Chapter 2

I had been through an ordeal most people could never even imagine and I somehow instinctively knew that I was now different, in an immutable and fundamental way.

I should have been a useless wreck, showing signs of serious emotional and psychological trauma. Normal people would have taken days, weeks or even years, to come to terms with what I had been through. With what I had done. But not me.

Sure I was awfully upset, angry and confused, but looking back now, I had accepted and adapted to my situation with an ease and haste that still shocks me.

A few hours before sunrise, I'd made it back to my apartment in Scarborough in record time, thanks to my new bike. I didn't have any plans to keep it though – it could be easily identified and used to tie me to the now dead Winter Born, or allow their friends to find me. So, I parked the Harley a few streets away from my apartment, in an out of the way spot, wiped away any possible fingerprints, and left the keys in the ignition. Carrying the loaded saddlebag over a shoulder, I then quickly made my way home.

I literally sighed in relief as I entered the apartment, using the hidden spare key since I seemed to have lost my own. Being home meant some level of security, even if it was in my own mind. Thankfully, according to the fat biker, the Winter Born hadn't been able to find out anything about me, so they most likely didn't know where I lived.

Hopefully...

I didn't exactly feel like answering questions so, before anything else, I checked on my roommates. First there was Chuck, a really nice guy who I got along with pretty well, even if I hardly saw him, him being gone almost half the year. He wasn't in his room, so I assumed that he was still traveling with his hard rock/metal/grunge band to different gigs across the continent. The band, The Spanking Monkeys weren't half bad – I had even bought a CD, some t-shirts and other assorted merchandise a while back. We were friends, trading e-mails and messages semi-regularly, but we weren't exactly close.

Then there was John, the douche bag, asleep and snoring lightly in his room. On the surface, he looked like a great guy - handsome, witty, affable and ambitious. I'm a good judge of character though, so I saw pretty quickly that his good looks were nothing but a façade used to mask his two-faced personality and his desire for ever greater status and money. He had grown up in a lower-middle class home and now, working in an investment firm, was aiming for the high life, filled of power and privilege. No matter what it took and no matter who he had to step over to get there.

He seemed to enjoy putting on a high-class demeanor and looking down on us "working class plebes". He was constantly snubbing Chuck and me and throwing around snide comments about how we dressed, our education, our jobs. We weren't his sole targets thankfully - he was an equal opportunity aspiring snob. I'd thankfully learned to tune him out.

Seeing as I most likely wouldn't be interrupted, I then went to our shared bathroom and took a long shower. I let the hot water wash the caked on dried blood and filth from my body and relax my tense muscles. After scrubbing myself down multiple times and feeling fully relaxed, I toweled myself off and took a good long look at myself in the fogged up mirror.

About this time is when I expected things to start falling apart.

I mean, I had been beaten pretty badly and shot in the chest. I'd killed people in pretty violent and gruesome ways. I was okay till now, most likely because of the adrenaline high, but now that I had calmed down I was expecting a crash, or some other sort of reaction. But there was none.

In fact, I was surprisingly calm and collected.

Looking back and reexamining the night's events, I didn't really feel bad about anything that happened.

Well no ... I felt bad about getting beat up and all the resulting pain, but nothing that followed. I was pretty damn confident that the men I'd killed were criminals, and they'd definitely had a hand in what happened to me. They undoubtedly got just what they had coming to them. To be honest, I wanted to find the rest of the gang and do the same to them, especially Leon the asshole that had shot me and apparently some sort of head honcho amongst the Winter Born.

The flow of violent thoughts running through my mind was interrupted by the sound of a menacing growl. My mind snapped back into the here and now, and to my surprise I realized that it had actually come from me.

Once again, looking into the mirror above the sink, I was shocked at the transformation that my reflection revealed. My skin had gone inexplicably and deathly pale, with hints of blue veins faintly visible underneath. My eyes were no longer their usual brown, but a steel-blue color, laced with silvery-white. Looking lower I also saw that my teeth were now different – my canines were longer and sharper, like fangs.

Was this what the fat man had seen as I questioned him? No wonder he had been so scared by the sight of me.

I leaned closer to the mirror in order to get a better look, while raising a hand to feel my changed skin. It felt colder than normal and somehow tougher, as if my skin was now made some sort of soft, lifelike stone. The colors of my eyes seemed almost liquid, its patterns shifting slightly even as I examined them. Feeling my teeth – no ... fangs – with my finger I could tell they were impressively sharp and pointy. I would need to be careful not to bite myself.

I calmly took in and studied my reflection for several minutes and as my anger faded, so did the changes slowly begin to fade. The slight natural tan returned to my skin, my eyes regained their original color and my teeth retreated back to their normal length.

Now that I was playing attention, I could feel a tenseness in my muscles and skin ease, a strange sort of heat and pressure behind my eyes diminish, as well as the feeling of my canines retracting back into my gums.

That sealed it. Everything that I've experienced and all the visible evidence pointed to one logical conclusion, no matter how fantastic or impossible to imagine it may be.

"I'm a vampire." I said out loud, my voice flat and emotionless.

I'd avoided the word somehow, until now. I'd thought about it briefly, especially after I noticed my intense attraction to Al's spilt blood, but I had pushed it out of my mind in order to focus on more immediate concerns. Saying it out loud now, somehow made it more real - an explicit fact I would have to live with and adapt to.

"At least I still have a reflection."

But how the hell did it happen? The only explanation that I could think of was that I had been bitten and transformed right before my death by one of the Winter Born. Most likely their leader, Leon. Maybe he wanted a way to continue my interrogation, even after death. But that just led to another important question ... how did I happen to cross paths with them and what did I do to piss them off so badly? Why couldn't I remember? It was possibly due to a combination of the trauma of my death and my rebirth as one of the undead.

Damn. Did I just seriously use the words "rebirth" and "undead"?

The last thing that I could remember was waking up on Thursday morning as usual, getting ready for the day and laying about the apartment, simply reading and playing a few video games. Near the end of the afternoon, I headed out to my job at the Corner Diner. Next thing I knew, I found myself strung up in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of the city, about to be buried by a couple of outlaw, meth-head bikers. All that I could remember of the time in-between was some vague images of my beating and death. Concentrating and thinking about them only caused some serious headaches.

I gave up, slightly frustrated. I would eventually find out what had happened, I was sure of it.

I continued an in-depth examination of my body in the mirror. Now that I was no longer covered in dry blood, I could see the evidence of my beating at the hands of the Winter Born. Surprisingly, there was much less than I had initially expected.

Long faded bruises and faint scarred lines were all over my stomach, flanks and arms. What I could see of my back was covered in a faded, but large scar, looking as if it had been scraped or sanded down. I winced as I imagined what that must have felt like and was glad that I couldn't remember. My wrists were encircled with slight welts from the ropes that had suspended me. All in all, they all looked like injuries around two to three weeks old. The only scar that looked even close to recent was the large bullet wound in the middle of my chest. I used my hands to feel my injuries, massaging the skin, muscle and bones underneath, but there wasn't even the slightest hint of pain or discomfort.

I guess the only lasting damage that the beating had wrought, was on an emotional and psychological level.

Wrapping a towel around myself I left the bathroom and silently entered the dark living room of the three bedroom apartment. Usually I would need a light to make my way around – I had long lost count of the times I or one of my roommates had stubbed our toes, or even tripped on something late at night. But now, with the scant ambient light, I could see the entire room and its furnishings perfectly. I could even read the headlines of the newspaper and magazines on the coffee table.

I continued on to the kitchen, making my way through the dark quite easily, where I made myself a couple of sandwiches and got a cold bottle of water. The sudden light only slightly and temporarily blinded me as I opened the fridge. I'd have to get used to that.

Though simple, the small meal felt great and I was extremely happy to find out that I could still eat regular food. But my happiness was short lived.

Yes, my hunger and thirst was gone, but there was still something there deep within me waiting to be sated. It felt very similar to them, but was new, distinctive and incredibly insistent.

With a significant amount of dismay, I concluded that I was thirsty for blood.

The realization was a bit disturbing, but only on a psychological level. Physically, the thought made my mouth start to water and I felt my new fangs begin to extend once again. Imagining myself plunging my teeth into a soft neck and feeling the thick, warm liquid fill my mouth, flow down my throat and into my stomach, gave me an overall comforting and fulfilled feeling.

It wasn't as if I was starving, it felt more like I had recently missed a meal or two and was now damn hungry. Distracting and slightly unpleasant, but bearable. At least for now.

Nevertheless, sooner or later, I knew that I would need to drink somebody's blood. That understandably worried me – it's not as if I could pass by the local blood bank and pick up a couple of liters. I'd have to bite someone. How would I go about it? Would the bite kill them, or simply turn them into a vampire as well? How much blood would I need to survive and how often would I have to feed? There were so many important questions.

But they were questions that would have to wait. I shook the thoughts and cravings for blood out of my head. It was time to focus on what I could do now.

I left the kitchen for my room, remembering to make sure that I took a garbage bag with me. Stopping momentarily back at the bathroom, I picked up and stuffed my borrowed clothes into the bag to throw out tomorrow, and then grabbed the saddlebag that I had dropped off of the floor.

After locking my bedroom door behind me, I took a moment to take in the familiar and comfortable space. Even when I was living with my parents at home, my bedroom had always been a precious refuge.

I tossed the trash bag into a corner and took a seat on the bed. I figured that this was as good a time as any to check out what secrets the metal lockbox that I had found held. After removing it from the saddlebag, opening it proved pretty simple ... I simply grabbed the padlock and twisted it off. Inside I found a few bundles of cash, a notebook, and a small plastic bottle with a match attached to it with a rubber band. After unscrewing the cap and sniffing the liquid, I realized that it was pure alcohol. That last one stumped me.