Insomnia and Seven More Short Stories Read online

  I scan the list again, confirming that this nightmare is reality. I read the lines over and over:

  Plasma – 15 gallons – A Positive

  Plasma – 15 gallons – B Negative

  Plasma – 15 gallons – O Negative

  Plasma – 15 gallons – A Positive

  The list goes on for pages, thousands of gallons, all containing the same thing.

  Blood.

  * * *

  My eyes sting with perspiration. I didn’t bother cleaning up the puddle of blood. Screw that. My thoughts were now on how I could get back to SanFran with my life intact. I beg my mind for some kind of answer, some kind of plan, but the chaotic swirl of thoughts within my brainpan fails to congeal into anything useful. Tradition dictates specific ways to defend yourself in a situation like this, but we’re on a damned spaceship approaching a crater at the north pole of the moon. I don’t have access to anything that might work.

  A voice form the intercom slams into my eardrum. “Making final approach. All hands report to the docking bay for transport of goods and one day’s leave.”

  A pain throbs in my throat, but fades quickly when a glimmer of hope dawns on me, as though a message from God. I didn’t clean up the spill. I disobeyed orders, again. Surely they will confine me to quarters while everyone disembarks for a day of frivolity. I pound up the metal floor toward my quarters, hoping the order to stay put will come before I get there.

  As I enter the last in a maze of hallways and make a beeline for my quarters, a body moves out of the darkness from around a corner. I jump back, gripping my chest.

  The captain.

  The smiling captain. “Good job with the cleanup, Simon. Try not to hit me again and I might just keep you around.”

  “Thanks,” I say, though Lord knows I just want to hit the guy again and get confined to quarters, but I’m afraid of what else might happen.

  “This your first visit to the Dark Crater colony?” the captain asks.

  I nod, nervously wringing my hands together.

  “Good…good… I think you’ll be happily surprised with the accommodations.” The captain places his hand on my shoulder, and I can feel him gently directing me toward the docking bay.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  * * *

  The fact that the internal temperature of the dimly lit, lunar docking bay is hanging somewhere around fifty degrees isn’t doing wonders to calm my nerves. The lighting is a real hoot too. My eyes start to adjust to the nearly pitch-black surroundings. I can hear the breathing of the cargo ship’s crew, moving around me, bumping into me, and I expect to be torn to shreds at any moment. I’m so tense that when the cargo-bay doors open with a clang, it takes all of my remaining courage to keep from screaming like a B-movie actress.

  The doors split in the middle and slide away in either direction, allowing a red light to spill into the room. The cargo bay glows like the fiery embers of Hades, and a chill runs across my back. A slew of profane expletives cross my mind and nearly escape my lips, but for the first time in a long time, my mind is quicker on the draw than my tongue and I hold it. I seriously doubt that the cargo crew, captain or the massive Dark Crater colony workers now entering the cargo bay would appreciate what I have to say.

  Fourteen strapping men dressed in jet-black jumpsuits enter the bay, approach the captain and silently look over the manifest. The largest of the beefcakes nods to the captain and the men set to work unloading the barrels of blood. My body begins to move. Helping unload is the only action that seems like it won’t raise suspicion now. Before I’ve taken two steps, a hand on my shoulder locks my feet to the solid metal floor.

  Eyes clenched and sure that death is looming just behind me, I turn around to face it like a man.

  “Simon, right?”

  The voice is soft, feminine and so overtly friendly that I sigh with relief before taking in the face of an angel. Standing at five foot six, just a few shorter than myself, I look into the deep brown eyes of a woman, whose skin glows pink in the red light. She smiles at me wide, revealing her perfect, gleaming teeth.

  “Yeah…yeah, I’m Simon.” It’s all I can manage.

  Playing with her straight, shiny black hair, she says, “I’m Rachel. I’m kind of the welcoming committee to folks who haven’t been to the DCC, and it’s a rule here that first time visitors get special treatment.”

  “But…but I’m on the clock.” Even with the feeling of impending doom, I’m still worried about salvaging my failing career. Stupid.

  “It’s all been arranged with your captain,” she says, which I doubt is true, so I look over at the old man. He sees me, gives a nod and waives me away.

  What the hell.

  “You see,” Rachel says with a perky smile, “We do this with all first timers, the captain included…twenty seven years ago if I remember correctly.”

  “Somehow I don’t think you were around twenty-seven years ago,” I say without thinking.

  “You’d be surprised,” Rachel says in reply. “Living in the crater, out of the sun, has a way of keeping people looking young.”

  Her words feed the pattern that started to develop in my mind with the spilled blood, but her voice keeps me from panicking. She takes my hand and pulls me toward the exit. “C’mon, let me give you the tour.”

  We walked and talked for twenty minutes as she showed me what looked like your standard vacation colony, except that the whole place was lit only with red lights. Quarters were spacious and nicely decorated with fresh flowers and authentic paintings by some of Earth’s best—some she explained, had been the property of some of the colony’s patrons for hundreds of years. The few people we did pass nodded politely, smiled and continued on their way.

  Now we’re standing outside a large door and I’m feeling nervous about what might be on the other side. Rachel pushes a button next to the door and it slides open. I step in and gasp. Rachel stifles a giggle, but I hardly notice. The site before me is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life.

  Craning my head up for the best view, I stumble toward the center of the room, keeping my eyes glued on the view. Above my head is a clear dome that provides the perfect view of the stars. It’s breathtaking. I’ve spent the majority of my life floating around in space, but most times within the windowless bowels of an engine room. The few times I got a peek out the window of a cargo cruiser pale in comparison to this. I felt like I was floating free among the stars.

  “This is the star room. How does it make you feel?” Rachel asks.

  I look in her eyes and she smiles, waiting for an answer. My eyes return to the view. “Free,” I say.

  “That’s the idea,” she said. “That’s what DCC was created for, freedom.”

  “From what?” I ask, eyes bouncing from one pinpoint of light to another.

  “From oppression,” she says.

  “There’s no oppression on Earth anymore.”

  “There is for us.”

  I look at her again. “I doubt it…you’re beautiful.”

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  There goes my mouth again.

  “Sorry, I—”

  “I’m flattered,” she says.

  Amazing.

  “Some of us have been here so long that we’re just another face,” she says, eyes glimmering.

  I decide to take a risk. “I don’t think you could ever be just another face to me. Not in a million years.” Not exactly eloquent, but I think I got the message across.

  She smiles wide, obviously flattered. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  My vision is drawn back toward the ceiling. I point at one of the glowing pinpoints of light. “What’s that one?”

  “Mars,” she says. “You can tell because of its red color.”

  I can’t resist. “Speaking of red, what’s with all the red lights?”

  “Living in the crater makes most light seem abnormally bright. After you’ve been here for a few years, anything brighter than what you see now might
give you a migraine.”

  “Too bad I’m only here for a day,” I say.

  She smiles at me with squinting eyes that say she knows something I don’t. My concerns about this place rush back into my mind all at once, and I immediately forget that this beautiful woman has been flirting with me. “So,” I say with a quiver in my voice that even I can hear, “You never told me why you’re oppressed on Earth.”

  She looks at the floor and then returns her gaze to me. It’s penetrating. “I’m not supposed to tell you. But you seem…different, like you might understand.”

  I nod, doubting that what she’s saying is true while trying to think of a way back through the colony, onto the cargo ship and off the moon.

  “We’re vampires.”

  My thoughts come to a crashing halt. She just came out and said it? Just like that? We’re vampires? Nothing creepy. No blah blah, I want to suck your blood. Then I notice how anxious she looks, how afraid of me, what I might say. “Vampires?”

  She seems relieved by my one word reaction. She sighs and says, “Vampires…We drink human blood for sustenance. We grow ill from sunlight and die painfully if exposure is prolonged. That’s why we live here, in the crater. Because of its placement on the North Pole, we are always concealed in shadow. We live for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years…I’m three hundred and fifty seven years old.”

  Just when I think I’m at a loss for words, my mouth begins forming syllables and then sentences. “What about garlic, crucifixes, wooden stakes, mirror reflections, that stuff?”

  That’s where myth and fact go their separate ways,” she says with a smile. “We’re not undead, just a mutation of normal people. In our lives, our work, beliefs, hobbies, we’re just as human as you.”

  I find the mass of new thoughts and ideas entering my mind too confusing and surprising. This isn’t anything like I pictured it would be. This woman, this vampire, has managed to put me at ease even with my career going up in flames, even after seeing with the spilled blood and having thoughts of being eaten alive. I find myself thinking she’s the most extraordinary creature I’ve laid eyes on. Then I realize that, in fact, she is. I smile at her and can’t believe the words are coming from my mouth even as I speak them. “From what I’ve seen, you’re more human than most people I’ve ever met on Earth.”

  She stands silent. Stunned.

  Her hand flies to her face, covering her mouth. “Oh my God,” she says.

  “What?”

  Her eyes look afraid, but not for herself. Before I can think on it any more, the fear is wiped form her face and she says, “Come with me.” She takes me by the hand and leads me quickly out of the star-filled room. Apparently, the tour is over. But I’m not sure I want to find out what happens next.

  * * *

  Rachel leads me through a series of hallways, pulling on my wrist and hiding me from passersby. The urgency in her voice as she tells me to follow keeps me moving, but the feeling that this is some kind of elaborate trap has yet to leave my mind. She is a vampire after all. Not that I’ve known any other vampires…but still.

  We stop in front of an unlabeled door and Rachel glances in either direction, looking for God knows what. She places her hand on a flat panel to the side of the door, which glows red when her hand touches its surface. The doors slides open and Rachel pulls me inside.

  Upon entering the room I begin to sweat. Not because of the running through the hallways, or because the air is warm—it’s not—but because I’m overcome by two simultaneous emotions, both of which can promote overactive sweat glands, extreme fear and excitement. Some people live for the combination of fear and excitement, but I tend to avoid both on a daily basis.

  I look around the bedroom. The bed is lavishly decorated with fine violet sheets…looks like silk. Pieces of fine art, accentuated by ornately carved gold frames, hang on the walls. But what stands out most are the roses. They’re everywhere. Every flat surface in the room contains a crystal vase overflowing with red roses, which glow even redder in the ruby light.

  Normally, in a situation like this, my clothes would be on the floor in a quickly formed pile by now. But this isn’t normal. The door closes behind me.

  I feel a cold hand grasp my wrist and I gasp.

  I turn toward Rachel, and I understand what she wants.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “You’re in danger.”

  “I figured that.”

  “They’re going to kill you.”

  “Why the tour?”

  “To distract you…they knew you’d be suspicious of the air and lighting.”

  “But you told me…you know, that you’re vampires.”

  “I know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been stuck here for almost a hundred years and in that time no one has paid any attention to me like you have. Remember, I’m not dead. I’m not undead. I still have needs and desires. I’ve been alone for three lifetimes.”

  If I’m falling for a trap, I don’t care. “But you’re… you’re beautiful.”

  “I’m a misfit among outcasts.” She looks at the floor. I believe this is hard for her. “I’ve never hunted—never killed a human being before.”

  Inwardly, I sigh with relief. “That’s a bad thing?”

  She nods. “It’s part of our history that isn’t fiction. I think it’s disgusting…killing those weaker than us, and it’s why you’re here.”

  I hold my breath. “When a new vampire is brought to DCC they’re initiated by a hunt. You’re supposed to be the prey.”

  “When?” I ask.

  “Tomorrow.”

  My head lowers to the floor. I’m on a space station filled with vampires, in the bedroom of one of them, and I’ve got no way home. Not one of my brighter moments. “What are you planning to do with me?”

  She sits on the bed and stretches, pushing her chest out. She looks at me with eyes that replace anything she could have said.

  “How’s that going to help?”

  “Trust me,” she says.

  Trust her? Trust a vampire? I can barely trust that this is real.

  Trust or no trust, my future looks grim. I’ve never been a glass-half-empty kind of guy though. I decide to trust…at least for the night. I take her head in my hands, feel the softness of her cheeks and fall into bed.

  * * *

  I wake up the next morning, at least I think its morning, and look at the stranger lying next to me. Her slender, curved body is hugged closely by the thin purple sheets. I follow the rise and dip of her hip, up across her torso to her exposed arm and finally stop at her closed eyes. She’s sensational.

  I hold my breath when I remember some of the old vampire stories, which she claims are fiction. I recall certain vampires having the ability to seduce members of the opposite sex with ease, only to rip open the victim’s neck and drink their blood.

  I slide out of bed and just for the hell of it, make a cross with my fingers and point it in her direction. Nothing happens.

  I turn to a mirror across the room, which is lined by red roses. Bending my neck in either direction, I inspect my jugular for even the slightest wound. I discover nothing, but I am discovered.

  “Don’t worry,” Rachel says. “If I wanted to drink your blood, you’d be dead.”

  “Isn’t that how other people become vampires?”

  She smiles her comforting smile. “No…becoming a vampire, if you’re not born a vampire is a much more pleasant experience.”

  I feel my eyebrows furrow deeply. “Then how—”

  My question is cut short by a knock at the door.

  Rachel’s eyes go wide, and my chest begins to pound. I forgot where I was, why I was here.

  “Over there,” she says, pointing to a purple drape, hanging from one wall.

  I understand what she wants and quickly duck behind the flowing wall covering. I feel invisible behind the drape, but my nerves are shot. I’m like a nervous child hiding during a game of hide
and seek. An overwhelming sense of having to use the bathroom makes my pelvis muscles tighten. As the door whooshes open I hold my breath, clench my buttocks and open my ears.

  “Where’s the prey?” I hear a man with a deep voice ask. “He’s not in his quarters.”

  “I brought him to one of the luxury suites to ease his nerves. He was very suspicious. I knew you wanted him to be unaware… I should have told you. My apologies.”

  She’s a quick thinker. That’s good.

  “You were wise to move him. Are you sure you don’t want to partake in the hunt? You have so much potential. Your talents are being wasted.”

  “I am…content with my place here,” Rachel says.

  “Very well. It is, after all, your choice.”

  I hear feet begin to shuffle away, then stop. “Rachel, would you be so kind as to fetch the prey and bring him to the dining room. We want him feeling comfortable in your hands, now don’t we?”

  “Of course.”

  The feet clomp away and the door slides shut. I nearly scream as Rachel pulls the drapes away, but manage to hold my voice in my throat. She sees my reaction and holds her finger to her lips, urging me to stay silent. I nod reassuringly and say, “Do you have a bathroom?”

  Rachel chuckles playfully at my question, which was apparently the last thing she expected.

  After using the bathroom, the door to which was seamlessly molded into the bedroom wall, I come out, feeling more relaxed and very energized. In fact, I feel better than ever. She’s already dressed—all black, but something looks different. She looks ready for action. “You guys pump this place full of extra O2? I feel great.”

  She doesn’t seem surprised. “Really? Have you looked in the mirror?”

  “Just at my neck…why?”

  “Look,” she says with a smirk.