[sam_lakes]

Chapter 2

The evening autumn air was chilly as I ran home but it never bothers me anymore and I find it refreshing. I knew Dad would be mad at me. Well not really mad more disappointed as this was the second time I was late for dinner this week and the fifth time this month. Mom and Dad have always accepted my excuses at face value but the last time I lied I told them I was at the Sports Center and they had already checked that I was not there.

Mom asked me what I had spent the money on and I said food, which was true in a sense but I know they thought I was on drugs. Yeah right! I'm the world's biggest health nut. I love sports and sports and drugs don't mix.

But now I had decided to come clean and be honest them and Peter. This time I would tell them the truth and hope for the best.

I walked into the kitchen at seven thirty. They all looked at me.

"What's the excuse this time Jon, busy at the Sports Center is it?" asked Peter sarcastically.

"Peter..." dad said in a reprimanding tone.

"No! Dad! I'm fed up with him lying to you and Mom! I'm fed up with him lying to me! I'm fed up with watching him drifting away from us. In the last month he's been acting really weird. Where do you go in the middle of the night? Tell me, Jon. Don't lie! Please!" Peter said angrily.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and he brushed it off. So, I walked around and took my seat.

"Are you hungry, hon?" Mom asked.

"No, I fed," I replied. If she knew what I meant by that she'd faint.

I looked up at the ceiling, then to Dad, across to Peter who was no longer shooting daggers at me but still had a scowl on his face. I looked over to mom who gave me a reassuring smile as always and then to my hands that I was nervously rubbing together slowly.

I sighed deeply. This was so difficult, so frightening. Was I to loose everything that had been given to me? Would my parents disown me? I was an Aristo class but if they disowned me would I go back to being a dreg of unknown origin? These and a hundred questions plagued my mind.

The biggest question was did I trust that our love, their love for me? And was it enough to overcome anything I might say? I had no option but to believe in Peter's love and my parents' love. It was something that over the last five years I had grown to accept and believe in.

"Okay, I'm really sorry I was late home. I was in Cambridge Old Town..."

"What!" exclaimed Dad.

"Dad, please!"

"But how? Why? Don't you know how dangerous it is?"

"Dad, please! I've been going there nearly every day for two years believe me I am the most dangerous thing there."

"But why?"

"Today it was because I needed solitude. I was sitting on a rooftop watching the sunset and the night begin. I was thinking about me and how I was going to explain how I'm - I'm not normal."

I could feel my stomach churning. I sat there in silence unable to speak. How could I tell them? Will they'll be disgusted with me and hate me. The idea of them hating me made it harder to say anything. I wanted to run away, but at the same time I knew I couldn't. I love them too much to run.

"Jonathan, it's okay. There is no such thing as normal - it's the biggest lie there is. Please trust us Jon, we love you," assured Dad.

"For two years I've wanted to tell you about me but I was so confused and so scared because I didn't know what was happening to me. I know what I am now and I'm not so confused about that but I am scared. I am totally scared of losing Mom and Dad but most of all you, Peter. Life without you would not be life. It would not even be existence."

I got up, got a paper towel and blew my nose then sat back down.

"I don't know what to do Peter because if I lie I will eventually loose you and if I tell the truth I may loose you now. But tonight I was thinking I could just carry on lying to you and mom and dad but it kills me keep on doing it and it shows no faith or trust in you guys, so I decided to tell the truth and hope for the best."

"What I am about to tell you - well you may think I am crazy, but I assure you I'm not. Everything I tell you is as it has happened and please, save any questions till I'm done. Okay?"

They all nodded their agreement.

"It all started, well at least I first noticed something was wrong with me two weeks before I barged in on you, remember?"

Peter blushed a bit, smiled slightly and nodded.

I went to the Sports Center with Robert Hathaway. We were doing great on the hover boards but then he got hurt falling off his hoverboard. He got cut and it was bleeding a bit. All I could do was to look at the blood trickling down his leg and I started salivating like mad and there was a sharp pain in my teeth.

"I remember you telling me your teeth hurt," Mom said.

I continued, "The pain was so intense I thought I was going to pass out. I was holding my mouth and I ran to the bathroom. My teeth really hurt and when I looked in the mirror I had a fright - there were two upper fangs poking out. I watched as they began receding and a few minutes later I was fine.

A week later when I was walking home I went into the grocery store to buy a drink. It was a Monday and I happened to wander by the meat section when I saw this really juicy steak. I kept walking around the store but I kept going back and looking at the steak and I started salivating again and my teeth started hurting again but not as bad.

I took the steak and rush to the checkout where I paid for the steak using my lunch money for the week. I could hardly talk cuz I was salivating so much and my teeth were about an inch long. As I left with my steak the cashier said to the lady behind me "Well he's ready for Halloween!"

I ran around to the back of the store hiding behind a dumpster I opened my precious package of meat and sank my teeth into the blood red piece of flesh I was holding in my hands and I began to ravenously suck and drain all the blood out of the steak and promptly threw up but I felt different sort of excited.

On Friday of that week someone in the lunch line got a bloody nose and by the time I got over to Peter my teeth were really hurting bad and I could feel them growing. I panicked and ran, out of the school.

I ran faster than I have ever run before. An hour later I found myself in Cambridge Old Town with its rundown buildings and pot-holed streets. I noticed too that I wasn't out of breath not even slightly as I sat down on the curb.

Not only was the street I was on was deserted but the whole town is deserted. I was happy for that because my fangs were fully extended and there was so much saliva pouring out of my mouth that my whole shirtfront was soaking. I think if anybody saw me they would have thought I was a rabid dog or something.

I was ravenous but I didn't know for what until I saw a stray dog walking along the broken pavement coming towards me. He growled at me and as fast as lightening I found myself on top of the dog. It yelped once as I sunk my fangs into its arteries and I drank. Its blood was warm and tasted so good. I feasted on its blood. I drained the poor dog dry. Then I promptly threw up all over the dead dog and myself. I was a mess, dog blood, fur, and saliva all over my face. My shirt was covered in saliva, vomit, blood and dog fur.

I felt excited but I was also exhausted.

I found a way into the condemned building that I had been sitting in front of and fell asleep on the half rotten floor. I woke two hours later again ravenous but I knew it was blood, warm blood that I had to have. I must have caught and drained a dozen rats that night and threw up a dozen times before I left to come home.

I didn't expect to see Mom in the kitchen when I got home and I knew for sure if she started asking me about my clothes I would have been caught. My clothes reeked of dog and rat blood and vomit - that's why I threw them away.

Mom, Dad, I wanted to tell you that night but I was so confused and scared. I didn't know what was happening to me. I mean I had suddenly developed this craving for warm blood! I felt like some low-life creature from hell.

I loved my new life; the life you gave me. The love you gave me. Too close were the memories of my past, my life, no not life, my bare existence as a dreg of unknown origin. Those scars are deep in my soul, but I swear to you I have cherished every second of every day since the day Peter brought me home not as his pet dreg but as his best friend.

One night I woke up around two A.M. I was ravenous for warm blood. I snuck out of the house. I wandered about for like an hour and I heard some people fighting.

My hearing was so sensitive I could hear a gnat fart a mile away. It turned out to be a drunken man beating on his wife and son. I'm not sure how I got into his house but I found myself in the living room. There was a boy unconscious on the floor while the man was strangling his wife; she was turning purple as he choked her.

He was a big man so I leapt onto his back and plunged my fangs into his carotid artery and rapidly drained the blood until he crumpled to the floor unconscious. His blood despite the alcohol content was the first human blood I had tasted. It was so sweet and warm.

I have some natural instinct that I sense when to stop drinking before it's too late and the person dies or has kidney failure by drinking too much.

I called the cops, ambulance, and left. I didn't throw up and I felt "energized."

All my senses improved drastically. My eyesight was incredible, especially my night vision. It was awesome! What I couldn't actually see I could sense. My senses have never lessened.

I have control of them for example I can tune out certain frequencies or increase the sensitivity much like a volume control.

After that I fed off rats, dogs and the occasional drunk. I began to think I had developed an addiction and for a time I refuse to feed. I thought I could break the habit or change but I was getting weaker by the day.

I was dying and I knew it.

I concluded it wasn't an addiction anymore than breathing was an addiction. I went back to the rats and dogs but too soon the buildings were rat free and there was not a stray dog in the on the island. I figured out I was allergic to blood other than human, which was why I would throw up and become exhausted.

My thirst for blood was never quenched drinking animal blood.

One night six months ago I couldn't stand it and at 1 AM I went wandering about somehow I ended up at a convenience store. I don't remember how I got there it was as if I was just there.

A guy was robbing the store and he shot this little four year old girl because she was crying and then the mother because she would stop screaming about her child.

In a heartbeat I drug him to back of the store where there weren't any security cameras. I went for the carotid artery except this time I kept seeing the little girl lying there dead with her mom and I didn't stop.

I feasted and drank as rapidly as I could, ignoring his convulsing body. I had condemned him to death and I didn't stop feeding until his blood was no longer warm. As I stood over the body I saw his pale carcass staring lifelessly at the ceiling and I left the store.

I had been judge and jury and executioner and I didn't feel like I had that right. I was sixteen and a half years old - I didn't have the right to judge that man. But I had, I did and it is my problem to deal with.

For a week I watched the news expecting some mention of myself. I had nightmares about that man and I thought I was going mad because there was no mention of the incident. I eventually went to the police and asked them if anyone saw the boy. They said what boy? No one had seen me.

I asked the detective about the man and how he died. "Now that's a weird one" the detective said, "He bleed to death but there wasn't a drop of blood around him and hardly in him." The man had been wanted for the brutal murder of an Aristo family. They counted his death as a blessing and the case had been closed.

Why had no one seen me? I don't know. How I got there and how I left I don't know either and that troubles me. I still have the nightmares but not so often, not every day.

I knew then I needed blood - warm live human blood to live. My senses were and still are unfolding before me. My speed can be so fast that the normal person doesn't see me and there are other things, things I can't begin to explain. There are vague feelings, impressions occurring on a daily basis. Things that I am afraid to express because they seem...I don't know or can't explain.

I know I have a difficult time facing the fact that no matter how evil that robber was I was the one who ended his life and wonder if there had been a better way. I vowed not to put myself in that position because of my need for blood.

So, I saved my lunch money and the money you gave me to go to the Sports Center and once a week I would find some dreg bum and pay him for a liter or two of blood - warm human blood."

"I'm such a health nut that I began to worry about diseases these guys might have and also the rats and dogs so a month ago I went to see a doctor in the dregs.

The doctor's name was Clemens, Dr. Clemens.

"Doctor Clemens, I need a through blood test for any diseases of the blood."

"Why? Are you sexually active?"

"No sir. I just want to make sure."

"Son, don't waste my time you have nothing to worry about then if you're not sexually active."

"I need the blood tests! I need them because I consume live warm human blood and rats and dogs too."

"You what!" he laughed.

"I'm a vampire! I drink blood!"

He laughed even harder, "Kid get out of here!"

A split second later he wasn't laughing when he became aware and knew my fangs were sinking into his carotid artery. His blood was like nectar from the gods! But I only had a taste, less than a cup. He got a little woozy.

I smiled and added, and that he also pissed his pants.

"Now can I have a blood test?" I asked as he watched my fangs retract.

I got my blood test and he had his own tested and my "vendors" so to speak. Of my vendors three have HIV, 2 have TB; the rest are clean.

The doctor's blood was clean and my blood is clean. Apparently, my saliva when I feast is like an antiviral antibiotic thing. No disease or virus can be transmitted to me and I of course don't transmit any virus or disease.

Doc and I have talked a lot and I feel a bit better about the man whose life I took, but I am holding true to my vow of not putting myself into the position where I will take a life because of my thirst and need for human blood.

Doc wants me to have more tests. Not just physical tests. He thinks I have some sort of sixth sense that I sense evil because the two people, whose blood I fed on without their permission, were bad.

I am not so sure that I want the tests I'm a bit frightened of what I might or might not discover. In any case he needs my parents' approval and I didn't know what the consequence of tonight would be. I refused to tell him my name so if you call him just refer to me as the Vampire Boy of New Boston.

He is pretty cool. We joke around - he calls me Vampire Boy but never in a demeaning way - I think he will always use it as a term of endearment. He'll probably want to speak to all of you and maybe run a few tests.

"Well that's it," I concluded.

There was silence. Dad had a kind of smirk on his face. Mom had a slight look of disbelief.

Peter got up from the table came over to me and told me to stand up, which I did. And he hugged me and I hugged him right back.

"God, I love you! I've seen your fangs too, Bro," he looked at Dad whose eyes suddenly became as round as saucers.

We were up until the wee hours of the morning talking about my fangs. I had to show them to mom and dad. Dad was amazed and excited kept say "Show me again... do it slowly...do it fast and Mom (hehe) Mom thought I was kinda cute when my fangs were like a third extended but when they were fully extended she thought they looked a bit scary.

Chapter 3

[DarkPower]

lol the last part made me laugh...good story though I like it..