Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales (22 page)

’ve lived in many places and in many times.

For now, Seattle suits me. If
Twilight
got anything right, it’s that overcast days play less havoc on vampires. Not much less, granted, but enough.

Unlike
Twilight
, I don’t live with an adopted family of vampires. I live alone, as I have for many centuries. And as I pulled up to my current home, I actually had to think hard about how many centuries it has been.

Four of them. Four hundred and seventy-two years, to be exact.

Almost five centuries.

A half of a millennium.

Jesus, I’m old. And rich. After all, a vampire acquires a lot of money in five hundred years, and my own was spread liberally around banks the world over, not to mention secret stashes of gold and silver in various caves and beaches.

And now here I am, in Seattle, living yet another life, in another place, another time. The world continues on. People come and go. Technologies expand. Waistlines expand, too. But I will always be twenty-five.

Forever young, as they say.

I pull into my garage and shut off the car, which I sit in as the garage door grinds shut behind me. I could do anything, of course. Go anywhere, be anyone. There are people out there—very talented and corrupt people—who can turn you into anyone, in any country.

But, for now, I am staying put, living among the hippies and hipsters and baristas. Why? Why do I deal with the rain and gloom and cold?

The answer might surprise you.

Then again, it might not.

After all, Washington State is known more than just for its legal pot, gay marriages, and trendy coffee shops.

It’s known for something monstrous stalking its woods.

Yes, I’m here to hunt the ultimate prize.

I’m here to hunt Bigfoot.

Don’t laugh.

I’m being serious. I’ve tasted all types of man and woman and child. All ethnicities, all age ranges. I’ve feasted on the very old to the very young. Yes, I’m a monster. I’ve never claimed otherwise. I have feasted on puppies and bear cubs, on lions and endangered rhinos.

And now I will hunt and feast upon the greatest prize of all.

That is, of course, if it really exists.

I’ve spent many months planning and plotting.

I’ve even watched some of those ridiculous shows on TV, the ones that are all growl and no results.

Foolish mortals. Yes, I say that in jest, but it’s the truth. Never send a human to do what a vampire can do better. I am, of course, the perfect hunting machine. My ears can pick out the smallest sounds, the slightest rustling—breathing from across great distances. My eyes see deep into the dark. Hell, to my eyes, there is no dark. The night is alive with incandescence. And I’m fast. So much faster than those bumbling idiots weighed down by camera equipment and backpacks.

I will wear nothing but the clothing on my back.

It will just be me and
them
.

And I will find them, too.

Oh yes, I will.

The ultimate prize.

The woods are dark.

But not to my eyes. No, to mine, the woods are alive with supernaturally bright filaments. Thousands of them, millions. All melding together to illuminate the night—for creatures like me.

Hunters
like me.

It is late, perhaps 2:00 in the morning. I have about four hours left before sunrise. And when the sun does rise, I want to be long gone… with a bellyful of a rare and very prized blood source.

I’m in a prime spot along the Olympic Peninsula. In fact, not far from the now famous Forks, with its glittering vampires. Lord, we are so much more than fictional heroes… or villains. Writers only partially get our stories right. Mostly, they get us wrong. Granted, I’ve made it my life’s purpose to cover my tracks, to conceal my true nature. But a few of us get sloppy, and a few of us even fall in love with mortals. I don’t fall in love. I take what I want.

Like now, for instance.

Now, I want to taste the blood of this legendary creature. This sasquatch. Yes, legendary even to vampires. You see, we vampires don’t know all, see all. We’re not plugged into some supernatural network. I, like the bungling idiots you see on TV, have to find them just like everyone else.

Except, of course, I
will
find them.

All I want is one.

One beautiful creature to feed upon. One beautiful creature to destroy. To claim. To conquer.

Yes, I’m the asshole of the vampire world.

Pray you don’t cross paths with me.

Speaking of paths, I find myself on a narrow one now.

A game trail, no doubt, one that winds through thick ferns and stinging nettle. Of course, unlike with mortals, the stinging lasts only seconds. It’s good to be me. Bad to be anything I’m hunting.

Like sasquatch. Luckily, I am in a location along the densely forested peninsula that is considered a hotbed for Bigfoot sightings. I know this because I feasted on the director of a popular Bigfoot organization just last night. Such a shame he died tragically in a house fire. Damn faulty wires.

I chuckled now as I moved stealthily through the forest, my hiking boots whispering over tree roots, compacted dirt, and fallen leaves. I doubted even a guard dog would hear me. Hell, I barely heard me… and that’s saying something. Something else was out here. Something that was neither animal nor human. What that something was remained to be seen. And feasted upon.

Centuries of hiding—hell, millenniums of hiding—were about to be undone in one wild night of hunting.

Quickly, I moved through the forest, pausing only briefly to listen, to sniff the air—sasquatches are known for giving off a tremendous stink—and to
feel
. Yes, feel. We use a sort of sixth sense. An ability to feel our way through any situation.

Like I said, we are the ultimate hunters.

I was thinking about that now, reveling in my, well, greatness, when something thunderous crashed into me.

Rarely have I been hit so hard.

In fact, I couldn’t think of a harder impact, especially one that sent me tumbling head over ass through a tangle of blackberry bushes.

And I mean a tangle. As I extricated myself from the thorny vines, I was a bleeding mess. But being who I am, the wounds healed quickly.

As the kids say, that’s how I roll.

I carefully scanned my surroundings. Whatever had hit me was gone, having slipped back into the shadows, hidden even from my near-perfect night vision. A whispering of sound to my right, perhaps the slightest brush of a foot over leaves—remember, nothing escapes my hearing—and something slammed into me hard enough for me to believe I was in the path of a charging rhino. Which I had been once, before I feasted on the creature (and made it appear a poacher’s handiwork).

Anyway, there were no rhinos in these forests. There was, in fact, nothing big enough in the Olympic Peninsula to hit me as hard as I had been hit. And as stealthily. Grizzlies had long been pushed to extinction in Washington State. And black bears were far too slow and loud and stupid to plow into me with such precision, silence, and strength.

So what had hit me?

I didn’t know, but whatever was out there had me spinning around as I scrambled to my feet, had me looking wildly over my shoulder and behind and up into the trees—had me feeling, well,
mortal
.