I lay forgotten, like a corpse in state, but the corpse of a man with no family and no friends. The first few days after I’d been drained, after I’d surely been turned, though I did not allow my mind to linger upon that reality I lay slipping in and out of dreams. I remember awaking from Mary’s warm lips and her luscious neck pulsating beneath my lips, to my body trembling as a cold wind cut through the ragged blanket, I’d almost screamed but the sound had stifled in my dry throat. I licked my cracked lips and lay back down. I could hear men, women, children, chickens, cows, and dogs all moving outside. I could smell the humans as they walked outside my cabin. Their scent would wake me with a subtle acceleration of my slowing heartbeat, and I knew that they were approaching even before I heard their footfalls or saw their shadows. Each time I lay clenching the blanket until they passed. I imagined if I tried to stand my legs would collapse beneath me and I wondered if I would lie on the bed until I was nothing more than a shriveled raisin of a man, or a vampire, gumming the air like a machine that has lost its purpose. A vampire guard stood at the doorway, pacing or smoking, often leaving me completely unguarded. On the second day he entered with a wooden mug and set it down on the floor beside my bed. I could smell the blood. It filled the air with a sweet metallic scent. Instantly my stomach growled, my mouth watered and everything I looked at seemed stained red. My body threatened me with convulsions and my hand moved of its own will. It picked up the cup. The blood inside was still warm but cooling and congealing rapidly. It was rich dark red. I stared into the mug, then closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. It smelled right. I needed it. My body threatened more pain and my mind threatened to rebel, but I simply sat with it cradled in both hands just below my chin as I tempted myself with its odor. Again, I heard the gunshot that had taken my mother’s life and I saw the smoke slipping from the end of the barrel at the end of my arm’s reach. I imagined her sitting on a field of green grass underneath a round tree munching on an apple with the juice running down her chin as a warm sun shone down. Her paradise. Was she loitering there now, looking down on me? Now I would never join her. Even if I didn’t drink the blood I was already condemned to dangling over the fires of hell. If she were watching over me then I had no doubt that she would disown me if I drank the blood. But if my fate was already decided what did it matter, why did I have to continue to endure the agony of my body destroying itself as the vampirism burnt through it. If my mother was truly in paradise, then she must not have been watching over me for surely my condemnation would ruin her paradise and my further abomination of drinking the blood would rip her heart out. Therefore, I determined that she must not have been watching over me. I took a tiny sip. The blood was salty, coppery, sweet, and so sticky and thick that it threatened to gag me. It tasted of ambrosia. It tasted better than the stew that Mary had fed me on my first night in the camp. It tasted of life and a life’s purpose. It tasted of fulfillment and honey. After the first sip went down, I chugged the entire contents of the mug with only one raise of it to my parched lips. It slid down my throat as if were alive and then settled on my stomach uneasily. I sat down on the bed my vision swimming as if I were drunk.
Within the next hour I felt strong, giddy with strength even, but the power was not evenly distributed. I was like a leaf that had been given veins of iron or a car that has had its engine replaced with one bigger than the frame can handle. If it were not for the dizzying effects of the blood, then I would have feared hurting myself unknowingly. As it was, I felt like running, flying across the fields like a deer wild with fear. I imagined myself running straight out of the camp, hurtling past any guards through the woods to the river, but then I wondered where I could go. What would I do? Would I drink the blood of those who had too recently been my own species? My stomach pain seemed to have subsided though it was constantly gurgling and the pain in my jaw had eased somewhat thought it still fell unsettled. My entire body felt as if it had
