Chapter 15 This Really Sucks Part 2

• As I start to feel weak and my vision fades to black, the last thing I remember of that moment is his voice, “It will only get better.” Then I black out for a while before awaking to a noise on the outside of the window. A soft tapping noise, like a twig hitting the windowpane in the breeze, or something like that. Opening my eyes, a sharp pain slices through my head like a knife and I feel like ten hangovers hit me at once in vengeance. My stomach is tossing and turning and before I know it, I am forced to open my eyes again and rush to the bathroom to throw up everything I have had for the last day and a half. I only know this, because I had pizza two days ago and I am fairly sure that I saw a piece of pepperoni undigested in the toilet. Feeling that overwhelming need to go to the bathroom, I find that I can’t even pee and all that comes out is some overly smelly gas that smells like something dead. Sitting there for a few minutes longer, I scan the room for any hint that last night wasn’t a dream but don’t find a single thing. That is until I look down at my wrist and see the tiny little marks on my skin. There are two of them, so small that if I didn’t have 20/20 vision, I would never have detected them. Once I see them though, my skin there starts to itch like a rash but then it grows all the way up my arm to my neck and then to my head. Thinking maybe it is an infection, once I get off the toilet and pull my underwear up, I walk over to the mirror and almost scream when I see my reflection. My eyes are sunken in and my skin so pale, that I could swear that I am one of the walking dead. Glancing down at my torso, I notice something else, my belly is caved inwards like someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks and is about to die from starvation. Inspecting my arms, I see that they are rail thin and remind me highly of one of those skeletons that used to hang in the biology room in my old high school. Mind you, I have never been fat, but never so thin either. Have I been out of it for weeks and just didn’t realize it? More importantly, why didn’t any of my friends ever call or check on me when I didn’t answer? These are all things that weigh on my mind heavily till I step out of the bathroom and see the piles of mail laying on the floor in front of the door from the postal carrier. Surely, someone noticed that half of them were spilling out into the hall. Perhaps not, maybe they thought I was on vacation and forgot to put a note in for the mail to be held at the post office or something. Either way, now I know it has been weeks and I am not dead. This is definitely interesting. As I think about all of this, my stomach begins to ache. Ache like someone who needs something feverishly. Meat I assume, because that is the only thing that seems to sound good right at the moment. I walk into the kitchen and go instantly to the fridge. The moment I open it though, I realize that yes it has been several weeks indeed. All the food that was fresh from the day before, is now rotten and has mold growing on it. About to throw up from the smell, I quickly shut the fridge and decide to call the grocery store and have some stuff delivered. TTomorrow, I will have to clean it all out and start over again, but right at this moment, I am so hungry I could eat my next-door neighbor Sid and boy he is big. The minute I think it, I stop and wonder why? That is the strangest thing I have ever thought in my life. That familiar itch starts to spread across my neck, down my chest to my stomach. It itches so bad, I pull up my shirt and when I do, I scream out into the empty dark room that is lit only by the moonlight and a single nightlight over by the entrance. Daring to look down again, I see that where I had just scratched, is a gaping wound and there is a maggot crawling out of it. I hear a noise from behind me and when I turn on my heels, I watch as the same man from before stands about a foot taller than I am and is staring right into my eyes. He opens his mouth and states, “You have finally awakened. Good.” Unconsciously scratching the wound again, I watch as he continues and listen. “My dear, you need to feed, or your wounds will just get worse and deteriorate. We do not heal unless we feed and then our skin regenerates almost immediately. Looking up at him in awe, and with weird fascination, I ask, “How am I still alive?” Before he opens his mouth, I get a bad feeling and then he says, “My dear, you are not. We are vampires and we are the undead. Now hush and let me grab you a bite before your skin begins to deteriorate so fast that you won’t be able to go in public.” From that moment on, I knew that things that go bump in the night really do exist because I became one of them.