It's us that made this mess!
He tore through the underbrush of the dark forest, the world an inky-black blur around him. Thorns tore at his clothes and his hair, and he could feel branches scraping him and tiny rivulets of blood streamed helter-skelter across his face.
The crushing of branches ominously close to him echoed in his ears; she was close, and she evidently hadn’t given up the chase. He strained to run still faster, every muscle so sore he barely felt like he had legs.
Faster, faster, faster: the words were his mantra, his only thought besides blind panic. He could barely catch his breath, but he couldn’t pause. He didn’t dare look back, but he knew somehow that she was gaining on him. But he simply couldn’t run any faster; he was only human.
Human, he reflected grimly. That was what got him into this mess, wasn’t it?
He was slowing down, despite his best efforts to keep pace. His stupid human body was weak and easily tired out despite months of drills at baseball practice, and he simply could not keep running forever. The footsteps behind him grew still louder, still nearer, and terror struck his heart like a knife, joining the stitch in his side. He couldn’t even draw breath properly.
The forest was a maze and it seemed to have no end. He was running and running with no destination, no goal except to escape the creature pursuing him so relentlessly. How long had he been out here? Surely someone had noticed his absence by now, hadn’t they? The darkness and the forest and the fear stretched on and he could easily imagine an eternity of it.
Suddenly he burst pell-mell out of the cluster of trees, and there he stumbled and fell with a cry into the brook running through the clearing. He struggled to rise, but his body refused to run any longer, and he remained sprawled in the paltry current, feeling it soak through his shirt.
In an instant she was there, moving quickly as a photon to the brookside. She stared down at him with an infuriatingly amused expression on her face.
“If you think you’re going to endear yourself to me by being fun to chase, Brandon, you’re quite mistaken,” she told him, flashing that grin he had once found so pretty.
“Sarah,” he gasped out, completely without breath. “Sarah, please…”
“Begging’s not going to help much, either. You’ll only make me sad,” Sarah replied, without even the slightest hint of melancholy. “Now, I thought we went over this? You know why I can’t let you go. You know my secret, and considering that you don’t wait to join me, I can’t just let you walk away with that sort of knowledge.”
“I won’t….won’t tell anyone!” he insisted desperately, struggling to breathe. “Never! I’ll take it to my grave…just please don’t--”
“Oh, I’ll make sure you take it to your grave, darling,” she interrupted.
In his mind he was screaming, but physically, he was too weak to do much more than shake his head vehemently and whimper.
In a flash she was crouched over him, her nose millimeters from his; he stared cross-eyed into her bright blue eyes. Feebly, he reached up and tried to push her off. She laughed and rested her forehead atop his.
It then struck Brandon how quickly his life had changed. He could recall just a week ago how Sarah would perform this exact same action and he would react not with terror, but with happiness and affection. He could remember softly kissing her forehead, lips, neck, nose, anywhere she let him; he used to run his hands through that dark, wavy hair now soaked with water from the brook; he would tell her she looked beautiful, laugh at her jokes, enjoy her company…and now? Now he was sprawled on his back in a secluded forest, regarding her with fear and contempt.
She sighed dramatically and murmured, “It’s such a shame, though; you would have made such a handsome vampire.”
He whimpered again in response, unable to articulate the pure horror coursing through his veins, soon to be emptied if Sarah had her way.
Brandon had never expected her to be a fucking vampire, of all the crazy things in the world. Sure, she was graceful and beautiful and talented, unnaturally so, but he had assumed he was simply seeing her through the lens of first love. In his eyes, she could fall flat on her face and she’d still be perfect, not that she ever did. He was amazed when she had shown interest in him, too, and for a few glorious months he had had it all: a good life, a starting position on the varsity baseball team, decent grades, and a beautiful girlfriend, envied by all the other guys in school. He had noticed a few strange things, true; she was away often, on purported “hiking trips” with family, and she drank exclusively out of a canteen which she never shared with anyone. There had been times when she’d bitten him when they were kissing, but he had kind of liked it and thought little of it. But he couldn’t believe she was anything but perfect.
That is, until she had told him, revealed her immortality, her affinity for blood (mainly animal, to avoid suspicion, but she liked human blood “as a special treat every now and then”), her supernatural reflexes…and she had offered to share her lifestyle with him.
“Just a little bite,” he could recall her telling him. “You’ll be in something of a coma for a couple days, but when you wake up you’ll feel marvelous. And we can be together forever.”
Well, what was one to do? He had freaked out, startled and shocked at her secret, and declared their relationship over. She had warned him of dire consequences, which he had ignored.
Of course, he hadn’t realized “dire consequences” translated into “I am going to murder you and suck out your delicious blood.”
“Oh, Brandon; I could have spent forever with you,” Sarah said, more to herself than to him. “You’re interesting enough.”
“Sarah, if you ever cared about me you’d let me go!” he cried out, in the first semblance of coherent speech he’d had all night.
“I do care about you. Of course I do,” she whispered, and he could see sincerity in her expressive eyes.
She pressed her lips to his, and he kissed her fiercely, as though proving his affection for her would change her mind.
Was he willing to change his mind? Could he be a vampire, a creature of the night with a thirst for blood? A monster? But better undead than really dead, he reasoned, and, come to think of it, an eternity with Sarah couldn’t be all that bad…
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a set of fangs piercing through his lip. He screamed in agony, writhing under her as sticky blood dribbled down his chin, swirling into the current of the brook.
She pulled away from him, sharp fangs stained scarlet. “There, that should keep you quiet,” she said lightly. “It’s poison, by the way…you ought to die of that in a minute or two and leave me to my midnight snack.” Sarah regarded him curiously and poked the holes she had made, leaving them stinging. “Aw, you’d look cute with piercings there. It’s such a pity. This whole affair is a pity, really; so much potential gone to waste.”
“Sarah!” he yelled out thickly, paralyzed by her venom, bleeding from a dozen different places. “Sarah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just let me go! Turn me into a vampire, I don’t care, just please don’t kill me!” Hot tears rolled down his face as the reality of his situation sunk in: I’m dying extremely painfully and my girlfriend’s going to suck my blood. I’m dying. I’M DYING! The pain of her bite was acute, raw, so painful that he couldn’t think straight, and all he could taste in his mouth was metal. His body throbbed from wounds, from exhaustion, and even from heartbreak. This was the girl he had loved, trusted, protected, cared for…and this was how their story ended.
“Yes, you’re sorry now. Of course you’re sorry now,” she said, sounding disinterested.
She bent down and licked one of the many scrapes on his face, as though she was sampling his blood. He murmured her name one last time, and she stared at him.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way. But you won’t join me, and you won’t beat me, so you’re just going to die,” she said softly.
The world was losing its color, going dark at the edges; her face was swimming before his eyes. Bleeding, bruised, broken, defeated, and delicious, he felt himself slip away into the poison’s grip. His eyelids felt heavy, but before he could shut them, he felt her mouth at his neck. She kissed the spot gently, as she always used to do before he was simply her midnight snack, and then tore into it with the ferocity of a wolf. He felt blood being drained from him, siphoned out with tooth and tongue.
He didn’t even have the strength to scream.
~June
The crushing of branches ominously close to him echoed in his ears; she was close, and she evidently hadn’t given up the chase. He strained to run still faster, every muscle so sore he barely felt like he had legs.
Faster, faster, faster: the words were his mantra, his only thought besides blind panic. He could barely catch his breath, but he couldn’t pause. He didn’t dare look back, but he knew somehow that she was gaining on him. But he simply couldn’t run any faster; he was only human.
Human, he reflected grimly. That was what got him into this mess, wasn’t it?
He was slowing down, despite his best efforts to keep pace. His stupid human body was weak and easily tired out despite months of drills at baseball practice, and he simply could not keep running forever. The footsteps behind him grew still louder, still nearer, and terror struck his heart like a knife, joining the stitch in his side. He couldn’t even draw breath properly.
The forest was a maze and it seemed to have no end. He was running and running with no destination, no goal except to escape the creature pursuing him so relentlessly. How long had he been out here? Surely someone had noticed his absence by now, hadn’t they? The darkness and the forest and the fear stretched on and he could easily imagine an eternity of it.
Suddenly he burst pell-mell out of the cluster of trees, and there he stumbled and fell with a cry into the brook running through the clearing. He struggled to rise, but his body refused to run any longer, and he remained sprawled in the paltry current, feeling it soak through his shirt.
In an instant she was there, moving quickly as a photon to the brookside. She stared down at him with an infuriatingly amused expression on her face.
“If you think you’re going to endear yourself to me by being fun to chase, Brandon, you’re quite mistaken,” she told him, flashing that grin he had once found so pretty.
“Sarah,” he gasped out, completely without breath. “Sarah, please…”
“Begging’s not going to help much, either. You’ll only make me sad,” Sarah replied, without even the slightest hint of melancholy. “Now, I thought we went over this? You know why I can’t let you go. You know my secret, and considering that you don’t wait to join me, I can’t just let you walk away with that sort of knowledge.”
“I won’t….won’t tell anyone!” he insisted desperately, struggling to breathe. “Never! I’ll take it to my grave…just please don’t--”
“Oh, I’ll make sure you take it to your grave, darling,” she interrupted.
In his mind he was screaming, but physically, he was too weak to do much more than shake his head vehemently and whimper.
In a flash she was crouched over him, her nose millimeters from his; he stared cross-eyed into her bright blue eyes. Feebly, he reached up and tried to push her off. She laughed and rested her forehead atop his.
It then struck Brandon how quickly his life had changed. He could recall just a week ago how Sarah would perform this exact same action and he would react not with terror, but with happiness and affection. He could remember softly kissing her forehead, lips, neck, nose, anywhere she let him; he used to run his hands through that dark, wavy hair now soaked with water from the brook; he would tell her she looked beautiful, laugh at her jokes, enjoy her company…and now? Now he was sprawled on his back in a secluded forest, regarding her with fear and contempt.
She sighed dramatically and murmured, “It’s such a shame, though; you would have made such a handsome vampire.”
He whimpered again in response, unable to articulate the pure horror coursing through his veins, soon to be emptied if Sarah had her way.
Brandon had never expected her to be a fucking vampire, of all the crazy things in the world. Sure, she was graceful and beautiful and talented, unnaturally so, but he had assumed he was simply seeing her through the lens of first love. In his eyes, she could fall flat on her face and she’d still be perfect, not that she ever did. He was amazed when she had shown interest in him, too, and for a few glorious months he had had it all: a good life, a starting position on the varsity baseball team, decent grades, and a beautiful girlfriend, envied by all the other guys in school. He had noticed a few strange things, true; she was away often, on purported “hiking trips” with family, and she drank exclusively out of a canteen which she never shared with anyone. There had been times when she’d bitten him when they were kissing, but he had kind of liked it and thought little of it. But he couldn’t believe she was anything but perfect.
That is, until she had told him, revealed her immortality, her affinity for blood (mainly animal, to avoid suspicion, but she liked human blood “as a special treat every now and then”), her supernatural reflexes…and she had offered to share her lifestyle with him.
“Just a little bite,” he could recall her telling him. “You’ll be in something of a coma for a couple days, but when you wake up you’ll feel marvelous. And we can be together forever.”
Well, what was one to do? He had freaked out, startled and shocked at her secret, and declared their relationship over. She had warned him of dire consequences, which he had ignored.
Of course, he hadn’t realized “dire consequences” translated into “I am going to murder you and suck out your delicious blood.”
“Oh, Brandon; I could have spent forever with you,” Sarah said, more to herself than to him. “You’re interesting enough.”
“Sarah, if you ever cared about me you’d let me go!” he cried out, in the first semblance of coherent speech he’d had all night.
“I do care about you. Of course I do,” she whispered, and he could see sincerity in her expressive eyes.
She pressed her lips to his, and he kissed her fiercely, as though proving his affection for her would change her mind.
Was he willing to change his mind? Could he be a vampire, a creature of the night with a thirst for blood? A monster? But better undead than really dead, he reasoned, and, come to think of it, an eternity with Sarah couldn’t be all that bad…
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a set of fangs piercing through his lip. He screamed in agony, writhing under her as sticky blood dribbled down his chin, swirling into the current of the brook.
She pulled away from him, sharp fangs stained scarlet. “There, that should keep you quiet,” she said lightly. “It’s poison, by the way…you ought to die of that in a minute or two and leave me to my midnight snack.” Sarah regarded him curiously and poked the holes she had made, leaving them stinging. “Aw, you’d look cute with piercings there. It’s such a pity. This whole affair is a pity, really; so much potential gone to waste.”
“Sarah!” he yelled out thickly, paralyzed by her venom, bleeding from a dozen different places. “Sarah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just let me go! Turn me into a vampire, I don’t care, just please don’t kill me!” Hot tears rolled down his face as the reality of his situation sunk in: I’m dying extremely painfully and my girlfriend’s going to suck my blood. I’m dying. I’M DYING! The pain of her bite was acute, raw, so painful that he couldn’t think straight, and all he could taste in his mouth was metal. His body throbbed from wounds, from exhaustion, and even from heartbreak. This was the girl he had loved, trusted, protected, cared for…and this was how their story ended.
“Yes, you’re sorry now. Of course you’re sorry now,” she said, sounding disinterested.
She bent down and licked one of the many scrapes on his face, as though she was sampling his blood. He murmured her name one last time, and she stared at him.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way. But you won’t join me, and you won’t beat me, so you’re just going to die,” she said softly.
The world was losing its color, going dark at the edges; her face was swimming before his eyes. Bleeding, bruised, broken, defeated, and delicious, he felt himself slip away into the poison’s grip. His eyelids felt heavy, but before he could shut them, he felt her mouth at his neck. She kissed the spot gently, as she always used to do before he was simply her midnight snack, and then tore into it with the ferocity of a wolf. He felt blood being drained from him, siphoned out with tooth and tongue.
He didn’t even have the strength to scream.
~June