Chapter 3
When Barnabas left the hotel, he noticed this Midwestern town had a busy nightlife. Looking around, he saw so many people, all with a destination in mind. They were all unaware of what walked among them at that very moment. As people passed and nodded, he smiled back and kept walking forward. Thoughts of the woman from last night kept coming to mind and he longed to meet her. This worried him since she might recognize him for what he had become. He admired her skills as a vampire slayer and had amorous feelings towards her, but he knew he'd have to also be very cautious.
Then . . . a familiar urge started to stir within his veins, a throbbing hunger that hadn't been indulged in for some time. He thought of it like a drug addiction, controllable most of the time, uncontrollable when he ignored it for too long. This was the part of his life he dreaded. He wanted so much to be human again, able to walk in the day, be normal, and with people without thinking about feeding on them. He had been human once or twice, after his original death, with the help of his closest friend, Julia, and those memories helped him stay in control most of the time.
The throbbing continued . . . Recently, he started imagining alternatives to human blood, wondered if that would satisfy his needs. He recalled the earlier days after his release from his century old confinement when he sought animal's blood, but only for a short time. After a while, it did not fulfill his hunger and he had to return to the human source.
The throbbing increased and urged him on . . . Trying to ignore the intense urge of his "addiction", Barnabas focused his thoughts on the woman from last night. He came upon a dark alley and heard a commotion coming from the darkness. With his keen sense of hearing, he recognized an angry man's voice taunting a young female. Before entering the alley, he looked up and down both sides of the street to see if anyone was looking in his direction. Seeing only a few people walking or window-shopping, he entered the alley. The darkness was only a momentary annoyance as his keen night vision focused on the subjects ahead of him. He quietly and slowly walked the full length of the alley until he came upon two people struggling with each other.
The male attacker had ripped the young girl's clothes and cut her cheek with his knife. The smell of blood aroused Barnabas and triggered the burning desire to attack her . . . she looked like nineteen, he thought. The male attacker looked at Barnabas and cursed him, ordered him to get lost as the girl pleaded for help. Barnabas stepped closer. He saw the attacker shove the girl to the ground, which caused her to hit her head on a garbage dumpster and loose consciousness. A cold eerie feeling loomed over the alley as Barnabas turned menacingly towards the man. He crept closer to the man as the throbbing lust drove him, urged him on. Unaware and apparently unafraid, the assailant approached Barnabas with the knife stretched out at arms length. Barnabas placed his cane on the arm as he approached the man.
With just a blink of an eye, Barnabas overtook the man before he knew what happened to him. As razor sharp fangs sunk into the soft warm flesh of the man's neck, Barnabas tasted the liquid as it surged into his own body. The substance heated his cold body, his heart pounded at the same rate of his victim's, and as the life drained out of the body he felt life returning to his own. The thoughts and feelings of the man past between the two before death occurred. This phenomenon was a byproduct of the connection the vampire had with his victims. The man slumped in Barnabas' arms and became dead weight. As he lifted it over his head, he easily tossed the corpse into the nearby dumpster and closed the lid. Perfect place for scum, he thought.
Feeling satisfied and absent of any lustful feelings, Barnabas cleaned himself and focused his attention on helping the unconscious girl. Kneeling down to see how she was, her eyes open and she began to shake.
"Please don't hurt me," she cried.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said calmly and honestly, "the man who attacked you ran off. He will never hurt you again." He held out his hand to help her up and as she rose, she looked around and sighed. While Barnabas held her arm to steady her, the girl started to violently shake again. He turned his head in the direction she was looking. They both watched a dark figure leave the shadows of the alley, walking towards them.