The Pain

The pain. It surges through my body, grasping every nerve, every synapse, enveloping my very soul. It is constant, never diminishing, never ceasing. Whether it be the excruciating physical pain of the lust itself or the emotional anguish caused to me by my uncontrollable deeds, no word expressed by pen or by mouth is apposite enough to truly convey the perpetual torment that gnaws at my very being; at that which defines my true self.

The New York subway can be an incredibly eerie place at night. For a city which they say “never sleeps” the subway is abnormally devoid of life in the later hours of darkness. You can stand waiting for a train for an age and not come across a single solitary person, with the possible exception of the occasional vagabond. It creates an unnatural, creepy silence that contains infrequent unidentifiable sounds. It can leave one feeling uneasy and vulnerable.
It was a station such as this at which I was waiting for the train to take me back to my hotel. I glanced at my watch; 00:24. The train was late, typical. In an attempt to alleviate some of my boredom I began pacing up and down the platform whistling to myself. 00:26 still no train. As I turned to pace back the way I came, in the direction the train would eventually arrive, I spotted a young, rather shabby looking man come out of the tunnel and climb onto the platform.
“Idiot,” I thought to myself, “the stupid bastard will get himself killed one of these days. If a train doesn’t hit him then the electric rail will fry the moron. Serve the fucker right for being such a twat.”
I gave him another quick look. His overcoat was torn and dirty, his face scratched and covered in filth and he hadn’t shaved in what must have been days. He was walking towards me, almost leering at me with a look of unadulterated insanity.
“Great, a fucking nutcase tramp. Hope he keeps the fuck away from me. If he tries anything I’ll beat him to death with his own arms.”
I stopped walking. I didn’t want to get any closer to this nutter but at the same time I didn’t want to make it obvious I was trying to avoid him, so I just stood still facing the track rather than start walking in the opposite direction again. The whole time I kept hoping to myself that he would leave me alone and just walk on past, but I could tell he was going to approach me. I had another look. He was still shuffling towards me. Fuck. I tried to avoid eye contact with him but to make it look a bit more natural I pretended to be interested in something on my left side, as if something had caught my attention.
I kept looking to my left for as long as I could without making it appear as though I was deliberately trying not too look at him. I turned my head towards the track again. I tried to listen to his movements to hear if he was still headed in my direction…strange, all I could hear was the uncomfortable silence of the empty station. I risked taking another quick glance. Nothing. The man was gone, vanished. My glance became a stare as my mind tried to make sense of the impracticable information that the eyes were sending it.
“What the fuck?” I uttered under my breath. Where could he have gone? I looked to my left again, then behind me. Still nothing except the grimy, greyish-white tiled walls and the chewing gum plastered concrete floor of the empty station.
A distinct feeling of unease began to fill me. How could he simply disappear like that? Where the hell could he be? I had no idea where he was, he could do anything to me and I wouldn’t see it coming. My mind started to think along more rational lines, probably in order to try and calm itself along with the rest of my body. He was probably just standing against one of the pillars, or maybe he just went back into the tunnel again. Yeah, that was it; he’d simply gone back into the tunnel. He wasn’t that near to me the last time I saw him, he could easily have turned and gone back before the next time I looked. But just to be sure I checked behind each of the pillars. Nothing. So then I stood completely still, just listening. I stayed listening for several minutes. Nothing. Not a single sound. I relaxed. He obviously had just gone back down the tunnel and whatever he was up to I must have put him off. Good.
I started up my off key whistled rendition of the chorus to ‘There May be Trouble Ahead’ once more. I breathed in to repeat it a second time when suddenly something heavy struck me from behind. The force threw me to the ground face down, knocking out several of my teeth. I was having difficulty breathing. Whatever had knocked me over had landed on top of me and was pinning me down. I tried to get up put it was too heavy. A sharp pain ran through my skull as my head was lifted up by the hair, raising my face out of the small pool of blood that had been created by my mouth smashing into the concrete. I could now feel warm, fetid breath laden with the stench of rotten flesh against the back of my neck. I could feel the warmth of his saliva running down my neck as he drooled in ravenous anticipation. As he gave an animal like grunt I felt an agonizing, searing pain burn its way through my neck into my nervous system. I screamed as loud as my compressed lungs would allow. Blood trickled down the side of my neck, forming a pool on the floor in front of me. I could feel the pressure of his jaws clamping down on my neck just below the ear as his teeth sank their way into my flesh. I could feel his tongue licking against my skin and I could feel his mouth sucking at the freshly opened wound. The son of a bitch was drinking my blood straight from the tap and there wasn’t a single fucker around to help.
I knew if I didn’t act quickly I would be dead. Somehow, through sheer desperation I managed to gather enough strength to roll over onto my back so that the attacker was on the ground with me on top of him. The bastard still had his teeth buried in my neck. I tried swinging my right hand up as hard as I could into his face but it had no affect. I then tried to pry myself off of him but he wrapped his arms around my chest, pinning the upper part of my arms to my body. I struggled to get free but he was too strong. I was slowly beginning to feel weaker and weaker, if I didn’t think of something soon I was going to die. Then it hit me like wave enclosing around my brain…a memory…my Swiss Army knife! Of course! My Swiss Army knife! I always kept it on me as they can be an incredibly useful thing to have in the unlikeliest places; it’s amazing how often you’re out and without warning find yourself in a situation requiring a pair of scissors. I reached into my right trouser pocket and, with much fumbling, opened the large blade section of the knife with one hand. This bastard was a strong fucker, so I need to hurt him as much as possible in order to make him let go. I quickly noticed his legs were not under mine but sprawled out in a ‘V’ shape…perfect. I brought out the knife and plunged it as hard as I could into his inner thigh and twisted. I could feel his warm blood pour over my hand as the knife twisted, ripping the flesh and muscle into a nice gaping wound that would not heal itself. I didn’t know much about sore spots and pressure points and all that, but I did know that hurts like hell.
His jaws released their vice like grip as he let out deafening cry of pain, somewhere between a scream and the howling of an animal. Blood spurted from the bite in my neck, drenching my coat and the thigh of my trousers. I again tried desperately to break free but he still had his arms wrapped around me. Then I suddenly remembered something else, something a friend once showed me...a pressure point in the hand about a finger width below the knuckle of the third finger and a little towards the little finger. I jabbed the knife hard into the pressure point on the back of his left hand. He let out another scream and his arms sprang open as he retracted his hand in pain. As soon as he let go I leapt up onto my feet and tried to run, but I was too weak and merely stumbled forwards a few steps before my legs gave way. I got up onto my knees and turned to face my attacker. As I’d suspected it had been the tramp. He was now standing half bent facing me, his mouth stained a deep crimson and blood rushing from the wound in his leg creating a steadily enlarging puddle around his feet. He snarled and licked the blood from around his lips, all the while his eyes penetrated deep into mine and I knew then it was now or never. I gathered all my remaining strength and ran hard towards him. As I got to within feet of the tramp I bent down and threw the weight of my whole body at his. My right shoulder slammed into his abdomen, sending him flying off the platform and onto the tracks as I crashed painfully in a heap onto the solid, bloody concrete floor. I managed to turn to face the tracks. My senses were failing me; everything was a massive blur of colours and I could hear some peculiar sound that I couldn’t quite make out. I could just make out the tramp as the colours of his clothing contrasted with the colours of the track way. He was getting up. I knew then I was going to die, I was just too weak to fight back anymore and this son of a bitch was not going to give up. It seemed nothing was going to injure him enough to stop him. I was screwed, and I was too far gone to care. There was nothing I could do so why dwell on it?
And then my thoughts, for some reason, abruptly wandered from my impeding death and onto that noise. The noise. It was getting louder…in fact it was very loud. It was close. I could make out the tramp’s vague outline; he was up now, slowly walking towards me.
“This is it,” I thought, “shit.”
Without warning a train shot through the station in an explosion of noise and wind. In a matter of seconds it had gone. So had the tramp, I could no longer see the coloured blur of his clothes. I chuckled in relief to myself. The bastard must be in pieces all over the track.
Silence fell once again over the empty station. I rolled from my side onto my back and just lay there. All my strength had been drained, I had nothing left. Even breathing was becoming difficult. Soon an overwhelming sense of euphoria swept through me and engulfed my mind. I let myself sink into this new, heavenly sensation as it swallowed what remained of me and left me with a sense of calm, of peace. So I was going to die anyway, well at least I took that bastard with me. My body became numb, my pain drifted away as the blurs of my vision melted into each other and all I could see was light. But then the light started to fade, the darkness was closing in and I welcomed it as its blackness slowly replaced the brilliant white.
Then nothing. A long, black, silent, empty nothing. Nothing.

I squinted as the bright light burned into my eyes. I put my hand out in front of my face to act as a shield whilst at the same time blinked repeatedly to try and ease my eyes into adjusting to the light. I sat upright on the cold concrete floor and looked around me; I was sitting in a large pool of congealing blood, my clothes were saturated with the red liquid and the stains had started to turn a reddish shade of brown as the blood had started to dry in. There was so much blood it looked as if the station had been the scene of a mass genocide. It couldn’t have been all my blood otherwise I should have been dead, I must have made that bastard bleed like a waterfall. That thought began me thinking about the attacker. It was a pretty fucking strange attack. It was quite common in New York, as it was in most cities, to be mugged or raped or something like that but I’d never heard of anyone having a tramp try to suck them dry of their blood! Plus he had seemed unusually strong. Probably high as a kite on some sort of cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Well I doubt he was strong enough to survive being hit by a train no matter how many chemicals he had pumped into his body.
I got to my feet and stood on the edge of the platform expecting to see little tiny blood soaked chunks of tramp. But instead I saw nothing. Well almost nothing, there was another pool of congealing blood on the tracks where he had been standing and bleeding from the leg but that was all, there was no sign of a body or even parts of one. I thought it was rather odd but I had heard stories of people committing suicide by throwing themselves in front of trains and often the police never found all the bits. I remembered on I had seen on TV and they never found the guy’s head. He was probably scattered further up the track where it was too dark for me to see. Or else he’d been stuck to the front of the train and some poor sod was going to have to scrape him off. That thought rather amused me, the image of him splattered spread-eagled on the front of the train like an oversized bug was morbidly comic. With a macabre grin I turned and went to leave the station.
I had no idea how long I had blacked out for, I looked at my watch but was broken, but judging from the lack of people, security and trains I was guessing it was probably now somewhere in the small hours of the morning. My train home must have arrived when I was lying there unconscious in a pool of blood. Why had nobody helped me or called the police? Even if the train was empty surely the driver had seen me? I know the police can be pretty slow arriving when you cal them out but bloody hell it doesn’t take several hours! Typical of people these days I thought, you can be lying half dead in the middle of the road and nobody will help. In fact people will probably get out of their cars and tell you to get out of the damn road so they can get past.
I walked up the steps, out of the station entrance and into the warm air of the night. I hated summer in this part of the world, even the early morning air was hot, unlike in Britain where it was cold and crisp and felt refreshing to suck deeply into your lungs. Being New York there were still hundreds of people walking the streets, going to and from whatever New Yorkers did during the small hours. Any other city it would have been far quieter, in Europe there would probably have been practically nobody about at all which would have been perfect seeing as I looked as if I had just slaughtered somebody with an axe. Hopefully the dark would help conceal my appearance to some degree. Probably not much as I had car headlights and street lamps to contend with. With any luck the old ‘I see nothing’ part of people’s nature would prevent anyone from paying me too much attention.
I stood and thought about what to do next. All I wanted to do was go home to my hotel room but I knew I really should go to a hospital. I had lost a lot of blood and had been bitten by a tramp and you never know what he could have been carrying. It was a very aggressive, animal like attack….shit I hope he didn’t have rabies. Yes, hospital was where I should go next, then the police…no not the police, I didn’t fancy explaining how I’d thrown some guy into the path of an oncoming train. He was a tramp anyway, nobody would report him missing. There was the problem still of my blood being all over the platform, but I was only here on business and was due back in the UK tomorrow. Sod it, I’d be out of here and they’d never trace it to me. The hospital might try and call the police but I’d disappear quick after they’d treated me, and I had no choice really I needed hospital treat…
Something abruptly interrupted my train of thought. It didn’t make any sense. I felt fine. More than fine. I felt great! I’d just been bitten by some freak and lost what must have been pints of blood and yet I felt as if I could take on the world. What the hell was going on?! Whatever was happening hospital was still the best place to go next. I hailed a taxi and got in, telling the driver to take me to the nearest hospital.
“Jesus pal what happened to you?” the driver inquired, giving me a rather horrified look.
“I was err…mugged.” I didn’t fancy explaining what had really happened.
“Mugged? Looks more like someone tried to stab you to death!”
“You should see the other guy.”
The driver chuckled and turned back facing the windscreen and drove off.

I sat drumming my fingers on the hard bed of the ER department waiting to be seen by the next available doctor. A very clinical looking surgical-green curtain isolated me from the rest of the ER. They were having a busy night but I had been fast tracked through as soon as the first nurse in there saw the state of me and I had explained I’d been attacked by an animal. The fact that I was still standing didn’t seem to strike anyone as odd, maybe they thought the adrenaline was still working and I’d be on the floor anytime soon.
I didn’t have to wait very long before a doctor appeared around the curtain. He was a tall, thin man in his late thirties and the strain of the night’s work was showing on his face. He had obviously been working non-stop for quite sometime as he had the look of a man whose body had died long ago but his soul was stuck in the corpse and couldn’t get free.
“Mr Dillon?” he asked as he approached me.
“Yes.”
“Hi, I’m Doctor Throne. You said you were attacked by an animal, yes?”
“Yeah that’s right.”
“Can you tell me animal?”
“Dunno, it was dark didn’t really see. A dog or something I think.” I didn’t want to be too specific as I was sure he would have seen a variety of animal bites and I knew the marks on my neck wouldn’t look like most animal bites he’d seen.
“Okay. Is that blood err all yours?”
“No I killed the animal.” It had to be the tramps blood too I couldn’t have bled that much and still be talking. But I wasn’t going to mention any other people being involved..
“Okay…where did you say you were bitten?”
“Just here in the neck.” I pointed to where I’d been bitten. The doctor walked towards me to get a closer look, he smelt distinctly of some kind of anti-septic cleaner. He cleaned away the blood and crap from the bite area and put his head forwards to look more closely.
“You did say the animal bit you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Well Mr Dillon you don’t actually appear to have any bites or marks at all. Are you sure you were bitten?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure I’d remember whether or not I’d been bitten.”
“And you are certain this is where you were bitten?”
“Yes!”
The doctor was now beginning to act very suspicious. I sensed he didn’t believe me and was beginning to grow more concerned about where the blood had really come from.
“You wait there Mr Dillon I’ll be back in a minute.”
Doctor Thorne retreated behind the curtain again and I heard his footsteps fast-walk away from me. I had to get out of there he was almost certainly calling the police. I got up from the bed drew the curtain back and scanned the ER. I need a quick way out and the front door was probably blocked by security by now. I couldn’t see a way out, I scanned again. Aha! A fire exit. I didn’t have time to care if anyone saw me so I half ran across the room towards the door. As I pushed the bar down and crashed through the doors an alarm went off. Shit, if no one had really noticed me dash for the door then everyone now sure knew where I was. No time to arse about now. I ran across the hospital car park and found my way onto a main road. Luckily a taxi was heading towards me. I hailed it got in, told the driver to take me to my hotel and got the hell out of there.

Terrible images flashed in front of me in a montage of human pain, suffering and misery. My body was consumed with the burning of fire as I watched innocent men, women and children being brutally murdered and fed upon by unholy beasts who relished in the torment of their victims. The ground was soon awash with a sea of blood, concealing the nauseating site of mutilated corpses but it could not drown the screams of the unfortunate prey and their families as they watched their loved ones be ripped to shreds by the ogres of Hell. There was so much blood, blood everywhere. Blood, blood and more blood. BLOOD!
I sat bolt upright in my hotel bed, sweating and breathing heavily. Fuck, what a nightmare I’d had. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a dream that bad….or vivid for that matter. It seemed as real as real life itself. It was probably just caused by what had happened to me in the subway. I was still a little concerned by the fact that after I regained consciousness in the station I felt better than I had for years and had no marks from the attack. It didn’t make any sense, but I was already starting to just accept it and put it to the back of my mind; I just wanted to get away from this place as quickly as possible and go back home. I looked over at the digital alarm clock sitting on the bedside table. It was 7:12 am. I’d only had about three hours sleep but I didn’t feel tired, and I really didn’t want to go back to sleep anyway not after that dream! Besides I had to catch my plane back to Heathrow at 11. I got up, got washed and dressed, packed, picked up the black bin liner I’d thrown my bloodied clothes in and checked out. I didn’t feel hungry at all, although I was feeling quite thirsty, so I skipped breakfast and just checked out immediately thinking I’d get a drink at the airport. I walked out of the ice-cool air conditioned lobby of my hotel and straight into the stifling summer heat. It felt like all the air had been removed form the Earth and someone was trying to roast the planet in an oven. I hailed a taxi, put my luggage and the bin liner in the boot, got in and said, “JFK airport please, terminal four.”

The images had returned. The blood, the horrible deaths, the screams! It was horrible, I wanted to be sick. I couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to help but I was paralysed. I was stuck to the spot. All I could do was watch the carnage before me as the ocean of blood swept over my feet and began to rise, slowly trying to drown me. Directly in front of me a young girl of about 5 screamed out my name and begged for my help as a drooling fanged demon took chunks out of her with its teeth. I couldn’t bear it. I screamed out of a mixture of horror and despair. I screamed till the only sound audible to me was that of my own cries.
“Sir, sir! Wake up Sir!”
I awoke with a startled jump. An over made-up stewardess was staring me in the face shaking me by the shoulder. I was dripping with sweat and breathing as if I’d just run the marathon in half an hour.
“You were yelling in your sleep, sir. It was disturbing the other passengers.”
Feeling rather awkward I apologised and buckled my seatbelt as the stewardess informed me we were landing soon. I tried to ignore all the people who were staring at me. Bloody hell I hoped this dream wasn’t going to become a regularly occurring one, I’d be needing therapy within days if it did. I tried to relax and regain my composure, I’d be home soon enough. Damn I was thirsty. I’d have to buy myself another drink once we got in at Heathrow.

4:30pm. I’d been home for a few hours now and still I had not managed to quench my inexhaustible thirst. I had been drinking pints of tap water almost constantly since I arrived at my house from the airport but I just seemed to keep getting thirstier and thirstier. I was also beginning to feel unwell. I felt a little sick and I’d had a headache since Heathrow that kept getting worse. I also felt quite hot despite having all the windows open on a distinctly British not-very-warm summers day and I hadn’t turned the heating back on yet. Also my mouth had been hurting since the plane journey, it felt a bit like the pain you get from wisdom teeth but it was at the front of my mouth; it was probably from when my face had collided with the subway station floor. However pain killers had not eased the pain of either my head or my mouth and both continued to get worse, making me feel even sicker. Eventually the sick feeling and the heat got too much and I decided that a good dose of winter air would help. I took my pint glass of water with me as I stood on my doorstep and watched the world go by as the sun stayed hidden by dark, ominous rain clouds. I started to daydream and became lost in my own thoughts. I thought about the events back in New York, trying to make sense of what had happened. Maybe things hadn’t happened exactly how I thought they had, it’s always hard to remember everything in exact detail hours after the event. Anyway, I got home safely without incident and all that was behind me now, no point in dwelling on it.
I took a gulp of water just as a young girl walked past with her mother. For some reason they had caught my attention and I watched as they walked by hand in hand. As they came level to me the girl tripped and fell, landing on her knee. Immediately the crying and wailing started and her mother knelt down to roll up the girl’s trouser leg to check that she hadn’t injured herself.
As the trouser leg was gently raised above the girl’s knee it revealed an exceptionally bad graze. The cuts looked fairly deep and for such a normally minor injury there looked like comparatively there was a lot of blood. I stared deeply as the mother dabbed the blood away from the cuts with her handkerchief. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood. Soon all I could concentrate on was the blood, there was nothing else in this world but the blood it was all that mattered. I stared harder and harder, I could feel my heart pounding against the wall of my chest. Excitement filled my body and then was replaced with feelings of anticipation and of gluttonous pleasure as I imagined the taste of the blood in my mouth and the sensation of it sliding down my throat with its warm, metallic flavour. I wanted that blood. I needed that blood. It was my ambrosia, my elixir. I would make it mine.
Suddenly I snapped back into my senses. I stared into empty space in bewilderment as the girl and her mother walked away. What the fuck just happened?!
I was craving after that blood like a junky would for heroin after going for weeks without a fix. Things started to fall into place. It all made sense now except….except it made no sense at all. It couldn’t be, it was impossible. It was ridiculous, this was real life not a movie or cheap comic strip! But it was the only explanation. I ran indoors and upstairs to the bathroom mirror and opened my mouth wide. The glass dropped from my hand and smashed on the bathroom floor. I had fangs. My upper canines had more than doubled in length and now looked as sharp as daggers. That was why my mouth had been so sore. My gaze drifted from my mouth to my eyes. They were no longer brown, instead they were a deep greyish colour and looked sort of…well…dead. Like there was no life behind them, just emptiness.
I couldn’t believe what had happened to me. But it had to be so. The tramp must have been some sort of vampire and he must have passed the infection on to me when he bit me, and now I too was a vampire. It seemed so preposterous but it must be what happened, it explained so much such as why after being attacked I awoke feeling strong as well as why I had no bite marks. It also explained why I felt so thirsty irrespective of how much I drank. I needed to drink blood. But the idea repulsed me but simultaneously appealed to me. Thinking about consuming fresh blood tantalised me but still the thought of deliberately harming a person to use them as food was disgusting. But it was clear I had to drink blood. I guessed that my headaches and feelings of sickness were being cause by my lack of blood consumption, but I could not hurt someone. I could steal from blood banks but supplies would be limited and that would still be hutting people as that blood was essential for saving lives. Plus I’d probably be caught and arrested and sent to a mental institute. The answer was simple – animals. I could simply feed off of animals. I wouldn’t have to kill anyone. Sorted! But it still seemed unreal, it hadn’t suck in yet that this kind of thing happened in the real world. I began wondering what I was now physically capable of. Apparently I wasn’t evil and I still had a reflection and I had been out in the sunlight, so obviously certain myths were untrue. To be expected really. But the day was moving on and soon it would be dinner time. Time to hunt.

Several days had passed now since my awakening to the fact that I was a vampire. I had spent most of those days experimenting to see what was truth and what was myth about vampires and I had discovered just about everything people traditionally think about vampires seemed to be myth. Garlic did not bother me at all, nor did silver or crosses or sunlight. I could not shape shift nor did I have hypnotic mind control over women or animals. Most disappointing of all though was discovering that I did not have superhuman strength. I did seem to be quite a lot stronger than I did before but it was by no means ‘superhuman’. I would say I was stronger than the average person but I wasn’t able to lift cars over my head like they were cardboard or jump 20 feet into the air or across rooftops or anything like that. But even if I was massively strong it wouldn’t have mattered much because I still felt pain. Although I didn’t feel as much pain as I did before I felt enough to stop me from doing anything stupid.
I had also spent the last few days adjusting to me new diet, or at least trying to. It wasn’t that I hated drinking animal blood, far from it, in fact I loved blood now. To most normal people the idea of sucking the blood from a dying animal seems barbaric and repulsive but this soon changes once blood becomes as necessary to you as water is to regular people. No, it tasted good and I the whole experience was enjoyable. It just wasn’t working. I kept drinking more and more blood but the pain and the thirst kept getting worse. The pain had become crippling now. My entire body ached so much I could hardly move, it had gripped me completely. I had spent days writhing on the floor in absolute agony. It was almost indescribable, I had never felt pain like it in my life before. The closest analogy I can make is if you were to imagine yourself being set on fire and burning but form the inside out and this feeling sears through every inch of your body. There were sharp stabbing pain in my stomach and the muscles in my abdomen kept contracting as if I was vomiting, restricting my breathing. My head now felt as though it was being slowly crushed in a vice whilst someone kept hitting it and jabbing pins in my eyes. I couldn’t even cry out as that was too painful. I wished for death but it showed no signs of coming.

I spent the next four days just roaming the streets, searching for rodents, cats, dogs, any stray or undomesticated animal at all and sucking them completely dry of all their blood. But nothing could quench my unrelenting thirst nor dull the ever increasing, intense pain that filled my body and drilled into centre of my bones.
By now the pain had becoming crippling. I was now so physically weak that even trying to walk drained all my energy, but I still had all my senses so the pain kept getting worse and my suffering never diminished. I could no longer go hunting for animals to feed off and had given up trying. I just lay slumped against a cold, brick wall in a puddle in some dirty, rubbish filled alleyway. I was alone, huh, I’d always thought I would die alone, the only thing keeping me company was the sound of the distant traffic trying to force its way through the busy London streets. As I lay there I closed my eyes and wished that something would end the suffering…anything.
I lost track of time as I sat resting my head back against the wall, awaiting what I thought was the inevitable and listening to the strangely soothing sounds of the traffic. But then I noticed something. The soft roar and beeping of the traffic was no longer the only noise in the alley. I could hear…footsteps…high heels? The sound was getting louder, someone was walking towards me. I didn’t move, I kept listening to the footsteps getting louder until they eventually stop in front of me and were replaced by a rustling and clinking sound. I opened my eyes, still not moving, and I was greeted by a smart looking woman in a dark brown dress suit rummaging through her handbag. I heard her say something to herself about me being a poor, poor fellow as she counted several coins in her hand. She closed her handbag and leant down to drop the money beside me. Suddenly something happened to me. It was like I’d been hit with a cattle prod and the electricity had surged through my body. An awesome feeling of tremendous power built up in me and exploded. I felt invincible, as strong as an army. Almost as if in a trance I reached up and grabbed the woman by the hair and pulled her towards me. I felt as though I was in a dream, or as if someone else was controlling my actions by remote; my motions were automatic, I had no control over them. The woman lost her balance and fell forwards into my lap. I pulled her head up towards me and sunk my teeth into the side of her neck, her hair conveniently kept out of the way tied in a bun. She began trying to frantically fight me off. Her arms flailing wildly, trying to make contact with any part of my body they could and her body jolting about violently, as if she was having some sort of fit.
I kept hold of her head tightly and continued to feed from her, ignoring her attempts to get free. It wasn’t long before the jolting of her body became weaker and more pathetic. They gradually became weaker and weaker until they finally ceased and she stopped fighting all together. I kept on drinking, taking every last drop of blood from her limp, lifeless body. I needed it, I wanted it and I couldn’t let go. But soon her body dried up, there was nothing left. My jaws let go of her neck and I threw her body to one side like an old rag doll. Just as quickly as my trance, dream-like state had overcome me it left again, and it very quickly hit home what I had just done. I looked down at my blood soaked shirt in shocked disbelief, and then at the pale, bluing body of my victim. I’d killed someone. Oh God I had actually killed someone. I’d murdered an innocent woman who was trying to help me. I felt almost sick at the thought of what I’d done. Sure I killed that vampire that attacked me in the subway, but that was different. I was fighting for my life, it was either him or me. But she hadn’t done a damned thing to me, except try to give a tramp some money. I was a cold blooded killer. I’d never felt guilt like this before. What I’d done was horrific, I was an animal. But I hadn’t meant to attack her. I didn’t even want to, it just sort of happened. Even when I was drinking it felt like I was merely observing someone else through their eyes. I stared in horror at the corpse of my victim and then I realised something else….the pain. It had gone. Physically I felt fine. More than fine. I felt strong. Powerful.
And at that moment I knew. I knew I could never control it. I could never control the beast inside, nor the relentless thirst that led it on. It was always win. It would always take over eventually, no matter how hard I tried to resist, how hard I tried to keep it restrained, caged up inside me. There was nothing I could do about it…or was there? Yes, there was something. It had to be done, for the sake of the innocent people of this city.

I got many suspicious looks from people as I power walked through the streets at rush hour, covered in fresh, wet blood. But I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what anyone saw or did about it, even if the called the police, because soon I wouldn’t be around to answer any questions. I’d be gone and the world would be a better, safer place without me.
It wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for; a tall building. It belonged to some company with their logo on the window next to the door, but I didn’t take note of who it was. Again it didn’t matter, who cared as long as it did the job. As soon as I entered the lobby, though the rotating door, I could see the lifts straight ahead of me. Several people stopped and stared at me as I made my way towards the lifts, but nobody approached me, in fact people moved out of my way as I walked towards them, obviously scared I was some sort of psychotic serial killer. That was until I reached the reception desk. There was only one security guard but he hadn’t seen me until now as he was too busy chatting up the receptionist, but when he saw me his brains quickly returned from his dick to where they should be. He stepped in front of me to try and bloke my path.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said in his best tough guy impression.
I glanced over at the receptionist. She was looking distinctly concerned at my presence. She was used to important looking men dressed in neatly pressed business suits walking in and out of here, not blood soaked tramps. Mind you she didn’t look much better. I couldn’t see what the security guard saw in her, she was short, fat and had a weird, pointy noise, almost beak-like. Dressed in black it made her look like a penguin. Maybe she had a great sense of humour.
I directed my gaze back at the guard. He resembled an anorexic 60 year old Phil Silvers with less teeth and acne scars. He was probably trying his luck with penguin lady as he was hard up…their kids would be some interesting looking individuals. I said nothing, I just stared into his eyes. He posed no threat at all, especially as I had just fed and felt indestructible. He started to look uncomfortable and less certain of himself.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir,” he said, his voice discernibly less macho and confident than before.
Again I remained silent. I pushed my way past him and continued toward the lifts. I heard him shout something at me, then I felt his hand grab my left shoulder. The trance like state from the previous attack took over again. Without thinking I spun around, grabbing his right arm with my left as I did so. I twisted his arm so the elbow was pointing upwards and slammed into it with my right palm. He screamed as his arm snapped in two and he saw the bone protruded through the skin. I let go of his arm and kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying backwards over twenty feet. I snapped out of the trance and my sense returned to me. Everyone in the lobby, including the receptionist, was standing still, their eyes fixated on either me or the guard, writhing on the floor swearing about his arm. I was almost as shocked at what I’d done but I didn’t really care. He would live, it could have been far worse and I needed to do what I had to before things did get worse. I turned back and got into the lift. A frightened, suited middle-aged woman ran out and I pressed the button for the top floor…twenty-three floors, should do just fine.

I had to take an emergency staircase from the top floor to get onto the roof, which was a large open, featureless area surrounded by a three-foot wall. There was nothing up there except small, shallow puddles and bird shit. I made my way over to the far edge of the roof and leant over the wall, looking down. Jeez it was a long way down, but then that is what I wanted. I clambered up onto the wall and took one last look down. Damn it was busy down there. The thought occurred to me that there was a chance I might land on someone, but sod it I wanted tog et this over with and if someone didn’t noticed me coming then that was their own fault.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breathe and stepped off. I immediately felt that falling sensation that I’d always hated since a kid and the air rushing at my face and through my hair. It felt like I was speeding on a motorcycle with no helmet on. I risked opening my eyes. The ground was rising towards me at an incredible rate, it wouldn’t be long now before it was over and that thought was calming, making my freefall almost peaceful and seem like it was in slow-motion. The ground was rising up more and more quickly, I wasn’t far from it now. I had no idea if the landing would hurt. It must do, I thought. So at the last moment, just as the ground was merely feet away from me, I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Suddenly the air stopped rushing against the skin on my face. I felt my body slam into the pavement, as if I’d just been hit by a lorry on a motorway. Pain rushed though my body and every nerve ached and tingled. It was like I had a toothache but through my entire body, but it was slowly fading. I was completely winded for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Everything was dark, I must be dead. I lay where I was until I got my breath back and the pain subsided, and then I slowly opened my eyes, not knowing what to expect. At first my vision was a confusing blur of movement and colours, but it gradually began to clear. I was stunned at the sight that greeted me…it was….it was…the street where I’d walked into the bank. What the hell? I slowly picked myself off the ground and looked around me…it was definitely the same street and it looked the same as it did before I jumped. I had drawn quite a crowed. There was a semi-circle of onlookers staring at me in open-mouthed disbelief. This wasn’t the afterlife surely? I rubbed the side of my head where it still throbbed slightly. It was wet. I took my hand away and looked at it; it was red. I was bleeding. This wasn’t the afterlife. That left only one explanation but it didn’t make sense. Nothing could survive a fall like that.
I was brought back to my senses by the sound of sirens. I turned towards the sound as three police cars pulled up several yards away. Of course I knew the receptionist would cal the police but I hadn’t expected them to show up so soon. The police got out of their cars and stayed behind their doors, one with a megaphone shouted for everyone to clear the area, apart from me, I had to stay put. A police van pulled up and out jumped an armed response unit. They seemed to be going a bit overboard, I mean why the armed response team? But I didn’t know what penguin woman had said in her 999 call. She probably told them I had enough guns on me to arm a small militia. But this was perfect, all I had to do was give them a reason to shoot, and they wouldn’t miss. I turned to face the armed police. As I turned I reached into my back pocket and started to pull my hand out again as if I was drawing a gun. I heard a warning to stop but ignored it, continuing to bring out my hand as if there was a gun in it. There was a loud “bang”, followed almost instantly by the feeling of someone punching me in the forehead. The sensation drove through my head but now felt as though someone had hammered a white hot needle through my skull and into my brain. The searing, burning pain drilled a path through my brain until I felt the back of my skull explode. I could feel the warmth of my blood drip down my face as my vision once again began to fade and darken. Everything went silent as I fell onto my back and the darkness began creeping in.
Suddenly there was an explosion of noise. People screaming, shouting, police sirens. The unbearable pain in my head vanished completely and the darkness began to recede like a stage curtain being pulled open. I was staring up at the sky, the brightness making me blink and squint. I wasn’t dead. I’d been shot right in the centre of the forehead and it hadn’t killed me. I couldn’t believe it, this was impossible, ridiculous. How could I not be dead? I despaired…would anything end this?

I have lost count of the number of years between then and now. It’s been a few. All my family are long gone, all the planet’s coal and oil supplies have dried up and there have been three world wars. Cancer has been cured and you can spend a week on Mars for around £5, 000. I won’t go into the details of how I got away from the police, let’s just say it mainly involved pretending to be dead until an opportunity to scarper showed itself. But that’s not important. What is important is that centuries later I’m still here, still stalking the streets during the small hours hunting for human cattle to satisfy my cravings. I tried everything for weeks after the shooting. I’ve been, shot, stabbed, run over, electrocuted, burnt, hung, strangled, drowned, beheaded, disembowelled and frozen. And every time the same thing happened; the wounds just healed and I was fine. Even when I managed to get decapitated all that happened was my head grew back a few minutes later. I have not even found a single other vampire. I am destined to wander this planet alone for eternity, continually struggling with the inner turmoil of my dilemma. I am in constant agony. If I resist the urge to feed on humans I am overcome by the most unbearable, crippling pain that is beyond the imagination of even the sickest sadists. But yet should I wish to stop the pain I must drink human blood, but I cannot live with the guilt and shame of savagely murdering innocent people, it’s as painful to me as the agony from the thirst. Worst of all when the hurt from the thirst reaches its peak I loose control to the animal inside me and I feed off the first person I find, whether I choose to or not. I am constantly haunted by my victims. I see their faces every time I close my eyes. Thousands and thousands of faces of men, women and children staring threateningly, accusingly at me from the darkness. They haunt my dreams and lunge at me whenever I blink. The suffering never diminishes. And nothing will ever bring it to an end. I am cursed to live in pain. Forever.