Oh… hey.  Late-night jog?

          You’re probably wondering why someone’d be sitting here, on this bench, in this neighborhood, at this time of night.  I guess “people-watching” won’t cut it, huh? 

          Sure, I’ll explain, calm down.  But it goes back a ways.

          I grew up your typical American lost cause.  Mom died in childbirth, Dad was killed in a car wreck couple of years later.  So foster families, here I come.  Not an original story.

          First family I was with, they were honestly good people.  I liked ‘em.  They ran a restaurant downtown.  Things break different, maybe we’re not sitting here at 3AM.  But things broke the way they broke.  Some rich asshole bought everything up ten cents on the dollar, squeezed everyone out.  I remember how angry the old man was when they made him sign everything away.  They lost everything, couldn’t take care of a kid proper.  So back in the system I went.

          Next foster family… wasn’t as nice.  Lots of sitting locked in a dark basement that stank of mildew and stale ketchup, hoping an owl would save me, if you get my drift.  Lots of yelling, fighting - soon as I could, I left.  But I never forgot.  Went back once.  Wasn’t gonna be smacked around anymore.

          Lots of stuff happened since, yada yada.  Which brings me to last night.

          Guess you could say I was “people-watching” last night over by the pavilion, just after sundown.  Parked out of the way, nice and quiet.  Didn’t think anyone really noticed me, nobody ever does.  Didn’t think anyone else was in the car, either, when those cold hands grabbed my arms, pinned them back, and I felt the pain in my neck.

          I knew I was bleeding. I knew that smell.

          The last thing I saw before everything went black was my rearview mirror.  There was nothing there.  And then…

…then I woke up in the dark, in the back seat of my car.  Seats were sticky with blood, caked in it.  Made that squishy sound.  And I was starving.

And somebody was in the front seat.

          “Wakey wakey,” he whispered.  “You’ve been asleep all day.”

          What the actual fuck?

          “You see that on your wrist, friend?” he asked quietly.  Dude had an accent, maybe Russian, maybe German, who the hell knows.  I looked down at a metal bracelet on my right wrist.  This one here, actually.  For a second I panicked, thought it was a handcuff, grasped around for anything to pop it off.

          “You could say that,” he said with a light chuckle.  How’d he know what I was thinking?  “You are being bound to me now.  Disobey, and you will feel pain like you never ima—”

          That was when I shoved the crowbar I kept in the floorboard through the back of the seat.  I remember it sliding through so smooth.  I had no idea what I hit, but I heard him gurgle.  Then a tap on the horn.  It passed right through.

          I suddenly felt a burning in my wrist, shooting down my arm.  And screaming.  So loud.  I thought it was him screaming, practically in my ear.

          He tried to pull away.  I remember he growled.  Thought that was damn weird.  Crying, okay.  Begging, maybe.  Yelling, sure.  But growling was new.  He kicked and pulled, but I held the curved end in one hand as I slid my other hand around in the dark.

          He turned his head, and I got a faint glimpse of his face in the dark.  He wasn’t screaming, but he was mad.  I thought his eyes flashed red.  And when he spit, I thought I saw fangs.

          This guy was a monster.

          My fingers fumbled along the floorboard, over the duct tape, over the folds of the tarp, and finally found the wire.  I let go of the crowbar just fast enough to wrap it around my hands.  As I reached to slip it around his neck, he pulled up, almost hard enough to pull the crowbar straight through the seat.  The hook clanged against something metal inside the upholstery, keeping him trapped.

          By then, the wire was wrapped around his neck, and I pulled.  I expected him to kick for a few minutes as I strangled him.  My right arm felt like it was on fire.

          Imagine my surprise when the wire cut clean through and wrapped around the headrest.  Another tap on the horn as his head bounced off the steering wheel.

          Then imagine my surprise when his body just went up in flames.

          I screamed, I know I screamed.  I kicked the door open and flew out, patted myself down, convinced I was on fire, too.  But I wasn’t.  Just the joker in the driver’s seat.

          I looked around.  No light, except from the car.  I thought I was in a garage, but there was no door besides the roll-up door, which I could barely tell was orange.  And God, did it stink.  Smelled like blood and piss and… death.

          Would’ve puked except I was so fucking hungry.

          I lifted the roll-up slowly and saw it was one of those self-storage places.  Must’ve been his.  My head started to pound.  I got the shakes like I was gonna really puke this time.  My right arm felt numb, thought maybe I was having a stroke.  I swear I was so hungry that a voice in my head started to whisper.  It said, “Feed.”

          Those storage places can be a maze, y’know, but I found the entrance quick enough.  I figured I’d talk any rent-a-cops into just letting me out, no harm, no foul, right? 

          But then I saw him, some old fat fuck with his feet up, watching something on his phone.  Probably had a gun he never planned on using.  Probably had grandkids somewhere…

          Barely felt the gravel as I ran - just that hunger.  Don’t think he looked up before I was on him.  He had time to gasp.  Then I bit into his neck like he was a fucking juice pouch.  I felt him punch my shoulders and kick around, but he didn’t stop me.  I just drank.

          It was… well, best word I could use would be “bliss.”

          Eventually I stopped.  I wasn’t hungry anymore.  Looked down at the dead body under me.  Chalk white.  Eyes open and looking at nothing.  Not even a gun, either.  I was the last thing he saw.

          I was the last… thing he saw.

          I looked up at one of those round security mirrors.  Saw him splayed out - but I didn’t see me.

          Funny how sometimes something just dawns on you.  It can be the craziest shit, something you wouldn’t think of five minutes earlier.  But when it hits, it’s like everything falls into place at once.

          The fucker in the car.  The blood.  The crowbar.  The fire.  The stink.  The hunger.  The mirror.

          I was a goddamn vampire.