In The Blood
Chapter One
Sam Campbell swirled the contents of his mug with a mild feeling of disgust. He hated this part. The part where he had to pretend to be the same as everybody else in the city. The part where he had to pretend to be a vampire.
He supposed he was lucky really that he wasn't forced to drink from the vein, which seemed to be the favoured approach to feeding. He had tried that when he was younger and still suffered from the nightmares about it. Seeing the skinny, broken man shaking in the corner of the dark cell had destroyed something inside of Sam and he knew, even as he wrapped his small hands around the man's bony arm and let his fangs push through his gums, that there was no way he would be able to go through with this. Sam remembered forcing himself to bite into the flesh and the feeling of warm blood as it gushed into his mouth and down his throat. Before it had a chance to reach his stomach he had ripped himself away from the man, gagging at the taste. His mother had been so disappointed, having been convinced that this was the solution to her son's inability to keep blood down. In the end she resigned herself to giving Sam as little blood as was possible without drawing suspicion and having him eat regular, human food when no one else was looking.
It was her own fault, she once told Sam, it was her fault and she was sorry. For it was she who had been foolish enough to fall in love with a human; a man who had run for the hills, the moment he found out what she was. And because of her mistake, Sam was paying the price.
But, now at the age of eighteen, Sam and his mother had managed to successfully trick the others in the city into believing he was a real life vampire, who was just as strong, agile and bloodthirsty as the rest of them. He had even managed to join the ranks of the Dayguard, who protected the city during the daylight hours whilst the others slept. It was a great way to be able to enjoy the sunlight without looking completely crazy. Vampires weren't allergic to sunlight. But too much of it hurt their eyes and burned their skin so they tended to go out only during the night. Sam managed to deal a little better in the light but still burned if he stayed out too long.
"Hey, Sam, you finished your supper yet or what?" A voice called from behind Sam, snapping him out of his reverie. He glanced back and saw his long-time friend, Benny Lafitte, making his way through the mostly empty mess hall. They'd been friends since they were little when Sam had accidentally spilt his mug of blood over him during dinner. Instead of being angry, like Sam had expected, he had just licked his lips and started laughing.
Sam looked at his still full mug now and grimaced when he realised it wasn't even warm any more. Cold blood was so much harder to stomach than hot.
Benny clamped a hand down on his shoulder, "Well now, you've barely even started. You best hurry it up, brother, our shift outside starts in two minutes."
Sam pushed his food away and stood up. "I'm not hungry," he said.
Benny raised his eyebrows questioningly but didn't say anything as they headed outside.
It was early in the morning. The sun had barely risen above the distant hills and the air was still cold and crisp. Sam wrapped his jacket tightly around himself as he strode towards his and Benny's usual surveillance tower on the west side of the city wall. The wall was impenetrable. A thick stone barrier standing at over twenty feet tall to protect all the vampiric residents inside from the world outside. From all the hunters and the werewolves that wanted them dead.
Sam couldn't really blame the humans for hating them. After all, vampires fed on humans. They took them from their homes and family in the dead of night, put them in a farm to be harvested and eventually killed them, before starting the cycle all over again. It was their way of life. How they managed to keep everyone well fed and happy. It was no different to how humans kept and killed livestock in order to eat. But Sam still understood their animosity.
Upon reaching the top of the tower, Sam and Benny relieved the other two guards of their duty and settled into position.
"Reckon we'll actually see something today?" Benny asked with a grin.
Sam grinned back. "Maybe another deer. That's about as exciting as it gets around here."
Benny sighed theatrically, "How did I end up with such a dull job? I bet the raiders have a lot more fun."
Sam tried to keep the smile on his face as he outwardly agreed but inwardly he couldn't think of a worse thing to be. The raiders were the ones who went out hunting for new blood when the farms were running low.
They spent the next few hours in companionable silence, watching as the sun rose higher and lit up the surrounding forest. They had barely one more hour left before their first shift was over and Sam was beginning to give up hope in seeing so much as a single rabbit out there. It was going to be one of those quiet days.
But then Benny gasped and grabbed hold of Sam's arm tightly.
"Did you see that?" he whispered.
"See what?" Sam asked, squinting in the direction Benny appeared to be looking.
"Something just moved,"
Sam continued to search for what had startled Benny but still found nothing.
A minute passed and then he saw it. A dark shape shifting near the outside of the woodlands. It was too tall to be a deer and for a moment Sam felt his stomach flip at the thought of what it could be but then the dark shape burst out from the trees and Sam recognised the black coat of the Dayguard.
Sam sighed in relief. "He's one of ours."
Benny's grip only tightened. "No, something is wrong."
The guard looked terrified, even from where they stood at their high vantage point. He was running hard towards the wall, his eyes wide and chest heaving. Benny unclipped his hand held radio.
"Open the gate!" He cried into it, eyes fixed on the sprinting guard.
By now, Sam knew that there was something really wrong, especially since all guards were required to travel with at least one other companion and this man had none.
As he watched, another two dark shapes fell out of the trees but these two were not in uniform. They both wore dark denim pants and green shirts. Their sun bleached hair was long and tied back and, most alarmingly, their skin was deeply tanned. They were human. Sam glanced at the long knives they both brandished and his heart lurched as he realised exactly what they were.
They were hunters.