Prologue

Life went on for most that knew me. I remember about a hundred voices at my funeral. Maybe less. Fake sympathy, shallow words. Whispers of “how pervy he was”, rumors of “what they found on his laptop”. But afterwards, their lives carried on. Mine ended too early. I never saw 30.

I was just another number. Another life lost to the pandemic. Doctors called it the Omicron Variant, the weaker one. They barely looked into it. In truth, it was something far worse.

I laid in darkness for months, below the ground, aware but immobile, helpless. Weak, but slowly gaining strength. Months I waited, with nothing but my own thoughts. Recalling my pathetic life, anger rising in me. Hatred, darkness. I’m not myself. The man I was is gone. He doesn’t matter. Now I’m something else, something evil.

A full year I lay like this, transforming. Until finally one day I hear movement. The earth, the dirt around my coffin, it shifts, flows like mud. I reach up and push. The lid opens slowly, mud pouring in all around me. I climb, clawing desperately at the earth. I push and struggle until finally I surface. Rain pouring down on my head, the cold autumn night fresh on my skin. A graveyard, a plaque next to me, not even a full headstone. I was too poor and unimportant. My old name etched into it. I push and crawl with all my strength until I lay panting, wheezing on my side. The earth stops shifting and I feel my power completely drained.

I lay like this for hours, too weak to move, a year’s worth of strength expended in minutes. Laying there in a decaying suit and tie, I realize what I am. Technically the Alpha, the first of my kind, but as weak as the Omicron they labeled me. For now, it suits me, a pathetic name for a pathetic creature. Until I can regain my strength. I am twisted, sick, depraved, but free. I no longer need to follow the laws of man. A true villain, I feel the urge to commit atrocities. I don’t care what people think, I will do exactly what I want, fulfill my disgusting fantasies. Women, girls. Endless bodies flash in my mind, limbs writhing, flesh wet and dripping. I feel lust, an urge to hurt, to rape, to kill. An urge to feed.

The next few days are cold and treacherous. I wander the roads, learning that daylight hurts. I feel like I could die if I stay in it. So I avoid it and stick to the safety of night. I pass a church one day, and the cross outside hurts my eyes, burns, so I flee. I hunger, but not for food. For flesh, for blood, for innocence and beauty. I learn that I don’t need food or water or even sleep, but these things don’t bother me if I do them. My body seems to work mostly the same as it used to. My senses, my breathing, adrenaline, all seems the same, or at least the illusion of those things in my mind. Now that I think of it, I can just hold my breath and nothing happens. It’s like I do these things out of habit.

I find a park I used to like to walk my dog at, trails and thick woods, a nice fresh pond where I can clean myself and my clothes. I learn that even the coldest water doesn’t really bother me much. But running water, even little streams in the park, I can’t cross for some reason.

After a few days, I give in to the hunger. A passing old lady, just walking at the park on a dark morning just before the sun is fully up. She’s so frail, so slow. She never saw me coming. One bite and she was loopy and half conscious. Drinking blood fills me with life. I don’t waste a drop, hiding her in the woods afterward.

I do this a few more times over the next few days, a few more helpless weaker people on the trails. Gaining a bit more strength in that first week. My eyes grow strong, able to see perfectly at night, better than normal, even in pitch blackness. My muscles grow stronger too, my body lean and fit. I feel like I did in high school, when I played sports and worked out a lot more. I need to feed more, gain more strength.

But mostly I feel a stronger urge. An urge to find her. Victoria. My boss, from my office job before I died. I don’t know why she comes to mind, and not anyone else. Most everything from my old life is starting to fade away like a dream I’m having trouble remembering. I know things, I remember things, but it’s as if it was a lifetime ago, like someone else lived the experiences.

But Victoria is fresh in my mind. I need her, need to feed, make her mine. I always had a crush on her. She was stern, some said bitchy, but only because she had to take charge in her position, be taken seriously. Married, a bit older than me, mid-30s. Strong, mature, someone that I could never have. But also someone that always showed my coworkers and I such kindness. She even invited a bunch of us over one time. She said we were welcome “anytime”. A passing phrase, mostly just being polite, but now it seems so important. Deep down I know I can enter her home. I can make it mine, and I feel the urge to do so. It’s a weird gut feeling, like that stupid little stream of running water back in the woods. I just could not cross the water, it wasn’t possible. My gut says I can’t enter certain places either. As if I need to be welcomed, invited in.