Charlotte After Dark

Chapter 30: The Liberty Bells

Abel pushed me out the door as quickly as possible pointing me in the direction of a busier part of the block. His story of what happens to vampires when they starve had me a little concerned, I had to admit, and it seemed to make my hunger return slightly. Nevertheless I began walking down the street like a begrudged child, forced to eat their dinner before having any dessert.

I blended into a group of rowdy college students as they clamored towards a bar, and like the instinct of a wild animal, grabbed the first body I could push down a dark alleyway. This was getting much easier, I noticed, and I felt like I should be shocked at how willing I was to bleed the life force out of someone without even the semblance of a guilty thought.

The boy, no older than nineteen or twenty, was too impaired to seem to notice, as I felt my fangs slowly descend. The hunger grew more easily now that the pronounced sound of his beating heart echoed in my mind like it was beating right beside my ear. It beckoned me to feed, and I could do nothing else but to oblige it.

I sank my fangs into him, the blood flowing more freely as ever, my thirst becoming unwilling to be quenched so easily. I drank, drank more than my fair share, and only stopped when the boy let out a weak groan, distracting me from my meal.

He slumped down into my arms, but still alive, as I lay him down on the ground. I felt through his pocket pants, looking for a wallet. It was a quick tip Audra had introduced to me. The wound on his neck would heal quickly, without even an inkling of injury by the time he was found, but vampires must be careful. It made me wonder how many muggings in this city were actually muggings at all.

"I hate to do this," I told him, pulling him up with my hands on either side of the opening of his jacket, as he looked up at me with a weak glance while I pulled out his wallet from one of his pockets. "But you've been mugged."

He looked at me with a sheepish smile. "Ok, but you're the prettiest mugger I ever met," he responded before his head fell to his side and he passed out.

I walked out of the alleyway as brisk as I could, dropping the wallet behind me as soon as I had gotten as far from the boy as possible. My mind raced, the blood coursing through me, making me feel whole again. But my mind always went back to the thought that I could have killed that boy without a second thought.

But you didn't, I told myself.

I walked as quickly as my body would allow without becoming suspicious, crossing the street and heading into a more deserted part of the block. My mind was far away, drifting to Abel and the story of his wife. Would that happen to me too? Would I one day find myself unable to resist and kill my own family? Would I ever see my mother and sister again? Would I ever see my father? Thoughts whirled in my mind, suffocating my thoughts like a powerful wave as I walked farther and farther away, until I realized that I wasn't quite sure where I was anymore

There was a shuffle in the alleyway beside me as I passed that made my ears prick up in the midst of my mental confusion. There were many reasons for a shuffle in the alleyway in the city, but for some reason my sense of fight-or-flight peaked at the mere sound emitting from this very opening. Quickly, I ducked behind the corner as the loud, booming voice that sounded so familiar chastised someone else.

"Now, look what you've done," the voice said, the frustration and annoyance clear in his voice.

Whomever he was speaking to didn't respond, but there was a loud thud that resonated through the darkness. It sounded like the dropping of a heavy body to the ground. The street around us was empty, all the people seeming to have disappeared in such a short time like they knew what was conspiring only feet from them. I tried to peek around the corner, but the darkness swallowed the figures easily.