Turned

Turned

I gasped as I bolted upright from a deep sleep. A cool damp sweat drenched my naked body. My skull burned like my brain had been replaced with fire. I could see from the window of my Newbury street apartment, that it was nighttime. Colors, normally unseen in the dark, glowed in an unfamiliar luminous as if they gave off their own light. When I looked down, I realized I was sitting in a warm, sticky pool of red. Once white, the sheets were now crimson. Blood. Letting out a shrill yelp of shock, I scrambled out of the bed. In a panic, I probed my head searching for the source of the blood; there were no deep cuts or gouges. What the fuck? There was so much blood. Someone had to be dead.



I searched the room for my cell phone, and eventually found it in the pocket of the jeans I had worn the night before. I dialed 911, but stopped before hitting the call key. What would I tell them? I had no memory of anything that would explain this. I stood in my apartment, covered in blood, with no explanation. The police would be crazy not to lock me up. I snapped the phone shut.

A sick feeling came over me. I ran to the bathroom and hung my head over the toilet, spewing vomit for what seemed like an hour. Shaking, I sagged to the floor and curled around the base of the toilet, too weak to stand. My eyelids heavy, I drifted off.

I awoke on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor, no longer feeling weak, tired, or sick. The textured pattern of the tiles on the wall became three-dimensional; I could hear the faint moans of the couple five floors below having sex; and I could smell the irony scent of the blood that stained my sheets in the next room almost to the point where I could taste it. I wondered how long I was out on the bathroom floor. From the skylight I could see that it was still night.

Using the sink for support, I picked myself up glanced in the mirror at my body caked with blood and specked with vomit, my unshaven face, and my sickly white complexion. I looked as if I hadn’t seen the sun in years; a pale imitation of a man looked back at me. I noticed two small scabs on my neck a couple inches below my left ear. The wounds looked old. The scabs were hard and dry, ready to fall off at any moment. All of this was too much, I needed to clean up and figure out my next move.

Turning the shower knob, I stepped under the steaming stream of water. Every drop worked like a tiny massage relieving my stress. As I washed, the blood ran down my body and swirling down the drain. The vortex mesmerized me. Id never noticed the simplistic beauty of blood and the life force it represents.

After I got out of the shower I started thinking. Whose blood soaked my bed? Could the person still be alive? Did I kill someone? Why couldn’t I remember anything? What led to all of this? One question at a time, but where to start?

Friday night I left work and stopped at a new club downtown, the Black Rose, to meet a friend for a drink, but he never showed up, so I had a drink and checked out the bar. The dark club was lit by candlelight. The inhabitants of the bar, dressed in trendy gothic ensembles, bumped along with the rhythm of the loud techno while they drank and socialized. I stood against the wall drinking a beer, passing the time by watching a woman at the bar. Her long black hair was streaked with a white stripe like a skunk. Her red lip stick stood out against her dark clothes and porcelain skin. Her tight clothes showed off the soft curves of her figure, leaving enough to the imagination to remain mysterious and desirable, more sexy than beautiful.

She turned abruptly and met my gaze. We stared at each other for a moment, not turning or blinking. I walked to the bar and offered to buy her a drink. After that it’s all foggy. I know we talked, but not what we talked about. Had I gotten drunk or lucky? I didn’t know.

I turned back to the sink and wiped the fog off the mirror with a facecloth. Something was different.

I pulled on my jeans from a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. Something in the pile caught my eye, a black pair of woman’s underwear. Did they belong to the woman from the club? Where was she now? Did I kill her? The woman was the key to the unanswered questions. I would have to go back to the bar to try and remember anything.

I finished dressing, stripped the bed, and put the bloody sheets in a trash bag. I picked up my phone to call a cab to the Black Rose and noticed it was now Sunday. I had slept for almost two days. I dialed the taxi, he showed up in ten minutes, and within twenty I was back at the Black Rose.

The club was open and busier than I would expect on a Sunday night. I got in with no problem and walked through the main dance floor to the lounge area in the back. As I entered the room, the woman from the other night turned and met my gaze, as if she had been expecting me. Once again, I approached and offered to buy her a drink.

Her eyes held mine. Her face gave away none of her thought, but as if she could read mine she said, “Let’s go somewhere private, I’m sure you have questions.” Glad to see she was alive, I followed her outside without a word. She drove an all black Mustang. We got in and I asked her name. “Isis,” she said flatly as she started the car. It roared to life and aggressively lurched forward. Isis raced thruog the streets, narrowly missing pedestrians and cars, yet in full control of the stampeding mustang. We arrived at my place within minutes, and headed upstairs to my apartment.

She sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. “So, what’s new,” she said casually with an amused smirk that curled the corners of her lips. Who the hell was this smug little bitch? Who was she to toy with me like this?

“What’s up? You tell me what’s up; you seem to know more than I do. What happened Friday night, and why can’t I remember anything?” I yelled with an unconvincing tremble in my voice. Unfazed by my attempt at anger, she pressed a cigarette between her lips. “You can’t smoke in hear,” I told her. She lit the cigarette. Her lips parted slightly as she blew smoke. In an instant, razor sharp fangs grew from her mouth. She leaped across the room, knocked me over, pinned me to the ground, and covered my mouth before I could voice any kind of response.

With her fangs at my neck, she whispers, “If you don’t scream, I will uncover your mouth.” Terrified, I nodded. Her fangs withdrew back into her gums. She kissed my neck, uncovered my mouth and spoke softly into my ear, “I’m a vampire, and I choose you to become one of us. The Black Rose is a vampire bar. It was apparent you had no idea where you were, but most people don’t. Vampires use it as a place to feed. As soon as you held my eye contact I gained control of your memory.I seduced you, brought you back here, bit you, and left you to turn and now hear we are. There is a war going on between us and the vampire hunters. We are losing numbers quickly so the Vampire Council has summoned vampires in the area to turn fifty humans. You my friend were one of the lucky ones,” she explained.“Does that answer your stupid fucking questions?” she asked.

Scared, violated, and not ready to believe in vampires, let alone that I was now one of them, I sat silently still pinned under her. As the realization sunk in and the puzzle pieces began to form a picture, my blood boiled with rage. How could this happen to me? I grabbed her, and with surprising ease tossed her off of me. She landing across the room on her feet like a cat. “You can fight me, but like it or not, you’re one of us now. I understand what a shock this must be but when you are ready to accept it and learn the rules you will know where to find me.”

The desire to kill her was instinctual. Fangs tore threw my gums. I lurched at her to rip out her throat but she had disappeared before I could reach her. I sank to the floor. Alone in my apartment, filled with rage, I grappled with my new truth. New unanswered questions arose. At least one thing was certain; I hadn’t killed anyone... yet.