Edna nearly gave up and had turnedher back until she heard a familiar voice. The door swung open asmy mind was now analyzing her body temperature and optimal pointsof entry.
She turned around and said, “OhThomas, you are home. I was starting to worry…” and then proceededto prattle on as she basically described events that were nowancient history to a reborn son of the blood. My ears blocked outthe infernal noise and my eyes focused like a lion waiting in thetall grass for an opportune time to pounce on my prey. While I wastransfixed on her neck, my consciousness was scanning the streetfor mortal and animal traffic patterns.
A local shopkeeper walked by andlooked up at Edna talking to me and then looked down to see wherehe was walking, before picking up his head and seeing nothing but aclosed door. It must have been only a few seconds between viewingsof my doorway, and this piqued Burt Larson’s interest enough tostop by the next day. But my good neighbor only managed to be lunchfor a vampire that was quite awake and had an insatiable appetitefor beleaguered San Franciscans.
CANDY
Iwent unchecked for the initial segment of myvampirical existence, with these 18 years of on the house wild exploration takingme from one corner of North America to the other. I spent time inthe state of Washington, Oregon, Vancouver, British Columbia, backthrough Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, foronly a brief time, because people appeared to be experienced withhis kind, making his job more difficult. Mexico was also a frequentstop-off because the tequila running through thesepeople’s veinswas purely intoxicating! It always gave me a bigger high when bloodwas mixed with other libations, versus just drinking alcohol from abottle or a glass.
Subsequent years were spent in theMidwest—perhaps my favorite place to dine because the people wereso hospitable and never seemed to fail to invite me in. Apparently,it was against their DNA to be unwelcoming. I also experienced asimilar dynamic with Canadians, who never seemed to grow tired ofgiving me their blood.
These years felt liketaking candy from a baby and left me with such a feeling of invincibility andsuperiority that I didn’t believe there was a creature onthe planet that was anywhere close to me. There was the occasionthat that I would run into a fellow vampire or two while on theroad. The first time it happened was in Minnesota, right after thewinter thaw. I usually tried to avoid extreme cold, because peopleusually had too much on and it was a hassle to open them up. SinceI was already fairly cold inside, it helped to track my movementswith the various warmer seasons. This served to helped stabilize mybody temperature.
It was 45 degrees one spring inEgan, Minnesota and the people were acting like it was a beach day!No jackets, sweatshirts, hats, or scarfs to be seen in thisnorthern igloo. My best spots for penetration was always a pub orbar, and this night proved to be no exception. I made contact witha couple of girls, because it was always more of a challenge tocoordinate targets in pairs, and I had guided them out the backdoor of the sal*on for some quite reflection in a darkenedalley.
The three of us looked fairlynormal, just like a trio of drunk locals enjoying eachother’s company. I must have gotten so good at blending into thecrowd that I wasn’t giving off the“I’mhere for your blood” vibe. I could sense that two gentlemen hadbeen watching us for at least 25 minutes and I was hoping that theyweren’t the jealous boyfriend types, although I figured it would bequite a thirst-quencher. I tended to pr*y on unsuspecting women forsome reason… they were easier to coerce and I hate to admit it, butI’mjust not that into guys!
Also, I really missed Maggie andwas not willing, at least at first, to give myself in that way toanother woman. I rationalized it that the blood thing was purely asurvival mechanism, not a sexual act in any way, although the flowof blood often left me aroused. I could smell the sweet blood aromaof Scandinavian ladies even before I approached them forextraction. But, just as I was about to make a series of moves thatwould lead to their near-death, these two dudes appeared andcrashed my party in the alley.
Let me backtrack for a moment.Even though I was out of control and hopping for state to state insearch of able blood donors, I thought it foolish to either drainmy target fully of blood or turn them into the type of creaturethat would spend all of their days in search of blood. I was stillhurting from the loss of my family but that didn’t mean that I had totake my angst out on others and ruin their lives. Besides, I had afew customers that I tapped multiple times during those first 18 years. Andsince I had a special reason to become a vampire, the reunitingwith my family, I didn’t think it would be fair to castanother person into a life that they weren’t d*siring. Believe me, thelife wasn’t for everyone… it was tremendously isolating and shallow ifnot exhilarating at times, especially in the early days when thehunt was so new.
There I was in all of my glory,about to walk two young women to the border of life and death, whenthese two guys followed us outside. I could hear their thoughtsamid my single-minded blood focus, and it confused me at first. Iinitially thought it had gone too long without refueling and wasstarting to hallucinate. I heard the one guy say to the other,“Let’s wait until he opens them up and then we’ll make ourmove.”
As I moved closer to the twowomen, I could sense these two closing in on us so I played it coolfor as long as I could. “Let’s go!” the other guy said as Iwhispered to the
