Undead - Memories

    It was a long time ago - or maybe not that long... Anyways, it seems like forever.

    Since that one girl and before her, and before her... I can't really remember anymore. But I do know I loved them all. Somehow.

    "Matthew! You're home!" Katie cries and runs to hug me.

    To her shock she goes right through me - I'm a real person now... sort of.

    "What's wrong, Matthew?" She asks, trying to touch me but she can't.

    "I think I just had my heart broken... again, I believe. Maybe being a person isn't the right thing for me... I do enjoy being able to talk to anyone I please and to feel flesh for once, but I always ruin it somehow..."

    "Well, what are you?" She asks, looking critically at my over-polished appearance. "You look silly... I remember you had dark hair and blue eyes but this is insane. Tell me what you remember of the last ten years."

    So I start telling this girl ghost about the living, breathing human girls I've met. I don't remember names but I remember vaguely they were all beautiful - in their own ways. She remembers the first one - Cate, she says, lived here.

    "Cate wasn't beautiful, Matt. She broke your heart. I remember clearly you telling me that she told you being something she couldn't be like meant you couldn't be together. Then you left. And, I think she died."

    I blink - dead? Like me?

    "No, no, no, not a... what are you, anyways?"

    "A vampire." I answer, confused. "I remember becoming a one, and drinking blood... but I don't remember her dying."

    "Yeah... maybe it was one of the other girls you brought here. That one you thought would go on - she killed herself over you, you know. Some brain disease you put in her." Katie gives me a wary look - we've been stuck in the same house for as long as I can remember, but never before has she given me such a look. "I think you're very, very sick, too, Matt. Why is your face so pale?"

    "My f-"

    I go over to a mirror - my fangs are throbbing and my chest feels tight. My throat is not dry, though, and I cannot feel any real hunger pains - just the ones I get around---

    "Oh! H-hello... is this... the..." The young man checks a piece of paper, "Daniels mansion? The haunted one?"

    I eye him warily. No wonder I feel the hunger but not the pain. It's a male.

    "I suppose it is... Why?"

    "I just wanted to speak to whoever owns this place to see if I could borrow it for a week... Just a high school party, you know..."

    I feel my throat scorch as a girl who looks like him steps in the house.

    "Ah, you must be... Matthew Daniels, right? I, uh... Jack, can you please excuse us... I got this." She motions with her head for him to leave the house.

    The man, Jack, nods and gives us a quick glance before exiting.

    "How do you know my name and who I am?" I ask suspiciously - she smells wonderful...

    "Well, you look very hungry and sick, you're dead pale and you might pass as a movie star on a good day... I met Sari once at a school dance..." She tilts her head so I can see very faint bite marks. That means in a couple weeks the poison Sari uses on her victims to keep other vampires away will have worn off. Good.

    "Why should I lend you my home...?" I purr, touching her neck. Her pulse is powerful - and freezing cold. I yank my hand away.

    "Maybe if you stop trying to convince me to let you have my blood without saying a word, I can explain why Sari has kept me for over fifteen years. Then we can talk about what my brother wants."

    I lean my head to see past her. Her brother is talking to some locals about this place.

    "Alright. Sari always has had good taste. But you're a little old for my tastes..."

    "Sure I am." She pulls out her purse and tosses me a blood pack, like the ones the hospitals use. "That should make you a little less scary."

    She waits to speak until I drink it - it's cold and therefore gross. I never drink anything but the blood directly from a healthy, beautiful girl... or an occasional woman. But people find that weird when I date someone "older" then me.

    "When Sari met me, I was ten. It was my first dance with boys, and I was having fun. She pulled me aside and told me she didn't usually favor girls, but she liked me. I didn't know until she offered to take me to her place a month later what she was. She told me, but I simply thought it was cool. Then, she started acting funny. I noticed when she fed on others, even girls my age, she looked prettier, sometimes enough for people to stop right in their tracks to watch her pass. But with me...

    "Well, she glowed, she was even more charming, funny, sweet and cunning. I knew it was only because of me, since she grew cranky when I had to go somewhere else. I began turning her down. She became furious with me when I started going out with others, especially boys. When she struck me, I saw something. And then she was across the room, a huge dent in her wall." She looks at me expectantly.

    "She kept you because you caught her off guard once?" I ask, laughing scornfully.

    "No... And I got her quite a lot. But she still wants to keep me to herself because I'm a special breed of human. You know, like a superhero?"

    I burst out laughing again. "You? Magic? Sari's finally lost her"-

    I feel something try to throw me across the room - but I dart at her, my hands locked around her throat.

    "Don't you ever try that again. I have dealt with magic-users before. But you aren't even half, so don't waste either of our time trying to convince me you can beat me up with your pathetic bloodline." I warn, glaring at her.

    "Can you... please... let me... go...?" She wheezes, fighting my hands.

    "I think not. A few more seconds."

    She touches my face and I see images of Sari's shocked face, then the greediness of realization.

    I snort, but before I can retort, I see Cate, almost feel and smell her again. Mickey is more pleasurable to my senses, but it's very painful to have someone, a human no less, force memories of her into my mind.

    I sniffle hard and squeeze her throat hard before tossing her away roughly. "Get out of my house," I rasp and turn away, ready to break down, even destroy my house if it'll help.

    She lightly touches my arm but I knock her away angrily, feeling my fangs lengthen past their normal length - killing fangs, not feeding.

    "Leave, before you leave this world," I snarl in a demonic voice I don't control, that only comes when I feel threatened. Or hurt...

    She touches her arm, calmly, and her whole hand comes away red. She still doesn't react, just looks at me with wide gray eyes.

    I curse under my breath. When I notice their eyes it means I'm growing fond of the idea of keeping them for awhile - how I get hurt, I'm sure.

    She bites her lip, but quickly licks away the blood on it - she must be close to becoming Sari's halfling.