Chapter 4: Audrey

"And all the winds go sighing, For the sweet things dying." – C. Rossetti

We actually drove through what there was of the town of Newrock, and pulled onto a dirt road that was even worse than the one we'd been traveling. After a mile or two there was a big silver, double wide trailer ahead of us, and Angela parked next to an old pickup truck. There were no lights and if anyone was there, apparently they hadn't been woken up by our arrival.

I got out of the car, following Angela as she walked to the mobile home, which had a small wooden porch up a few short stairs from the ground. She didn't knock or anything, just opened the screen door and then the door behind that, pushing it into the dark interior.

"Monica?" Angela called out, not too loudly, and she turned to the left and walked down a hallway.

"Who's that?" I heard a woman's voice and a light came on in what must have been a bedroom at the far end of the trailer. "Who's there?"

"It's me," Angela said in a comfortable voice, as if she'd just stepped out for a pack of smokes. I'd remained near the front door, looking around in the darkness and seeing what looked like a pretty well lived in home.

"Angela?" The woman sounded happy but confused and by then Angela had reached the bedroom and gone in.

I wasn't sure what to do with myself, so I just sat down on an old sofa, waiting patiently. The horizon was noticeable now through the windows and I felt myself getting tired. I wanted to sleep and I resisted the urge to lie down right where I was. I was sure Angela wouldn't forget about me and I wondered about this Monica person and how Angela knew her. Judging by the trailer, I didn't think she was like us.

"Lisa," Angela called me and I shook my head as if to clear it. I'd closed my eyes for just a second and it had been like falling into a well. "This is Monica." Angela was helping me up and another woman was standing there with her.

There were more lights turned on now and I blinked at them before focusing on the woman. She was older than Angela, in her forties I thought, and handsome, but too old now to be pretty. She looked like a practical woman, a farmer's wife or something, which made sense considering where she was living I supposed. Tall with black hair, frayed and wild from sleep, Monica was wearing an oversized t-shirt that fell to her smooth thighs.

"Hi Lisa," the woman offered me a smile then turned her head slightly to look at Angela. "She's just a child."

"No," Angela shook her head and smiled at me, perhaps thinking I might have been a little pissed by what her friend had said. "She's not a child, Monica. She's just hungry and needs to sleep."

I hadn't said anything at all and I was still trying to decide if I was going to like this Monica person or not, when they helped me into her bed. It was a dark room, with the two windows it had painted black, or so Monica told me, and covered with squares of plywood. Why she'd do that I had no idea, she obviously wasn't one of us.

Angela had undressed me quickly and the bed felt good as I slipped beneath the sheets, still warm from Monica's body and smelling strongly of the woman. I was surprised when Monica joined me and I blinked at her as she got close enough so our bodies were touching.

"Are you hungry?" Monica whispered, touching my arm with her fingertips. "Do you want me? It's alright."

It was clear that she wanted me to want her, and she knew who and what I was, that was certain. Monica was afraid, a little; I could smell the fear coming out of her skin, just as I could sense her growing excitement. She wanted sex and she'd trade her blood for it, or better yet, I thought, she wanted sex while I took her blood. What fear she had wasn't from pain, I didn't think, but from the possibility that she could die. That fear was what she liked most.

Angela undressed and joined us on the other side, so that I was in the middle between them, lying on my side facing Monica. Angela pressed her body against my back, spooning with me and kissing the nape of my neck.

"I've had her many times," Angela told me, both of us staring into Monica's eyes. The room was completely dark and I knew she couldn't see us, not even from a few inches away. Monica's eyes were unfocused, slightly confused as they strained to see something, anything, but she was smiling and her hands were inviting me to take her as she desired.

"Here ... on my breast," Monica whispered and Angela was pushing my head down, so that I could find the swell of the woman's tits. There I found small scabs and old wounds barely healed and I ran my tongue over them, thinking Angela must have been here recently.

I bit into the soft fat of her breast easily, and her flesh parted for my teeth like warm butter. There was no artery there, no large veins, but I could feel her blood seeping readily into my mouth and I sucked greedily, hollowing my cheeks as I sought to draw more. Angela still held me, her hips moving and I felt the soft hair upon the swell of her sex rubbing against my hip. She was kissing Monica and from the sound, I thought Angela had bitten into the woman's tongue and fed from her that way. I could hear Monica seeming to gag, almost choking at times, but her hand didn't stop caressing me, even as her body shook with small orgasms, her fingers merely tightened from time to time, clutching at me for brief seconds and then letting me go.

I fell asleep nursing on the woman, my mouth wet with her blood. I slept and dreamed violent things, terrible things. About my family mostly, my mom in particular, a woman I wanted most desperately to remember, but it was getting harder everyday. I couldn't remember my dream when I woke up, but I knew she'd been in it and I was surprised to find that my eyes were wet. The sun was still up. I couldn't see it, the room remained dark as it had been when we'd arrived, but I could feel the day. It wasn't time to get up and Angela slept beside me, not moving, not breathing, but dead for all anyone could tell. Monica was gone, leaving just the smell of her behind, sheets stained with her blood and cum, and I closed my eyes, twisting my face against the pillow to dry my cheeks.

Vampires weren't supposed to cry.

"There are people who help us, who worship us," Angela was telling me and we were driving again, leaving Monica and Nevada behind us, headed west into Northern California. Once we'd reached a town called Redding, she'd told me, we'd turn north towards Oregon and home. She had the headlights on, but only because we were on a real road now and it would look suspicious without them. There wasn't much traffic and even though I could see perfectly in the dark, there was nothing to see.

"People like Monica," I said and Angela nodded. "How do you find them?"

"You can recognize them. Usually," Angela smiled. "Sometimes they come looking for you."

"Other people are looking too, aren't they?" I asked.

"What makes you say that?" Angela looked at me sharply.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? If somebody loves us, somebody's gotta hate us too," I shrugged. "Everybody knows that."

Angela sighed a little. "There are some. Jealous people, frightened or vengeful maybe, people who hate themselves, or love us too much." She looked at me in the dark. "You'll recognize them too and you'll know what to do."

"Yeah," I smiled, just a little one. "I know what to do."

Angela just gave me a tight smile.

"Are there a lot of people like us? Vampires?" I asked her.

"Not a lot, no. But there's enough so we have to be careful. Some of us are pretty ... Territorial I guess," she shrugged. "We have our places."

"So there's no like, vampire night clubs or anything?" I giggled, wishing there was.

"No," she laughed. "Nothing like that. Mostly, if one of us meets another, one of us dies," Angela said seriously.

"But not us," I said, turning in my sit and kicking off my boots. "Me and you."

"No, some of us have our mates," she looked at me, reaching out. "We're like wolves, we mate for life."

"Oh." I smiled and pressed my feet against her hip, playing against her with my sock covered toes. "So we're like married now?"

Angela giggled at that, biting her bottom lip and I thought she looked like she was just a girl suddenly; maybe fifteen like me, as if she'd just been hiding that part of her from me all this time. I'd loved her before that moment, but if I had to pick one second, just one instant when I knew for certain that I was going to love her forever, it was right then. She looked so ... human.

"Like married, yeah," Angela nodded. "But better because we share the same blood. We're joined closer than any man and his wife could ever hope to be."

Like a mother and daughter? I wanted to ask, but I didn't, afraid she'd take it the wrong way. I didn't think of her as my mom at all, although I guess it's pretty obvious there was some of that going on, but it wasn't our thing. I knew what she meant and I felt it inside, our blood was the same. She'd had mine and given me hers and they'd mixed, we weren't the same people we'd been before, spiritually I mean, or emotionally maybe. Physically too, obviously. Yeah, I thought, we were definitely joined. And like wolves, mated for life.

I wanted her to stop then, we were coming up on someplace called Susanville and I was hungry, but Angela told me we'd keep going. We would be in Klamath long before sunrise and we'd stay there for awhile. It was safe, she said, it was home. I wasn't just hungry though, I wanted her. I wanted to make love to her again and I wondered if it was just me, or if vampires were always horny. They sure seemed that way in the movies, and now here I was rubbing my feet against Angela and it was all I could do to keep myself from curling up against her, kissing her, licking her soft, sweet skin.

"What are you doing?" Angela grinned at me.

"Oh!" I giggled and realized I was rubbing myself through my pants. "Nothing," I said innocently, but I didn't stop.

"Okay," she nodded.

"How come I never dreamed about you?" I asked.

"What?"

"You said before that you found me because you dreamed about me." I licked my lips. "But I never dreamed about you."

"What do you dream about?" Angela had reached down with her left hand across her body and she played with my foot, massaging it.