The sweet hum of an old punk tune buzzed on the tip of my tongue, the song of the night. I liked the “old” bands – the Misfits, Black Flag, Joy Division, you name it. Their driving rhythms, charged screams, and mournful wails pulsed through my long-dead veins with rapturous pleasure. Sure, they weren not quite as “pretty” sounding as the likes of Tchaikovsky or Mozart, but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Just kidding. I never believed in any of that philosophical bullshit.
Ever been told that looks don't matter? Think again. There's a reason why “pretty” people almost always end up with other pretty people, unless, of course, money is involved, and why some girl that you probably know is currently watching the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show while shoving diet pills down her throat with envy-driven self pity. Not that I have any right to judge whether or not those anorexic, scantily-clad models are hot. I possess a dick, and therefore, I also have a tendency to make bad judgments regarding who or what to do.
Of course, don't believe little ol' me. I've only got about half a milennia's worth of worldly experience.
The problem difference between life and immortality is that life was just a long road that had a tendency to pass through placid forests and, occasionally, destroyed cities, but eternity was a neverending highway, always the same. Just when you think you've gotten somewhere new, you notice that same ol' rock under you feet, the one you could've sworn that you stepped on last century.
Thankfully, State Highway 34 wasn't one that I traversed all too often. I found myself smiling to myself, one of those dopey smiles that had no particular reason behind them. The burning thirst, of course, always lingered in the back of my throat regardless of my feelings, a constant reminder that I was sub-human, more closely related to a starving coyote rather than a bipedal creature capable of thinking, of feeling.
You see, there's a good reason why, statistically, highways were often frequented by murderers. A lonely driver sees a person in the middle of the road, covered head-to-toe in blood. The driver is almost too quick to assume that the person is in need of urgent help (ah, the wonders of human compassion!) and pulls over to the side of the road for the tainted stranger. Click, the door unlocks. Her eyes widen as her slow mind finally registers the fact that the bloodstains are most concentrated around the stranger's fanged mouth.
She lets out a mournful scream into the night, blood splashing over the tar like freshly splattered roadkill.
Now, I know that it sounds like shitty horror film from the 90's, but it's not. It's how I feed. And in case you didn't figure it out yet, I'm a goddamn vampire. The main differences between me and a zombie are that a) I'm capable of individual thought, b) I'm not a mindless killing machine; I'm just a tad sadistic by choice, and c) I have feelings. There, I said it again. The big “f” word that everyone seems to freaking forget. When you exist the way I have managed to for almost five hundred years, everyone (meaning, living witnesses) that knows about you begins to think that you're just an apathetic monster incapable of “f”- ing. Not that the reputation is entirely undeserving, considering.
As I inhaled the stale, dry scent of warm asphalt, heated by the intense light of the sunny hours, I thought of that diner that I'd passed a few nights ago. Instead of asphalt, I had smelled bacon and eggs. It had been one of those late-night breakfast joints, with tacky black-and-white checkered tiles lining the walls and greasy bars. I still remember the jukebox in the corner serenaded customers with Elvis's majestic voice as they helped themselves to late-night artery blockage.
There had been a waitress named Helen Strauss that caught my eye. Real pretty, one of those leggy brunettes with dark blue eyes and bright red lipstick, like she had fresh blood on her lips. The way she'd bat her eyelashes – she definitely belonged in the 1950's, as a pin up girl.
We'd talked for a little while, and she promised me that she would talk some more with me after her shift was over. The problem with me was that I liked getting to know my prey, how the soul would taste, but getting to know them always made it a little harder, like...“eating a close friend” level of difficulty. Helen had been only nineteen years old. She was born in rural Mississippi and embarrassed of her Southern drawl, which I found quite endearing, actually. She wanted to earn enough money to pay for a good college education so that she would eventually be able to live in Paris with her mother, who brought her up ever since her deadbeat dad walked out the door. It was the perfect American Dream, and for that, I hated her. Humans and their infinite hope.
Sometimes, I really hated killing them off; I didn't like to play God. Not that I believed in that sort of thing. God, whether you spelled it with a capital “g” or not, was like every other deity, just another falsity in the stars that humans created to compensate for their otherwise meaningless lives. Hate to sound like a “Debbie Downer,” but I guess you can't blame me for it. When you've lived as long as I have, endless nights begin to melt into each other, and sometimes, you begin to think that this eternal twilight is all that you can look forward to.
YOU ARE READING
The Devil was a Hitchhiker
ParanormalThis is not a teen love story, but rather one of real love.
