Maybe you know this already: the human body contains about five and a half litres of blood. That might not sound like a lot, and I suppose it isn’t. In a bathtub, it wouldn’t look too impressive. But when it’s all over the place, five and half litres of blood will blow your eyelids clean off. That much paint could cover half a football field. You can picture this, I’m sure. Half a football field painted red. Now change the image a bit. Imagine you’re looking over a rocky clearing with a sandy shore on one side and a forest on the other. The bark of the pine and oak trees is covered. Blood is dripping from the leaves and needles. It’s soaked into the moss and soil. It’s pooling in tiny cracks in the rock. It’s all over the porch steps.
And it was all over Luna.
I didn’t know what to do. There was so much blood, you couldn’t tell where it had come from. At least it hadn’t come from Luna. She would have been empty. It must have come from somewhere else.
Luna started running down the front steps. I moved to follow, but as soon as I reached the bottom of the porch I saw the body. It had been stuffed under the stairs. Blood was everywhere. The sight of it and the smell stopped me dead. I’d never fed on human blood, but for eight years it was what my body had been craving, every day, day after day. It brought on a hunger so intense it was a kind of pain. Sharp and nasty. Maybe I’d have felt differently if I’d had a transfusion at the ward just before my escape, or if I’d just finished a brain cocktail or killed another deer, but that’s not the way it was.
And so I did exactly what I shouldn’t have done. I slipped under the shadow of the stairs to feed.
I recognized the body. It belonged to one of the twins. The blond. His brown eyes were glazed over in death. Blood ran in red ribbons down his neck, which I could see had been snapped and torn open. The flesh there was marked by dark bruises, and all of the vessels were exposed. The person who did this must have been a powerhouse.
I should have felt sorry for the twin, but all I could think about was the blood. How wasteful it was. And how angry it made me to see that it had been sprayed everywhere when I wanted it all for myself. So without a second thought, I drank every drop that was left in his body.
Blood for a vampire is life. Another day. Another week. Another month. Another year. You can’t imagine how this felt, to drink life. I was undead, and then for a moment I was more than alive. Let’s leave it at that. And that was when the police arrived.
Most vampires fear bright lights, which makes perfect sense. Nothing is more dangerous to us than the sun. So when that police boat appeared out of nowhere and turned its lights on me, I felt as if I were staring death straight in the face.
I am told that when people panic they have one of two responses: fight or flight. They either dig in like a wolverine and take on all comers, or they bolt like a gutless chicken. I discovered a third response that night, which is to stand still like a total idiot and not move a muscle.
Someone started shouting through a megaphone. He said they were the police and not to move. Well, I don’t think they could have moved me with a battering ram. Other voices joined in. Some were coming from the porch behind me. Others were coming from the boat. I couldn’t pay attention to what they were saying. I was too busy trying to hide my face from the light, so I remember only fragments. Things like “What’s going on here?” and “Good God . . .” and “It’s him” and “We’re too late” and “Get them back inside.”
Suddenly men were all around me with guns and lights and loud voices. Only when I felt someone grab me did I struggle. Then my whole body went stiff with pain. I found out later that they had used a Taser on me, like my father used when hunting vampires. It’s a weapon that delivers a very powerful electric shock. Had I been Count Dracula or the Baron Vrolok, or even that vampire from the cereal box, I might have put up a better fight, but I had been raised on animal blood. “Bovine crap,” as Mr. Entwistle would have said. Not the real stuff. It is human blood that takes a vampire to the next level. I had tasted it for the first time just moments before, and it might have done wonders for me, but I couldn’t overcome so many full-grown men. Not when they had that Taser. Every time I moved, I felt the burn of electricity shoot through my body, paralyzing me with pain.
And so they chained my arms and ankles and stowed me away.
The boat ride was terrifying. There were so many lights trained on me, I don’t think I could have blinked without the whole world seeing. All the time I heard two officers talking. One kept insisting that they “do it now,” another that they “wait.” I think they meant to kill me.
The same two officers lifted me out of the boat and onto the dock when we arrived at the marina. Each had a hold of one arm. They shocked me before we got out onto the wharf and again as soon as my feet touched the wooden planks. I was so scared, I think if they’d let go of me I might have turned into a puddle of goo and dribbled back into the water. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. There was only pain. Pain and bright lights, so I couldn’t even see where they were taking me. I remember staring down at the gravel parking lot and at the feet of the police officers. It was easier than looking up at the lights. The stones made crunching noises under their shiny black shoes. And I remember when they stopped. A man was standing in front of us. He was leaning on a cane and had a long, pink scar under one eye. It was Everett Johansson.
When he saw me he grunted. There were bright headlights behind him so I couldn’t see the expression on his face.
“Has he fed?” he asked.
One of the officers must have nodded, because I didn’t hear them answer.
“Well, don’t take any chances with him,” Johansson continued. “If he moves, shock him.”
Then he stepped to the side and opened the back door of a cruiser. I was pushed in, then the door was closed and locked. I was feeling very sick, as if someone had been kicking my stomach.
“What are you going to do?” I rasped. The men were still outside the car talking to Johansson, so I didn’t get an answer. Then Johansson walked off towards the water and the other two climbed in the front seat of the car. I heard the engine turn over. Then we lurched forward to the sound of tires on gravel.
“Where are my friends?” I asked.
I was worried they were still back there with whoever had killed that boy. My instincts told me it was Vrolok. What chance would they have against him? A creature from a nightmare . . .
The two officers looked at each other. I got my answer when one of them reached back with the Taser. It looked like an electric shaver. Purple sparks crackled from the end of it. Pain followed, and for a few minutes I couldn’t talk, so I just sat back against the seat.
As my strength returned, I tried to break my cuffs. It was no use. I was too weak. At least in the arms. But my legs were strong enough to snap the chain that bound my ankles. So I did. Then I turned sideways to try to kick the back door off its hinges, but the officer with the Taser reached back and jolted me again. He said something to me, but I couldn’t make it out.
I realized a second later that he wasn’t talking to me at all. He was swearing. Two bright lights were coming up behind us. They lit up the interior of the car so that everything looked white. The seat covers, the dashboard, the rear-view mirror. Everything. The officer who was driving stepped on the gas, but it didn’t matter. Something slammed into the side of the car just behind the back wheel. My head nearly snapped from my neck as the back of the car skidded sideways towards the ditch. I could hear the tires screech. Then the car started to roll. I’ve never been on a roller coaster, but it couldn’t possibly be as frightening. Or as fast. A car flips so quickly that you barely have time to panic.
In an instant, broken glass was everywhere. The top of the car smashed down against my head. My arms, which were still handcuffed behind my back, were practically wrenched from their sockets. Had I not been so strong, I think they would have ripped clean off. Fortunately we landed upright. I could feel my cheek swelling under my right eye. I think it had slammed into the door. And I must have had a cut on the top of my head, because blood was dripping down past my left ear. A loud noise was coming from the front of the car. It was the horn, which must have been broken, because it didn’t stop. The driver’s forehead was pressed against an airbag. I was guessing that he was unconscious. The officer beside him looked like he was out of it, too. His head kept shaking back and forth as though he was going to vomit.
Then I heard the sound of feet crunching on gravel. It stopped, and the door beside me began to groan. Metal was being bent. An instant later the door opened.
And there he was. My Uncle Max. He had come to save me.