The next two weeks passed much like that one day just played out repeatedly. I grew no more comfortable in my new identity though I did grow more comfortable in my body. My movements grew less jerky and my initial clumsiness declined. I drank the cow’s blood that was given to me, though the vamps who brought it laughed even as they cursed my brother for forcing them to keep me fed even though I declined human blood. I didn’t know if I would know if they had brought me human blood, but I didn’t worry about it assuming that their own hunger would prevent that. I grew stronger. Much stronger than I had been as a man, I felt that I could easy lift a cow off the ground though I didn’t try. Animals avoided me and I felt self-conscious about testing my new powers around men. I wandered the camp observing the men and women at their work and play, enjoying the faces of the men as they shaded their eyes against the falling sun, and the flitting shadows of the children as they dashed up and down the many paths. Through it all though I felt a deep sadness that I was forever separated from these people and that I didn’t even have the memory of being a part of their community to look back on through the cold night of my vampire lifetime. Though even this fond imagining was tainted by the fear that these people lived in, fear that my brother had subjected them too. People barred their doors at night if they had them, and everyone but the children kept a wary vigilance and avoided the vamps as much as possible. My mother’s ghost wandered with me whispering in my ear pointing out vampires on the ridgeline patrolling with machine guns or the disappearance of a woman who’d recently shot a vampire who she thought had been responsible for the disappearance of her child. The vampires’ numbers grew but never from those in the camp. Only those men who surrounded my brother seemed comfortable among them and the majority of the camp’s humans considered them as much vampires as if they were already drinking blood. It was no secret that the twins and perhaps others wished to be turned and had asked for it but been denied by my brother who didn’t wish to be surrounded by vampires alone. They were for image; they were for winter protection; my brother used them like he used everyone else.
Despite all of the tension in the camp, the increasingly cold weather and my growing anxiety over my new state of being accompanied by the growing hunger gnawing at my mind and body these were some of the happiest times of my life. For the first time in my life I longed for nothing and I had nothing to do. I was no longer put to work with the rest of the human men, both because that would have denigrated the position of the vampires but also because it would have made them sorely uncomfortable. I was no longer bothered by my brother for anything more than passing information. The preacher seemed content to let me decide upon a course of action without providing any further input. When the days grew colder, I went to the farmhouse and spoke to my brother who provided me with a thick leather coat, long johns, gloves, and new thick woolen socks. The clothes took the edge off the cold, but I still did not feel warm, simply tolerable. The other vampires complained miserably of the cold and spent most of their free time sitting in front of roaring fires in the dining room of the farmhouse. They fed the fire almost continuously and held out their pale gray tinted hands towards the flames to no noticeable difference. They went about any outdoors work sluggishly and even the thralls’ energy had diminished. I did not notice much difference in my body as the temperatures dropped but
