BLOODLESS
By Paul McAvoy
To die this way after so long, after centuries of immortality, of preying in the night hours on the blood of the innocents?
To die this way after years of running from the hunters and anticipating every move they made; of learning to think the way they thought and finding such clever and inventive ways of deceiving them.
Carlos smiled, but it was strained. To die in this hovel. It was a far cry from the palaces and villas he had lived in for most of his life, a far cry from the mere way he had lived. Was this where his destiny lay? To die in a rat-infested derelict house on the outskirts of Fernley?
With this suffering?
Carlos had felt such unbearable pain over the past few days. Agony he thought he would not and could not possible feel. A pain he did not think he would come across, unless the hunters finally found him. It was an aching, numbing pain that raced through his veins, and chilled him inside.
He gazed over at the bedroom door. An eight-inch long rat scurried across the skirting board and paused next to a pile of papers. It was watching him silently. Carlos knew it was waiting for him to die.
He watched the rodent with disdain. What had once been a comrade of sorts, a fellow creature of the night, was now his enemy, waiting for the moment it and its kindred could feed upon his flesh.
Carlos would not give the rat the chance. He knew what to do. The black curtained window was only a couple of yards away from where he was seated on the old grey armchair.
He closed his tired and sore eyes, hoping he had enough strength left to make it to the window. After all, he had not moved from the chair in five days. Not since the disease had set in, melting away his immunity system, like acid melts away the flesh from the bone.
Like the sun will burn his skin, charring it to black.
Carlos thought of his last repast, eight days ago. The blonde prostitute. He should have realised by the way she had looked. He skin was almost corpse-like in its greyness, and the cheap perfume was unable to wash away the dirty smell. She had been crude and foul-mouthed. He had taken huge pleasure in drinking the life out of her and had decided he was doing the world a favour in ridding them of this woman.
But the prostitute had been infected.
Carlos and his kind had talked about AIDS ever since its appearance. What would happen if one of their kind contracted the disease? The major theory was that they would be unaffected, as it was just like any disease. Of course no one dared try this theory out
But they had been wrong. Carlos was saddened he had neither the strength no the will to seek his friends out and tell them of his plight, and to warn them. But he had always been a loner, destined to die on his own.
There were many advantages to being a loner: being able to move through city on his own he could go quicker, and he could avoid the hunters in pursuit.
The disadvantages were many, including the fate of dying alone.
He though again of the hunters and how much he had wished the hunters had caused this and not his own foolhardiness. At least his death would be an honourable one.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a shuffling noise outside the bedroom door. The door slowly opened. The rats scampered away to find hiding places and two men walked in.
One was in his mid thirties and had long black hair. His face was chiselled and strikingly handsome. The second man was older with silver hair.
It was the younger man Carlos stared at, recognising him immediately.
'Decker,' he said.
The long haired man walked to the centre of the room, while the other man waited by the door. Decker wore a black suit and grey shirt. In his hand he carried a leather hold all.
'You would have made a good vampire,' Carlos said. 'You're so sleek, as well groomed as a cat.'
'You're dying,' said Decker.
Carlos nodded. 'A slow and painful death.'
'AIDS?' the silver haired man said.
Carlos answered him with a nod. Then he looked away. 'In the beginning, when AIDS was in its infancy, a number of people had said the disease had been created by God to stop the growing number of homosexuals. I believe that, if there is a God, he created it to kill off my people.
'Saves us a job,' said the silver haired man.
'Do your kind always get so paranoid before death?' asked Decker, folding his arms.
'You should know the answer to that,' Carlos said, putting his hands together as though in prayer. He frowned, looking at his index finger. He tugged at it and digit snapped at the knuckle. From the slit came an oily black substance. He took a handkerchief from out of his trouser pocket.
He started up at the hunter.
'I bet you are feeling quite frustrated, hey Decker? I will be dead soon.' He paused. 'You have spent the last five or six years in pursuit of me, yearning to sink a stake through my black heart and what happens? When you do find me, I am already dying. Poor old Decker. Your revenge will not taste so sweet now, will it?'
'I don't know,' said Decker. 'Watching you die will be enough.'
Carlos smiled, shaking his head. 'I think not. Why don't you go over to the curtains and open them? You can watch me burn by the sunlight and think you have played some part in my demise. Go on, Decker, I want you to. You don't want these past five years to be in vain, do you?'
Decker said nothing at first, merely stared at the vampire with his clear blue eyes. 'They haven't been in vain,' he said at last. 'I have killed many of you kind.'
Carols nodded. 'I have heard you kill with a blood-thirst even I would be proud of. As I have said, you would have made a good vampire.'
Decker said nothing.
'Kill me Decker,' Carlos said. 'Open the curtains, don't you want to? After all, I killed your wife; I made her like I am. Are you still looking for Sara, by the way? Do you look for her with the same desire, same passion you look for me? Or are you scared of what you will do when you see her?'
A silence fell, and the two of them watched each other while the silver haired man remained by the door.
'Kill me Decker,' the vampire almost begged. 'Don't let this illness take. Don't let the rats eat my flesh when I am too weak? Let the sun burn me. I don't think I have the strength to go and open the curtains. Kill me now, Decker? Open the curtains.'
'Why should I?' Decker asked. 'Don't you think I will enjoy watching the rats eat at you?'
Carlos coughed. 'You are not that heartless, Decker,' said Carlos. 'You are not that bloodless.'
Decker cocked his head to one side. 'Obviously, you do not know me at all.'
Decker let the words hang in the air for a moment, then turned to the silver haired man and nodded. Watching them leave, Carlos said, 'You are just as bad as I am, Decker. Decker..?'
He leaned forward and coughed violently. A dark red fluid seeped out the sides of his mouth and down his chin and throat. The room began to swim before him. He could feel the rats watching him.
The curtains, he had to get to the curtains.
With as much strength as he could gather, he got off the chair and stood up. He took a step to the window, but there was no power in his limbs and he fell face first onto the floor. He looked up at the curtains, pleadingly, then something snapped at the back of his neck and his head fell forward.
His lips tasted the dust on the wooden floor.
'No,' he said. It was the last word he spoke.
The last noise he heard was the sound of the rats as they scurried across the floor towards him...
Note: Bloodless was first published in The Banshee in 1994, and this version has had some cleaning and polishing before appearing on this site. It still has rough parts, but I wanted to keep it as near to the original as possible...
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