The Absence Of Love

There's no such thing as too many vampire stories! I wrote this a long time ago...

The Absence of Love

By Calliope Elizabeth Sylvers

I walk into the shelter.  I am wearing a black sweatshirt, and my hood covers my luminescent black hair.  ‘Come on, fight this, Vee.’  She is more powerful than me.  In my mind I slip back to the time before and am almost catatonic as I hook the elbow of some drunken man and lead him into street and far, far away from his shelter.  A part of me is both poisoned and allured by his scent, but even as the poison running in his veins drives me I think back to a time before I was this demonic creature of the night that every sane person should fear and mock.

Back then, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a skinny girl that no one could ever like. I was seventeen, and this was my tenth home.  I was somebody else’s garbage, thrown away and dumped into the hands of people who could only put up with me for so long.  I didn’t mind, really, living the life of a semi-nomad, never really feeling like I had a home.  It was okay.  I knew that I wasn’t anything special, and I didn’t care.  Life was life.  You lived, and then you died.  What happened in between can’t matter that much.  I liked to think of myself as Vee, because such a formal, Victorian name such as Vanessa Ann didn’t fit the wild, unwanted thing that I still am.  I tried to do my best in school, when I was allowed to attend school, not because people told me to, but because knowledge was the only thing I had that I could hold onto.  Somehow I knew that it was not temporary, even though the house I was living in at the time was, and the man and woman masquerading as my parents were.  They would get tired of me, or, like the couple before them, beat me, or run off and leave me to drown in a dirty bathtub, and eventually I would be forced out of their lives.  I would start over, but the knowledge I acquired wouldn’t leave me.

                I’m lucky enough that my current foster parents had allowed me to apply for a job.  I had money, so I was able to buy black hair dye.  I convinced my foster mother to dye my hair black, and she did, not because she loved me, but because she was tired of hearing me complaining.  “You should be grateful, Vanessa,” she said.  “We don’t have to take you in.”  ‘It’s Vee,’ I wanted to say.  But I didn’t.  They were right.  They didn’t have to take me in.  My memories are fuzzy, and, living out of cardboard boxes and constantly on the run, I always try to remind myself that people don’t mean what they say or do and if s**t happens, then so what.  S**t happens to everyone.  There isn’t much of my human life that I still remember, even now as I think about my life as a foster child, but a memory from my fifteen-year-old self still haunts me today.

                I was sitting in my small room, waiting for the lady who told me to call herself Jade to come home.  She always worked late, and I didn’t mind staying in her small apartment alone.   My room was small, but I didn’t care.  “This room used to be my brother Jerald’s room.  You take good care of it, Vanessa,” Jade had told me.  I simply nodded my head, scared of having to leave.  I hated moving, four walls shifting their boundaries and turning into something ugly and I was unwelcome.  It always happened, and I would end up standing in the rain, barefoot, my wet brown hair tangled.  I always ended up shivering, my green eyes desperately searching for something of my own, something that I could hold onto, but there was nothing.  All I saw was the dark, starless sky and a faint image of something someone had once told me was the moon.  I imagined that was where I belonged, standing on the roadside besides a dirty red suitcase waiting for a stranger to take me in.  So, yes, I took good care of Jerald’s room.  I didn’t want to be thrown out on the streets anytime soon. 

                I heard the door open.  Was Jade home already?  I sat up in bed and looked at the bright orange digits on the clock.  11:30 p.m.  She usually was never in until around 3 or 4 a.m.  But if it wasn’t Jade, then who was it? Jade had told me that Jerald came home every once and a while.  Maybe it was Jerald.  Under my purple blanket, I smiled.  I felt safe, for now.

                “Hello?  Is anyone home?” his voice was sultry and dangerous.  But he was Jade’s brother, I reassured myself.  Jade was so sweet; how could her brother be any different?  I stepped out of bed and walked into the hallway.  I smiled.  Then I saw him: scary blue eyes, wild blond hair that surrounded his young but jagged face.  He looked strong, and my bones told me to be afraid.  I shivered, but I stood my ground.

                “Hello?” my voice was hesitant but strong, in its own feeble way.  But I wasn’t afraid; at fifteen I knew what to expect, and I wasn’t tarnished by the desire to be a weak clone.  I didn’t have friends at school, because I was the “foster kid” with oily hair and skin that was too pale.  My peers teased me, but I didn’t really care.  A lot of people would give everything to be popular, but I just didn’t care.  Even then, even before I knew enough to call myself myself, I didn’t give a s**t what any other person in the universe thought of me.  I was unwanted, I knew that.  I was a thing, and I was content being a thing.  I had no aspiration to ever be anything different.

                “Who are you?” Jerald’s dark voice asked.

                “Vanessa,” I said quietly.

                “Well, well, well there,” he said, walking up the stairs and putting his rough, hairy hand on my face.  “Aren’t you a cute little thing.”

                “I guess,” I mumbled.  There was that word again.  Thing.

                He touched me in places my instincts told me he shouldn’t.  He put his hand on my butt and it felt uncomfortable.  He tried to untie my blue pajama pants and I slapped his hands.  I screamed bloody hell.  He grabbed me and put one hand over my mouth.  With the other hand, he ripped off my pajama pants.  I shivered.  I watched him take his own pants off.  I knew that this was supposed to be a bad thing, but I couldn’t help but be excited.  If this was going to happen, then I wasn’t going to be a victim.  I was going to smile.  I wasn’t going to say no, because then it wouldn’t be rape.  I put my tiny hand on his face and whispered in the most seductive voice I could come up with, “Oh, Jerald.”

                I took control.  I made it extremely clear to Jerald that what was about to happen, I wanted to happen.  And then it happened.

                Just thinking about the memory, I shivered.  It wasn’t all that bad, really.  Worse things have happened to me.  People have tried to kill me.

                I grew tired of the one- dimensional people that masqueraded as my parents.  They never gave a s**t about how I really was deep inside.  It was all too much for me, and I ended up running away.  I found myself living on the streets and eating out of garbage cans.  This is my destiny, I figured.  I felt strangely content, moving from place to place, and tasting bitter rain on my tongue.  Nothing could ever tear me down.

                One day I met a pale man who called himself Peter.  He had wild, dark brown �" almost black �" hair and amazing chocolate brown eyes.  I never found out that brown wasn’t his true eye color, although he must have worn contacts.  He was older than me, but I was seventeen, and I was ready for anything.

                “Hey there,” he whispered.

                “Are you lonely?” I ask.

                “Nah,” he said.

                “You look lonely,” I said.  He looked like a sad angel.  I didn’t want him to be alone.  I held my hand out.  He took it, and asked me what my name was.  I decided that I am not Vanessa Ann, and I am not Vee.  None of that was ever really me.  It was just lies that slowly unfolded, pushed upon me.  I was so used to being something I am not, and I was eager to reinvent myself.

                “I don’t have a name anymore,” I said.  I hid the tears that tasted too pungent in my mouth.

                “You want me to give you a name?” he asked. 

                I smiled.  “No thanks.”

                “Well, I have to call you something,” he said.

                “No you don’t.”  But I was intrigued by Peter.  I decided that I might be in love.  I was wrong, of course.

                At the time, though, I bought those eyes �" those sad, disillusioned eyes �" as they were staring into mine, piercing my soul, it seemed.  He looked so haunted, and yet, so strong, and there was something in the silver shards in his chocolate eyes that captured me.  I was somewhat wild, empowered by something just out of my reach, and I wanted to grab onto Peter and maybe, just maybe, feel human for once in my life.

                “Come on, honey, let me help you, you look like you need something,” Peter said.  Even though I was drawn to his voice, I should have noticed the creepy undertones hidden in his ethereal voice.  When I didn’t answer, Peter said, “We could go to a hotel, get you out of those dirty clothes.”   Okay, okay, I should have known better, but is the fact that I was young and naïve a good enough excuse?  I shouldn’t have gone with Peter.  But I did.

                I reached for Peter’s smooth, muscled hand and smiled as we walked down the cracked, dirt-embalmed sidewalk towards a dark black car.  When he opened the door to me and smiled with a million dollar crooked smile, my heart melted.  He hopped into the car and blasted his radio.  Loud, upbeat music drowned my senses and made me feel like nothing could ever tear me down.  I didn’t want to be anyplace else but here.  I turned to stare at Peter’s wild, exotic hair and my heart skipped a beat when he caught me staring.

                But eventually Peter pulled to a stop.  “How are we going to pay for this?” I asked as I nervously avoided stepping on the cracks on the boiling, crater-filled pavement parking lot.  I leaned against Peter’s car and stared at my feet. 

                Everything happened so fast.  Before I knew it we were inside a small hotel room and the white bed mocked me.  Peter wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me close to his freezing body.  I assumed he was freezing because the air condition in his car was absurd to the extreme, and besides, it was winter.  I needed to touch him; I needed to feel alive.  My heart was grieving because there was this acidic hole burning through my chest and the fire was spreading every single day.  I have always been alone, and I know I said that I didn’t mind, but sometimes the emptiness got to me.  Some nights, like tonight, it felt like it was consuming me.  My whole body was weary, and that is the real reason I was collapsing and aching in a hotel bedroom in the middle of nowhere.

                My eyes found Peter’s eyes and an unknown darkness accumulated as our two bodies slowly gravitated towards each other.  Silver strands hidden in our rampant eyes told stories of illusions that both of our worlds were made of.  Peter’s heavy body pounded into my own, and in my sexual stimulation, I didn’t feel the pain that surely came with it.  We collided and I thought this was the process of two magically becoming one; I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Peter pulled down my jeans and I reached for his shirt, anxious to explore his perfect body. He pounded into me and his lips found mine; I saw some sort of demonic streak in his eyes but I didn’t think anything of it.  I placed my hand on his shoulders and hungrily appeased the tainted hole inside my chest.  I needed Peter so desperately.  In so little time, I was obsessed with the way he seemed to be both an angel and a devil in one body but it didn’t matter.  My emptiness was parasitic and it left me wanting more as Peter licked my shoulders; I thought he was performing some perverse sexual act but I didn’t care.  Make me hurt, Peter, I wanted to scream.  I never knew I could feel so much, this much.  I reveled in the beauty of both the pain and the pleasure.

                Peter stared into my eyes and I tried to read the message he was trying to send me.  He looked torn, and in that pale, haunted face of his I saw a fallen angel.  I stroked his face, not knowing how to soothe the bitter pain I felt in his eyes.  Then his mouth opened and before I could protest I felt sharp daggers sinking into my flesh.  I whipped my head around and saw Peter’s white teeth, sharp and shiny, ripping out of my skin.  I glared at the blood that doused his lips, my blood.  His body shook, as if he was trying to rein in the monster, but if that was his intention then he failed, because his body violently banged against mine and he sank his teeth into my jugular vein once more and greedily sucked the life out of me.

                He stopped.  I don’t know why, but he did.  Peter tore himself away from my frail body and within a millisecond he was in the corner of the room, curled up in a fetal position, banging his head against the wall.  "I'm so sorry, so sorry, so sorry..." he repeated the phrase over and over again, a haunted mantra, carried by the wind into my lip and out through the open window.

                I was torn; I really was, looking at him.  It was almost as if he was the one in pain, not me.  But he did this to me.  ‘How could you!’ I wanted to scream, but a burning pain coursed through my veins and tore me apart.   Some unknown fire ripped off my limbs (or so I thought) and taunted me with demonic pain.  I flared; I scratched my arms trying to claw through and destroy whatever was responsible for this horrid pain.  After a while I couldn’t even move my limbs.  So I was frozen, for God knows how long, and hatred coursed through my veins, mingling with the fire.  ‘He bit me, damn it!  That coldhearted jerk!’

                Sometime during my transformation, I turned my head and saw Peter sitting there, sobbing dryly, and for a second I actually felt something for him.  I don’t know what it was, but soon after I felt it, it evacuated and found a place deep inside the reservoirs of my mind and the image of Peter, tortured and ashamed, beautiful despite everything and I buried it.  When I woke up and the pain was long gone, forever absent, Peter was gone and in my newborn rage I felt I was ripped out of the chance to tear Peter from limb to limb.  For so many years, all I felt was anger and a need I eventually identified as bloodlust.

                And here I am, now, fifty-five later.  This is me, nameless and fearless, trapped in the body of a pale, beautiful seventeen-year-old girl.  It doesn’t feel right…not that it ever has.   I might as well let the words unravel.  I am disturbed at how easily they role off my soft, pink tongue.  “I am a vampire,” I whisper to the wind, shivering despite the fact that I am not cold.  I close my eyes and absorb the day and the night and everything in between that is mine forever.  I didn’t know who I was before, but that was then.  Now, well…I have no clue.  I let the body noiselessly drop to the empty forest floor and quickly run away from the horror of what I really am.  With my hand, I wipe the blood off of my lips just to realize that I am still thirsty.  I really, truly cannot escape this.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There is this attraction between them �" this animalistic need that drives them, plummets down far into the depths of their souls, and in this endless abyss they are souring.  Their souls are bloody, captured, bruised �" bound together, for an eternity, if the world could allow it.  There is this immaterial chemistry that has nothing to do with atoms and molecules.  There is this passion that drives them to all four corners of the universe, and if they are not touching, they will die.  Lying on the grass, staring up at the pale blue sky, thinking about the ocean.  It’s simple, really.  It has nothing to do with their bodies.  Her hair doesn’t matter.  His muscles �" her muscles, for that matter �" don’t matter.  It’s the eyes.  There is this portal that opened up for them and only them, and it’s as if the entire universe has stopped for them.  There’s some reason �" or many reasons �" they shouldn’t be together…the forces of nature should be driven to work against them, but for some unexplainable reason, they don’t.  Their relationship is forbidden, unnatural.  They don’t care, because they need each other.  The only thing in the world they care about is to protect each other and love each other.  They defy all odds.

I wouldn’t know.  I have never been in love, but I have always been drawn to the idea of forbidden love.  Maybe it is because it doesn’t make sense that any man in his right mind could ever love me.  I am a monster.  A vampire.  I try to cling to my humanity, but it vanished fifty-five years ago.  I still haven’t gotten used to this life, and I never will.  I can’t imagine what it is like to live forever, but I will.  Yeah, it’s great to be seventeen forever.  Yeah right.  I don’t trust fate.  Not anymore; not after what it did to me.  Not after it killed the parents I never knew and destroyed my will to live and turned me into a heartless monster.  I don’t want to be heartless.  I want the sky and I want the ocean.  I want the trees.  I can jump from tree to tree, building to building, as agile as a super strong monkey, but I don’t care.  I could save lives if I wanted to, I guess, but then again I could fail. They might be bleeding, and I might not be able to control myself.

I travel alone.  Some have come to me, before, and gave me the option of joining their coven.  I don’t want a family, though.  In the past I saw illusions of what a family might be, and I didn’t like what I saw very much.  I refuse to be hurt again.  I would break.  Hell, I am already broken.  I will not be broken again.  The forest is my shelter.  I am female, but I am dangerous.  I can take care of myself.  I don’t care about any of this world’s illusions.  It couldn’t save my soul.  Back then, I could punch, and I could kick, but I couldn’t punch steel.  I wasn’t superwoman. Now I might be, but I choose not to. It’s too dangerous �" not for me, but for them.  I sit down under a bare tree.  It rained last night, and it feels like it is going to rain again soon.  My blank, silver eyes stare at a river not that far in front of me.  I listen to the sound of the gurgling water, and think about taking off my torn-apart clothes and jumping in.  I look at the funny-shaped rocks and think about the fact that if I bashed one of them into my skull, my skull wouldn’t break �" the rock would.  It would shatter into a billion, irreparable pieces.

Fifty-five years, I thought.  Fifty-five years, and the world hasn’t changed much.  What’s it like, to live in 2010?  Not much different than it is to live in 1960.  People still fight.  War still rages on.  Man keeps coming up with new inventions to destroy with.  Any day now, the world will come to an end.  Not yet, though.  The time has not come yet.  They haven’t found out a way to destroy my race yet.  They don’t even know about us.  I am invisible, not physically, but mentally.  I lurk in the shadows and watch, silently enraged as men rape women, as fathers murder their children and wives shoot their husbands over physical trivialities.  I lurk in the shadows, hidden by forestry green, my dark silver eyes alert.   I watch and wait; my paper white skin glowing, luminescent under the cover of an ever changing, unreliable sky.

I am still a thing.  I am a dangerous thing.  I want to be a person.  I want to live.  I don’t know how, because no one ever taught me how.  I never even found out the reason I was in foster care, except that my biological mother died and my biological father was in jail.  No one would tell me the details.  I didn’t want to know.  It doesn’t matter, though.  Whatever happened, happened.  I can’t change that now.  No one can.

“Hello?” I hear a voice.  I sniff.  It is a human.  I am thirsty, but I do not want to give into the monster right now.  Not here, in this place in my brain where I feel so afraid and vulnerable.  I almost remember what it feels like to be the lonely foster girl that pretended that no one ever raped her.  Almost.

“Go away,” I whisper.  “Please.  Please leave.” I don’t want to kill this girl, but I fear that I might if she comes any closer.

“Are you lost?” she asks.

“No, I’m not lost.  Please, go away,” I say, my voice rising.  She walks closer, and I see her: short strawberry blond hair, slightly tan skin, blue eyes.  I hold my breath and run away, not at full speed of course.  I can’t ever let any human know what I can do.  Who knows who they would tell?  No one would believe this girl’s story, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Wait, don’t go!” the girl shrieks.  Was she asking for death?  Oh yeah, that’s right.  She doesn’t know what I am.  I don’t look dangerous.

I don’t want to be lonely anymore.  If I bite this girl, and let her turn, then I would have a companion.  But no.  I have no right to do that.  I won’t take away her humanity.  I won’t let my venom invade her innocent bloodstream.

She puts her hand on my shoulder.  She smells delicious.  This is too much.  My throat burns and I just want to put an end to my pain.  ‘She’s just human, Vanessa,’ Vee sings to me.  ‘She’s one out of a billion.  No one will miss her.’  I squeeze my eyes shut.  ‘Go on, I know you want to,’ Vee taunts me. 

NO.  I won’t.  Not now.   I force myself to listen to the voice of reason, despite the fact that I so desperately want to give into the monster that is still burning a hole inside of my chest.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Please, just go home to your parents,” I say, desperately.

“I can’t,” she whispers.  Her voice sounds so fragile and broken.  She reminds me of me when I was still human.

“Why not?” I ask.  I just don’t want her to be in pain.

She starts trembling.  Something bad happened to her, I can tell.  Something that if she talked about it, it would hurt too much.  “Did you run away?” I ask.

The human girl silently nods.

“You can come with me, if you like,” I say.  Am I f*****g crazy?!?!  “I’m a runaway too.”

I can train myself to not give in.  I won’t give into her scent.  I’ll be her friend.  I don’t know how, but then again, it doesn’t look like she knows how, either.

“I’m Vanessa,” I say.  “What’s your name?”

She is still shaking, but I can sense her muscles starting to loosen up a little bit.  “Tara,” she says.

I hold my hand out for her.  “Come on, Tara.  Let’s find someplace to sleep,” I say.  I can’t sleep, but she needs to sleep.  There are dark circles under her eyes �" it looks like she hasn’t slept for weeks. 

It gets dark out soon.   The sun falls behind the cloud and a pale moon slowly rises.  I walk with Tara, constantly aware of her mouthwatering scent, one part of me aching to kill her, the other part of me already willing to die to protect her.  How can, in such a short fragment of time, something so fragile enter into my life?

“Do you always wander around in the forest at night?” Tara asks.

“Usually,” I say.  Quick.  Make up a lie.  “That way, it’s harder for them to find me.”

“What are you running from?” Tara asks.

“Oh, a lot of things,” I say.  It’s not a lie, either.  “I don’t really feel like talking about it right now.”

Tara nods her head in understanding.  We don’t speak.  We walk in the night, alone but together, staring at the black sky that will be our only roof tonight.  I watch the forest, my eyes alert, waiting for any signs of danger.  It is not unheard of for animals to lurk in this very forest. The shadows of the tall trees slink behind us.  There are no wild flowers �" only the trees, the dirt, dark grass, and us.

I finally sit down.  “Let’s sleep,” I say.

“Here?” Tara asked, alarmed.  “Why don’t we go find a shelter?”  I can tell that that is what she usually does.  Before I was turned, back when I was a seventeen-year-old run-away, I did that too.

“Why not?” I ask, shrugging.

“But…the dirt!” Tara proclaims, shocked.  There was something in her voice that I couldn’t place.  It wasn’t really that she was afraid of being dirty.  Her body shook and she looked just so frail and traumatized.  But she should be strong.  I wouldn’t let it get to me, whatever it is, so why should she?  I stare into her despondent eyes and I want her to be strong.  This is how I stop myself from killing Tara. She’s just me, I tell myself, me when I ran away, years ago.  She’s not really that different, and when I look in her eyes I can’t even begin to comprehend the horrors she must have survived.

“Yeah, its dirt.  So what,” I say nonchalantly.

“I can’t sleep there.  I can’t.  It’s revolting,” she says with boiling rage, stomping over to a tree and lunging towards the brown tree trunk, punching it with all of her might.  She smiles and grabs my arm.

I shake my head.  So the human girl has guts.  She is in no way afraid of pain, and she is stubborn.  “Fine,” I say.  “Have it your way.  Go on, find a shelter.  I’ll stay here where it’s nice and peaceful.”

I can smell Tara’s blood now.  The scent is so much stronger than it was before.  I look at the skinny, warn-out human.  I stare at her bloody fist with a yearning that I learned how to hide decades ago.  I myself have been to shelters; to cities; to train stations and bus stations.  After all, I can’t feed in the forest.  But when I’m starving myself, I lock myself in the forest.  I will not go to the shelter again tonight.  I will not give in to the dark demon that threatens to overcome me every day; I will stay here, in this abandoned forest, my self-imposed cage.

Tara takes one last look at me and then stomps off.  ‘Good,’ I think.  ‘Protect yourself.  You’re not safe.  I almost gave in.  I wanted to kill you.  Run.  Hide.  Go to your shelter, Tara.’  I sit down on the moist ground and stare at the sky, shaking my head, resigning once again to my solitude.  After fifty-five years, I should be used to it, and for the most part, I am.

                I take off in the opposite direction.  The only thing I count on right now is, I don’t cling to Tara.  I don’t count on her to be some sort of salvation for me.  I don’t need that.  I don’t need friends �" in the end, it will fall apart and I can’t take that.  I slink through the forest unnoticed, unseen.  I need to find something to feed from.  I hate it.  My throat burns, and emptiness tugs at my taut stomach.  I am skinnier than I was back when I am human.  The haunts of this life are way worse than any so-called strength �" super strength, super speed, night vision, and so much more that I really don’t need.  At least I don’t burn in the sun like the myths say.  The humans couldn’t even get the legend correct.  Oh well.  I actually wish I couldn’t see my reflection in the mirror, though.  That would be so cool �" I wouldn’t have to be reminded of the pale, undead thing I have become every off chance I run into a mirror.

                ‘Starve yourself again.  Stay strong, stay Vanessa,’ I say to myself.  ‘You were never Vanessa,’ my monster sings to me.  Haunting me, always haunting me.  This wretched monster will never leave me alone.  ‘Animals, you can just drink from animals.  It’s better than nothing, Vee,’ I tell the monster.  The monster that lives inside of is Vee.  Yes, the persona of the rebellious teenager I used to be transformed into such a heartless beast decades ago and I am haunted by her tragic yet powerful voice.  It is useless to tell her to stop; the monster never listens. She is adamant in her needs �" day after day.  I try to evade it. She is so powerful.  She creeps up on me after each drop of blood.  The blood lingering on my lips, she speaks poison words.  ‘It isn’t enough.  You need more. More, more, more.’  It is so easy to get out of control.  It is almost fun, denying Vee.  Yes, she is Vee, and I am her slave; can I show you the invisible barbed-wire crown that Vee places on my forehead every morning?  Do you want to see what I look like when I am devouring the luscious blood of soft, innocent humans?  Do you want to see? She is Vee, and I am Vanessa.  I frown.  I can’t really escape, can I?  There is no cure.  Vanessa has a fun time denying Vee’s needs, but Vee’s needs are Vanessa’s needs as well �" and, as much as I hate to admit it, it is very painful.

                I am not a masochist.  Over the years, I have learned to understand pain, but I do not yearn for pain.  It all comes down to self-preservation in the end.  I give into Vee because I have to.  My body starts moving faster than a car.  Even today, it still feels like I am on the outside watching someone else’s body slinks across the forest under the blanket of the starry sky.  My body moves so gracefully that I still cannot believe that it is me.  I end up at the end of some black pavement street.  I stand, hidden in the shadows, watching the cars pass me by, oblivious to the night creature stalking the night.  Me.  ‘Be afraid of me,’ I want to warn.  ‘Run, run while you can.’  But Vee knows better.  Survival of the fittest.  There are other vampires out there, somewhere.  ‘You’re not the only one.’

                I’m just a crazy girl lost in a world that doesn’t belong.  Here I am, stranded, a parasite forced to live off the life-force of others.  Either that or wither away, shrivel up into some unattractive gray thing.  I don’t want that.  Like I said, I’m not a masochist.  Pain doesn’t fit me.

                Blue car, black car, yellow car.  I let them pass, imagining fathers going home to their families, mothers taking their children on vacations.  They drive by, unaware.  In the back pocket of my low-rise jeans I have the wallet I use whenever I have to do this.  I have my ID card that says I am 21.  I’m sure there is a club somewhere near here….I can feed off of some attractive hunk.  He’ll never see what’s coming.  It will be the best �" and, unfortunately, last �" night of his life.

                I decide to walk, take a whiff of fresh air.  Imagine where I might have ended up if Peter never seduced me.  I’d probably be something like Tara �" alone, but confident.  Empowered by rebellion, or escape.  Maybe both…who knows?  What was I escaping that does not still haunt me today?  I hold onto the memories that seer into my granite skin and burn me.  Sometimes it feels like my memories slay me alive.

                There it is, a ragged old building decorated with blue paint and a few yellow squiggly lines.  I give Vee the reins, and march towards the door.  I don’t really look 21, but if I want to get in, I will.  Sometimes it feels like I can control other peoples’ minds, but I don’t really know since I spend most of my days in the forest away from civilization.  The guard has dirty blond hair and blue eyes.  He has freckles and a few pimples, and is way too lanky.  ‘You want to let me in, you want to let me in,’ I think as I flip open my wallet revealing the ID I paid for from a man named Lakeson. 

                “Go on in,” the lanky, mildly attractive guard says.  I smile and walk into the building.  The beat of loud music pulses in and out of my veins and my ears pick up in anticipation.  I visualize myself as a fictional character, searching for romance.  I pretend this is a story some fanatic wrote, and I am just a girl with a dark secret, waiting to be saved.  That isn’t me, but Vee likes to pretend every now and then, so why not allow her that pleasure?  I imagine with my dark black hair and my pale skin, the men see a mystery to be solved, a jaded treasure for them to play with.  They think I am weak, a damsel in distress.  They see a gothic teenager; maybe they want to rape me.  I shrug, thinking about the plot that is unraveling in my mind.  Gothic girl escapes chaotic family for a night, fake ID in hands.  Gothic girl drinks alcohol and dances wildly to insane music, clinging to random guys, trying to forget a long-lost fling.  Deviant guy decides to lead gothic girl out to an alley.  He pounces.  He touches places that aren’t supposed to be touched by uninvited hands.

                But that isn’t what happens.  Dream on, Vee.  You are no damsel in distress.  You are a monster, and I am letting you win this time.

                A boy with bushy dark brown hair and emerald eyes is walking in my direction.  He wears a black sweatshirt donned with a seemingly out-of-place white skull.  The skull on the boy’s sweatshirt is grinning.  The boy �" no, the teenager �" swaggers towards me. What does he see in me?  Does he only notice me because of my breasts, my butt, maybe my face?  What does he see in my unnatural silver eyes?  He reaches his hand out as if he is searching for something.  His hand moves as if he sees something and can’t quite reach it; can’t quite understand what he sees.  I know how he feels.  “Um, hey,” he says, trying to sound cool but I can see through his mask.  I can smell nervousness and fear radiating off of his sweaty body. 

                That is not what I expected.  It is just too unusual.  I expected a boy who was assure of himself, almost too self-confident.  Selfish, greedy, with one-dimensional eyes.  I can work with this, though.  He’s hot, even if he doesn’t know it.  More than that, though, I can hear the blood pounding beneath his flesh.  It calls to me.

                “Like what you see?” I ask, grinning, making sure to stare directly into his eyes.

                “Um…well…sure…” he says.  His voice fades, as if he doesn’t know what he is supposed to say.  As if my comment was unnatural, wrong.  Everything I am is unnatural, wrong.

                “Whadya mean, sure?” I say, playing the role I devised for myself: gothic girl.

Nervous boy is not the character I expected.  This changes things, doesn’t it?  Not for Vee, though. 

                “I like you,” he says.

                “You just met me,” I point out.  Why waste my time flirting with him?  I’m going to kill him, right?  But I can’t help it.  Something about this boy draws me to him.  Besides, I have to lure him outside somehow.  He has to have a reason to follow me.  He has to want me like I want him.  Well, sort of.  There’s a thin line between blood lust and sexual lust, but there is a line, and it is crystal clear.

                I put my hand on his shoulder, taking in his warmth.  “What’s your name?” I ask.

                The corners of his lips curl up in a smile.  Blood rushes to his cheeks.  My throat burns.  “Kevin,” he says. He doesn’t look like a Kevin, but then again I don’t look like a Vanessa.  Go figure.   “And you are….?”  The question dangles in the air.

                “Well, people call me Vee.  Let’s leave it at that,” I say.

                Kevin nods hesitantly.  I open my eyes and look at him again.  I don’t smell any alcohol on him, so what is he doing here?  I know what it is like to feel �" and to be �" out of place.

                “Well, is your name Vee?” Kevin asks.

                “I don’t know,” I sigh.  Stay in character, Vanessa.  Play the mysterious goth girl.  Don’t fall for this teenager’s veiled charms.  He doesn’t even know he has them.  Don’t be an idiot, Vanessa.

                Vee is counseling me, I realize.  Yes, I am Vee.  Part of the time, and I’m tired of not knowing.

                “Do you want a drink? I can buy…” Kevin says.

Sure, sure, sure. You can buy me a drink, Kevin, but not the drink you are thinking about.  Kevin looks like he is 21.  Yeah right.  Besides, I can’t eat human food.  Okay, that’s not exactly right.  I have taste buds, so I can taste human food �" unfortunately, my digestive system cannot digest it.  Yes, I love strawberry smoothies, cheesecake, fruit, and fresh baked wheat bread…but it’s not worth the pain that comes with it.  Okay, that’s a complete lie.  Strawberry smoothies taste almost as good as blood.

                “Nothing they have here,” I say, and I cannot seem to hide the melancholy note ringing in my voice.

                “You wanna go someplace else?  I don’t really like it here…my brother and his friends dragged me along.  I told them that a place like this is sure to be a hell of a nightmare, but they just wouldn’t listen…”

                I stop his rant before he embarrasses himself.  “It’s okay, I understand,” I say, placing my hand on his bony shoulder.  I never had any siblings, but I can see how a place like this could be a hell of a nightmare.  I am Kevin’s nightmare, only I’m real.  He can’t escape me.  Why can’t I escape him?

                ‘Shut up, Vanessa,’ Vee yells at me internally.  ‘He’s food, just food.’

                “Come on, Vee.  Let’s get out of here,” Kevin says.  I can’t help but smile.

I hold out my hand and Kevin walks forward, grinning.  As we walk outside into the bitter cold, Kevin asks me again if Vee is my real name.  I shake my head and watch Kevin’s green eyes and wonder; I can’t help but wonder.  Every time I feed I wonder.  One time there will be the one that I just can’t bite, the one I love too much to harm.  But there is no love, not here in this hole.  It’s nowhere to be found, dissolving at the bottom of some black hole, and it will never be mine. It never was.  I could fool myself into thinking that Kevin is the one, but we barely know each other.

                On the outskirts of town Kevin holds my hand.  Our small feet move in silence along the cold coal-colored pavement listening to the acidic plitter-platter of the falling raindrops.  There is something about Kevin that is weary; there is a biting pain in his eyes that speaks of dark families and riddles told in the night.  Watching Kevin move drags up some long-forgotten memory of my past.  I can barely touch it, but it is there, clouding my senses, messing with the comfortable emptiness that allows me to get through each day.

                “You look sad,” Kevin notes.

                I do not want to fall in love.  The absence of love protects me. It prevents this hole from growing bigger and bigger.  If I let anyone in, the moment they leave or die the hole will be ripped apart, and it will bleed profusely, and I will be stuck on the forest floor under the blanket of a darkening sky.

                “So do you,” I say.  I wonder what went wrong in Kevin’s life.  If his parents died, or if his parents hit him.  Maybe he just got out of a rather rough break-up.  Maybe his sister died, or maybe a new sister was born and his parents didn’t seem to care about him anymore.

                Kevin nods.  A sudden burst of wind envelopes his shoulders, sending Kevin’s scent directly in front of my nose.  Behind my back, I am clenching my fists, doing everything in my power to avoid attacking Kevin.  Cars pass us by, and exhaust spirals towards us and looks like some sort of misty dust.  It is as if Kevin and I are in a bubble, surrounded by car exhaust and trapped by each others’ presence.  Of course, it could all just be an illusion.

                “What do you want to do?  Can I come to your place?” he asks, changing the subject.  No one wants to talk about what hurts them.  Above us, pale thin gray clouds shift in place.  A yellow moon hovers over Kevin and I.  The dull roaring of car engines passes us by.  I’d like to think of it as music �" a soft, repetitive humming that cares nothing about the world.

                I don’t have a house.  I live in the forest.  Why not humor him.

                “Sure, why not?  I live in the forest,” I say.

                “You live in the forest?  You’re homeless?” I imagine Kevin pictures homeless people as bald men, wrinkling, dying, in their despair and hopelessness holding out tin cans.  Silver coins making a tinkling sound in such a sad object.

                “I guess,” I shrug.

                I don’t see the point in applying for a job.  Nothing matters.  I get my clothes from dumpsters.  The tight red shirt I am wearing is ripped at the bottom.  My black jeans are faded, tight against my skin.  These are the clothes I live in, hunt in, wander in. 

               “Or a runaway?” Kevin asks, letting go of my pale hand and turning around to look at me.  When my body tenses up, Kevin places his hand on my upper forearm and smiles rebelliously.  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you,” he says.

                “You should go back to the club.  I should take you back to the club,” I say.  I don’t want to kill Kevin; in five miniscule minutes my heart opened for him.  In this state I feel naked, vulnerable, afraid.  I am afraid for Kevin.  I don’t think I would be a good relationship person.

                “No, I like it here.  You’re interesting, Vee.”  If only he knew.

                I shake my head. I need to make it clear to Kevin that I’m not interested.

                “You could live with my family,” Kevin suggests.  “My parents are nice enough; they could adopt you.”  Then we’d be brothers and sisters.  Okay, okay, I did say I craved forbidden love.  Nah.  This itself is forbidden enough.

                “Nah,” I say, curling the corner of my mouth into a crooked grin.  “Then we’d be brother and sister.  I don’t think I want that.”

                “You don’t, do you?” he asks. 

                I take his hand.  “Let me show you where I live, Kevin,” I say.  My throat still burns, and there are painful knots twisting and turning in my stomach, but Vee isn’t very dominant at the moment.  I lead Kevin towards the forest.

                “Are you sure Vee’s your real name?” Kevin asks, interrupting the silence.  We take a step forward in unison.  Kevin stumbles on a rock; I catch him before he falls.  “Are you alright?” I ask.

                “I’m fine.  Is Vee your real name?” Kevin asks again.  Vee has absolutely no manipulative power over me right now.  Kevin’s green eyes �" a reflection of the eyes of my past �" pierce into my silver eyes.  Someone once said that the eyes are the window to the soul….what does Kevin see in my eyes, then?

               “No,” I say softly.  My body trembles, so quickly that it is invisible to human eyesight.  I look into Kevin’s green eyes, widening my own eyes.  Then I look down at the ground, counting blades of grass.  “It’s Vanessa,” I say.

                “Do you want me to call you Vee?” Kevin asks.  I shake my head.  Kevin doesn’t know anything about me, and I don’t know anything about him.  How is this love?  It isn’t.  Not yet, at least.  So I simply shrug.  Kevin and I continue walking.  We stop when we reach my make-shift teepee.  I sit down on the dark green grass, Indian style.  Kevin does the same.

                “Tell me about yourself, Vanessa,” Kevin says.  “Why did you run away?”   When I look down at the ground, Kevin adds, “You don’t have to tell me if it hurts.”

                “No, its okay,” I say.  “My parents died when I was little.  I was in foster care, and then….”  I stop, realizing that there is no more I can tell Kevin.  Suddenly I realize that I do not really want to lie to Kevin, but I cannot tell him the truth, either.

                “What about you?” I ask.

                “You didn’t finish,” Kevin points out.  I nod my head.

                “It’s complicated,” I can say.  “It’s a long story.”

                I hear footsteps.  Behind us, someone is running towards me.  I sniff, taking in Tara’s scent.  So Tara is coming back.  Why?  I am left with no time to wonder.  Kevin and I spin around and see Tara standing directly in front of us.

                “Is she your sister?” Kevin asks.  I shake my head.

                “Who is he?” Tara asks, panting.

                “Someone,” I say, shrugging.

                “Obviously he’s someone,” Tara says.  “Telling me he’s someone tells me nothing.”  It’s not like we’re high school friends, standing in the hallway giggling while passing secrets about dark, handsome men.   I never had any high school friends.

                “My name’s Kevin,” Kevin says for me, grinning.  He leans toward me and whispers words into my ear.  “I have to go, Vanessa, but I’ll be back.  You can count on that,” he whispers.  He runs off in the night, back to whatever life he leads �" to the brother that dragged him to a club that he was too young for; to the parents that would be willing to take in young runaway girls.

                I turn to face Tara.  She is smiling.  “What were you doing?” Tara asks.

                “Not what you think,” I tell Tara, but I can’t help but find a grin escaping me.

                “It sure looked like it,” Tara says, smiling.

Time passes.  Weeks fly by; months run faster than orange cheetahs and yellow mountain lions. Things transpire that we could not have avoided.  Tara keeps coming back to the forest.  I don’t know why she refuses to leave; perhaps she thinks we are similar, tortured souls, but she really has no clue.  I have heard Kevin’s footsteps lurking in the forest, searching for me.  He hasn’t found me yet; maybe he never will.  I haven’t decided if I should allow him to find me.

Tara keeps coming back.  Some nights, Tara wanders off to the shelter under the railroad.  For nights on end I won’t see her, but she always comes back.  Gradually, Tara spends more and more time in my presence.  I don’t understand why she wants to spend time with me, but no matter how wrong allowing this may be, I am somewhat relieved for the company.

I have to hunt �" for the time being, I stick to animals �" elks, deer.  It doesn’t taste that good, but it’s enough to satiate the physical need.  Eventually, Tara sees me hunting.  “What are you doing?” Tara asks one day.  “Are you crazy?”  At the time, I didn’t hear her.  I imagined what it must have looked like: a 90 pound teenager pouncing on a wild deer.  What a beast I must have looked like as I slid off the lifeless deer �" my shirt torn and bloody; my hair tangled. Surprisingly, though, Tara sticks around.  Later, Tara confessed the scene she witnessed and demands an explanation.  I have no choice but to tell Tara the truth: “You can’t tell anyone, Tara.  I’m a vampire, Tara.  I’m a despicable beast.” She didn’t run away from me, though.

  We are hiking next to the river I sometimes swim in.  Behind us, murky water gurgles.  I can hear a dark raven crowing. I listen carefully for the nicer sounds �" the song of the blue jay, the robin….at first, the raven is the only thing I can hear, but I open up my ears and the forest comes alive.  Birds fly from tree to tree, making a sashaying sound as they rustle the leaves of the tall trees.  I can hear the cicada humming, a soft buzz, a sort of white noise.  Tara asks me how it happened.  She wants to know if the myths are really true.

“The only thing humans got right is the blood drinking and the immortality,” I say.

“No fangs?” Tara asks.

I grin, revealing my razor sharp white teeth.  “Nope, just sharp teeth,” I say.  “And we don’t burn in the sun, either.”

“Do you have a reflection?” Tara asks.

“Of course I have a reflection,” I say, and we both giggle.  I sit down and take off my shoes, dangling my feet in the water that I assume would be freezing cold if I was sensitive to unnatural temperatures.  Tara does the same.

“You don’t have to be alone, Vanessa.  You can change me.  Turn me into a vampire, Vanessa.  Please,” Tara says.  She hugs the tree trunk and stares at the ground.  I imagine a fallen angel, with sullied skin, rags for clothes, bruised knees, and desperate eyes.  I see a lost girl who is hiding from her past.  Against all odds she broke through to me, and I broke through to her.  But she still had a chance at life.  That was very clear, although she could not see it.  She had fallen, but it was still possible for her to stand up.

“Go back, Tara.  Trust me, you don’t want this life,” I say.  Despite the fact that my voice is, naturally, elegant, my voice is also shaking.

Tara collapses to the ground and buries her head in her shoulder.  She sobs softly.  “I don’t want to be nothing,” Tara whispers.  “Ever.”  I don’t want to not exist.  That is what Tara is saying.  “Please.  You can give me immortality, Vanessa.”

I sit down and put my arm around Tara’s shoulders.  We are very much like sisters right now (no matter how much I would like to deny it), runaways.  We are running away from our past, and more, oh, so much more.  As for me, I try to run away from who I am.  I try to deny my nature.  I cannot die from starving myself, at least not for a very, very long time, but I can writhe in pain.

“You don’t want to be frozen, honey,” I whisper.

“I don’t want to die.  To cease to exist…to not be able to think and feel…Vanessa, the idea is unbearable,” Tara says.  A quiet tear rolls down Tara’s cheek.  With my cold hand I wipe away Tara’s tears.  I place my hand on her chin, forcing her to look directly in my eyes.

“Mortal or immortal, the journey doesn’t end here.  Everything must come to an end, Tara.  It is inevitable.  This earth we stand on this very moment �" the trees surrounding us, the dirt beneath our feet �" it is all very temporary,” I say.  “There is something else.  There has to be.  For me, I don’t know.  Maybe I am trapped, forever.  Maybe that’s the curse of it all.  The catch.  I will never get to see what more there is.”

Tara shakes her head.  “I can’t,” she whispers.  “I’m afraid.”

“I’m afraid, too,” I whisper, so low that I’m not sure whether or not Tara can hear me.  “How can something like me have a soul?”  At the time, Tara didn’t answer my question, so I assumed she didn’t hear me.

And aren’t we all afraid?  It’s an impossible thing, to put every ounce of our trust into the unknown.  But it can also be a beautiful thing, if we simply allow destiny to run her unyielding course.  Right now the two of us stand together, unarmed, poisoned with the absence of love.  We stand here in the forest, far away from civilization, paralyzed by a deep loneliness that rings in our bones; a loneliness that quietly, over the years, we trained ourselves to endure.  So long ago, I convinced myself that it was meant to be.  Everything happened for a reason, so what about this?   What about us?  And not only us, but what we stand for?  Every high school �" every town, every generation �" has outcasts, and what is to become of us when people constantly tell us that we are not good enough?  I chose not to believe the words that still haunt me today, but my unconscious took them in like delicious blood that will poison me, destroy me.

Tara’s scent is intoxicating, but I am used to it by now.  To kill her, to destroy her…if I…if I did that, I would never be able to face myself again.  I would never be able to forgive myself.  “Why did you run away, Tara?  Can’t you go back?” I ask. 

Tara shakes her head.  “I will never turn back,” she whispers.  She leans against the rough tree bark.  “I love you. You’re the sister I never had.”

I imagine that Tara is something like the sister I could have had, if my mother did not give up on life so early.  We are all pawns on the chessboard, and when one piece is knocked off the black and white board it alters everything.

What happens to the absence of love when, quietly, love sneaks up on it?  Not the kind of love you are expecting, or even wanting, but the kind of love that lasts longer than life itself?  I don’t know.  I know only that I do not want to let go of Tara all too soon.  I have gotten used to her presence, even her scent, even �" dare I admit it �" the physical pain her scent puts me in.

“You really think that you don’t have a soul?” Tara asks one day.  I guess she heard me, then.

“I know I don’t have a soul,” I say.

“I don’t believe it, Vanessa.  How can you feel if you don’t have a soul?  Why is Kevin looking for you?  You don’t have to be alone.  I saw it in his eyes that first night.  I saw it in your eyes, too, Vanessa.  Don’t deny it,” Tara says.

I want to believe Tara.  I want to believe in myself.  I realize that this is the first time that anybody ever really took the time to care about me.  I am finding that Vee is slowly slipping away.  She doesn’t have as much power over me when I am hunting animals instead of humans.  She will always be there, invisible, taunting me.  She will always be a dark part of me, hiding behind my silver eyes.  But she doesn’t have to win.  Not if I don’t let her.

I realize that Tara is right.  I do have a soul.  I can choose to not let Vee win.  I must have a soul.  “You’re right, Tara,” I say.  I am not so numb anymore.  I am not so alone anymore.  And that is a start.

“Next time Kevin looks for you, are you going to show yourself?  If you wait too long, he might stop wasting his time,” Tara says.

“Maybe I will,” I say, surprising Tara.  I grin.  This is a start.  Why not live a little?  The time will come, I decide.  Maybe I can play the superhero, after all.  Who knows?  In this, I find a start.  I said that already, but it’s important.  This is just a start; things may not work out.  They might, though.  I let my guard down, and I allow myself to hope a little.

“Whatever you decide, I’ll be there for you,” Tara says.

We sit down, leaning against rough tree branches.  Soon, Tara drifts off to sleep.  Tomorrow will be a new day.  I will claim it as mine.

The sun rises and I watch over Tara’s sleeping form.  This journey is far from over, I realize.  There is so much more for me to discover.  I have all of the time in the world, except that I don’t.  Why not live here and now, when I can?  I bend down and softly kiss Tara’s forehead and scratch a note into the tree bark that I will be back later in the day.  I tiptoe off into the wilderness, dancing in between tree trunks and vines.  I rinse my face in the river and then run back to the tree I left Tara laying asleep.

“Where have you been?” Tara asks, curious.

“Just cleaning myself in the river,” I say.  “Come on, get up.  You don’t want to spend the whole day in the woods, do you?”

“You don’t?” Tara asks, incredulous.

“Nah.  I’m tired of sulking around.  I could get a job.  I have a fake ID…I can’t use my real one…who would hire a dead girl?” I joked.  Both Tara and I laugh, although it isn’t really funny.

“You’re going to leave me?” Tara asks.

“Of course not.  As soon as I buy an apartment, you can live with me,” I say.

“People would find me, Vanessa.  It just doesn’t work that way,” Tara says, slinking down against the tree trunk.  Tears roll down her glittering eyes and she buries her head in her arms.

After a moment of silence, I say, “I don’t know what’s going to happen…not yet, at least…for the time being, let’s go to town and get you some breakfast, ok?”

“What about you?” Tara asks.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“You sure?” Tara asks.

I nod, and, hand in hand, Tara and I walk out of the forest.  Maybe for good.  Maybe we’ll return…it may be the only place for us.  I want to help Tara, I realize.  It’s too late for me to face my past, but it’s not too late for Tara.  Not yet, at least.

***That’s it for now, Folks!***