Hunter, hunted

Three Cars that was the all the difference from this parking lot being empty of all signs of life, he knew that there were more cars then that here, the others being out of his line of sight though, so they were not included in his plans. One of these three cars would provide him with what he needed to survive so he considered them carefully. The first and the closest was some sort of foreign car, a Yugo maybe, but it was dented and battered beyond almost any ability to recognize it as to what it might have been when it rolled off the lot all shiny and new, even if it would never have been anything more then a mode of transportation. No love had ever been invested into a car such as that. The second car in the mid distance, but still blocked from view of the main parking lot by the building was an older sedan. This massive edifice of a car would be considered a dinosaur in this day and age. Old enough that it would burn gas that wasn’t unleaded and with four doors it would be very hard to find a car of this type on the roads in any of the large cities of the country. It was a reminder of a time long past when America was full of itself and bigger was better in all things.

Such thinking had changed sometime around the 70s and 80s, suddenly as far as cars were concerned anything Japanese was all the rage. Smaller, cheaper and more fuel economical and thus it began the death of the big old dinosaurs that had represented American power and family ideals. The Muscle Cars, the Gas Guzzling Dinosaurs that resembled moving homes and the huge family station wagons that gave some peace of mind by moving the children the maximum distance from the adults on long trips. Even the old stand by of the Truck was made smaller and smaller until it to was pint sized and economical, if not very good for hauling furniture any more. All of these thoughts and memories flashed across his minds eye as his real eyes flicked across the old brown Pontiac. Those days were gone though, just as his humanity and his soul were gone. It was unlikely that either would return.

The last car and the farthest out was a newer model. It was hard to tell what car company was responsible for this one, all of them were starting to meld the designs of their cars now days. All of them going for small domish cars with blurred lines. He hated those kinds of cars, they seemed to remind him of all that had gone wrong in the world.

He had worked at Pizza Hut once, it seemed a life time ago now and it a way it was. He hadn’t even been a Manager or anything like that just another Wage Slave trying to make ends meet. He had only one pastime that had brought him any real joy back then. That was the time he had spent hiking and camping in the Superstition Mountains. Those had been times of peace and wonder. In those Mountains he was no longer just a cook and the worries of his everyday life seemed to fade away. In the Mountains there were no large groups of people expecting things from him, or demanding that he change who he was. Here he could be himself and not have to worry about snide remarks or dirty looks. He had never been comfortable in large groups and this was only made worse by the way people treated him.

He didn’t know what it was about him that brought on such negative reactions and no one would tell him. He had tried to find out and found himself never getting an answer so if he couldn’t change the situation he could at least find solace in escape.

It wasn’t much of an escape from a normal point of view, but it was the best he could do. Since he was always struggling to make ends meet it wasn’t like he could take a trip to Hawaii or Las Vegas or anything like that, and maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. Those places were bound to be crowded with masses of people. People that he wouldn’t know any better how to relate to then anyone else. Despite his lack of funds he still dreamed of going somewhere else and camping. Zion or Yellowstone maybe, or maybe even Glacier, but so far he had never had the money to have such thoughts in any sort of realistic manner. So he had settled for camping in the Superstition Mountains. Over the five years that he had been doing it, he had gotten to know the Mountains pretty well. And he used them every chance he got to escape from the world that he was growing more and more to detest. There was one thing that could always be said for these trips, he never grew bored of the view. Unlike that in Phoenix.

There was something about the rawness of it all that applied to him. It was like it was all still brand new or maybe it was more that it seemed that no one else had been there. It wasn’t true of course, but even when there were other people about he could avoid contact with them quite easily. In part this was due to the fact that he always scheduled his vacations at time when others wouldn’t be likely to. Doing his trips in the off-season actually made him fairly popular in a way with his Managers since he wasn’t arguing about why he should be allowed the time off instead of someone else. Even without that the Superstition Mountains were inhospitable enough that they weren’t very high on most peoples vacation lists anyway. They didn’t hold the allure for parents and their kids that museums or other air conditioned buildings had, and lovers were more likely to go to a park or some other place with a lot of artificially maintained greenery.

That was something that really turned his stomach. With all the real problems there was of getting water to this desert in the first place they then had to go and waste it on lawns for parks and golf courses, despite the fact that they had moved here to get away from that kind of environment. It made no sense to leave some place and then try to transplant that very thing onto the place that you had moved to. It was as if they didn’t care for the raw spectacular beauty the desert held. The only thing that seemed to matter was the vicarious pleasures that they could get from places that were far away instead of enjoying what they had where they were.

He had found himself oftentimes wishing that these people had stayed where such things naturally occurred so that there would have been fewer people in his native Phoenix. It was a slim and petty wish though and one that was unlikely ever to come to pass.

As his Mother used to say, ‘If Wishes were Fishes everyone would cast nets.’ Having grown up in the desert he was never quite able to get a really good visualization of that concept, but it certainly seemed apt.

In those long ago days he had thought that nothing would ever change for him, he would forever be trapped in a life that he didn’t enjoy and didn’t want. He felt trapped and close to despair at that thought but what was there that he could do to change it? He knew about Magic and had even seen people use it, but he had never believed the stores about Vampires, Werewolves and Dragons. The fact that he had never seen one, or knew anyone that had, had a lot to do with that. There were always a lot of stupid tales going around about the kinds of things that you could find in the Superstion Mountains, but he had been hiking and camping them for nearly ten years and had yet to see Killer Spiders the size of dinner plates, Snakes that could swallow a man while (although he had seen some of those in the zoo once, but they had been from Brazil or some place like that), and he certainly had never seen any great mucking bats that sucked the blood out of people before changing into a Succubus or a Vampire.

In point of fact he thought the odds of such things living in these Mountains pretty darn slim at best. There was almost no water in the Mountains to speak of and with so few people wandering through them it would be unlikely that something not born of the desert would live in them for anything but the shortest amount of time.

Of course this didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything dangerous in these mountains. The snakes might not be huge man swallowing monsters but you ignored Diamond Back Rattlers at your own peril. If one were to bite you it would make you so sick that it was unlikely that you would live to get out of the mountains. Also while he had never seen a spider as large as a dinner plate, not even in a zoo, the tarantulas and scorpions were not to be overlooked just because of their more humble size. There were bats true enough, but they were hardly of any real danger, it was much more likely to get bit by a Gila Monster then a Bat.

At times it seemed he knew more about how to survive here then in the city where he lived. Still despite that knowledge and his disbelief he had gotten bit, not by a bat though. He had gotten bit by and actual Vampire. One of those fabled denizens of the night that lived a life that wasn’t a life by drinking the blood of others. The creature had not seemed to mind in the least that he didn’t believe in it.

It had come as quite a surprise. He hadn’t been expecting anything bizarre just another night under the stars listening to the Coyotes sing out their mournful song to the Moon, in short he was expecting a night like any other that he spent here. It had happened though something so strange and unusual that his life had been changed forever after. He had been sitting listening to the night sounds and watching the fire he had built from the old bones of a saguaro cactus, when the man hand entered his camp. He had been astounded that the Man hadn’t even made any noise to announce his approach, one minute he would have sworn that he was alone and then the next instant here was this Man.

He was tall and very thin, more then that he was absurdly dressed for a night in the mountains. To start with he was wearing a pair of sneakers, which weren’t a good idea when it came to hiking, especially on mountain trails since they gave no ankle support. Other then that he was wearing nothing more then a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Such clothing was far to little protection from the bitter cold of a desert night. Despite this that man seemed not to notice the cold in the least.

A loud raucous cry of a bird jerked his mind back to the present. A quick look around showed him that nothing crucial had changed. The only addition to the scene now was a very light rain. He took a deep breath taking in the smell of ozone and moisture in the air. It was so very different from the State of his birth, and he found it thrilling as well as invigorating. Still he wasn’t here for his amusement.

He had come here to this parking lot with its smells of oil, gasoline and rotting food with only one intention. The intention to see to his need to feed. Since his transformation from a living breathing human being to a Inhuman Monster of the darkest of legends his life seemed to be driven by that need. The only time the Hunger wasn’t a part of him was when he was resting in that state of death that came with the rising of the sun. Hunger was the root cause of his existence now. He had to be careful though, there were those out there that did believe in his existence and they were determined to cut it short. He had learned of this shortly after the change but he was getting better at avoiding these implacable enemies of his existence now. It was all in the manner of the hunting. He couldn’t allow himself to get carried away by his hunger and draw unwanted attention to himself.

The Stranger that had caused this change in his life pattern didn’t warn him of this darker side of things. In point of fact he hadn’t warned him about any of it. He had just stood their until being asked to share the fire then he had attacked. Even though he had known that he was going to die, there was no fear. Even stranger then the lack of fear was the fact that when the bite had started there was nothing but pleasure. He knew in the back of his mind that he was going to die, but his body was thrilling at the experience. It was like sex in a way, but without the uncertainty that lead up to release, this was nothing but pure orgasm. It was hard to think of that moment and not once again return to that sense of ecstasy.

He fought that feeling of pure joy down though this was no time to get careless. Such a thing could get him killed. Feeding was the time of greatest weakness for him, the time of greatest risk. It was at this time when he had to expose himself fully and there was no way around it that he had discovered. It was at this time that he choose his victim. He didn’t think that he would just be able to convince a victim to come along with him willingly. He didn’t have the social skills for that, so he struck like a stalker. He also had to be careful about what he did with the bodies. If a rash of bloodless corpses showed up, the hew and cry would go up that a ‘Vampire’ Killer was in the area. Even if the media didn’t mean a real Vampire this would bring those that knew into the area, and everyone would start to hunt for the Killer. They might not know it was a real Vampire, at least not all of them, but they would know it was a killer, a hunter of humans and they could not allow such a thing to exist in their midst unchallenged. This was Man’s oldest law.

It might not be quite that bad, but it certainly seemed like it. If nothing else it would cause him to have to move on again. So far each time this had happened he had moved north, but now he was in Seattle and another move north would put him out of the country. The only really large city north of Seattle was Vancouver BC, and then after that was Anchorage Alaska. He didn’t want to go there that much he knew. Even though he had never been to Alaska he was sure that it wasn’t called the Land of the Midnight Sun as a joke. If the sun was up for a full twenty-four hours for a month or more he wasn’t sure what he would do to survive. It wasn’t like he could call up some Vampire express delivery shop and order one hot-blooded young blonde with large juggler veins for delivery.

He had also decided early on that it would be best if he stayed in places where English was the primary language. It wasn’t that it made all that much difference since he wasn’t speaking to very many people these days, but it might help him avoid getting caught. Every little bit in that direction would help in this new life until he figured out his position in it. It was hard but he also found that he would rather be living, if living was the accurate way to describe it, this life then the one that he had been. What did it matter that now he had to avoid contact with people for fear that they might discover his secret? What did it matter that he had no way to earn money except to take it off the bodies of his victims? Even more then that what did it matter that he had to kill others so that he himself could continue to live? The loss of life that he caused did not bring a surge of self-loathing or even pity in him any longer.

Why should he have any feelings of pity for his victims? They had never shown any pity for him when he had been one of them, and now he was the hunter and they were nothing but the prey. He bared his teeth in a feral grin as he thought of what was to come. Soon he would feed, and in feeding he would once again know bliss.

Again that annoyingly raucous bird brought him back to himself. Was it a Crow? He looked around, but still couldn’t see anything of where the bird might be. As he looked he calmed himself down somewhat regaining some control over his hunger. That was something else that had changed when he had become the creature that he now was. Like his vision, hearing and strength, his hunger had changed a great deal. Now he could see in the dark, although that didn’t seem to be helping him find that loud and very obnoxious bird. He was starting to feel that if he did find it and it was as close as it sounded he might have to just eat it as a hors devours before the feast, maybe, but not really very likely. Animal blood wasn’t all that satisfying.

The hunger. That was the biggest change he had been through. Instead of centering in his belly as it did when he had been mortal, it now seemed to cause an ache throughout his entire body. Leaving his skin sensitive to the slightest touch when it was at its worst. Then it was painful to even put on clothes and to move about in them was sheer misery. Once or twice he had thought about hunting naked, but had forgone the thought since it would make him far to conspicuous. Although he thought about it often enough that he knew that sometime he would have to give it a try. Not now though, he was here now and the hunt had already begun.

Slowly he moved his head to look over the area. Nothing was moving except the trees in grip of the breeze. The light rain came down and flicked leaves as it fell. It never ceased to amaze him just how many trees this city had. Seattle seemed to be a city that needed to have more trees then buildings, and it was a very handy thing when it came time to hunt, the provided him with very apt hiding places.

He turned the way of the store, his nose having caught the scent of lavender and there she was. His victim. He hadn’t picked her out only waited for the opportunity and she was there. Like a hunter in a deer blind he had waited for the meal to come into his sights. He smiled as he saw her, she would be perfect. She walked across the parking lot oblivious to the fate that awaited her, unaware that she was being watched and that she would soon be attacked. Her life was so perilously close to being ended and she didn’t have the slightest clue.

Someone else might have noticed what it was that she was wearing, or how she moved as she made her way across the lot, or even her looks. He took all of those things in with a glance but didn’t really notice them. None of those things mattered to him in the least. The fact that she was wearing an miniskirt that was a good 10 inches above her knees, or that she moved her body like it was what she used to make her living, or even that once he would have thought of her as pretty and petite. Those things registered on his mind in only the smallest way, the hunger blocked out almost everything else. To him she was only a meal, nothing more.

He rose up slowly to get into a better position to streak across the short distance of the parking lot that separated him from her. He was just setting to start his dash, when that obnoxious bird let out another of its series of cries. This time it lifted it self out of the trees off to his right. With a blast of feathers and the ringing cries of its harsh voice the bird exploded into view almost right before his face. It was startling and for a moment he almost reached out and grabbed it out of the air. With the greatest test of his will against his hunger he resisted the urge, not wanting to do anything to attract more attention to himself then this awful bird already had.

The Woman didn’t even seem to have noticed this loud intrusion on the peace and stillness of the night. Perhaps it was the rain and the wind that caused her to miss all the noise this rotten bird was making. He only hoped the blasted beast would clear out of his way so that he could make his attack before she left.

At last the blasted bird left off and flew away off into another tree this time to his left. With an unnecessary sigh he settled back and saw that the woman had not yet left the parking lot, she was still loading the groceries she had bought into the trunk of her car. He eased himself back up and prepared to charge across the 30 yards or so of open distance that separated them. He was just set to launch himself when he was struck by something heavy falling on him. He tried to roll with it but whatever it was that had attacked him was staying with him and not allowing him to escape its grasp.

It wasn’t long before a second blow was struck, for a moment there was a sharp burning pain in his neck and then a sensation of bliss. He knew what it was then that had attacked him and he also realized that all his struggling was futile now. He was going to die this time. There would be no waking up after this to a changed world. This time the bite of another Vampire would bring only death and darkness.

With dimming eyes he looked across the parking lot and there she was looking at him. She was looking right at him, like she had known he was there all the time and there was a slight frown on her face. As his vision grew even dimmer he thought he saw the bird that had bothered him earlier fly past her and into the car as she turned and got in.
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