Blood Collector: Chapter One

Gavin is a blood collector for the only wealthy aristocrat left in a world that is devastated by disaster. He roams the streets to collect. Does he understand what manner of beast he feeds?

The noise of the television roared in his ears. Gavin rolled over in bed, groaning, and swiftly unplugged the confounded contraption. The creaking ceiling fan made his eye twitch.

The alarm clock blinked red numbers, stuck on 3:02AM. The power went out in the storm again. He roused himself from the tangled sheets of his bed and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. It was the dead middle of summer, and his apartment was sorrowfully devoid of air conditioning.

He struggled into the shirt from the day before, which was, at one time, white. He inspected his haggard reflection in the mirror that rested over the sink. Gavin’s eyes sagged, even though he was only twenty-two. His dark hair was becoming too long, so he took out an electric razor and shaved it off. All of it.

 After grabbing his satchel, he shrugged into a jacket that had the name “Evan” sewn into it.

The thin wooden door rattled behind him as it slammed shut. He snaked his way through the labyrinth of the building’s hallways, keeping a careful eye out for the apartment’s manager. He was too exhausted to hear the old man whine and gripe about overdue rent. He had blood to collect.

The streets still looked like a disaster zone. The sidewalks were stained with patches of blood. Inordinate amounts of trash gathered along the outer walls of the abandoned buildings. He sorted through some of it before moving on, deciding that anything of worth had been picked through by the homeless.

A few filthy, shifty figures hurried by him and he fixed them with a stare that read, “I’ll fight if I need to, and maybe even if I don’t.” If they did not buy into the sharp look in his dull brown eyes, a closer look at his scarred knuckles would reaffirm them.

A car blundered through the wreckage and the young man ducked into an alley. He knew that the only ones who continued to drive cars were the ones who wielded weapons and preyed on the innocent.

Not that he was innocent. 

“E-Evan, is it?” a frail voice called to him from the alley. Gavin whirled around, staggering away from the newcomer. It was a woman. She was mostly skin and bones and her tattered green dress hung loosely on her form. Her eyes were like dark cavities that housed her withered soul. Looking into them made him shiver.

“No, lady, it’s not,” he sneered and stalked away. She reached for him and he jerked out of her grasp, only to feel something sharp sticking into his back.

“Give me the bag.” Her voice reminded him of loose gravel scraping against concrete. He went rigid and winced as the blade in his back cut him and a trickle of blood fled the wound.

Before she could react, he knocked the blade from her hand and pinned her against the brick building. She squirmed and wailed her protest as he bound her wrist with a zip tie. He extracted one of the empty plastic bags from his satchel, as well as the tube and a needle.

He used a shred of her dress as a tourniquet and located a thick vein to draw from. The needle sank into her arm with ease and the woman cried out in shock. The blood flowed through the tube quickly, and soon he filled the bag. He replaced it with another and it too filled to the brim with warm red liquid. 

He removed the tourniquet and shoved the blood bags into his bag, along with the other supplies. After retrieving the zip tie, he jogged away from the confused woman and continued through the derelict streets of a once-bustling city. 

Author's Note

It's definitely a work in progress. A bit choppy. >.<

Reviews

[S. Kimball]

I like it. Rough, but it's better than the last piece I reviewed by several orders of magnitude.

I'm a sucker for the post-apocalyptic thing, especially as it's contrasted with a sort of semi-functioning society. Bonus points for that. It makes me uncomfortable for some reason. That's good.

Good job describing. I saw everything very clearly in my mind, or at least my version of it.

Dropping into the plot without any exposition is sometimes good. It's good here. I'm curious.

I'm guessing there are big plans for the "Evan" thing. I like it.

Thus far, Gavin is at least something of a character. There's not enough of him to make any solid judgments, but you're going in the right direction, at the very least. Depending on what direction you decide to take as far as narration, perhaps the narrator can give a little more insight into nuances.

Depending on what mood you're going for, you may want to make the fight scene a little less smooth. Realism would dictate that he probably gets stabbed or cut up a little before he can wrestle the knife away from her. However, if you're going for fantasy combat (not necessarily a bad thing if done right) you're fine.

I would still try to cut out the few adverbs you have. They don't detract at this point, but they don't add either. Neutrality is bad.

However, on the subject of power: "Her eyes were like dark cavities that housed her withered soul."

That is awesome. I'd like to see even more phrases along those lines. Vivid, concise, and it makes good use of words without making me reach for a thesaurus.

Good stuff. If you post more and I don't see it, please send me a message. I'd like to read more.