The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

It was Christmas around 6:00 AM,. and Desmond was sitting at his couch in depression and sleep derivation. Behind him was a beautiful Christmas tree with white LED lights and an upside-down star on the top of the tree. Desmond looked down at his coffee table, at the pictures of his new girlfriend, Selina and the divorce papers on top of them. His cat, Lily, slept next to him. A knock at his front door caught his attention; he went to the door and opened it. Standing there was Selina. He invited her in; they went up into the attic. Up in the attic, they sat across from each other. The light spilled in from outside. A shadow of window dividers was silhouetted is against the wall. They gazed into each others eyes. Desmond’s eyes are dark blue and Selina’s are green. They leaned their heads together. They spoke not looking at each other.



“She wants a divorce. She knows,” Desmond said. His wife, Ophelia found out that Desmond’s a vampire and thinks Selina would be his next victim. But Selina doesn’t know that he’ll take her into the land of the immortals. She doesn’t even know that he’s a vampire.



“If she wants a divorce, she’ll get it,” Selina’s cold voice muttered.



Desmond closed his eyes, and blood trickled out. He didn’t care; he wanted her to understand his demonic ways. Selina looked at Desmond.



“Your eyes!” she cried. “Are you okay?”



“I’m fine, I’m crying,” he paused. He continued, “All vampires cry blood.”



She held her hands to her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. Selina was in shock. Blood still trickled from Desmond’s eyes.



“LEAVE!” Desmond shouted. “Leave! Leave! Leave!” He felt centuries of hate and self-loathing all at once. Selina went running out of the house. This was a cursed Christmas for Desmond. The next day he spent in self-loathing and despair. He finally cried himself to sleep. He woke up the next morning and looked at his unholy Christmas tree, beautiful white lights glowing in the dark. A blue morning light came spilling into his dining room through windows and a terrace door. He went outside into his backyard, a yard of stones and curly trees. The silvery overcast day shone against Desmond’s skin. He went back into the house and signed his divorce papers.



He took his car downtown to the courtroom. There he saw his wife, Ophelia. She confronted him.



“I wanted to tell everyone that you’re a vampire, but I found I’m not that kind of person in my heart,” she told him.



“I thought we said forever and ever. Did you mean it?” Desmond asked her. She paused and he turned around. He couldn’t bear it.



“Yes,” she remarked. Desmond turned to face her, and he saw fear and awe in her eyes. He took her to the side, where no one could see them.



“Then you want this…” He breathed into her ear.



“Oh, yes!” she whispered. Desmond lowered his head, and he began to bite her neck. She writhed and tried to push him off, but he was like a heavy statue on top of her. Then he pulled away. He left her in a private hallway off the courtroom. Desmond knew that he might regret biting her. Sometimes, they bite you back.

The woods were dark although the sun was just about to set, layering red clouds over the top of the valley, and Seth hovered just inside the tree-line watching the valley’s margin of safety slowly shrink. Adults and children were tucking themselves in, safe behind their stone walls and cross-barred windows. Adults believed, and they kept their children safe. Seth knew he’d not catch an adult or child out after dark – ah, but the teens. And he licked his lips as saliva loosened his fangs.

The teens believed that nothing bad could happen to them. They believed their parents were fools with outdated and incorrect belief systems. They believed that they were immortal. They were wrong.



As the sun vanished behind the hills across the valley from his hiding place, he sniffed the breeze. He could smell stale human smells left in the outlying fields, but they were overlaid by the smell of dogs, cats, squirrels, rabbits, all the animals surrounding any settlement. All he needed was one teen running late returning from a date. He smiled, a slow and wickedly happy smile; he was in the money. He smelled dinner delivering itself.



As the line of sun-shadow eased away from the tree-line, he glided out of the tree-line accompanying it, a dark shadow hidden in darkening shadows. The shadowed shape of a young girl just on the other side of the line of darkness, a barely lit shadow, hurried towards a distant house. By Seth’s figuring, she had about two minutes to make it into the house, or he had two minutes before he could meet her. He was hungry; it would be a long two minutes.

He counted down the moments as he edged after the scurrying figure… one minute to dinner time … half a minute to dinner time … fifteen long breaths to dinner time … three steps to dinner time. When he reached the three step point, a light suddenly pierced the growing dark, shining bright from the open doorway where a man stood calling to the girl to hurry.



Seth knew that he couldn’t be seen by the man, but he could be sensed by feelings etched into mankind’s DNA over centuries. The man knew he was out there as surely as though the motion sensitive lights surrounding the home were shining upon him. “Hurry Melissa!” the man shouted at the scurrying girl. “Run!” The girl, Melissa, put on a burst of speed, and was almost to the lighted lawn.



One long step to go… Seth chanted in his head, finishing the countdown and the personal race to the finish line of survival.



He reached out as one of her legs crossed over into the UV lights, and snagged her back towards himself, pulling her backwards and away from survival. She screamed and thrashed as his hands tightened on her shoulders, and he gave her a love tap on the temple to stop the noises. He hated noisy food; it tended to pull crazy humans out of their own safe secure homes and into groups. One on one he was unbeatable, except by the specially trained slayers, but groups – more problematic.



The man’s voice carried into the darkness as he screamed the girls name over and over again, but the noise faded away as he moved back into the protective forest. He wanted to enjoy this meal; he hated eating on the run.



Finally he reached his den and set the girl down. Running his fingernail down the inside of her arm and piercing a vein, he sat back and let the sweet bouquet of her blood trickle into his being. He basked in the blood-smell while waiting for her to resume consciousness. It was more fun to kill them when they struggled against his overwhelming strength, so long as they didn’t scream – or beg, or whimper, too loudly.

What felt to him like an eternity passed before the girl’s eyelids flickered, rising and falling minutely against her closed eyes as her body reacted to the danger it felt close; her body wanted to see the enemy it could sense. Keeping watch on the flickering eye-lids, he lifted the bleeding arm to his mouth, and delicately licked at the narrow stream of blood. It was bliss. Ecstasy. Orgasm. All mixed together in the life-affirming substance he craved and had to have to live.



He watched the eyes crack open as the girl felt something wet licking her arm. She groaned and her free hand went to her head. Then suddenly aware of her surroundings, she wrenched her arm away from his grasp; his rusty laugh spoke amusement as she tried to crawl backwards away from him. He had never yet allowed dinner to escape, and this was an attractive dinner. But when there was time, he quite liked playing with his food.



“Who are you?” she asked, her voice breaking on the “who,” as though the word she had begun with was “what.”Her eyes got bigger taking his elongated teeth, red blood-shot eyes, and talon-like fingernails which were already stained red with her blood, and her scrabbling backwards motion sped up.



For a long moment Seth contemplated the girl in front of him, observing her as she scrabbled in the dirt trying to get far enough from him to rise and run. He licked his fingers clean of her blood, hearing her heartbeat racing as she realized what he was licking, and what he was.



As she reached the far corner of the cleared space and flipped in place to run he reached casually forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her forward into his embrace. Her struggling resistance almost pushed him to take her then. Her scent—driven by her fear -- was driving him mad with need. He wanted to pull her apart and suck the pieces dry of the precious liquid hidden within them. But equally, he wanted to savor the feeding; to enjoy every moment and every drop which he could tease from her dying body.



She beat uselessly against his chest, vainly attempting to get her knee up to his groin, or to stamp down hard on his instep -- moves taught in beginner’s Self Defense classes – but he held her too strongly for either attempt to be effective. As she sucked air into her lungs and opened her mouth to begin screaming, he tightened his grip around her ribcage, squeezing until he heard the ribs begin to pop as they broke and she emitted a pained wheezing noise of, “no, no, no.”

Her mumbled wheezes of “no” increased marginally in volume and turned into a wheezy scream as he allowed himself to tear her shoulder upon. The flavor of her blood-filled flesh was sweet, but he spat it out and instead fastened his teeth into the exposed wound, letting the running blood ooze down his throat. With each gulp of her blood he felt himself becoming more alive, more strong, more immortal. For a brief instant he was so focused upon the taste and the sensations of feeding that she almost was able to tear free from his grip, but sensing the bunching of her muscles he instinctively forced her to the ground under him.



He was a narrow breath from losing control and tearing her apart immediately, but managed to get his impulses back under control. He reminded himself of his determination to drain her slowly, to make the pleasure last this time since he would have to move over several valleys before he’d find his next meal – news of his attack on a human girl would inevitably be gossiped about and, for a few days at least, teenagers would listen to their parents and be safe inside before dark fell. But he couldn’t resist another quick taste, and fastened his fangs onto the naked shoulder exposed by her sweater slipping to one side as he forced her down. Again he moaned at the sweet warm sensation as he sucked blood from her.



He realized that the girl was no longer moaning or struggling, but couldn’t bring himself to allow her to recover enough to fight him. Nor could he bring himself to pull back from the vein he had found as he took increasingly strong pulls from it, suckling it, thoroughly enjoying the life being passed through it from her to him. All too soon he could feel her heartbeat slowing – too little blood left in her for the muscle to move – he sucked harder. It stopped and he released her into a broken heap at his feet.



Knowing that there was still some blood to be found in her extremities, he soon had her body torn apart, sucking the remaining blood out of each part as he removed it. As he worried the blood from the final elbow joint, he heard baying of dogs off in the distance. They were a long way off still, as were the band of slayers called in to hunt him. But dawn was no longer that far off, and he knew he had to travel a fair distance before dawn caught him, trapping him in whatever shadowy place he could find. So he dropped the joint and looked at the pieces of carcass now littered around him, where he’d tossed the pieces randomly as he finished with them.



If his memory served him right, there was a nice spot outside a small village a few valleys over; though he hadn’t been there for a few years. The humans wouldn’t be looking for him there. And again, he smiled at the carcass of the girl patting his full stomach, he had dined rather well that night, and it would be several nights before he’d need to feed again. He could easily travel a fair distance each night, from gloaming till dawn. He would trust to fate to bring him the next victim, a teen he’d no doubt, who thought himself, or herself, immortal – and who thought vampires a figment – a boogie man – of their parent’s imaginations.

There were people walking into the church; each greeted at the door by the Priest dressed in full regalia. It looked friendly with the lights shining out the open doorway, and the windows glowing their pictures into the night. It gave them a safe-haven, a free pass. Lisa knew all about the safe haven of Church; she’d grown up going to weekly service herself. Odd -- that their safe-haven was likely to be the death of her. For the darkened lawn surrounding the path offered no safe place for her to hide from the slayers so close behind her. She was being encircled and forced towards the impassable, safe haven.



“We’ve got the bitch now,” the slayer on her right muttered quietly as Lisa edged a fraction closer to the shadowed open lawn.



“Nowhere for her to go,” the other male replied all too close to her left side. The muttered agreement behind her told her she’d soon have to defend herself. One she could take. Two – maybe. Three…no way. She was outnumbered.



Looking over her shoulder at the church behind her, Priest still in the door, she decided she’d rather flame out from the crosses and holiness than give them the satisfaction of staking her.



Lisa turned and took a step onto the dark lawn. She fully expected to burst into agonizing flame – the flames of hell she’d been promised and warned about back when she was a child and did something wrong. She’d clung to the same cross that would now destroy her. It had been her savior when her parents whipped her butt for some minor misdemeanor.



But she didn’t flame. So she took another small step. Again no flames.



As she moved slowly onto the lawn, closer to the light, she heard the three slayers meet up behind her, so she moved more rapidly towards the Priest and his open arms. She was shaking his hand as she heard the slayers come out of the dark bushes and onto the dark lawn.



“Where the fuck did she go?” seemed to be their consensus question.



As she let the Priest edge her inside she glanced back at them, and as the door closed saw them begin to cross the darkened lawn, examining every blade of grass clearly thinking she’d found a bolt-hole.



Amazed to be standing inside the Church – and not screaming in agony or bursting into flames – Lisa quickly found a seat well away from the altar and it’s large cross. The Priest who had encouraged her entrance joined the Deacon and altar servers before moving to the front to arrange the Book of the Gospels. They faced the altar where he made the sign of the cross before turning once more to face his congregation – and one vampire.



Even while she wondered why she was able to enter a church the sense of familiarity overwhelmed her. She basked in the smell of incense which overrode the musky scent of mold. There was always a bit of mold due to the age of the building. Then she became aware of the scent of blood emanating from the front of the church. It pulled her, but she forced herself to remain sitting in the pew.



“Hi, I’m Stanly Olaff,” the man sitting next to her informed her, sticking his hand out in the traditional – and detested – hand of friendship. “And you are…?” he prompted.



“Ahhh, Lisa Shmitt,” she answered as she gingerly accepted his hand, looking down and slightly right to prevent him getting a clear look at her mouth. While the blood scent was distant enough not to have her fangs fully out, she knew they’d be beginning to show.



“Is this your first visit?” Stanly asked as he shook her hand. Then he dropped it abruptly as he realized it was really cold.



“Um… I suffer from poor circulation,” Lisa quickly explained.



“My Grandmother suffered from it also. She found Heart and Body extract helped with it,” he informed her kindly before he turned to pick up his hymnal as “Meet and Greet” time ended.



By now Lisa was seriously freaked. She, a vampire, had now been sitting inside a Church for at least ten minutes, and nothing awful had occurred. She waited through the prayer of absolution, then through the Kyrie and puzzled as to why she was still alive. She’d never heard of a vampire entering a church, let alone sitting while hymns were sung and prayers were said. Vampires, everyone knew, were soulless creatures of evil. And there were places they couldn’t go; and into a Church full of crosses and Holy Water had to top the list. Yet she was sitting here as unharmed as the three slayers she noted sitting further up the rows on the other side of the aisle. She smiled to herself as she silently thanked God that they didn’t know what she looked like. While the Eucharistic prayer was said, with the story of the last supper, she had time to wonder if she was living proof that the idea of “once saved always saved” was true. What other reason could there be for her ability to survive inside what should have been a death chamber for her?



She was recalled to her surroundings as the familiar refrain of the Lord’s Prayer filled the air around her, and she found herself finishing the prayer as those around her did. Lisa was amazed as her fangs fully retracted – in spite of the blood aroma – as the Priest intoned the Rite of Peace; “Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live forever and ever” was particularly comforting since she now knew more than she wanted to of “forever and ever.”



Soon she found herself in line heading up to partake of communion. She was several people behind the slayers. When the priest tilted the chalice allowing the Holy blood to flow into her mouth, she thought she would certainly die. After all, what could be more holy than the literal transubstantiated blood of Christ? Yet it warmed her as it ran down her throat in a way the human blood she’d been forced to drink to survive failed to. If filled her and – almost – made her feel a heartbeat as she followed the man, Stanly, back to their pew.



She was moving on automatic as she joined him in the aisle to once more shake hands with the Priest. She knew that she should invite Stanly to join her for a coffee, and lead him down a dark alley to drink his blood, but she had no desire to do so. She felt utterly sated from the small sip she’d had during communion. She decided to find another Mass of Communion the next night instead of a victim, for it seemed that rather than “the blood being the life,” it should rather be, “His blood is the life.”

I sighed as his fangs sank into my neck. No, it wasn't a sigh of pleasure and abandonment. It was more a sigh of giving up, accepting that this was a fitting end to a life which hadn't been particularly stellar. No, I wasn't living on the street when the vampire found me. But expendable; I was the definition of expendable.

I could feel the warm blood dripping from my wound as I ran, but I still didn't stop. If I stopped it would be the end of me. Thoose monsters were attracted by the smell of blood. I knew that they could'nt be far behind me. I used my fear to run faster, even though my lungs were already on fire.

I knew that I had a very slim chance if getting out here alive but I had to try. I heard a long hiss behind me, and I knew that they had almost caught up with me. I knew that I would probaly die here, I did'nt give in though and kept running... I would fight until my last breath.