Page 8 of Blood Submission

Chapter5

Laney woketo scratching at the door. She tried to open her eyes, but it felt like someone had tied barbells to her eyelashes and applied some Superglue for good measure.

Deciding she was still way too tired to get up and feed Fraidy, she sighed and let herself sink into the firm warmth beneath her. The silly cat would live a few more minutes without his breakfast. He had enough extra body fat to survive the apocalypse.

Her mattress rose and fell beneath her, cuddling her deeper within its folds, the blanket tightening around her middle. Laney froze, suddenly wide-awake and wondering why the hell her bed was hugging her. Maybe she was dreaming. She pried her eyelids open and found herself staring at the tiles above the bathtub.

She was right. It must have been a dream. The events of the previous evening came crashing back into her skull, and a small cry of fright escaped her lips before she could stop it. She tried to slap her hand over her mouth, but she was all twisted up in her comforter.

Heart beating frantically against her ribs, she tried to calm herself.

I’m home. And I’m still here. Still alive. It’s okay. That thing can’t get mehere.

She vaguely remembered leaving the bathroom last night and making her way into the kitchen to get some juice and something to eat. She didn’t recall coming back in here, but she must have. Maybe she came in to pee and passed out before she could get tobed.

But then why did I bring my comforter withme?

She must have been cold from the bloodloss.

Her bed rose and fell underneath her again, and warm breath stirred her hair. Laney’s heart started beating so hard her ears began to ring, blocking out any other sounds. It wasn’t any kind of bed that was lying beneath her. It was something alive, and since she didn’t have a significant other, and she and her roommate barely spoke, never mind sleep together, the situation she found herself in was raising all kinds of alarms withinher.

The vampire from the night before came into her head just as the thing moved beneath her again. A monster stirring from its slumber, perhaps?

With a scream, Laney fought her way from beneath the heavy blanket and kicked it away. Scrambling to her knees, she spun around to find herself face to face with her deepest fear. The monster staring back at her in surprise looked horrifyingly familiar.

It launched itself upright from the mound of pillows and blanket, like a demon rising from the lowest depths of hell, landing on its feet to tower over her. It had to be at least six and a half feet tall. A sound that was somewhere between anger and surprise hissed from its mouth, and it flung its arms out, legs bent in a defensive stance. Its bloodshot eyes shot around the room, searching out the source of danger before landing on her. It glanced around once more and then slowly straightened. Calmer now, it tilted its head to the side and watched her with a guarded expression.

Laney held perfectly still. Her eyes were glued to the thing’s face. A face that, although still a bit harsh on the eyes with its blood-reddened eyes and jutting bones, was not as ghastly as she remembered from the night before. When it continued to just watch her without moving, she let her eyes drop, briefly taking in a dusty black T-shirt and black pants that hung from its emaciated frame before she quickly lifted them back up to its bald head. No, not bald, shaved. She could see the hint of dark stubble underneath the layer of grime that coveredit.

She was very close to the bathroom door. Her left hand began to inch toward it before she was aware of what she was doing.

When it spoke, its voice was deep and low and sounded like it had swallowed shards of glass. “Do not open that door, human.”

Her hand froze mere inches from the doorknob, then dropped back down to herlap.

A dog barked from the otherroom.

Laney didn’t have a dog, and for a moment, the noise distracted her. But any random thoughts were chased away by the monster’s next words.

“Come. I need to feed.” It held out a thin hand to her like it was asking her to dance.

Shaking her head so hard she felt rather like a ragdoll, Laney scooted backward on her knees until her toes hit the bathtub. “No,” she whispered. Then louder, “No.” It wanted to feed on her, like a fucking parasite, and she was supposed to just letit?

I don’t fucking think so, asshole.

The bloodsucker, for that’s what it was, lifted its upper lip in a snarl to expose fangs as long as her little finger. Opening its mouth wider, it hissed in warning before speaking again. “I said, come.” It still held its hand out to her. The gentlemanly gesture oddly out of place with the wordless threats it was making and the predatory gleam in itseyes.

“And I said NO!” Laney told it. Reaching back into the tub, her fingers brushed against the plastic bottle of shampoo. It was full, and rather heavy. Before she could second-guess herself, she grabbed it around the neck and chucked it as hard as she could at the monster’s head. It moved to dodge it, momentarily taking its eyes from her, and she reached blindly for the doorknob. Flinging open the door, she was immediately covered in warm sunlight as it flooded in from the large window in the living area. Still on her knees, Laney threw her body forward, out into the light and out of the reach of the vampire. She landed hard on her stomach and froze, unable to make her limbs move so she could scramble completely out of the doorway.

Her roommate, Sasha, lay on the floor in the middle of the living room. Her dark skin strangely ashen, her head bent at an unnatural angle, and her eyes wide and unblinking in death. Fraidy Cat sat near her high-heeled foot washing his tail, unaffected by the corpse next tohim.

Laney screamed, then screamed again as a strange dog started barking in her face, its teeth inches from her nose. An iron grip wrapped itself around her ankles. She caught a brief glance of a fuzzy brown face with a long pink tongue hanging out the side of its mouth before she was pulled back into the bathroom. Her nightshirt slid up around her breasts and the cheap carpet burned the front of her thighs and stomach until she reached the cool tiles of the bathroom. The door was slammed in her face and she was suddenly dangling in mid-air for a breath of time before she was again surrounded in steely warmth as the vampire wrapped its strong arms around her from behind.

“Do not do that again,” it hissed. And then it sank its fangs deep into the side of her throat.

It had all happened so fast that Laney hung there, limp with shock, for a good thirty seconds. She stared at the bath tiles in front of her without really seeing them as the thing fed on her. The memory of her roommate’s face, mouth slack and eyes at half-mast in death, overrode everything else that was happening. So it took a minute for the moaning in her ear and the tugging on her vein to sinkin.

When it did, her heart began to thump behind her ribs, quickening her blood, and in response the vampire tightened its arms around her before backing up and sliding down the wall, taking her with it. It stretched out its long legs and settled her back on its lap. The movement jarred her out of her stupor, and Laney began to fight in earnest. Her erratic movements only seemed to excite the creature, however. It moaned with pleasure as it bit down harder, then with a grunt, it captured her arms to her sides to hold her still. Sliding its booted feet in toward her knees, it trapped her legs underneath its heavy thighs so she was well and truly caught.

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