The darkness never bothered me. Even as a child it didn't frighten me. One of my favorite games as a child was hide-and-seek at night. The problem was, I could never find anyone else who wanted to play. All the other children were afraid that "the boogieman" would get them, or some other rediculous excuse.

Well, when I was 17, the boogiman finally came towards me from out of the darkness, and now I reside forever in the night. Not a bad existence, really. This living death had been a little troublesome at first, but nothing I couldn't handle. Soon after my death, it was obvious to me that my maker was a dominating, self-righteous son of a bitch. So I left him. Some guilt, naturally; I knew I had to leave, but he did give me this life. He was like the drunken, abusive parent that the child must leave for her own sake, but can't bear to because no matter what, the parent is still family, and she still feels some obligation to him. I left him with no bitterness, no angry words. He tried to stop me, threatened my life...like I knew he would. I left, and he couldn't stop me. He'll get over it.

So I was on my own. I went from town to town finding my meals in dark alleys and 2 a.m. bars. I slept in the ground a lot, because I didn't really trust hotel rooms to stay pitch black during the day for me. Actually, I rather liked sleeping in the ground. The soft earth surrounding me...and even the bugs were a comfort. I liked the feel of earthworms on my skin, cool and soothing.

I rose early. I always liked seeing the last pieces of daylight as they disappeared behind the horizon. But rising early meant that I had to wait, until it was completely dark, before I could hunt. Some days I would wake up starving, and the wait was nearly unbearable. A few times the thirst was so terrible that I'd find a possum or other small mammal. Nothing can be said of the taste, except that it was comparible to some Vienna Sausages I once had as a child.

I didn't "hunt" in the bars much, now that I think about it. There was absolutely no sport in it. There'd be a few bozos in the back of the bar, so drunk they were nearly unconscious. And the blood was so dilluted from the alcohol, I'd neet three or four just to take the edge off my hunger.

One night I was in a small town somewhere in the Mid-West, I'm not sure exactly where. There were these kids in a drugstore, very loud kids, very obnoxious. I heard them before I saw them. As I walked into the store, I looked at the manager. She stood behind the counter with a tired expression, and when she saw me, concern joined her. I guess she thought I was with these monsters that were already in her store. I smiled and tilt my head in greeting. She nodded back, looking a little relieved.

I wandered over to where the kids were. They were in the candy and magazine aisle, about 5 or 6 of them. A few of them were looking through the magazines, automotive magazines with plastic women on the cover, teen magazines that pretended to be your best friend/psychiatrist at the same time. Their friends were picking up some candy. They'd eat it right there in the store. And the noise...I wanted to cover my ears. Instead I picked up a copy of Metals Edge and flipped through it, this obnoxious posse standing about five feet from me. I knew they were watching me. I get that a lot. I tried to ignore them, but unfortunately their thoughts were as loud as their voices. Some of them were keeping away from me, and some were planning to approach me. I sighed inwardly. This ought to be fun, I thought.

A boy wearing excessive ammount of cloth was the first to venture near me. He was sizing me up...I should have killed him right there for his thoughts. It's not what he thought about me that disgusted me so, it was the fact that his girlfriend was standing behind him. I felt bad for what was likely going to happen with their "relationship."

"Metals Edge, huh?" he said, some sort of Latin accent peeking through the "tough guy" persona.

I glanced at him and said nothing.

"So, uh, you know, my car's out back. How'd you like to test the back seat with me?" Such arrogance! So, tasty morsel, you think you're so tough?

I closed the magazine and turned to him. "Even if you could get me in your car, you're probably not smart enough to know what to do."

An eruption of hoots and howls from his friends turned his face a shade redder. He was trying to think of a face-saving comeback. He grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him, and he wispered loudly to me, "so let's go. Teach me what to do." I suppose this statement once again established the boy's ego, at least his friends thought so.

Alright, enough foreplay.

I grabbed his neck so fast his girlfriend's hair wavered in the breeze. His immediate look of surprise was soon replaced by understanding, and then fear. I lifted him slightly off the ground, and soon he was gasping for a breath. His friends wanted to help, but they were frozen in terror.

I glared into his eyes. "Lesson one: you should have run when you had the chance."

He tried to nod, but I squeezed his neck still.

"Lesson two," I continued, "be afraid."

And still staring coldly into his eyes, I threw him down the aisle into, no, more like at his friends. Like bowling pins they fell. I laughed as they all hurried out the door, the boy slightly limping.

I sighed. I didn't really expect the rabbits to run away so soon. I had planned on tasting at least half of them. Oh well. I looked down at the magazine that was still in my hand. I ought to buy this...try to make up for the idiocy of the rabbits. That's something else my father always said, that being immortal was eventuallygoing to kill my nice streaks. He was so full of bull shit.

On the way to the register, I picked up a pack of gum. I'd had this idea for some time, and tonight seemed like a good time to try it. I placed the gum and the magazine on the counter, along with some money. I watched the woman's face, listened to her thoughts, as she rang up my purchase. She was a bundle of feelings...feelings of confusion, worry, amazement, and gratitude. She bagged my things and handed me my change. Another shared smile, and wordlessly I left the store.

I sat down by the road with my magazine and my pack of gum. When I was made, he told me that the lust for blood would make my hunger for food obsolete. So, of course, i never consumed anything except blood. But for a long time I wondered what would actually happen if I did eat mortal food. I unwrapped a stick of gum, and sniffed at it for a while. Sugary sweet memories from my childhood filled my lungs: times when I tried to set the worlds record for the biggest bubble, and it would pop and get stuck in my hair; times when I accidentally swallowed it and someone told me it would sit in my stomach for seven years; and times when my gum would somehow magically wind up in my boyfriend's mouth.

I tentatively put the stick in my mouth and chewed. A split second later it was bouncing on the dirt. Good Lord! That's disgusting! It kind of tasted like a combination of drain cleaner, manure and cyanide. I tossed the rest of the pack in a nearby trash can, and spat a couple of times, trying to get that evil taste out of my mouth. It wasn't working. But I knew what would do the trick. I took my magazine and headed toward the bar for a "drink." Even dilluted by alcohol, drunk blood had to be better than that!

I walked around the country for a few years, saw all the tourist attractions, met different people. I also often met other vampires. Some were in covens, and others were loners like me. The covens were usually rather click-ish, saying hello as I passedd by but never really welcoming me. Except there was one coven in Arizona that took some interest in me. They introduced themselves, showed me around the town, showed me places like a museum and where to find the best meals. They even let me crash in their house for a few days. And then there were the others. A few covens literally chased me away from their houses. And sometimes a rogue would stop and talk to me, and other times they'd give me dirty looks or walk in another direction to avoid me.

Then after a while I began to notice that I hadn't met any others in a long time. Of course, I had been wandering around some unpopulated areas for a rather long while. When I left the wilderness I went to some towns. There were no immortals anywhere in these towns. I made my way from town to town, and then from city to city, and still no vampires. This was odd. There weren't even other vagabonds on the roads. In some towns I heard strange stories of buildings mysteriously catching fire. Their presses called it "bad wiring" or "gas leak", but some human vagabonds and drunks (I've learned to trust drunks, at least they are honest) swear the houses just burst into flames.

I had a feeling, not bad or good, just concerning. I headed for Arizona, for the coven that welcomed me. I had no idea what was happening, and I didn't know if they could tell me or not. But I needed to ask someone, and they were my best chance for an answer. As soon as I was near to where the house was, I knew that the same things had happened here. There were no immortals. The coven house was now ashes behind a police barricade.

Now that feeling was bad. Something like this had probably at every coven house in the world! And who or whatever did this didn't stop with covens, they'd also gone after the loners. So why am I still standing here? I thought. I sifted through the ashes, trying to find anything, any sort of clue as to what actually happened. Reason told me that the cops probably took it all, but I looked anyway. I knew I would find something that the police overlooked...and I did.

Trapped in the branches of a nearby bush was some sort of piece of paper, and I headed over to free it. It was the cover of a novel. It was charred and torn, but I could still read the title. The Vampire Lestat. I ran to the nearest bookstore. When I finished the book, the feeling went from bad to worse. This guy, Lestat, was way more than probably involved, and he was probably still alive. I had to find him. I needed some explination, some justification, for this massacre. He was my best chance.

With the book as my guide, I began my search. Since I was closer to the west coast, I searched California first. Not much in Los Angeles, and in Frisco, only torched nightclubs and a filthy amphitheatre. Lestat's bungalow was being abandoned. I snuck up to the window to see his band packing their bags. Next I headed for New Orleans. I searched the old quarters, plus their infamous flat. Still nothing. There weren't any other specific places for me to search, so I searched at random. I followed the Mississippi River north, and the east coastline south.

And it was in Miami that he found me.

"You've been looking for me for nearly a year now," he said to me, still holding my arm from when he pulled me into the hallway. He smiled. "So is it now your turn to go and hide?"

I tried to shake my arm free, and he held on to it firmly for a second, then he let go.

"What's happened? The fires, all the others..."

Lestat shrugged, snapped his fingers and said "poof."

"You really don't give a damn, do you? The destruction of so many of us doesn't bother you in the slightest, does it?" I thought of the coven in Arizona.

"Of course it bothers me," he said, seriously for a change. "There was nothing I could do to stop it, and there's nothing I can do to bring any of them back!" His voice had been rising in volume, but now he lowered it. He told me a little of the Queen and her plans, about the massacre of men in all those third world countries, about the destruction of the Children of Darkness.

"I don't deny," he concluded, "that some of them probably deserved it. But there were also those, like your western coven, for whom the survivors should mourn."

"Why did we survive? Why didn't she execute us fall?," I asked quietly.

And just as wistfully he answered, "chance, pure and simple. The luck of the draw, I suppose. She spared those I cared for on purpose, and the older ones she couldn't harm. But strays like yourself were passed over like a door painted with lamb's blood.

"My next book will be coming out soon. I'm not sure it'd help you..."

"...but I'll read it anyway."

He offered to let me stay for a few days in their island home, but I gracefully declined. The thought of sharing a room with my sovereigns made me naturally uneasy. Besides, I wanted to return to the road. Perhaps I'd run into another survivor, now that I wasn't really looking for any.

Lestat kissed my cheeks and wished me luck in my travels.

I am still wandering. Sometimes I'll go to Europe or Asia, for a change in scenery, really; but I always return home. Once in a while I'll bump into an immortal. Slowly each year our numbers increase, but we won't near the old number for a long time yet. I read Lestat's book, and the next. And besides that brief meeting in Miami, his books are the only way he speaks to me. I suppose it's enough...

I haven't made any others. It's a moral dillema. When I first became a vampire, I had similar conflicts about killing. I hated the idea of taking human life night after night for eternity. After all, hadn't I once been one of them? Of course, I grew out of this phase, and perhaps one day I will make a fledgling. But for now, it is enough that I survive, night after night, travelling the roads, and living...really living my life.

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