How We Kill The Vampires

Josh MacLeod

I moved silently, a whisper in the wind, the faintest of breezes in a hurricane. The foolish humans did not even sense my passing, their vaunted security sensing nothing, knowing still less. It was dangerous to travel in this area, in their "high tech" places, for there was the chance that I could get caught.

That added some spice to my unlife. The gods knew I needed it after all these centuries of boredom. I slip out of the building quietly, these who see me convincing themselves I am something else.

"It can't be a vampire," they say. "Vampires are not real." I have no reason to disabuse them of that notion. Even so, knowing it is unlikely they will see me, I move quickly, almost beyond the point where I can be seen. I may be weary, yet have no wish to make mistakes that would kill me. Not when I do not know what waits be beyond.

The myriad stenches and decay of the city streets strike me as I exit. I wince in pain at the echoing sounds and the bitter taste in the air. Sometimes I wish I had just stayed in the country and not come to this place that caused me such pain: the days when I revelled in my enhanced senses are long over.

I continue on towards my home, sensing that dawn will soon come, and not wishing to die quite yet. I pass people and continually look for nourishment since it has been a long week. Once I would have passed some by and never understood my reasons but now I knew: that one had AIDS, that one had food poisoning, another cancer and a host of other ills that made them unappetising for me. Granted, I could still drink their blood but it would be distasteful, like drinking the blood of animals. Also, if they have a different blood type than me, they also taste odd. Pity that people do not answer you when you ask them their blood type . . . may be I should go work for the Red Cross then.

I shake myself out of this dangerous reverie and enter my home. The landlady has long since gone to bed but she left my copy of the evening edition of the local paper on the bed. I glance down idly and see it is the Star. So much for getting valuable news out of it. It has a picture of a clock with hands, some war and a building on fire but I am not in the mood to read it.

I pad over to the windows and, making sure they are locked tight, take off my clothes and crawl into bed. Ah, the wonders of a decent landlady. No more coffins or smelly holes with this place. I reach over and set the Alarm Clock for six o'clock since my time sense has been getting a trifle unreliable lately. It is much better to wait for the alarm than to risk being killed by the sun.

I wake up with a yawn and shut off the alarm. The paper beckons to me but I ignore it. A part of me wants to find out why they had a clock on the front but I cant quite recall where I tossed it.

I walk over to the window and open it up to greet the night and my hunting grounds.

Pain! Pain such as I have never known sears in to me! I feel my bones melting and my skin boiling off my ancient flesh! I try to scream in pain as the knives of the dusk carve holes through me but my vocal cords are already gone. I fall back, too late and wonder what happened? I always . . .set . . . the clock right . . .

As consciousness leaves me, my fading eyes happen to catch sight of the Sun again, and I see the clock with the hands on the top of the page. Slowly, the meaning sinks in as I die and I have just enough time to scream: Curse Daylight Savings Time! and then I am no more.

- Josh MacLeod (1998)