Derriq

Derriq

It's that feeling, again. That bed of roses, jumping out of a burning building feeling. There's nothing I can do about it, even though caving to it won't save me.

I've gotta move. This old parking deck isn't doing it for me. Almost no one parks here, so I guess I empathize with it; it only kind of does its job. It's just here, waiting, in case that night comes when something important happens nearby. Like one of those "almost funny" greeting cards, it must have seemed like a good idea at first, to someone.

I'm a genetic joke, or something like it, and I'm having a hard time on these stairs, trying to figure out what the punchline was supposed to be. I'm following this insane instinct to the top level, wishing it would lead me right off the railing, but I know that's not where I'm going, at least, not if I don't slip. One day I will, I hope. Save me the trouble of another tired hunt. God, I'm so tired.

I wonder if it's possible to identify as Vampire. Like, on official documents or surveys where you have to decide which imaginary social group you belong to and mark the appropriate box. Where you'd normally write down "male" or "straight" or "married," could I just write, "vampire"? I mean, people "identify" as a lot of things, so why not? I drink blood, I don't like to talk, I run around at night a lot and I think I might be unusually attractive. It seems like it should explain everything, and I wouldn't have to talk anymore. Fuck, that's what I'll tell the next person who asks. Except, they won't ask, because no one ever asks, and I never sign official documents or participate in surveys.

Making my legs move felt like I was peeling my back and arms away from the cement wall. Perching on the railing up here is so much easier than it should be, even though my bones feel like iron. It doesn't hurt, I just don't want to put the effort into moving my arms.

But it's really not a big deal to leap from this building to the top of the next. They're close together, and I have some kind of metal springs in my legs. Metaphorically speaking, I mean, I don't really have springs in my legs. I have some weird leopard strength when it comes to running and climbing things, though. Nothing substantial; I still need to be able to actually grab hold of things. I wish it was as easy as they make it out to be in the movies. I wish I could take punches like...like something that's a lot softer than a punch. I've had the shit beat out of me. Of all the traits I've inherited, I didn't get anything really good.

Actually, I'm not a vampire. That's the joke. I think I'm some kind of mistake. This is what I know: one day, someone thought it would be funny to put a dragon and a human in a room together and have them fuck each other. The dragon was the girl, so she got to do the fucking, I assume. Anyway, they made some sick freak of a baby. That's not me. Somehow that baby wasn't sterile, and it went and screwed someone else. That's what made me.

I'm the sterile one, and I'm the one whose body is falling apart. Well, it was, anyway. I found a way to stop it.

Now I'm not just as healthy as everyone else, I can do some kind of cool shit, like jump around on the tops of buildings. Small price to pay, right? A few people here and there, and they're all jerks, anyway.

No, I say that, but actually, it kills me. It doesn't, but it does. I'm like that a lot, I mean, I'm not a lot of things, and there's a lot of doesn'ts and nots and don'ts about me. I'm not a person, and I'm not anything badass, like a dragon, and I don't even have the halfbreed card to play. I'm not a vampire, either.

I'm just good enough to survive like I am. I figured it out when I was a kid; eating raw meat made my sickness go away. But it made me crazy, too. I became like the animal I ate. If I ate a rabbit, I'd become twitchy and nervous. If I ate raw beef, I swear I just became really stupid and lethargic. Maybe that one was in my head, but point is, eating animals made me stupid, and I really had no interest in eating people. That's just disgusting. So I was an animal for a long time.

I don't really remember when it was I figured out that just blood would do. I don't know what it is my body needs to process to make me better, or why eating smarter things makes me smarter. My understanding is that dragons have cells that can absorb and mimic the DNA of creatures they eat. It might be bullshit, because I read it somewhere, but it's the best theory I've got. Man, fuck my grandparents for fucking each other. Stupid idiots.

The feeling I'm following is probably some hunting instinct. I feel like I'm supposed to get a buzz from watching people walk down the street and choosing which of them I'll swoop down on from on high, but I really don't. I just feel tired, and I want it to be over so I can go to sleep. It's early, though, so I'll have to suffer a while. A lot of my fatigue is because I'm getting sick again. I'm only doing this because I'm desperate.

I'm good at it. Dropping on someone from a second-story window is usually enough to knock the breath out of them, and that's all I need. I've got a knife, and they've got tendons under those pants. People who can't walk can't run, and people who can't run are easy to knock out. I'm not even afraid of guns anymore.

There's a particular way that someone carrying a guy who's passed out from drinking too much behaves, and I've learned to mimic it pretty perfectly. I usually take routes where people won't see me, but I have to figure it's impossible to avoid running into someone in the city. I don't get a lot of second glances.

I go from home to home, and right now it's a maintenance room in the basement of that parking garage. It's something out of murder porn, which is appropriate because I like murder porn. I like watching other people choose between being electrocuted and boiled alive. Makes me feel like I'm not alone, if only for a couple hours. At least someone out there is imagining what it must be like to be faced with these kinds of things.

I really don't go out of my way to torture anyone. If I have drugs on hand to knock them out, I use them, even if I have to force feed them the pills (it's for their own good, and you'd think they'd prefer not to feel anything if given the choice, but they like to fight for some reason). I don't always have the luxury, though. Either way, I always have to tie them down. The thing is, killing someone right off makes getting blood from them really hard. I really don't want to have to cut open and drain anyone if I can help it; it's gross, it's a lot to clean up, and it's way too complicated. It's a lot easier to get my hands on some alcohol and a catheter.

I have some of the weirdest conversations with people when they first wake up. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to explain to them what's going on. They always think I'm a psychopath. I guess denial is typically the first stage of mourning, or something like that, but seriously, some people like to hang out there forever. They don't even start trying to bargain with me for the first forty-eight hours, and by that time, it should be pretty obvious how I'm slowly bleeding them to death and there's not a damn thing they can do about it.

Some people aren't like that, though. They take a few hours to let it sink in, they ask if there's anything they can do to save themselves, I tell them no, they have a good cry, and then they quiet down. Most of the time, after they get to that point, they sort of shut down. I feel a little sorry for them, but it's probably better for them. Sometimes I'll get a real weirdo who gets talkative after they've had their quiet time. I once had a really pleasant conversation with this one guy about all the different ways the world had fucked us over. I sat on a barstool next to him and drank his blood from a plastic cup and laughed with him about how stupid religious people are. I miss that guy. The fuck was wrong with him, anyway? I'm still not convinced he didn't have some kind of disease. I mean, shit, he was laughing. I'm not that funny. There must have been a funnier joke. That's why I didn't tell him--because I didn't want to make him feel bad, ruin the last and maybe only good laugh he ever had--I didn't tell him that I seem to be immune to almost every human disease. Except the common cold, because if I'm gonna live forever, I'd better have to suffer all the little, annoying shit along with everyone else.

Yeah, I'm almost eighty, now, I think, I look like I'm twenty, and I alternate between feeling like I'm sixteen and on steroids and a hundred and two with glass for bones. I think part of my problem is that in addition to needing blood to stay healthy, I'm addicted to the high. I manage it pretty well anymore, but there was a time I was doing this every week just to stave off the comedown.

This lady is typical of most people. There's got to be something especially horrifying about watching your blood curl painlessly through a tube into a cup. I'm only guessing, here, but the fact it does't hurt must be part of what makes it upsetting. She tries to slap her chest with her other hand, as if to tell her own heart "stop! You're killing me!" It's the only thing that makes me feel bad about the whole thing. I'm enlisting an organ in my prey's own body to help me kill them. A part of her brain she can't control reacts to her fear by making her heart beat even faster, betraying the conscious part of her brain that knows better. It must be terrible to realize how little power you actually have over yourself. If it decided to, your body could just rip itself to pieces while you watched helplessly.

It makes me wonder if I should be more traditional about this. I have fangs, in fact I have two sets: one pair you can see in the front and one you can't see way back. I've got a poison in those back ones, but I feel scummy using it, and it tastes bad. The stuff acts like a weird date rape drug. It doesn't kill, it just immobilizes. I guess it's a holdover from being a big reptile that's too lazy to chase down its food. But I could do the neck biting thing if I wanted. It's just so dangerous, and messy, and painful for the victim. It seems like maybe it would be less distressing, though. Heated violence is something people seem to be less confused and panicked by than being restrained and methodically killed, however painless the procedure.

I think it's some kind of syndrome that I talk to my food. How often do you talk to your salad? I eat cookies, too, and I never feel the need to talk to them. I guess it's only fair, though, if my food talks first.

Getting rid of a dead person isn't as hard as you might think. You just have to assume someone's going to find them. Instead of trying to keep them from being found, you try to put them somewhere you'll be able to predict exactly where and how they'll be found. That way I can plan on being nowhere near that area and never going back to that area for several months. Try to be as random as possible. I know someone knows I'm out here, and someone has me pegged as a serial killer, and I know they're going to find me one of these days, but it hasn't happened yet, and when it does, I might just force them to kill me. Pretend I'm drawing a weapon, or something like that. The only thing I don't want is to waste away to nothing in a prison somewhere. Even if I deserve it. I'd rather be euthanized.

I got blood on the floor this time. I've gotta move.