The Donor House: Advent Story (part 13)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
“They were embarrassed that they were feeding from an addict?” Caleb asked, once again glad that he had a different option to any of the addicts before the House opened and he wished that others would realise how wonderful it was to have a choice. Instead of having to be an addict on the street he’d been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who accepted him for who he was, even if they couldn’t possibly understand what he’d been through to make him an addict, and it was something he knew that other addicts needed, but so many of them weren’t ready to be around vampires after everything had happened to them. “Because they’d ‘lowered’ themselves?”
Blake nodded, his eyes sad. “Every time before Alice it felt like something was wrong with what was happening, when really we were each helping the other. The vampire was getting fed by a willing donor, even though I was willing because I was an addict, and I was getting the chemicals I needed to keep me sane for a few hours. For them feeding from an addict may have seemed like they’d gone to the wrong side of the tracks, but that’s nothing compared to what some will do to a human, which will end up making them an addict.” He sighed. “Unfortunately they don’t see things that way. To them feeding from an addict is something dirty, something they shouldn’t do, and the fact they’re actually helping the addict is something they seem to miss. Maybe it’s because we’re human… no, I don’t think that’s it. If a vampire happens to come across one of their own who’s addicted they react in exactly the same way. Vampires are much more like humans than they want to admit - they don’t like those who are different to the norm, whether that’s a human who’s been adversely affected by vampires or a vampire who’s found themselves addicted to a certain human’s blood.”
“Surely the House is the biggest sign of that. Any vampire who doesn’t accept what they’ve become will end up here, or at one of the other Houses, because they aren’t the sort of vampire that others think they should be.” Caleb bit his lip. “You know, we always talk about how there are two types of vampires - those who can’t accept what they’ve become and those who can, but there are nuances. There are vampires who accept what they are and have never been to one of the auctions, as they find their donors their own way and they’re always willing. Maybe, one day, they might come to the House. They might even bring their donors with them. Then there are vampires who can’t bring themselves to accept what they’ve become but try to force themselves to and they’re likely to end up at one of the auctions, purchasing a human, because they think that’s the best way to follow in the footsteps of their creator.”
“You’re right about that. I’ve gone to a couple of auctions recently, partly for Lewis and partly for myself, because we’ve been thinking - that is Lewis and I - about putting some of our money into purchasing some of the humans in order to save them from a much nastier future. Unfortunately we can’t help thinking that it’s going to make us seem like we’ve taken a step in the wrong direction. We can’t think of any way of going about it that will work. If we let them go they’ll probably just be grabbed by another auction and resold. If we keep them we’ll be seen as just as bad as any of the other vampires who purchase humans, even though we’re doing it to help whoever it is we managed to buy.” Blake shook his head. “Even though we want to help it’s impossible for us to do it, unless we wait and hope they’re going to come out of it all alive, which happens so irregularly that half the people we wanted to save are going to be dead before we have a chance. Then, of course, we have the difficulty of convincing them they want to be here, because instead of seeing somewhere they might be able to get better they just see a large group of vampires who might hurt them as much as they were hurt before. I do understand why they feel that way. I felt the same way for a long time, but this is different. You’re already here and it’s obvious to anyone who looks that you’re much better than you were before you came to the House.”
“Or I could have been brainwashed.” Caleb smiled. “It’s so easy for someone in that position to come up with reasons why they shouldn’t get the help they need. Some do it because they don’t really want the help - to them being an addict isn’t that bad, at least they aren’t dead, and it’s something they believe truly that they can deal with themselves. Others do it because they truly are scared of the vampires here and I have seen that fear in their eyes. Even though I’ve been sitting there telling them that the vampires here are nothing like the ones that they had to deal with when they were nothing more than blood slaves all they can see is the creatures who hurt them so badly before. For a while I had that problem too. If I wasn’t with you or Alice I’d be terrified of the vampires who were around me, because I had no idea what they might do to me. Plus I always had this fear that if I wasn’t wearing white someone who just walk up to me and feed from me.”
“I’m glad you don’t think the same way now.”
“Blake, I’ve had a chance to get to know the vampires here. I knew this was my best option if I wanted to get better and the only thing I wanted was to be normal again. The moment I realised what was happening I started thinking about how I could sort myself out, because being an addict is something I never wanted… I can’t imagine it being something anyone would want, but it is better than being dead. Some days it’s reminding myself that I didn’t die when I was with her that keeps me going, even when I am at rock bottom and thinking that maybe death would actually be better than this.” Caleb shook his head. “Death is something that I’ll never be able to change, but being an addict is something I might be able to, so my focus is on what I can change rather than on how being addicted to being fed from makes me feel. On my worst days, those rock bottom days, I honestly do feel like I’m nothing more than pond scum. It doesn’t matter that all of you have been kind to me, since the moment I walked in the door, because I just hate what I’ve become.”
“You’ve said it before - this, being an addict, isn’t your fault. If we had a choice we wouldn’t have become addicts, but we didn’t have one. Instead we were purchased, as slaves, by creatures who viewed us as nothing more than food. They’re nothing like the vampires who spent their time and money creating the House, because there vampires want to create a community. Most of the vampires who buy humans from the auctions have no interest in creating a community, although I know there are some who do everything they can to look after the humans they’ve purchased, because they don’t view them as prey. Very few vampires accept that living with humans is the best way of doing things, as they’ve been taught to view all humans as lesser creatures, and to them it would be like living with a group of cows.”
“The House is a farm.” Laughing, Caleb looked around the group, at people he’d come to call friends and others he didn’t know quite as well, and wondered what they were all talking about. “I can’t imagine how Alice and Nick would feel if we told them they were the farmers, gathering a herd of cows for the vampires who need food and, what, don’t want to hunt for themselves for whatever reason?”
“As far as I can see the main difference between the vampires who lives here and a vampire who accepts the auctions as the best way to gather their humans is that we all, in some way, hold on to our humanity. You’re right, of course, about there being those who aren’t comfortable with being vampires who simply do what they can to act the way they think they should, but by doing that they’re trying to leave their humanity behind and failing. Once they realise that they can be a humane vampire hopefully they’ll give up the auctions and come here or create their own smaller House with vampires they’re close to and humans they’ve saved from going to other nastier vampires.”
“Do you think there are many smaller Houses out there?”
“Probably more than the auction vampires think is possible, because they don’t want to think of someone going to one of their auctions and attempting to save the humans they’ve gatherer purely for profit. Didn’t you say you’d met a girl who was immune to the chemicals within the vampire’s saliva?”
Caleb nodded, thinking back to the day he’d been gathered and the people he’d met in the van that took them to the auction. “Yeah, she said that her first owner was good to her and once the auction vampires realised what had happened they, unsurprisingly, came to the conclusion that she was worth more to them, because it meant they could keep selling her without the worry of addiction, even though there was still a chance that she might end up dead. However she found that the vampires found her boring, because they couldn’t make her an addict.” He shook his head, still unable to believe that making addicts was something the vampires actually enjoyed. “From what she said I get the feeling that creating the addicts is the vampire’s way of showing that they have control over tis world and if they want to make humans addicted to their bite then that’s exactly what they’ll do.”
“Everything the auction vampires do is to show the humans that they’re higher in the food chain, that the humans are nothing more now than prey creatures, even though they once thought that there was nothing above them.” Blake shrugged. “It’s wrong, but it’s the way their brains work, for some reason, and the only reason I can think of for there being such a huge difference between us and them is that they weren’t nice people when they were humans, so embracing the lifestyle of the true vampire was easy for them. For the rest of us, for the vampires who couldn’t let go of who they were before they were changed, it was always going to be much harder, and I really think it’s made harder still by the vampires pushing for everyone they change to be just like them. They can’t understand the nuances. They don’t want to accept the someone they changed doesn’t want to be a true vampire, doesn’t want to hunt what they once were, and, more than anything, has no interest in purchasing anyone. When I was with him he was always talking about the lesser vampires, those who didn’t go to the auctions at least once a month to purchase their new blood, because he didn’t think they’d gone through the change as well as they should have.” He sighed. “I really hated him, but it was that opinion that made me hate him the most, because I was glad there were vampires who chose not to buy their humans. Of course back then I simply thought that they hunted them - I had no idea of how different vampires could be.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.