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I met the love of my life in late April, 1976. I was at a dance club, starving, on the hunt for a warm meal. The place was packed with people, hardly enough room to move your arms. Yet people were still dancing in hordes, oblivious to one another. The music was deafening, impossible to carry on a conversation. Searchlights of blue and green and pink flashed around the ocean of people, briefly illuminating their faces before vanishing to the other side of the crowd.
I saw Alistair amid the bustling crowd. He was tall and lanky, but his green eyes held a bit of mystery too them behind his thick-framed glasses. I merged with the dancing horde, never keeping my eyes off him. By the third song, I had made my way to him. I grinded my body against his, swaying to the rhythm. After a few songs passed by, he asked me if I wanted a drink, but I didn’t hear a word he said. I mimed my predicament to him, but he just looked at me, confused. Finally, I grabbed his hand and led him out the back door.
“Did you want a drink?” he asked me. I responded by pressing my crimson lips against his. He was dumbstruck at first, and kissed me back a second later. He pushed me against the cold brick wall. I ran my slender fingers through his midnight hair. He drew his hand up the curve of my back, and down my jeans. I nibbled on his ear gently, then pulled back the collar of his shirt and sunk my fangs into his exposed neck. At the same time, I felt him biting down above my collar bone.
I shoved him off of me and stared in disbelief at his bloodied mouth. He drew his fingers across where I had bitten him and looked down at his blood. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a vampire?!” he shouted, an odd mixture of shock and anger.
“I was going to eat you! Why would I tell you?!” I said in my defense. I felt a migraine coming on and rubbed my temples gently. It had seemed like forever since I last ate. “This is just my luck…” Suddenly, Alistair burst out in laughter. “What the hell’s so funny?” I asked angrily.
“Just… The situation…” he said in between breathes.
“I don’t see how it’s funny. I’m starving here!”
“Well allow me to make it up to you,” he said, regaining his composure. He gave me a slight bow and then headed back into the club. I forgot about him once he disappeared. I lit a cigarette to my lips to calm my stomach, and considered going to the bar across the street to find someone to eat. Minutes passed. I tossed my finished cigarette onto the ground and stomped it out with my stiletto, before heading to the bar. I made it one step when I heard idiotic laughter coming from behind me. I turned around. Alistair came dashing out the back door with a ditzy blonde girl, both laughing like drunks. She stepped forward to introduce herself when Alistair got behind her and twisted her neck in one swift motion. He caught her lifeless body before it hit the ground. “Dinner for two?’ he said smiling. I laughed and took him up on his offer. We each bit in to one side of her neck and drained every drop from her.

We spent the rest of that night talking to each other right until the dawn sun shooed us away. We were both about a decade old, still babies in the eyes of most vampires. He was turned over a year before I was, but I was three years older than him as a human. I told him about my life. I told him about Colette, the French-Canadian photojournalism major, and then about Colette the vampire. I told him about how I was turned on a school trip to New York. I told him about Victoria, the lonely British vampire who had lived for centuries that turned me in hopes of finding a companion, and how she died three years earlier at the hands of a vengeful vampire hunter.
Alistair’s story was far more interesting. He told me about his life as Peter. He had changed it when he started his new life because ‘Peter wasn’t a vampire name’. He was a sickly, weak kid as a human, the type of person who would jump at his own shadow. He was sired by Morgan on a bet she had with her lover. They wanted to see how long he could last as a vampire. To both of their surprise, Alistair flourished on his own and became quite the notorious killer. He made a hobby out of tracking down vampire hunters and killing them, then taking something from them as a trophy. Usually, it was something small like a piece of jewelry or whatever weapon they had used to try and kill him with.
Our first real date happened the next night. Alistair was in town searching for a vampire hunter. It was going to be his thirteenth kill. As we went around town, leaving a trail of bodies for the man to track, he explained his philosophy about hunters to me. In his mind there were two kinds; Revengers and Supermen. Revengers were the ones who had a loved one killed by a vampire, and instead of getting over it, they dedicated their lives to killing them. The Supermen were much more fun. They would somehow find out about the existence of vampires, and would hunt them because they thought it was the right thing to do. The Revengers knew what they did was dangerous, and that they always walked through life with an early expiration date stamped on their foreheads. Hell, most of them welcomed death. It was the one way to ‘escape their pain’. The Supermen were different. They often had the delusion that good always triumphed over evil, and thought they would live forever as a hero. And the look of disbelief and horror they got on their faces when they finally kicked it was almost more delicious than the blood itself.
It was almost four o’clock now. We were in a park, a single street light shining down on the playground where we waited. I rocked back and forth in a swing when I noticed a man approaching us. He was easily six feet tall, his muscular build evident even through his brown coat. Without a word, he pulled a wooden stake from his pocket, gripped like a knife and charged towards us. Alistair, clearly excited, jumped down from his perch atop the jungle gym. The hunter jabbed with his left for Alistair’s face. He effortlessly dodged the blow. For several minutes, the two of them danced a dance of life or death. Alistair dodged each attack, but never made one of his own. The hunter got a lucky blow towards Alistair’s heart. He grabbed the hunter’s wrist in just enough time to keep his stake from puncturing the skin. He then snapped it back, making the hunter drop his weapon clumsily. Having played enough, Alistair then let out a flurry of punches like a gatling gun, each blow too fast for human eyes, each blow crushing bone. Finally the hunter fell, a crippled husk of his former self.
Alistair lifted the hunter up and pulled his jacket off and put it on. It was a bit too big for him, but he was happy to find a half full pack of cigarettes in the pocket. He lit one and blew a cloud of smoke at the moon. “You can have him,” he said. “I’m full.”
“You’re so sweet,” I said brightly and walked over to the hunter. He was still alive, though too weak to move. His eyes were filled with terror at the sight of me. Definitely a Superman. I crouched over him, laying on his lap, and leaned down until my face was only inches away from his. He pathetically tried to push my head away. I slapped his hand and held it down. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle,” I said as I bit into him.

* * *

We met Ben Walker in the fall of ’83. After killing an elderly couple, we decided to spend the day in their rusted out RV. We ditched their bodies off the side of the highway, down a ravine where they wouldn’t be found for at least a few days, and parked the vehicle in a state park. It was in the early hours of the afternoon. We slept, curled up with each other in the couple’s pull out sofa.
Ben Walker was a Revenger. We ate his children a few days previously. He took it personally and followed us all the way to the park. He pulled up in his red truck, took a tank of gasoline from the bed and doused the RV on all sides while we slept. He then pushed a log to the front and wedged it in between the ground and the only door to block our escape. The man then lit a match, tossed it onto the gasoline trail, and watched it burn. Within moments, the flames reached the RV’s gas tank. The oncoming explosion lifted the camper off the ground. Alistair and I were awoken to be consumed in flames. I screamed louder than I thought possible, and dashed for the door. I futilely tried to push it open.
“COLETTE!” Alistair screamed. I turned around to see him punch through a narrow window, and ran after him as he jumped out. I followed, sliding my body between broken shards of glass. Ben Walker was gone by the time we crawled out, assuming his work was now done.
We would have died that day, but either God or the Devil was watching over us. The sun had been blocked out by dark gray storm clouds. We held each other tightly as thick sheets of rain poured down on us, gradually putting out the fire and cooling our charred flesh.
We lied low for days, seeking haven in abandoned gas stations and warehouses. We fed off whatever wildlife we could find, and licked our wounds. Eventually, we healed, and decided to pay our friend, Ben, a visit.
It was the middle of Wednesday night when we found Ben Walker’s house. He had long been asleep, cuddled with his life just like we were. I picked the lock on the front door with a bobby pin, and we snuck upstairs to their bedroom. Alistair immediately bit down on Ben’s neck. He woke up screaming, but overwhelmed by Alistair’s strength. Ben’s wife awoke next as I was about to drink her, but then I was struck with a much more fun idea. I slid the woman’s pillow out from under her and smothered her with it. She flailed her limbs, trying to break free. “Leave him alive,” I said with an evil smile over the woman’s muffled screams. Alistair obeyed, thinking I just wanted a drink myself.
Eventually, Ben’s wife stopped moving. I walked over to Alistair, pulling him away from Ben, and then bit down on my finger. I flicked drops of my blood into Ben’s mouth to start the process of turning him into a vampire. Alistair laughed, fully enjoying my plan. “Oh, it gets better,” I said, walking past him. I then searched through Ben’s drawers and dressers. Finally, I found a pair of handcuffs in his closet. Whether Ben was a cop, or just a freak, I never knew, but they certainly came in handy. “Grab the wife and follow me,” I told Alistair before picking up Ben’s body, and took it down to the basement. I found the strongest pipe I could find and cuffed Ben’s hands to it. I then took the woman’s body and placed her on Ben’s lap. I opened her eyelids so she would be looking at Ben when he woke up, and pulled her hair back to expose her neck. Finally, I bit one of her fingers, getting a good amount of her blood on my hands, and rubbed it along Ben’s nose, around his lips, and the rest on the tip of his tongue.
We left Ben’s house soon after. I never found out the end of Ben’s story, but what I did learn was that Ben could hold a grudge. He used his new immortal life to hunt us down for over twenty years. At times, it was fun having the man follow us around like a wounded puppy, only to get smacked down. At other times, it was annoying. It turned into an endless war. Ben’s life was only saved on Alistair’s insistence. He enjoyed the battle more than I.
Eventually, we found ourselves in New York City once more. We had grown very fond of it, and even though we traveled the corners of the globe, we often returned to the Big Apple. It had become the closest thing to a home we had. Alistair had left me to fend for myself while he searched for a place to stay. I walked down a street overlooking Central Park, hoping to find some quick food. While there were plenty of people around, there were so many that it made getting one of them alone to be a chore. That was when I saw a girl, slumped down in an alleyway, alone. She looked weak, practically begging to be eaten.
Without a word, I walked to her, slammed her against the wall and bit down. I got a mouthful of delicious crimson when I tasted something weird. I pushed her away from me and immediately noticed the puncture holes in the crook of her elbow and the rubber tube wrapped tightly around her bicep. “What was it?!” I shouted. Before I got an answer, my head flew away. My body weighed a million pounds. I struggled to stand up. Moments passed as the drug overtook me. I slumped down, until finally, I blacked out.

* * *

Hours later, I awoke to the girl’s smiling face. She now wore a bandage where I bit her. I was still woozy from the drugs the girl was on. Anything in a human’s blood stream spread twice as fast when a vampire drank it. Some vampires used this to enhance their drugs, but the majority of them were lowlifes, praying for the day a hunter would end their eternal life.
“You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” the girl asked eagerly. I sat up, realizing I was in a bed, and rubbed my forehead.
“If you knew that, why are you still here?” I asked curious at her stupidity. I took a moment to look around and realized I must be in the girl’s apartment. It was a dingy studio with nothing except for a bed and a television yet its one redeeming quality was the breathtaking view of Central Park it had. The place must have been only a couple stories high from the angle of the park.
“I want you to turn me,” she said looking at me hopefully. She went into a sob story about her abusive boyfriend, and her heroin addiction. I promised her I would do it after I recovered, just to shut her up. I was really planning on killing her before I left, and maybe taking the television for the hell of it.
We sat there, talking for an hour while I waited for the drugs to wear off. She rambled on about herself for a while. I picked up that her name was Beth, but tuned most of it out. She then asked me about myself. I told her of my life as a vampire, of Alistair, and of the things we’ve done. None of it seemed to dissuade her from wanting to be a vampire.
There was a knocking at the door, and Beth went to answer it. “It’s Alistair,” she said, turning to me. “Come on in.” Excitedly, I clumsily stood up and walked over to him.
“Hello, Colette,” Ben said from the doorway, brushing past Beth. My eyes widened when I saw him draw a shotgun from his back. I screamed as he blew a shell full of rock salt into my chest. The blast sent me flying, my torso bleeding from a million different holes. He stood over me, discarding his gun for a stake.
“Wait!” I shouted to him. “If you’re going to kill me, at least tell me… Did you drink your wife?” His eyes narrowed, filling with a thicker hatred than I had ever seen before. “My dying wish…” I said, hoping to convince him.
“I did,” he answered coldly. Those words made me cackle wildly. I laughed not because it was funny. I laughed because even if I died, I still won. My death would not change anything for Ben. And I laughed because after I left this world, I wanted that laugh to echo in Ben’s memory until his last breathe. Ben roared with ferocity and drove the stake towards my heart. I pushed his arms away with what little strength I had left, laughing maniacally the whole time. Then something interesting happened. Beth came behind him, jabbing a syringe into his neck and pushed the hammer down, sending a large dose of heroin into his blood stream. It didn’t take long for his grip to weaken to the point where I reversed his own stake into Ben’s heart. Ben slumped over, his eternal life fading faster then he ever thought.
I took a moment to regain my composure. “Come here,” I called to Beth. She leaned in close, and I bit the girl’s neck, draining blood as fast as I could while spitting it out to keep the heroin out of me. Once she was near death, I bit my finger the same as I did with Ben, and dripped it into her mouth. I pushed her unconscious body off of me, and concentrated on nursing that shotgun blast.
After a couple of hours, Alistair came by. “About damn time,” I said, embracing him. He gripped me, looking down at Ben’s corpse and the unconscious Beth.
“What the hell happened?” He asked.
“Just help me move the body,” I said, kissing him deeply.

* * *

Alistair and I watched the sun rise from the safety of Beth’s window. We smiled warmly as the sky lit in colors of red and purple. It was stunning to us, the first we had seen in a long time. Alistair looked down and kicked Ben’s hand away from his shoe. We then glanced down at the tree line of central park. Beth was tied to the closest tree, still sleeping. She awoke to the first rays of sunshine burning her hands. She screamed as flames spread across her body, but they didn’t make it through the soundproof glass. Pedestrians stopped and gaped in terror at her flaming corpse. Some thought to help the girl, but none were brave enough to chance getting burned. Within minutes, the flames died down leaving only ash.
“So why did you turn her if you were just going to kill her?” Alistair asked, his hand clutched tightly around me.
“She wanted to know what it was like to be a vampire.” I shrugged. I then turned to see his green eyes. “So how much do you think we could get for that T.V.?”