooded creature is human or animal. In this case it's human, and female. And she isn't twenty feet of me. Hunger pangs are now becoming unbearable. I don't like to let myself get this way. I don't like becoming a frenzied monster, so out of control there isn't anything that can stop me from getting what I need. Normally, I'd go over on Grover Street and pay the whores twenty bucks to let me bite them. They just think I”m some kinky weirdo with a blood fetish—which is very accurate, really.
But I'm thrilled to find a feast wandering so close to my den. I move silently through the small grassy plot which surrounds my humble dwelling. I caution my desire to pounce right away. My first thought is why is she here? Now as I see her swing by, I get a bad feeling about why a woman all along is walking through a graveyard at night.
She strides along, glances back over her shoulder as though she thinks she might be followed. Her long, blond hair flows loosely around her face, and her pouty lips are partially open. Now her perfume hits me. Sandalwood, mixed with warm leather—warmed from her blood, of course. Wearing an alluringly tight-fitting skirt that catches my attention right away. Hey, my heart may not work any more, but other things do!
It's not ten or fifteen seconds from the moment I first see her, watching those deliciously long legs of hers move with sudden swiftness—not away from me, but more as if away from someone else. Her heels crunch noisily over the cinder-graveled drive that winds throughout the cemetery.
Now I sense him. . . .
©2011 by Lorelei Bell
Be sure and stop by next week same time, same station for another installment.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Talk To Me...