I followed the driveway from the cottage to the main road. Between domes of grey and pink granite, tall evergreens grew in clumps. Most of them were cedar, I think, and pine. Where it was rocky there were clearings, and it was in one of these that I picked up the scent of something wild. Fur, I guess. Then I saw the deer. A buck with arm-sized antlers.
I approached from downwind so it didn’t hear me until I was close. It bolted just as I sprang. I was fast, but the buck was faster. He outdistanced me in a few seconds. Still, I wasn’t worried. Way back before bows and arrows and farming and the wheel, our earliest ancestors practised exhaustion hunting. I’d seen it on a nature program once, and it worked like this. Your great-great-great-whatever-grandfather and his buddies followed an animal for six or eight hours until it ran out of energy. Then they stabbed it with sharp sticks. It apparently worked because running on two legs is more efficient than running on four legs, so even though the animal was faster over short distances, in a long race it eventually ran out of juice and collapsed. Exhaustion hunting. Not a lot of fun. I think it was the main reason farms were invented.
Well, I didn’t have six to eight hours. And I didn’t have my friends with me, or a sharp stick. What I had instead was a running speed much, much higher than any ordinary human’s. I was hoping this would matter, or I was going to have to consider putting rodents back on the menu.
The buck ran deeper into the woods. I followed. I’d never run in the forest at night. I wasn’t sure I could manage it. My arm was better, fortunately. I hadn’t really been paying attention to it, so I guess it had sort of fixed itself. That was a bonus. But the ground wasn’t even. It kept throwing off my stride. There were roots and rocks lying all over the place just waiting to trip me up. To avoid these I tried bounding from one open patch to another. It seemed to be working, until I hit a clump of moss. It swallowed my foot and I nearly pitched head over heels. There was a lesson in that. Avoid the moss. I learned to spot it quickly.
Fortunately, I could see well. And my eyes could focus in a snap. I had to trust them. Look down when I needed to, but keep mapping out the best way ahead.
Rocks and roots. I’d been jumping over them. Time to fix that. It was slowing me down. I started using them as launch pads so I could cover greater distances between strides. I took powerful steps. Long and fast and smooth. I would have made Mr. Entwistle proud. It was awesome. I was where I belonged. In the dark. In the wild. And my powers of survival were being tested.
I pushed the buck over trails that wound through the forest. It was faster than I was. Over a few hundred feet it wasn’t a close race, but it couldn’t keep the same pace after a few miles. Gradually it slowed down. Then it stumbled.
My body went a bit haywire. It started in my mouth. I felt a sharp pain in my upper gums. Something moved against my front teeth. The taste of blood, my blood, was in my mouth. The same thing had happened during my first disastrous meal back in Charlie’s shed, so when I ran my tongue over the area, I knew exactly what I’d find—two long, sharp teeth that seconds before had been the short version you would see in a normal person’s mouth. These were my canines, the vampire’s teeth, the ones we use for feeding. They had descended. And with them came a feeling that I could only think of as the killing urge. My father had mentioned it in his entry about the werewolf. It was a lust for blood so strong that once it took hold, there was no turning back.
My eyes locked on the buck’s neck. An instant later, it was dying with my fangs in its throat.
I have heard people say that the best part of the hunt is not the kill but the thrill of the chase. Well, I’d bet my last pair of running shoes that none of them ever killed anything larger than a housefly. Sure, the chase was fun, exercise and all that, good for the heart. But the meal at the end was tops. It frightened me, actually, how intense it felt to surrender to that killing urge and feed.
As the warm blood coursed down my throat, it was as if my senses were waking up. Everything was magnified. Nothing moved around me that I didn’t see in the clearest detail. Bats, moths, rustling pine needles. And I heard every sound. The buck’s failing heart. My own heart pounding in my chest. Heavy breathing. The drone of mosquito wings. I could pinpoint every one of them. And the smells. Evergreen boughs. Musk. Fur. Damp leaves and old needles. The soil. I could even smell the lichen and the granite rock around us.
The sense of being watched was very strong—as if all the creatures around me in the forest were aware of what I had done and were afraid.
I fed like a predator. And I had no remorse. None.
I look back at this moment with a mixture of sadness and something else. Understanding, maybe. Or acceptance. I’m a vampire. Sometimes I wish I could live on tofu and alfalfa sprouts, but I can’t. And I understand that I’m not consistent. I don’t always act the same way. I’m a nice guy as often as I can be. As my Uncle Maximilian said, I have a choice. And I choose to be good. Until I get hungry. Then I’m something that is less than good. Then I’m a killer.