Free Sample of my new anthology "Small Hour Stories"

Taste of the Dead

I had cried myself to sleep in a drunken meltdown. Heartbroken, I awoke to my hands bound to the headboard and my feet secured in some way which Wasn't obvious from my vantage point. A wool blanket covered them.

Realizing I was awake, he strolled into the room. A deep, sickening feeling formed a knot in the pit of my stomach. I had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. My emotional weakness and his prowess had landed me here; tied to a bed he never slept in but kept for appearance sake.

He had called me a few days ago. It was sudden and out of the blue. There was a silkiness to his voice. how could i have forgotten the way he used old world English when he spoke of modern world topics? It was a sexy contradiction. I agreed to meet him and spent the evening talking over drinks. I could feel some of the old spark immediately. He smiled often peering over his Compari. Then there was the way he ran his finger along side the glass absentmindedly when he was deep in thought. I thought of that finger running along the side of my face as he had so often done so after a kiss. He had seemed to share my reminiscent feelings. His irresistible charm had me laughing and swooning, nearly forgetting why I had left in the first place. Sometime after the third round, the details got blurry.

Now I was here in his bed, unable to move,with him standing over me. He freed my hands, and I took the opportunity to sit up, with my knees to my chest. In the freeing of my body, he gave his explanation for the binds. As a massaged my wrists, he confessed that he had missed me in our time apart. Laying next to me, he stared deep into my eyes and declared he couldn't live the rest of eternity without me. When I had agreed to a reunion, I had unknowingly ignited his plan and set it in motion. He had decided that I would join him in his immortality. His declaration of my becoming like him was roughly the last that I was able to comprehend after so much alcohol.

In his wee hour sales pitch, he had droned on about the beauty, the benefits, the opportunities, the love. All of it was white noise. In my morning clarity, I'd gone numb. I stared at him incredulously. I stared at my present, and more so my future. His pale face and deep red lips would soon be my own comparable reflection. The small logical side of my brain asked a question, "What will I see in the mirror after he's killed me?" My body shivered as my logical brain persisted. "Will I scream? Will it be torture like he described his victims post bloodlust?"

My situation was so dire, I was overcome with hysterical laughter. The crushed velvet drapes gently swayed in the autumn breeze, here in his high story apartment. He set out candles on the mantle, the side table, and even the corners of the shelves inlaid in the headboard. He was actually handing me a death sentence by candle light and all I could do was laugh. "Was this his idea of somehow making murder civilized?" Somehow I could see him thinking that murder by candlelight was far more acceptable; even charitable, for the woman he loved.

He must have detected my uncontrollable fear because he tried to calm me by brushing the wisps of hair from my face. His gentle touch persuaded me that he was acting in my best interest. "Think of all the pain, disease, and frailties that accompany old age" he said. "Starting tomorrow, all of these things will never be an issue in your life". There was an empathy in his auburn eyes. But a wave of nausea rolled over me when I thought of how differently things would indeed be by the morning. If I survived his plans for me tonight, I would be neither alive nor dead. A second wave, this time of deep despair, cut through me. My own words haunted me...if. If I survived his plans for me. Death was real for the first time in my life.

It was less than a few hours away, I surmised. He usually fed at night. I would die alone, bound and against my will in a plush apartment overlooking the Detroit River. no one would hear me scream. if they did, no one would find the screams of a woman out of place in this city. Tears welled in my eyes and I shuddered again, this time from an intense feeling of cold.

I realized I didn't believe in anything specifically- heaven, hell, eternal sleep, absolute nirvana. All these after death concepts had escaped me somehow. I checked myself. No, I had run away from them. I was young and death was the farthest thing from my mind. Until now. I made a vow to myself as I stared up at him. If he did lose control tonight and kill me before miraculously changing me forever, I vowed I would haunt him. What ever I became in the places where the innocent go before their time, I follow him. I would make his eternity a living hell. I would show no mercy. I would be his ghost, his reminder of the love to whom he gave no choice. There was the heart of it, the very core. An eye for an eye.....

Logically, I would leave this bed a ghost or a monster. My legs ache to run at the thought. I wanted a third choice; a human choice. I tried to think of a way to convince him that my immortality could not stop love, if it was meant to be. I looked back in his face for traces of anticipation for night. "How long did I have to change his mind?" His face wore the look of resolute determination. There would be no reasoning with him.

Desperate for an alternative and a way to shift the balance of power in my favor, I looked around his room again for a way out. The flame of the candle on the mantle flickered wildly. He moved so quickly I couldn't remember where he had been in the room only the second prior. But I found myself on my back again, hands tied to the headboard. "I have preparations" he said. My mind raced in panic as the binds dug into my skin. With the click of the bolt, I was alone.

On the way out, he had extinguished the candles. The room was pitch black. His vision was perfect in any light. He only illuminated a room as a courtesy to me. Now in the darkness, I wondered if he would be so kind when he returned. Would there be a need? I tried to think of one to calm my self. My inner daemons tore away my mental fortitude in the darkness. I criticized myself and my judgment. If I hadn't agreed to meet him last night, maybe I wouldn't be in this mess. Stupid, stupid, stupid. After all, I knew who and what he was. That was why I had left him. The murdering had been too much for me. The only men I knew romantically had been Detroit men; cold as ice unless you were straddling them and always embracing something illegal or immoral. I knew he was doing something outside of normal society. I guessed heroine, but as my curiosity grew so did my anxiety. One night in this very apartment, over hours and hours of talking, he had gently revealed the truth to me.

Of course, at first I didn't believe it. The notion was made of movies and bullshit. Days passed and I discovered he wasn't lying. I stayed up all night wondering what really kept away from our bed. Exhausted, I stayed home from work, sleeping late into the afternoon. Unaware that I was home, he brought home...dinner. A sort of blood soaked vampiric carry out, he had lured a sickly old neighbor into the apartment. I heard voices and pulled on his cotton shirt that he draped over the chair the night before. I tiptoed to the bathroom hoping to brush my teeth and wash my face before meeting him and his guest in the living room. Raised voices made their way over the running water, and I sheepishly peered out of the bathroom door and around the hallway.

A quick flash of something caught my eye, and I walked slowly to the living room, completely forgetting I was half dressed. There in his arms was a middle aged man in dress pants, and what I first thought was a black shirt. The realization came over me that the shirt was actually grey, and I had mistaken a shiny collar for one that was soaked with blood. In the darkness and loneliness, I replayed the scene in my mind. It would have been a quick and clean kill, had I not interrupted. Instead, Andre looked up to see me standing between the hallway and the living room. His guest, whose blood he should have been drinking, pulsed thick and fluid on to the Persian rug, to the beat of the dying man's heart.

Andre stared at me with blood running down his chin. I wanted to run, but seemed unable to move. For a moment I forgot how to breathe. I finally gasped for air and screamed. The man in his arms started to shake and twitch in a convulsion from the shock and the trauma. Andre pulled the man closer into his arms, but continued to stare at me as if he were thinking of some way to explain. I pointed to the victim in his arms as foam, pink, with saliva and blood mixed, spurted from his mouth. He was choking and gasping. Andrea tore his gaze from mine and pulled back his lips. A low growl came from somewhere with in his chest. He thrust his teeth into the man's heart, and with one swift bite the man lay still and lifeless.

I ran that night into the street, half dressed and leaving my belongings. I vowed never to return. For weeks, I had nightmares of one minute looking into the face of my lover, and the next, into the eyes of a monster, blood oozing from between his teeth. I made security walk me to and from my car at work. I rarely went home. Fear consumed my every moment.

Months passed, and my logical mind had started to think I had made the whole thing up. Maybe I dreamed it. Maybe the only thing Andre had been guilty of was slipping a pill into my drink. Maybe i had been working for the paper too long. Detroit news was never ever described as optimistic.

By the time Andre had called me, I conceived myself that I had made the whole thing up and that he deserved a second chance. After all, the alternative was ludicrous.

My mind returned to the present. I was back in the pitch blackness again. Noise from outside the room set my heart pounding. A siren rang in my ears. As the door opened, bright light poured in, and Andre stood with his back to it. He turned gracefully towards me with a tray and sat it beside me. Something smelled good despite all my fear. He began lighting the candles around the room as he hummed to himself. I recognized the tune vaguely. It was something from the symphony we attended last winter.

When he reached to relight the votives at the headboard, he stopped to look at me. With one finger he caressed the slope of my jawbone, down my neck to the soft skin just above my collarbone. I tear fell across my cheek. He untied my hands and quickly vanished to a corner on the other side of the room. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Please eat. I've taken the liberty of ordering all of your favorites."

I rubbed my wrists, and wiped away the tears that I tried to silently hold back. I was too afraid to eat. Andre was suddenly next to the tray. I jumped back and caught my tethered ankle and I winced. "You didn't move like that before," I snapped.

"I would have scared you" he said casually opening the plastic containers and opening large paper bags filled with more food.
"Here's a newsflash" I said, my voice cracking. "It still scares me."
He sighed.
In some strange attempt at apology he pushed the mountains of food on the plate towards me. Every favorite I had told him about in our time as a couple sat regally before me on the large platter, dotted with plastic forks and knives. There was a folded paper container that held steaming sections of crispy duck with plum sauce and scallions. In a large white box with the lid popped open sat curried noodles delicately nestled in the sauce of coconut milk onions and chopped peanuts. A small, white box with the flaps down contained a treasure of Napoleon pastries and coffee cream Eclairs.
If that weren't enough there were two more boxes filled with seared tuna steaks and another with jasmine rice. In a ceramic jar sat a chilled bottle of champagne with two glasses. "Are we celebrating something?" I asked through hard-fought tears. Or is this your version of a death row last meal?"

He grimaced. "The food is my way of letting you taste what, by tomorrow will be somewhat unappealing. The champagne is for later when you wake in my arms to find that I was right to change you and that we are meant to be together forever" he said wistfully.

"You can't make that choice for me. I swear Andre I won't let you." I said it with far more authority than I thought possible.

"This may sound cliché, my love but if I can't have you then no one can".
He quickly left the room.

I heard him rummaging through the dresser drawers in the other room. It was hard to be sure exactly what he was doing. I threw off the woolen blanket that covered my feet in the hopes of untying them before Andre returned. My heart sank. Cuffs on both ankles were metal with no key insight. He returned as quickly as he left with a large box inlaid with mother of pearl. He was lightning again and in an instant I felt absolute relief as my ankles felt the release of the cuffs. In the same instant it felt as if I was carried backwards to find my hands once again tied to the bed. This time the bindings were longer. At least I could touch my face. I assumed this was his way of allowing me to eat although releasing my feet made no sense. As I blinked a few times to clear my head from flying around so quickly, Andre sat on the edge of the bed and watched me.
"Try some food please" he cooed.

I laughed through hysterical tears. "Forgive me if I don't say the same to you" I said darkly. I tugged at the binds at my wrists. The position was uncomfortable and my impatience grew inside me. I yanked harder in feeble attempts to break free. I screamed in frustration. All the while he watched me and said nothing. I finally threw myself onto the pillows in exhaustion. He waited. When he was sure I had recovered, he put his hand on my ankle and gently rubbed it.

"You're right. No one should be forced to live with another for all eternity. Therefore, I have altered my plan tonight. You will get to choose".

I exhaled in relief as tears rolled off the side of my face and onto the pillow. He sat close to me and pulled me gently into a warm embrace. I was mentally going numb. He smelled my hair. With one arm he held me close to him, behind me his other arm was moving something. I stiffened in alarm.

"Listen carefully" he directed. "Behind your left shoulder blade is a knife, given to my great great grandmother from a woman of royalty. It was a royal's life she saved during the revolts from the peasants in her country. In front of you, I sit prepared to offer you immortality for an eternity. And thus the choice is simple. Lay back under your own strength and the knife, I assure you, will pierce your heart. Fall forward into my arms and I will inject the first bite. From that moment, transition is painless. "

He sat forward placing my legs in his lap. Yet giving me complete freedom to fall either way.
"Now" he added, "you have a choice".

Dead or undead. It was some choice. But there wasn't going to be any third option presented. For a logical woman, the choice would have been quick and obvious, immortality would have had her lean forward and hold her slender neck out to her master.
My heart argued with logic. What is life if it's to feast on the blood of others by night and share my bed with the man driven by the possession of his woman by day? My heart couldn't choose an eternity being loved by madness. There I sat in my own personal pendulum.

Andre pored champagne to show his certainty in my decision. He watched me for a moment from the edge of the bed. He knew I was deliberating. It was clear he was too pompous to see himself as anything but a liberator. It was beyond his comprehension to think that the silence of the grave and the allure of eternal sleep could outweigh anything he had to offer me. Wealth and immortality sat at my feet pouring champagne. What of love? I asked myself.

He set the glasses on the end table next to the side of the bed and again balanced my legs on his lap. My hands could reach as far as my own face, and I took the chance to rub the pounding pain that increased behind my eyes. I felt his cool hands atop my fingers. His lips gently pressed the lids of my eyes closed.

"All the pain will stop" he whispered. His voice surprised me as I pulled away slightly and felt the tip of the knife break the top layer of my skin. I jerked forward towards him. He snapped his eyes shut as if fighting the urge to move forward with his initial plan. His resolve was proof that he truly expected me to offer myself to him. I could see his elongated teeth under his lips. He eyes blazed with fire.

Andre trembled beneath me and I whimpered. I was sure he was breaking his promise. His eyes remained on me but he whispered "You will sit here and choose, no matter how long it takes. I will sit here and smell the drops of blood gliding down your back."
Andre closed his eyes as if to grapple with is control, but his mouth curled upwards in a wicked smile. "In the end, you will choose me over any other possible outcome. In the end, we will live together. Forever."

Some new feeling began to stir in me as I sat up. Spine straight there was death at my back and the forever of madness at my lips. Rage swelled up from somewhere in my soul. Thus far it had been a fight between my logical mind and my emotional heart. My soul had something to say in the mess. Hope came to the forefront of my mind, as if the Calvary had a arrived. The three pieces of myself began to form a plan and work together. I listened as they presented their joint venture to me. It was dangerous and risky. It was also so something I hadn't had before. It was a third option. my own option.

Doubt crept in and around my determination but my mind threw it to the floor. Andre, no matter how patient was beginning to get agitated at my indecision. He placed his strong hands on my hips. I felt him tip them ever so slightly towards him. He was stacking the deck in his favor. My heart raced, my mind calculated and my soul held my resolve. I opened my eyes and whispered in the darkness, "Andre".

"Yes" he whispered back.

My body tensed as I felt his hands pull me towards him again. With every second, he was pulling my body into his. Every second, I was farther and farther from the knife behind me, pointed at my heart. "Kiss me" I pleaded.
As I tried to reach for his face, he opened his eyes with a curious stare. I drew in a breath. "Kiss me".

"Why?" He asked suspiciously.

"I want to feel you kiss my mortal lips one more time before we do this."

He smiled and his eyes smoldered. As he leaned into me, our bodies moved oh so slightly towards the knife. His kiss was hard and more forceful than I had planned. My mind raced to recalibrate but there wasn't time. I pulled him towards me and revealed my neck. As he reared his head back and opened his mouth with elongated teeth, I braced myself and focused on the ceiling. "Wait for the third bite" I told myself. His grip on my hips released and he brushed my long hair to expose the rest of my neck below my jaw. His breath was warm as his eyes met mine.

"We'll toast our forever as soon as you wake" reassured me. I twisted my hands around the bindings to shorten the binds. I needed their leverage as his weight shifted towards me again. Wiping away the ends of my hair to make sure nothing got in the way of his approach, he leaned in for the first bite. I watched him open his mouth. His teeth had grown longer like I had seen them with the man in the living room. I waited. The initial pain from two fangs plunging into my neck was soon gone. Pain was replaced by a cool sensation spreading around my face and down my arm. As he described in his explanation, the first bite would be his venom. It exploded into my bloodstream by way of his elongated teeth reaching the main vein in my neck. I was, at first, doubtful if I would be able to hold my resolve.

The venom was effective. "Oh let him have me" I told myself. "I surrender" I thought to myself. My soul fought back with a fierce rage. She screamed for me to fight, to stay present, to remember. I groaned in reluctance, making myself remember the rules or what I could guess of the Ones i had decided upon. The yellow pages and inky text of my ancient copy of Bram stokers Dracula flooded my mind. Three bites. I focused as Andre shifted his weight and mine.

The first bite had been on the right side of my neck, to where the main vein sent the oxygen deprived blood right to my heart. I wondered to myself if he was always this kind to his victims. Had he really thought about how to make my transformation the least painful? The second bite was for him. He pushed my head to the right revealing the left side of my neck, and my jugular pumped harder and harder as fear flowed through my body. It was one thing to have venom injected into me, it was quite another for him to take my blood. I fought hard, my survival instinct kicking in. Andre closed his eyes and I heard him take a deep breath. Nausea rose up to my throat and I swallowed hard. He was breathing in the scent of my blood as it pounded close to the surface. I had once watched him sniff 40 year old single malt scotch in the same way. As I sat in his arms half drugged and bound to his bed, he was savoring the process of murdering me.

He kissed the soft delicate area just below my ear, and then made his way midway to my neck. His lips released and his teeth plunged again. This time, he drew my blood from its stream. There was no cooling sensation. There was just a terrifying sense of dying. A growl erupted deep in his throat. Tears flooded my eyes and ran down my face. He seemed to be reveling in each long draw from my arteries. I felt weak. "Will he actually be able to stop?" I wondered to myself. Lifting his head he stared into my weeping eyes. My own blood dripped from the corners of his mouth; deep red and almost black in the dim light. He must have seen the horror on my face, because he stood up to wipe his face. I took a few seconds to readjust my body weak as it was.

I had the chance at my third option. I had to use the bonds around my hands and pull myself onto the tip of the knife. Gritting my teeth I heaved my body into it, feeling it slice through the skin and muscle, just stopping at the bone below my shoulder blade. Light from the candles flickered off the walls giving the illusion of a fire blazing around the room. Andre climbed back to the bed and placed his body under mine again. The predator took hold of his prey, and I waited for the last carnal signal. The third bite would be the one that would end my life. I gambled he would act the same as he had with the man in the living room.

An eternity passed in the darkness. My heart beat so loud in my ear I was afraid I might not hear it when it came. But the growl from deep his chest did come. It vibrated through his skin and resonated through my own. My heart gave the go-ahead as he lunged towards me with his gaping jaws to drink the last of my mortal blood. I drew him into my arms and the rest was easy. I heard the bone of my ribs break as the knife sliced right through into my pounding heart. I listened as my heart tried to feebly to beat: once, twice, then nothing. Silence. His teeth had just plunged through my skin. I sensed blood rushing away from my face and it made me forget that technically I was dead. I felt drunk as the gamble I took unfolded with my last breath.

I had felt Andre's teeth slice deep into the soft tissue of my neck again. I was completely aware that I was no longer breathing and my heart no longer beating. One second, two seconds, five seconds...he suddenly jerked his head up and looked up at me with absolute panic in his eyes. My mind registered that I shouldn't be able to see him. The rest of my body registered nothing.

As if in some kind of strange dream, I was aware but still at the mercy of my dream. My hands unbound, he ripped us both from the place where he had placed the knife. It was too late. Blood ran down my spine and my breasts as he stared at me incredulously. In the horror of what I had done, I tried to focus on his face. My transition was euphoric and I struggled to maintain my focus. Andre grasped at his throat as if it had been set on fire. My blood gurgled in his throat.
"What have you done?" He choked.
I laughed at the horror in his eyes. Part of me was astonished that I was able to laugh. The numbing sensation was leaving my body. An electricity in the air, a heightened sense of everything around me replaced the numbness. Andre, on the other hand was literally on fire from within his own skin. Writhing and screaming, he ran from the bed. He ran around the room knocking over candles and furniture. Flames spewed out of his mouth. Smoke enveloped him from the inside out. He had drank the blood of a human who had killed plunged a knife into her heart at the very last second. I had forced him to drink the one thing that could kill an immortal vampire; the blood of the dead. Finally, he slammed his body into the full-length bedroom window. Agony hemorrhaged in his screams, as his lifeless body tumbled on to his bedroom floor. His screams soon were reduced to raspy gasps. "You've killed us both you know".

I lay on the bed and rolled on my side to look at his blood smeared face. I looked at him crumpled up on the floor as smoke seeped from every orifice of his body. "I made you drink the blood of the dead" I smiled. "The living are for the taking, but the dead are no good to you. Isn't it how you explained it to me?"

"You killed yourself in order to kill me?"he asked, gasping as the fire was sweeping through his lungs. The flesh under his shirt began to bubble in the heat.

"I killed myself in order for you to save me."
I stood up and stretched my back. I felt unsteady on my feet, but strong enough to reach over my shoulder and pull out the knife. The exertion made me feel faint. I sat down on the edge of the bed. Andre twitched as his hands reached towards me from across the room. He opened his mouth and smoke preceded his last words.

"Madness!" he shouted. A flame erupting from his throat leapt into the air. The remains of him shattered into tiny pieces under the combustion. I sighed.

Reaching for the nightstand I raised a glass of champagne to his smoldering remains. I dipped the end of my nose into the deep glass to hold off the sulfuric smell of rotten eggs and drew a long sip. "Cheers Andre" I toasted. Making my way to the living room, I heard my cell phone vibrating. It was a fantastic reality check, confirmation that I was still alive. Kind of. There was a new voice message.
"Hey sis, just checking on the reunion dinner with psycho Andre".
She stopped short
"Crap! Im not on speaker phone am I?" I walked to the bedroom where the room was still filled with toxic smoke. Standing on the chair, I yanked out the fire detector and ripped out the battery. The smoldering pieces had caught the drapes on fire. all evidence would be consumed. I hit reply on my cell.

"Hey, its me. Don't worry. It was the typical hot guy break up: drinking, bondage, huge argument about where the relationship was going. You'd be proud of me. You might say I have successfully burned that bridge. I'm going on vacation to get over it. Call you when I get back".