Radioactive Vampire Page 3

  “Me?”

  “I saw you. In my dreams. And no, I’m not crazy. At least I hope I’m not.”

  “The fact you question it is a sign that you aren’t, so don’t worry.” I managed a smile at that. At least it seemed he had a sense of humor. Which I thought was always a good quality to have in a person. “So, this dream of yours. What was I doing?” he was sitting next to me against the wall now, staring ahead as if in deep thought. It took a while since I was still lethargic from the lack of energy, but I managed to tell him all I saw of when I saw him in my dreams.

  “Hmm,” Rai said, still looking at me. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just sitting along the wall on the other side of the crypt, opposite of me.

  “I will tell you something, if you haven’t figured it out yet,” he said, looking at me as he spoke. I waited for him to continue. “The world has basically gone down the drain. The humans finally found a way to kill each other to near extinction.” My mind reeled from this information.

  So, the humans disappointed me once again. I sighed, saddened they had gone in the opposite direction I had hoped they would. I had a hope; it was small, but it was there, that the humans would wisen up and stop trying to kill each other.

  Rai took in my disappointment, his eyes looked like mine, I noticed. He seemed to be as sad as I felt about the humans killing each other to the brink of extinction.

  He wasn’t wearing the goggles I had always seen him in, I finally realized. And his eyes were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. They were a bright green with what looked like silver flecks, which gave him an almost sickly look. But I knew he wasn’t, since I had similar eyes. At least I did the last time I looked in a mirror. My eyes were a golden hazel color with flecks of silver, making them seem almost magical. I thought they were the first time I saw them as a vampire. As a human, my eyes had just been a dull hazel, almost brown even. Boring.

  We both had the same silver in our eyes. The man who attacked me also had the same coloring. Silver flecks in what I remembered as dark brown eyes. At the time I had thought it was the tint of the moon.

  I finally realized I was staring at him, and suddenly looked away, embarrassed at my behavior. I realized I didn’t know how to act around him. He was another person, another vampire, and after being alone for so long I had many questions, and I thought he may have the answers I was looking for. I had never actually seen another vampire up close before, other than my maker. Another thing that seemed to scare me a little was the fact I felt attracted to him. He was actually quite handsome when I allowed myself to look at him.

  He was taller than I had originally thought, from what I had seen in my dreams. He looked to be a little over six feet tall, muscular and fit, like he worked out a lot. His skin was as pale as mine, but at the same time it looked healthy, like he fed every day to keep strong. I wondered how he was able to do that if the humans were almost extinct.

  Then I remembered the deer.

  His hair was short and choppy, as if he hadn’t had a proper hair cut in a long time. Maybe he cut it himself, I wondered. He wore his goggles around his neck, and also wore a black t-shirt under his black trench coat, along with dark pants tucked into tall boots with lots of buckles.

  I suddenly felt underdressed compared to him. My hair was a mess, still in the braid I had put it in when I had gone to sleep. The shirt I wore was a simple black t-shirt, which looked as old as I felt, the rest of my clothes matching the shirt, looking as if I had worn them every day without washing them, which I had. This included my shoes, which were tall boots with laces up the side, almost reaching my knees. I hadn’t realized they would age so much, trapped inside a coffin.

  I picked at my shirt and to my horror it began to disintegrate at my touch. I stopped touching it, embarrassed I looked so disheveled in front of the first person I saw in who knows how long. I looked at him to ask him what year it was, when I noticed the smirk he had on his face. If my heart beat I would have blushed at that smirk.

  It was almost as if he knew how I was feeling at the moment. At that thought, his smiled widened.

  “What year is it?” I finally managed to ask.

  “What year was it when you went to sleep?” He said, not answering my question.

  “I think it was the year 2190. Why?” I looked at him, waiting for the answer to the question I had asked earlier.

  “Well, today marks the first day of the year 5000.” I gasped at his words. No wonder I had felt near death when he found me. I had slept for over 2800 years. I began to panic, but then realized I had nothing to worry about. The only thing that mattered was finding my maker and making him pay for what he did to me. My anger rose as I thought of him, how I had let him wander all these years, possibly making more vampires like me. Just the idea of him hurting another person made me sick. In my hunt for him, during the years before I slept, he had killed hundreds of humans in his attempt to make new vampires, as well as from feeding. I pounded the ground in anger with my right hand, clenched in a tight fist. I startled at the sound it made. I looked down at my hand and saw I had punched a huge hole in the ground where my fist was. Maybe the entire structure was just weak after all these years? I thought, surprised at the hole.

  I wanted to ask Rai so many questions but I didn’t know where to start, so I sat there quietly. Eventually I calmed down enough to look at him again. He was staring at me intensely, as if I had done something wrong. “What?” I asked him.

  “Why are you so angry? I figured you didn’t care about the world and that’s why you went to sleep. That’s what most vampires do when they reach a certain age. They begin to not care about the human world and either retreat into the vampire world or go to sleep,” Rai explained.

  “Oh,” I said. “I was thinking about my maker. How he was free to roam all of these years, most likely killing or turning more people into vampires.” I looked at him as I spoke. I told him how I had tracked him over the years, never getting close enough to even see his face.

  “Then how did you track him?” He asked.

  “Ever since he turned me, I could sense someone was out there. Eventually I followed that sense until I came across a town that had been killed the same way I had been attacked, except there were no survivors. I was too late though, it had happened about a hundred years before,” I told him.

  “What was the name of the town?” He asked me, a different look on his face, one I couldn’t decipher.

  “I think it was called… Roanoke?” I wondered. “I had been tracking him since Salem, where I was born,” I told him.

  He suddenly looked sad, as if remembering something from long ago.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “I’m from Roanoke,” He said. “I was the only survivor from the massacre that happened there. No one knows what happened to the rest of the town though. Only I do. I buried them all, a few days after I had been turned. Friends, family, everyone I ever knew was dead,” he said, looking at the ground.

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s ok. It’s not your fault” he said.

  It finally donned on me. No wonder he looked so familiar! We were both made by the same vampire!

  “What did he look like?” I said, looking at him until he answered me.

  “I don’t remember. I was asleep when he attacked. I woke up the next day to everyone dead,” he said.

  Darn. So much for answers, I thought.

  “So. Tell me why you went to sleep. You were about to, before I so rudely interrupted,” Rai said, a slight smile on his face.

  “Right. So, after tracking this guy all those years, I got bored.” And lonely, I thought. “I got tired of humanity always destroying each other, and just wanted to escape. I didn’t know what else to do, so I figured I could sleep.” I didn’t mention the fact that I had thought I was going crazy. I didn’t need him thinking I was too weird that he would just leave. I hadn’t really spoken to anyone in a very long time. Even before
I slept. For some reason, I liked talking to Rai. I didn’t feel reserved with what we spoke about. I never told anyone about my family, or where I was from. It was kind of refreshing.

  “Why didn’t you ask another vampire to help in your search? I’m sure someone would have been willing to help you,” Rai said, breaking me free from my thoughts.

  “I would have, except that the only other vampires I have ever met were my maker, and you,” I said, looking into his eyes. They were almost hypnotic. I couldn’t seem to keep anything from him, and I found that I didn’t really want to. I wanted him to know me. Who I was, and what I had gone through. It was comforting that he wanted to know about me, too. I also wanted to know more about him, but he kept the conversation focused on me. Maybe it was on purpose?

  He seemed to think for a minute at my answer. He looked at my face, like he was trying to figure out if I was lying or not. It seemed he found his answer when he finally nodded as if he believed me.

  “Ok, I’m sure you have some questions, so let’s hear it,” he finally said.

  I paused. Thinking of what to start with was actually kind of difficult. I had too many questions. I mentally ran through them all, thinking of which one to finally begin with. Has Rai been alone like I was? Did he have the same powers as me? Could he read my mind? Did he know what’s happened to the earth these past 2500 years? Would he tell me? Why did he seem to look at me like a person who has finally found an important part of themselves? Like he was looking for me too? What had he been doing as I slept? Did he know any other vampires? Did he have someone to love? A girlfriend?

  Instead, I was about to ask about where he got the rabbits, when I saw that knowing smirk on his beautiful face again. I looked at him, puzzled as to what was so funny. Then it hit me. He DID read my mind! It was as if we had a mental link or something, and he could read my emotions and thoughts as I had them.

  “You’re half right,” he said, still smirking. “Sometimes I can read minds. But yours is the first that I can read without any trouble. Usually I have to concentrate to hear someone’s thoughts. But with you, it’s like your shouting them at me,” he said, slightly laughing at my expression.

  “As far as being alone, the answer is yes. I have been alone since I was turned. I have met other vampires, but they don’t like our kind. Apparently our maker made a bunch of other vampires angry before he went rogue and they don’t like anyone he makes on principle. They also don’t like that we can do other things they can’t.”

  I wondered what those things were, when he answered my unspoken question.

  “Most vampires can only drink blood and can’t go into the sunlight. They are relatively slow compared to us, and somewhat weaker. Our maker was stronger than most vampires, so it stands to reason that those he makes will be stronger than most too. That’s why most people he tries to turn end up dying. They aren’t strong enough to survive the turn,” he paused, as if thinking of other things to tell me.

  “Other vampires don’t really have abilities either. Only really old vampires have abilities, and even those are limited to only one ability, and they vary. I met one vampire once who could control the elements, but only barely. For example, he could start a fire with his mind, but it had to be sustained by wood or something flammable to stay lit. Another vampire could also read auras, but he was limited to just seeing them, and couldn’t feel them or read a person’s mind. As far as I know we are the only vampires that can feed off of energy as well as blood, although we both know we don’t really need the blood unless we can’t get the energy,” he told me. It was all very interesting, and something in my mind told me he wasn’t lying to me either.

  “I have heard some rumors about our maker. If you want to hear them,” he said, waiting for me to tell him to continue. I nodded, eager to hear what he had to say. “I haven’t heard anything about him or his whereabouts for some time now. So I have no way of knowing where he is. I don’t even know his name, I’m sad to say. It would be easier to curse the guy if I had a name, but oh well. Anyways, as far as anyone knows, he used to be like us. Used to be able to feed off of the energy of a person, instead of needing blood.”

  “But one day, he snapped. Something changed him and he began to crave blood like some kind of monster. Other vampires call it bloodlust. When a vampire begins the bloodlust, there is no coming back from it. They end up killing everything they can get their fangs into, and can only be stopped by another vampire. It’s like going crazy for vampires. They can’t control what they do or who they kill and they can never be satisfied. I’ve only ever seen it happen to one vampire, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty. But that’s a story for another time.”

  He looked at me as I absorbed this information. No wonder that guy hadn’t said anything when he attacked me, all those years ago. The image I had of him before he attacked me appeared in my mind. I thought of how his eyes looked, how he had reminded me of a rabid wolf. It seemed more appropriate now that I knew he was actually crazy.

  “As for what has happened while you slept,” he continued “the humans finally became overwhelmed with their own kind of blood lust. Some lusted after power, while others just wanted to make sure they could defend themselves. Around the year 2704, there was a war. A huge one. One side of the world believed they were better than the rest of the world, and began trying to conquer other countries. Eventually it escalated to nuclear war and biological warfare. Cities burned and crumbled. The only thing that was left around the year 3000 were some supernatural species that survived the attacks, and a few small colonies of humans scattered across the world.”

  “Some supernaturals, like myself, took to life on the road. I haven’t had to go near other people for a few hundred years now, since I can also feed off of energy from a distance. I usually stick to the shadows when I get near people. Vampires are killed on sight when they get near the human colonies now.”

  I listened to him describe the ways the humans now defend themselves. Apparently the world knew about us vampires, including other supernatural creatures I never dared to believe existed. Since other vampires can’t go out during the day, they are easily spotted at night, as no human would now dare to travel at night.

  It was almost like life back when I was a human. No one traveled at night, afraid of the things that go bump in the night and the things that hide in the shadows. Only now, I was one of those things.

  “One of the side effects of the nuclear wars,” Rai told me, “was that the sky was always overcast, even at night. No human has ever seen the sun or moon in many centuries. They only have stories of blue skies and skies full of stars.”

  At least I had the memories of these things, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, since now I wouldn’t be seeing them soon either.

  “The lingering radiation had hurt so many humans, that it took a while for them to realize it was the reason so many were sick and dying, and moved to live underground,” Rai explained.

  So, I thought, the earthquakes I felt were most likely the nuclear wars happening. And the eventual quiet I felt as I slept was caused by the remaining population moving underground.

  “Another result of the destruction that has occurred is the seasonal acid rain. All living beings today no longer use the calendar system that we both know. Instead of months and the changing of the seasons, there are rain storms, most of them being acid rain. This is another reason why the humans have moved underground. All supernatural creatures and humans alike must find shelter from these acidic rains, since they are so strong they can wear down buildings in one season.”

  Supernatural creatures? He had mentioned those, and I was wondering at what else was out there.

  Rai grinned, showing he knew I was thinking yet again. I wasn’t sure if I liked him knowing everything I thought, but then I didn’t really care if he knew or not. It was actually somewhat easier to talk to him when he knew what I was going to say. It was almost convenient.

  “There are a few thin
gs out there that are not entirely human,” he said. “Hardly any animals survived the Human Wars, and what was left the humans tried to raise as food, but they eventually started living off of vegetables instead of meat, since meat has become so rare to find.”

  “So, besides humans and their small amounts of livestock, there are other vampires, even more so than when I was turned, since many humans give themselves to the vampires to be turned or killed when food runs low. They are afraid of starving to death. What is sad about this is that they don’t realize they are only exchanging one form of starvation for another. There are also shape shifters, which are easily spotted by those that can read minds, like me, since they don’t know how to guard their thoughts.”

  “You mean like were-wolves?” I asked. I also filed that bit about guarding thoughts away in my mind in case I ever needed to try that.

  “Yes and no. Some shifters can shift into other animal forms, but most try to stay as they are. If they shift into animals, they have to stay together or they will be mistaken as livestock and killed. Although, when they are killed in animal form, they remain in animal form, so many people don’t know they are shifters. Because they don’t want to be hunted for food, they tend to live away from the humans.”

  “From what I remember from my last encounter with a shifter, they like to be called by their animal name, rather than as a ‘shifter’. For example, if their animal form is a wolf, they would rather be called a were-wolf, instead of a shifter. The same goes for any other animal-type. They see being called a ‘shifter’ as a sort of slander against them for some reason, although I never learned as to why.” Rai said.

  “Wow,” I said. “What else?”

  “There’s the demons and witches. Back during the Human Wars, the bad witches found a way to break all of hell loose. Literally. They released tons of demons to try to end the Human Wars, but then afterwards, the demons didn’t want to leave. They ended up killing any witches they could find so they could never be sent back. I have only met one witch, but he was later killed by a demon he had summoned. The demons, which I’m sure you will see, come in various colors and sizes, and they all have different powers. The main thing about the demons, however, is that they are similar to the vampires. They all have a power, and very rarely do they have more than one. Each demon has basic skills, though. Every single demon has the strength of two vampires combined, and most can fly or teleport. I haven’t heard of a demon that couldn’t do the things you and I can do though, but I’m sure it’s possible,” Rai explained.