An Ember Beneath My Skin

Blood

While the thought of tasting blood in many ways excited me, my recollections of feeding in the past motivated me to be cautious. In 1942, I was growing older, but a second war was in motion. I remembered the first one, how by the end of it I was a different creature. In those early years of my disease, I had fed on rumrunners, on suicidal individuals during the great depression. Everybody was just trying to survive. When the war came, I thought I could feed as much as I want on the battlefields. And I did.

At first, it was exhilarating. Tearing open the enemy, feasting on hot blood, feeling warm in those dangerous moments. But by the end of the war, I was sick. I broke myself. In a fateful bloodlust, I destroyed the brothers in my unit that watched my back for months. Just as in any story of addiction, I did something terrible and it was only then that I woke up to it. My numbness to death grew on me, and that day I saw the tumor and cut it out. 

Afterwards, my behavior changed. I took great pains not to kill, but more importantly, I was very careful not to spread my disease. No bites, no high-risk behavior. I began feeding on animals, stealing syringes and using them to take blood, and sneaking into blood banks.

Sneaking into hospitals to steal blood was one of two primary sources I used at that time. Between the two, this was a means I could employ more frequently than the other. The trouble was that the blood I took from hospitals did not taste as fresh. Blood banks could store blood for up to two months before it had to be disposed of as biohazard waste and incinerated. Once it was disposed of, their means of tracking the inventory was much less precise, which meant easy pickings for me. Most hospitals were efficient about how they used their blood and typically there wasn't much to steal. But all I really needed was a pint, which was seldom really noticeable or worth reporting. It was tempting to steal fresh, unexpired blood. But if I started doing that, it wouldn't be long until an investigator connected the dots and tracked me across a string of stolen blood cases.

The key to getting in each time was patience. I preferred to infiltrate the building itself at night because my head was clearer and it was easier to remain unseen while entering from outside. Once I was inside, stalking dark hallways could take hours before I found the room I was looking for. In dark corners, I could blend with the shadows. Sometimes a nurse looked directly at me, shook her head and shivered, and walked off a little faster than she was going before. But in all my time, I was never caught.

Actually accessing the room of old blood required a card key usually carried by a head phlebotomist. Someone came along early in the morning in most cases. It was just a matter of waiting. That morning, it was opened by an older man with thick glasses and a balding head. He shuffled in, unaware of me as he was still waking up that morning. He entered, and I waited. It only took him a few minutes to walk the room, place whatever blood had just expired, or mark down how much was due to go out. The process was usually similar but a little different depending on where I went. My eyes were wide, my pupils enlarged watchfully. I've found that often when I am watching from the dark, my pupils exceed the usual diameter of human pupils, and the red flecks in my otherwise brown eyes meld into a solid inner ring. Once the phlebotomist was finished, he opened the door to leave. As he turned to walk down the hall, I crawled up to stop the door from closing just long enough to sneak in. 

The red biohazard containers were all lined up, each with a black cap screwed shut. But I didn't need to open them to find what I wanted. Through the thin plastic walls, I could smell each blood type. I was particularly fond of B-, which was exceptionally rare. But most of them were As and ABs. Taking a waft of one on the end, I found a suitable pint of AB. I removed it from the biohazard container, my hands growing shaky as I handled this packet of nourishment with great care. After it was safely secured in my bag, I left the room as swiftly as I entered.

From here, I had to be particularly careful. My meal was in my possession, and the temptation to eat it in a dark corner of the hospital was dangerously compelling. But I preferred to feed in the privacy of a hotel room, with my own manners and control. My dark and ravenous urges felt like living things crawling under the skin of my forearms, but it was important to me to maintain any degree of civilized behavior I could. 

Once I escaped from the hospital, I walked to the nearest hotel. It looked locally owned, a little bit dated, and run down. It wasn't in poor condition, but I could tell the owner didn't have a particularly extravagant renovation budget. I didn't care, as long as I had privacy. 

"A room," I said, "Any room." I felt less calm than in the cafe.

"Of course," the lady behind the counter looked up at me and replied. Middle-aged. A little out of shape. Having a rough morning it looked like. In spite of the look in her eyes, she smiled and spoke with a sweet and polite voice. "That's eighty for the night."

"Eighty," I repeated after her and dropped the amount in cash on the counter.

"ID, too, honey," she sighed and took the cash.

"Right, right," I fumbled around for the fake ID I'd been carrying around. It didn't have Armand printed on it, but one of my other aliases, Cameron Vaughn. She inspected it, compared me to it, typed the name down on her computer, and handed it back.

"Alright, room 240, on the second floor," she told me and handed me the key card.

"Thank you," I smiled and turned away. 

The room was small, with just a bed, a table, and a bathroom. The complimentary coffee was in the bathroom next to the compact hair dryer. It was a standard budget hotel equipment. The TV was just a 32" LED, the queen mattress was wrapped in white and brown bedding, the phone was probably installed back in the early 80s. It was about what I expected. 

Before anything, I put the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and locked it. The first rays of dawn were peeking through the curtains, so I closed them. They were thick enough to block it all out, at least. Almost involuntarily, my breath started to grow short. I pulled the blood pack out and tossed the bag onto the bed. There was a paper cup sealed in a loose plastic bag with the complimentary coffee. After setting the blood on the bathroom counter, I unwrapped the cup and set it down. My whole body was shivering with anticipation. There was a fit of obsessive dizziness seeping into my mind. As calmly as I was able, I bit the corner of the bag and poured the old blood into the cup. It took a great deal of focus not to spill any as my hands shook more than the rest of me. Glancing up at the bathroom mirror, I saw my blurry figure fading in and out. Normally I could control whether my reflection was visible. But the only thought in my mind at the moment, on repeat, over and over, was blood. Blood, blood, blood. Like a pulse growing louder and louder in my head. 

"Just a sip," I told myself. "Just one."

Despite the word I said, two sips were the smallest amount I could manage. It was cold, stale, and dark. But the flavor was alright. And going down, it burned. It was a hot fire all the way down my esophagus that turned to a warm glow in my stomach. The warmth seeped into every crevice of my being. The sensation was euphoric and calming but filled me with renewed focus and energy. Hunched over the sink, I glanced at the cup. I put maybe a third of the pint in it, and there was still some left of that portion. But I had a process.

As a creature doomed to live in an eternally cold world, I was not able to take warm showers. My hygiene was one of the few things I had left, but I wasn't particularly fond of showers normally. The world was cold enough without adding water to the mix. But with blood freshly in my system, somehow, it wasn't quite as bad. I turned on the water, then took another sip, then cleaned up the mess I had become.