[2] Encounters with a Vampire
Chapter One < : > Chapter Three
Table of Contents : Start Here
Listen and read: Angel, NewDad
“You’re kind, but I’m not/ It seems that I forgot how to care/ About anything but my own despair”
Previously: Catherine finds herself craving human blood after a night out at the jazz bar.
The man led me to a dingy motel. I would have stopped at the broken v-cancy sign, flickering in uneven rhythm, and questioned my life choices, but a blood-soaked woman lingering outside of questionably clean lodging would attract unwanted attention.
He attempted to unlock the keypad three times before breaking the handle.
“You live here?” I asked as I crossed the threshold into a tidy room that contained all the unsavory smells of a casino.
“No, just passing through.” He motioned to the mirror at the opposite end of the room in a sort of ‘help yourself’ manner, and snatched his leather jacket off my shoulders before falling back onto the single bed. “I haven’t used the towel.”
I took a step towards the bathroom, then paused. “Why are you helping me?”
He didn’t bother looking my way. “Would you rather I left you to it?”
Playing difficult, that’s fine. “Who are you, anyway?”
“One of your kind.”
“One of my kind? Do you mind expanding on that? A name would be nice, you know, before I use your towel.”
“I haven’t used the towel.”
My attitude did not appear to phase him, he continued to lay with his eyes closed. I rounded the room and kicked his shin with regrettably more force than I intended.
He opened a single, unbothered eye. “That wasn’t kind.”
I frowned. “I’m Catherine and thank you for helping me.”
“Catherine, eh?” His eyes shifted as if he plucked and weighed the ceiling popcorn on scales, debating his next avoidance. “Red head’s aren’t typically named Catherine, in my experience.”
I rolled my eyes and trudged to the shower.
“Brent. My name is Brent.”
I poked my head around the door frame, noticing he perched on an elbow to say that. At least our kind were warming up to each other.
Well, I had not addressed the issue of clothing before I stepped into the shower and resorted to a vain attempt of hand-washing my expensive silk. I should just burn it. The dress reeked of bad luck, the last time I’d worn the damn thing was my engagement dinner, and considering I was no longer engaged… It was best to not re-purpose the old when trying to start a new life.
I closed my eyes and shooed the thought of wearing a damp dress in front of a total stranger. As if that were my most pressing issue.
How was I to make it back to my hotel without a cellphone? My purse was gone, all my money, license, hotel key, the rental car keys… I wasn’t even from here. So much for taking a solo weekend trip to take my mind off the fallout’s of life.
As bright red streamed off my body, blood, that was not even my own—not my own… blood. I dipped my fingers into the runoff and brought the trace to my tongue. What should have tasted as iron was savory, as beef lasagna with sweet tomato sauce. I scraped crusted blood from my calf and licked the flakes off my finger tips. My spine tingled and my mouth watered and—
A knock made me jump out of my skin.
“I got you some clothes,” Brent said outside the door.
“Thanks,” I said, staring at the red current flowing from my dress.
I felt nothing.
No, I felt everything. I smelled the mold in the walls from a leak in the left corner of the tub and the three and a quarter cigarettes that Brent just smoked in the room. I felt the chips of blood melt off my skin by the molecule and the water flow through the piping and the soft rumble as is drained beneath. I could hear the heartbeat of a squirrel settle as it drifted into slumber in the same way that girl’s heartbeat slowed as she slumped against the wall.
And it blended into everything and everything became nothing.
I turned off the shower and dressed quickly in the practical, solid gray tracksuit Brent provided. As if that would help me escape the reality of what I had done.
Did you know?
Swallows - the birds pictured on the cover - are a symbol of spring, metamorphosis, renewal, and resurrection (Penguin Book of Symbols, 1996). Swallow tattoos were worn by sailors as good luck charms that represented safe returns after long voyages at sea (Danger Charters).
Thank you for reading!
© 2026 Meg Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this work shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission of the author, this includes input of the work into LLMs to create summaries.
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I got punished for not hitting the likes of the people I subscribe to, so Subtack sent me to technology guru land.
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