Trish- A Dark Vampire Horror Story on Kindle Vella

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Episode 1: Dr. Darwin

Dear Darwin,

By the time you read this, you’ll know why I wrote it.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I know how you feel. Your eyes run over these words, searching for the point. Hope is looming in your chest.

It pains me to rain on your wishes, but this isn’t that.

This letter won’t replace the grief and loss, won’t wipe away the perpetual pain of your bruised heart. It won’t erase what I am...or was. And knowing what happened won’t make your life easier. On the contrary, reading this will make things worse for you, giving a truth that’ll morph into an uneasy fact. You’ll want to scrub it from your conscience, forget it, throw it out with all the other useless junk from the past.

But you can’t.

And you won’t.

This letter isn’t the answer to those deep-rooted questions haunting your dreams, maybe making you question your existence.

All I ask is that you read this with care...

For the sake of time, I’ll start from the beginning.

It was a normal night out at Miller University. No, I didn’t go there—I went to Harvard, back when they finally allowed women to study. You see, I’m not human, and I haven’t been since...

Wait.

I’m skipping ahead.

Things get confusing when I jump out of order because there’s so much to unpack.

The beginning...Right.

I was in some frat boy’s dorm, with a hard twin-sized mattress under my ass and my fangs deep in his wrist, slowly sucking on his musky skin, careful to lick up the mess. The meal was subpar but enough to get me through another month.

The purer the blood, the more laxed my body becomes.

His blood—or Chad’s blood—tasted good, though. Not the highest caliber...not like the preacher I sucked dry in the foothills of the Appalachians, or the Amish doula I drained in the Middle of Nowhere, Ohio. But it was delectable and sweet on my tongue. Lightheaded and intertwined in gluttonous bliss, my body swayed with delight. He lightly twitched at the shoulders while lying in my arms, and the insides of my cheeks tingled. His youth was divine.

Chad had to be about twenty-one years old—his build was that of someone who played sports, and his face was empty of wrinkles. Young and new compared to me. His bitter blood was drenched in alcohol, not as pure as it could have been for someone his age. But he was easy prey, just like most college boys, truckers, or in desperate times, some sorry fella down on his luck, lurking the streets, looking for food.

Sometimes, it’s best to take the easy prey. That’s what lions do in the wild, right?

I caressed the gash with my tongue, pushing his blood to flow effortlessly into my mouth, down my throat. A party raged on just beneath my feet while my hungry belly filled with his essence. The attendees roared and chanted, yelled and demanded more beer, or for someone to take off the rest of their clothes. The familiar sounds of the naïve—too drunk and high on acid or pot to notice there was a monster upstairs, killing one of their own for sustenance. We all need that, don’t you think?

Sure, I wanted to feel bad for Chad. He was young, working on a chemical engineering degree. He was so close to graduating and living that life: getting married to some nurse, buying a house, and having kids because it looked good. But he was doomed to eventually become an unhappy, overworked middle manager flirting with the idea of sticking a barrel in his mouth and ending it all.

Yeah. He was on his way to cliché, everyday things they referred to as the American Dream. So many fall into that hole, naivety blinding them to the fact the dream was meant for the minority, not for all. It’s such an easy thing to get sucked into.

Poor boy.

If anything, my hunger cramps pushed me to find the boy and put him out of his misery. I mean, the pain was insufferable, and I had to do something about it because I needed my wits. Taking care of you, Darwin, required strength. I could barely hold you when you cried for milk or attention. You needed me, and I would have done anything to make sure you got what you needed from me.

So, therefore, I took Chad.

Chad went limp in my arms, and my belly felt full. I slowly withdrew my fangs, allowing blood to drip from the wound at ejection. I used one hand to get a tight grip on his arm.

There was no pulse.

With my free hand, I pulled the pocketknife from my purse, which still lay against my pale, thin thigh. I learned a long time ago, which felt more like just a month—time flies for the undead—that a murder could be hidden in plain sight.

But I prefer it not to be.

By the time prey was found, their bodies could bleed out from the wrist or the neck.

It could be suicide.

It could be murder.

The police never really knew.

But if there was time, it was necessary to get rid of the corpse. And I mean, get rid of it.

I’d bury it where no one would care to look. Or if they did look, the scene would be too big. It’d be massive. The ocean, the lake, a construction site...a dump. I’d make the authorities look for months, years, centuries, then wash my hands with it because if they did find the body, there wasn’t any DNA—the biological code they use to match a crime with a killer.

It was easy to get away, and I did it often over my one hundred and fifty-something years of life.

I know what you’re thinking: She’s a killer.

...I might be.

Anyway, I pulled the blade up Chad’s wrist, tearing his skin in half and flooding the wound with his leftover liquids. Syrupy and thick. I was tempted to lick it dry, and my mouth watered at the intense smell of sweat and savory blood. Imagine bacon dipped in chocolate Magic Shell. I’m not sure how to describe it in human terms; I hate that shit...but you get it.

I decided not to drink more. Not only did I need to get out of there, but his blood was close to clotting. Almost like the gunk at the end of a beer keg. It tasted bad and had all the consistency of old, clumpy cottage cheese. Even thinking of it now makes my gut turn.

I laid Chad on his bed, his face pale and eyes closed. See, when Chad initially got me to his room and reached for my bra strap, I strangled him with a headlock—they’re easier to deal with when they are unconscious.

I unclenched his fingers and slid the knife into his palm.

And I listened.

I listened hard. Yeah, I was done, and yeah, I was almost home free. But anything could happen when you’re surrounded by them. Them, meaning humans. Them, meaning blood bags. Them, meaning food...to me, at least. A young girl vomited outside, just below the window. It smelt like cheap vodka and tapas. The boys, just beneath my feet, slammed shots of what smelled like pure ethanol. That shit is strong enough to start a motor, a one-way ticket to liver failure. A girl bawled her eyes out just next door, yelling on her phone about how someone is a horrible boyfriend and how she planned on getting even at the party that night.

And then I heard the heavy breathing in the closet, and the hairs on my neck rose.

I stood, eyes trained on the closet door. It was light brown with a golden knob, and it was ajar. I wondered if my own senses were going with age.

How hadn’t I noticed before? I know about all the noises and smells, and it’s hard to isolate a sound or a scent. But it hadn’t always been that hard.

Humans smelled like iron, body odor, and cotton candy. And I was surrounded by them.

Whoever was on the other side had been quiet, quiet for a long time, until they saw the monster at work...They saw me eating—killing.

I narrowed my eyes and approached slowly. My mellow legs threatened to sit me back down, and my full belly pleaded for time to digest.

The breaths on the other side of the door quickened. With a drunken, hurried stride, I grabbed the doorknob and snatched the door open.

A girl rushed at me, shoving me in the gut with her shoulder, almost picking me up off my feet. She pushed me hard. Hard enough that I fell back toward the bed and onto Chad. Not only was I still slightly dazed from the kill, but she’d also caught me off guard.

Then the girl sprang for the door, shouting, “Help!” Her deep golden skin was even and soft, young and beautiful. But her face filled with alarm and terror, and when she darted past, a whiff of vodka and cheap wine cooler hit me in the face.

That was it. Her scent blended with everyone else’s, including the very dead Chad lying on the bed.

I couldn’t let her get away.

Springing for her, and nearly collapsing under my own clumsy weight, I snatched the girl by her thick, dark, crinkly hair. I yanked, pulling her back and bringing her face to my mouth. There was no time to find a place to make her disappear. I had to drain her right then and there. Already bloated, blurry-eyed, and lethargic, I barely had room for dessert. But I had to make room.

I planted my free hand on her mouth, bringing her ear close to my lips. “You think being sneaky is cute?” I asked softly.

The girl tried to scream underneath my hand.

“Shut up and listen,” I quipped through gritting teeth.

The girl’s heart slammed hard into her chest. Her blood pressure was out of whack, meaning I’d have to be careful; high blood pressure meant a big red mess.

The girl tried shouting again, and I considered crushing her face, gripping it tighter.

“Look, I don’t know why you were in that closet,” I said, as sincerely as I could, “but you just saw the last thing you’ll ever see.”

The girl jerked and wiggled, fighting hard to break free, but I was stronger. I was always stronger, even if I had just eaten. We can thank my increased bone density or my purely organic diet for that.

I stuck my fangs into the girl’s neck, and she squirmed. She tasted good—better than the very dead boy on the bed. The girl had drunk some alcohol, but not as much as he had. She ate sweeteners. Not candy and ice cream, but fruits and vegetables. Tea and honey. She was healthy.

The perfect dessert.

The warmth of the girl’s blood cascaded down my throat, elevated my mind and body to a celestial high. I gorged on her nectar, fulfilling my needs and seeing double.

She kept twisting and turning but fell weak to my grip.

“Hmmmm,” I hummed, pleased. Another win. Another meal. Another...

“Hey, Chad!” Banging on the door from the opposite side. “Chad! Everything all right in there?”

I kept sucking. I had to. The girl wasn’t dead yet. If I’d stopped at that moment, the girl would turn. No. That would have been another mess. I only needed about four more minutes. By then, the girl’s body wouldn’t have had enough blood to circulate. Her heart would have run out of fuel.

“No, I know something’s wrong,” the voice of a girl. Or more like the girl who’d been yelling on the phone next door. “I heard a big thump and someone shouting for help. I heard it from the bathroom, and it came from in there.”

Fuck, I thought. Sorry for cursing, but if you want the full story, then I’m going to give you the full story, and if you aren’t desensitized to foul language, good luck dealing with the blood bags.

The banging on the door again. “Chad! Open the door!”

Shit. Shit. Shit. I swallowed blood, gulping it as fast as my throat would allow.

Heavy thuds on the door erupted, like two guys slamming their running-back shoulders into it.

I was out of time. Them catching me in the act would mean I’d have to kill them all or let them turn me over to the police. Neither could happen—you needed your mother alive and present to protect you. All I thought about was you.

I dragged my fangs down the girl’s neck without pulling them free, hoping the injury would kill her, like a knife to the throat. Blood splashed my nose and cheek, warm and wet. I pulled my fangs free and dropped her. Her limp, unconscious body fell to the floor.

Feeling dragged, I sprinted for the window and slid it open. I stepped out onto the shingled roof and slithered down into a thick brush alongside the house.

A scream rang out into the night from the second floor as I crouched in the brush, using my arm to swipe blood from my face.

I hoped the girl was dead. I hoped my fang marks looked more like cuts or slits. Not teeth.

Once I found an opening in the brush where it appeared clear, I broke through and ran, leaving the frat house behind and burying myself into the college campus.

Halfcocked and paranoid, I immersed myself into the crowd of college kids, thinking of that girl.

She was dead. She had to be. I had sliced her jugular with my fangs.

Yes, I left a mess behind, which wasn’t ideal. But no one would ever find me.

No DNA.

No Identity.

Just a predator looking for food.

Or so I thought...

Love,

Mom