Myra McEntire - Vampires

"Fear"

Ninety years of dust, dirt, cobwebs, and memories just as fragile. Ninety years of muffled footsteps and falling tears and keening. Ninety years of not feeling. The ache of loss has left me, flown away like a raven to the abyss.

The ground will reside under my feet again, rather than above my head. After ninety years, the time has come to walk.

*

Three days to dig my way free.

Three days to find they no longer fear me.

They seek me out.

Follow me into dark corners, chase me down alleyways, and race me up dim stairwells. Solely to beg for eternity.

Once the hunter, now the prey.

I never thought I’d long for the ground.

*

Two days pass. Out of necessity, I feed.

I miss the taste of the fear in the blood. I will not create another beast, nor will I enslave a blood heir. I leave half-empty bodies, veins flowing freely, the unanswered question a gurgling whisper from their mangled throats.

“Please, please make me like you?”

My denials bring me satisfaction, and though not as crisp as the terror, they nurture me in a way that fearless blood cannot.

*

Four more days. Finally, I find fear.

The woman is young, her skin porcelain. I choose her because I see the light blue veins in her neck. Her pulse jumps when she realizes I have taken her arm, that I am steering her into the unlit entryway of an abandoned building.

I rip away the first two buttons of her blouse. I expose my fangs, and her pulse slows. She pushes me away. Because I am still weak from the grave, and hungry, I stumble.

Her fear dissipates. The absence of what I’ve craved, now crave more than blood, angers me. I growl in fury.

She laughs.

*

One hour.

All it takes to bury her body.

Still alive.

With every drop of her own blood still flowing through her veins.