Blue Blood

  BLUE BLOOD

  RICHARD POCHE

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PROLOGUE

  “I kill vampires.”

  Darien repeated the mantra in the mirror several times in her head and then aloud. She found that if affirmations worked in her former athletic career, they would work in this endeavor also.

  She needed all of the positive thinking advantages she could get. Walking across the scuffed carpet, she turned off the television, cutting short a re-run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  She liked the show but hated the depiction of a vampire slayer.

  All of those things didn't work. Wooden stakes. Hammers. Garlic and holy water.

  Well, holy water did work sometimes. It depended on the species of undead. With the big game vampires, she stuck with big game shotguns.

  Grabbing a box of bullets from her closet, she tore a part of her nail trying to get the damn thing open.

  Nerves. She still couldn't help it.

  “I kill vampires,” she whispered.

  Then, with a practiced slowness, she began sliding the silver bullets down into the chamber, one by one.

  A part of her would have liked to do something more cinematic like a stake to the heart or the cross to the forehead. But that meant getting close to the bloodsuckers. Doing that would get her killed.

  Instead, she put her trust into two Sig P-250 pistols with a silencer and a sawed-off Remington.

  Darien ran through her routine one more time in the mirror. A tall girl at five-feet-nine inches, she moved with a God-given grace. But her pretty face had been hardened with remembered sorrow. A flare of anger knotted her gut as she remembered the reason why she hated vampires so much. She thought she looked like a vampire herself, with pale skin, flowing black hair and pale blue eyes. Then like a gunslinger from the Wild West, she drew her pistols and pantomimed firing into her reflection.

  “Bang, you're dead.”

  Turning off all of the lights in her East Oakland apartment, the gloom of her mood seemed to reflect the world outside. She looked out the window at the dark sky. A whistling night wind stirred her curtain. The intensity increased as she approached, causing the curtain to flap energetically. A storm cloud moved over the moon. The smell of burning wood hung heavily in the cold, damp air.

  Vampires loved nights like this.

  Turning away from the window, she spotted her little sister Sarah's favorite stuffed animal on the floor. The lone keepsake she took from her bedroom. Stole it from her mother actually. A matted teddy bear that her mother had originally stolen from the flea market as a Christmas present.

  Darien remembered that day. The look on her sister's face when she got the gift. Tears of joy that she wiped away with the teddy bear. Less than ten years later, her mother would clutch that same teddy bear after the police told her that Sarah had been murdered.

  She would never forget that day either. Her sister found in an alley, tossed aside like a broken toy.

  Drained of blood.

  Darien’s dreams were the worst. Her imagination running wild with nightmarish visions of her innocent sister being chased. Running in the dark in a blind panic until caught. Her yelps of pain as teeth sank into her neck. Sometimes Darien dreamed of herself being chased by vampires. She would curl herself into a ball, like a newborn deer being eaten by coyotes of the night. She tossed and turned as slimy tongues licked, black fingernails scratched and fanged teeth ripped into her flesh before she woke up screaming.

  The police were earnest in trying her sister’s killer at first. But dead end after dead end led to indifference. Months, then years elapsed as their attitude transformed from determined investigators to frustrated drones in over their head.

  But Darien couldn’t take her sister’s murders lying down.

  She headed out the door, running her fingers over her pistols.

  “I kill vampires,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Her boots made no sound as she exited her apartment, taking long strides into the waiting night.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Terri followed them to the beach.

  Parking a block away, she knew where Glen would be taking the hussy in his car. He would be taking her to an isolated area in the park, a snug spot between two oak trees that overlooked the bay.

  Their spot.

  At first, they would go there in his broken down El Camino because both of their parents were home. But when he got his own place, they would still sneak over here at night and get a thrill out of doing it in his car even though they were no longer teenagers. She liked parking in between the trees and the silence of the night. A place where the only sounds were their own moans of pleasure and the crickets in the grass. She remembered how just being out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night gave their relationship a sense of the forbidden.

  It made her feel like a teenager again.

  But now, Polly Blackwell took Terri's spot in the passenger seat next to Glen.

  And Terri felt like a teenager.

  A jealous and homicidal one.

  Terri only knew of Polly. She worked as a waitress at Burgermeister and served them as a couple a few times.

  Wench.

  They had gone to high school together, but Polly ran with a different crowd. She hung out with the “loggers”, a bunch of pot heads who hung out by the wooden logs at the side of the school. She never thought much of the loggers or of Polly, who would just look at her expressionless before taking a toke of a cigarette as she walked by.

  Flash forward two years later and now she was with her boyfriend Glen steaming up the windows in his El Camino.

  Terri had gone through changes in the last several weeks. Her arms and neck were sunburned, so she stayed inside and called off from her job as a server in a Vietnamese restaurant. Glen called once but she blew him off. He couldn't see her like this. She made a doctor's appointment at first, thinking that maybe she suffered from some illness that caused her hypersomnia.

  But at night, she felt a burst of energy. She also noticed that the sunburns would develop, then heal.

  Seeing Glen's rusty El Camino, Terri's green eyes filled with sorrow then rage. A rage that began to build inside her as if taking over her body. Her face flushed with an uncontrollable desire to lash out while she curled her long fingers into a fist full of hate. She felt the same compulsion only days ago and had blacked out. But tonight, she felt compelled to let the fury out. A strange thirst reached her lips.

  She wanted blood.

  Terri got out of her car and walked soundlessly across the grass toward the El Camino. All of her senses were more acute. Through the rear window, she could see Glen's forefingers caressing Polly's cheek as they sat so close to one another. She could smell Polly's perfume and the grape Bubble Yum on Glen's breath.

  But worst of all, she could hear them talking. A cacophony of words and thoughts invaded her head.

  What's happening to me?

  She could hear Glen's voice in her mind. He jabbered away at Polly, telling her how always had a crush on her. Talking to her as if Terri had never existed. Or worse, that what they had together could be written off as a meaningless fling.

  Three years of intimacy down the drain.

  She didn't even exist in his memory, let alone his thoughts. She felt like someone invisible. Ali
ve but dead. Someone tossed away, left to cry away their pain alone.

  Invisible.

  With the grace of a cat, she sneaked to the driver side of the car and looked into the rearview mirror.

  And saw no reflection.

  Glen had a headache, but guys never say they have 'headaches' before sex.

  He always got them before doing something wrong. Cheating on a test, falsifying his timecard at work and now betraying his girlfriend. It felt as if someone placed an iron vice on his skull and twisted.

  But he would not let this stop him, he had fantasized too long about this moment.

  Glen kissed Polly's lips with as much gentleness as he could muster. His read on Polly was that she did not have much experience and that was what made her so attractive. That underneath all the heavy mascara and torn denim pants was a girl unsure of her place in the world.

  The type of girl that required a gentle hand.

  His kisses traveled from her lips to her cheek and then to her neck. Pulling back, he kneaded her breast and then began to unbutton her shirt.

  Watching him for a moment, Polly smiled and blew out some air as if trying to suppress a nervous laugh.

  “Too fast,” she said.

  “Too fast?”

  Shaking her head, Polly took hold of Glen's octopi hands and placed them in his own lap.

  “What's wrong?”

  “I don't want it to be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this,” she said, reaching over for her cup of melted ice cream on the car dash. “I wanted something-I don't know.”

  But Glen imagined that this is how their first time would be. In the dark, at his favorite make-out spot with the girl he had lusted after the moment she came into his life as “the new girl in school.”

  They never had any classes together but would exchange glances as they passed each other in the hall. Glen would be careful not to play 'eyesies' with Polly when Terri was around and never had the opportunity to approach her alone.

  All of his friends never noticed Polly. She said very little and hung out with people who were outcasts. He overheard Tom Stevens describe her as an “stuck-up, ice bitch” but Glen knew the negative evaluation came from the fact that she shot him down. But he noticed the skinny red head down the hallway all too often. The sight of her blue eyes staring at him for only the briefest of moments made a stronger memory in his head than all of the nights he spent with Terri in the back seat of his El Camino.

  He had thought he had lost her forever after graduation. So, when he saw Polly working at Burgermeister he thought fate had intervened. The girl he had a crush on throughout senior year had been gifted back to him on a silver platter.

  Polly opened her mouth, but no words came out. Glen noticed that she thought long and hard about something before speaking. A welcome contrast to Terri who just blurted everything out.

  “I want this to be something special,” Polly said. “I don't want you to take me to places where you took other girls.”

  “There was just one other girl.”

  “Right,” she said. “And I don't want us, going to places that you go with her. Assuming there is an 'us'.”

  “There is,” Glen said. “Where then?”

  Glen cursed himself for telling her that this was his “favorite spot.” There were still wrinkles in his game that he had to smooth out. Polly knew he had a girlfriend. That could be part of her attraction to him. Glen knew he just had to work on getting inside this girl's head before he could get inside her.

  “Let's go back to my place,” he whispered, running his fingers through her hair. He gave her a slight smile, trying to project a reassuring manner. He didn't want to have to use the false sincerity that he had to on Terri when he wanted sex. Polly made his heart pound while Terri looked like the girl that the most popular boy in school should be with.

  “Okay,” Polly shrugged her shoulders. “Just not here.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “A lot of people think this place is haunted. Years ago, and I mean decades, two forbidden lovers supposedly dove into the bay and drowned. So, if you walk around here at night you can hear their screams. Crying out for one another.”

  “That's so sad,” Polly said. “And creepy. I'm not into creepy places. Or creepy stories. I'm a chicken shit.”

  “I'll protect you.”

  He leaned over and they kissed once again. Soft at first then hot and heavy. Her lips tasted like Cherry ice cream.

  She pulled back, tilting her head at him with an odd smile.

  What is this girl thinking?

  “I have to pee,” she said. “Bad. I'm sorry. I’ve been holding it for too long.”

  Glen let out a deep breath, exasperated. “TMI.”

  “I'll be back,” she kissed him on the cheek then on the lips, hard.

  “Hurry.”

  She exited the vehicle and slammed the door shut.

  Glen's heart raced in anticipation. Tonight would be the night.

  Terri watched as Polly shivered in the cold, running behind a thick oak tree. Her eyes watered with rage as she moved soundlessly toward her prey.

  Coming upon her now squatting rival, she scuffed her feet along the dirt loud enough to rise above the tinkle of Polly's urine hitting the dirt.

  She wanted Polly to look her in the eye before she attacked.

  “Oh my God!”

  “That's the spot where I usually pee,” Terri said. “And here I thought I marked off my territory.”

  “Terri,” Polly pulled up her panties. “Terri, I'm sorry. He told me-”

  Terri felt a bit of pity as the girl did know her name despite never being formally introduced.

  “Of course, he lied. Let me guess, he told you we had broken up. Or worse, I bet neither of you thought about me at all.”

  “I'm so sorry,” Polly said, a chill of fear almost immobilizing her as she scooted backward and buttoned up her pants.

  “I don't care,” Terri snarled. Surprised at the tone of her own voice, she stepped toward the girl. Tall and skinny, Polly had a long, ivory-colored neck and wore pink lip gloss.

  But Terri fixated on her neck.

  “You look like something out of the Addams family with that all that make-up,” Terri said. “Or maybe the Munsters.”

  Polly turned and began to run. Her long legs quickly accelerating, taking leaps over the rocks along the beach bed.

  Terri had never been athletic. Short and curvy, she spent little time at the gym.

  But she began to give chase and easily caught up to the girl, surprised at her own speed. She pushed Polly down, watching the girl sprawl face first into the wet grass.

  “Terri,” Polly quickly rolled on her back. “He's not worth it!”

  The frightened look on her prey’s face gave Terri a sense of power that she never felt before.

  Her strange sense of thirst now felt impossible to resist.

  “He told me you guys had broken up!” Polly pleaded. “I wouldn't-”

  “You have pretty blue eyes,” Terri said. “Tragically radiant. I can see what he saw in you.”

  “He's an asshole,” Polly said. “You can have him. I'll never talk to him again-”

  Terri opened her mouth to respond but no words came out. She no longer heard Polly begging for forgiveness. She had to tend to her own hunger. This compulsion growing inside her head.

  Without warning, Terri pounced on her fallen rival, clamping her jaws down on her throat, feeling her fangs pierce through the scalene muscles of Polly's neck.

  Polly's scream echoed throughout the park, startling Glen.

  He bolted out of the car, standing up and perking his ears. His pounding heart the only sound he heard aside from the waves crashing against the shore.

  “Polly!”

  Not bothering to close his car door, Glen began running toward where he thought the scream had come from. Polly didn't seem like the playful type who did pranks. That scream had to be
real.

  “Polly?”

  He ran east toward where he thought she would be.

  A splash of moonlight shone upon the whites of her tennis shoes laying behind a bush. Her full body out of view, his forbidden fantasy lay prone on her back.

  “Polly!”

  Sprinting forward, he could feel his heart pound through his throat.

  Her blouse and pants were blood-soaked. Her throat had been ripped out.

  “Thought you might want to see her one last time.”

  Spinning around, Glen shuddered as he laid eyes on Terri.

  She looked as if she had just escaped from a mental asylum. Her hair that was once an entrancing shade of auburn looked tangled and filthy. Dirt covered both of her bare arms.

  “Terri?”

  Her black eyes sparkled as she licked Polly's blood from her lips.

  “Glen baby,” she teased.

  “What the fu-”

  Terri growled like an animal, springing forward.

  Glen fell backward like a ton of bricks, feeling the dead redwood needles from the tree above knife into his back.

  Terri moved with the speed of a hungry cheetah, grabbing both of his wrists and pressing them into the dirt as she mounted on top of him.

  “Try and escape,” she mocked as Polly's blood dripped from her mouth into Glen's face.

  “Get the fuck off me!”

  Glen tried to fight back. He tried powering out of her grip but could only squirm beneath her impossible strength.

  “You hear that, Glen?” Terri asked. “Your screams are just whispers through the forest like a lonely wind that touches no one. You ever hear that saying, 'if a man dies on the beach and no one hears, does he really make a sound?”

  He looked up at her face and noticed her pink lips. Perfect roses on her porcelain face, her mouth twitched as she revealed her fangs.

  “You always wanted me to give you a hickey,” Terri leaned down and tore into his throat, like a reaper's scythe.

  She then stood up and watched as Glen gurgled away his last remaining breaths until all that could be heard was the hollow sigh of the bay waters hitting the shoreline.