Time To Move On

by Sazza



**********************



He laid his hand on the front pew and glanced around the church, which had been set up earlier in honour of his friend’s memory. None of his family would be here for at least another four hours. After taking one last, long look around, he turned around and left the church. Time to move on.

“Darren!”
“What?”
“It’s nearly sundown. Get up!”
Darren turned over in his bed and pulled one of the black pillows over his head. There was still ten minutes to go!
“Darren!”
“Alright! Shut up…” Darren’s voice trailed off into several mumbled curses.
Darren pushed himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He dragged himself over to his en-suite bathroom, which was without a window.
He stepped into the shower and turned on the cold tap to try to wake himself up…
“Ahhhh!”
He leapt out of the shower, and as his wet feet hit the floor, they slid out from underneath him and he landed painfully on his back.
“Darren, are you alright mate?” shouted Daniel as he skidded into the bathroom.
“I slipped,” answered Darren, while he was climbing to his feet.
“You nearly gave me heart failure, shouting like that!”
“You’ll live.”
Daniel pulled a face which was somewhere between anger and relief. Then he sighed.
“Well at least you’re awake now.”
As Daniel left the room, Darren turned around and focused his attention on the mirror, then he thought of the myth about not having a reflection. A small smile touched his lips, but didn’t meet his eyes.
The face staring back at him had dark hair, which was fashioned into a crewcut and dark blue eyes. As he was studying his face he noticed that he had a slight shadow of stubble across his lower face and neck.
He turned away from the mirror and sauntered back into his bedroom. He opened his cupboard and scanned the contents, and finally picked out a blue shirt, some tight black jeans and some black shoes. Once he had dressed, he scraped his hair into place with his fingers, then he left the room and jogged to the top of the stairs. When he reached them, he sat on the banister, slid down to the bottom and landed quietly on his feet.
“Feeling a bit dangerous tonight aren’t we? I mean, a blue shirt? Are you sure there isn’t something wrong with you?” Daniel shouted from behind him.
“I felt like a change, black gets a bit boring after 400 years.” Darren’s face broke out in a grin, Daniel never failed to be happy, especially on Fridays.
“You wore black all the time back then as well?”
“Not as much, but still quite a lot.”
“Well we’d better get going, before we have to park about ten miles away again!”
“We were only down the road Daniel.”
“ ‘only down the road’ seems like a long way when you’re drunk.”
“Well I don’t get drunk do I.”
“Poor you.”
“Don’t pity me or I’ll break your nose.”
Daniel raised his hands and walked out of the front door. Darren followed him out and as he was locking the door, he felt a familiar tugging sensation at the bottom of his chest.
He walked over to the car where Daniel was waiting and unlocked it. He pulled out of the driveway and on to the road, then he began to drive towards ‘Henry Afrika’s’.
They drove in companionable silence towards ‘Henry’s’, from which, hopefully, Darren’s next meal would be coming from and, more than likely Daniel’s next girlfriend.
Finally, Darren pulled up on a small road near ‘Henry’s’. As they approached the door, Darren felt the tugging sensation, which had been gnawing at him earlier, his body was playing up because he had missed his last feeding.
Darren could see Daniel giving him a funny look, to which Darren replied with a lifting of both eyebrows. He saw something flash in Daniel’s eyes, then he looked away. Daniel knew too.
Daniel entered the building first, stopping to let the bouncer check his I.D. When Darren passed the bouncer a tsunami of smell hit him. Sweat. Beer. Blood.
He watched as Daniel walked over to some of his friends who he knew from work or college. Darren had made sure that Daniel had family or other friends that he could live with if and when Darren would move away.
As he headed towards the other end of the bar, he noticed some of Daniel’s friends glancing over at him. Darren knew for a fact that none of them liked him, even though Daniel insisted that they were just curious as to why Darren never hung around with them, even though he came to ‘Henry’s’ along with Daniel.
Darren only came to ‘Henry’s’ for two reasons - one was because none of Daniel’s friends had a car to pick Daniel up in, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to drive it home and Daniel lived too far away to walk. The second reason was that places like this were usually a good place to find his next victim.
When he reached the bar, he ordered a pint of beer and turned around, to survey the room, to look for a potential meal. After looking round several more times, it became painfully obvious that he wouldn’t be rid of his hunger until later that night.
When his drink finally arrived, he drank it within a few seconds, even though he knew that it couldn’t quench his thirst, but it still didn’t stop him from ordering another one.
As he was waiting for his second drink to arrive, he began to lose his awareness of what was happening around him. As the music faded into the background, he realised that he could hear his own footsteps on the cobblestone walkways of 16th century London. His vision seemed blurred around the edges, caused by all the ale that he had been drinking a few minutes before.
The streets were almost empty, apart from other men who, like himself, were returning home from the various bars and taverns. It was sometime after midnight, maybe about one or two o’clock. He could see the faint outline of the moon in the sky, it was probably going to be a cloudy day tomorrow…
He came back to the present with a start. He looked down at the drink that sat on the bar in front of him, then he picked up the glass and drained it.
After a moment he glanced down at his Rolex watch and was surprised to see that it was half past one! Once this had registered, he looked across to where Daniel had been standing and saw that he was stood right next to him with a mildly bored look on his face - he was used to Darren drifting off into his memories.
“Are we gonna get going now?” asked Daniel in a voice so slurred, that even Darren found it hard to understand.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Darren placed one hand on Daniel’s left shoulder and guided him out of ‘Henry’s’ and towards the car.
“Are you sure you’re sober enough to drive?” Daniel asked as he buckled up his seatbelt.
“Of course I am,” he replied as he put the car into gear, “I’m a vampire.”


When Darren had been driving for about ten minutes, he heard Daniel take in a deep breath as he prepared himself for the argument that they both knew was coming. “Darren, would you ever turn me into a vampire, I mean, if I was dying or whatever?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because, Daniel, I spend most of my time wishing that I was dead. Any kind of death would be much more welcome than ‘living’ the way I do.”
“What are you on about? When you die, there’s nothing, there’s no more. Everything ends, and at the end of it all, you’ve achieved absolutely nothing! But look at you, you’ve had all that time to make an impact, and you still have hundreds of years to live. Along with that you’ve got loads of - powers. You can drink as much as you want and not get drunk, you could pick up anyone and sling them forty or fifty feet.”
“I don’t know what you’re worrying about. You’re only 19. You’ve got a long life ahead of you.”
“But you can still do loads of great stuff and…”
“Yeah, and look what I have to do for it!” Darren shouted back. He hated it when Daniel brought this subject up, he had no intension of turning Daniel or anyone else into a vampire.
As always, the argument ended in silence until they arrived at their home. Daniel climbed out of the car and stormed up to the house. Darren locked the door on the passenger side, then he opened the garage door and drove the car in. When he had done this, he climbed out and locked his door.
As he usually did, just before he went out to hunt, he paused to look at his house and the surrounding area. His house was one of a group of houses, which were known as ‘Silica Lodge’. Almost opposite his house was an ‘Asda’ superstore, and just across the road was a pub named ‘The Mallard’.
The only problem about living around here was that Daniel had to bike a long way to work, since he worked in a small shop at the top of Warley Road.
He set off towards Scunthorpe, on foot this time, and began to continue the memory that he had been playing out in his mind earlier of his first night as a vampire.
…As he was walking down a side street towards his house, he could the sound of another pair of footsteps echoing his. He stopped and the other footsteps stopped. He began to walk again and the other footsteps began again. After a few minutes he turned around to find out who the idiot was. For a few seconds he couldn’t see anyone, then he picked out the figure of someone from the darkness.
“Who’s there?”
The figure began to slowly walk towards him, then stopped about ten feet away.
Darren opened his mouth to repeat his question, then everything was black.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but during the time that he was semi-unconscious he had a vague sensation of something warm slipping down his throat.

When his mind finally began to clear, he opened his eyes and looked around. He had been dumped in a small alley, which should have been dark. He could see lots of rubbish surrounding him, and the smell of rotting flesh hung at the back of his nose.

When Darren came back to the present, he quickly realised that he was already into the main part of his hunting grounds. He quickened his pace because he only had a few hours until sunrise, and it would take at least an hour or two to find a meal. As he made his way along, he felt his mind begin it’s search of the town.
As he prowled along the streets, his nose picked up the smell of blood mixed with beer. Even as the thought registered, he backed off into the shadows of a nearby building.
As he looked down the street, he could see a man stalking along next to the walls, this man was a hunter just like himself, but this one was only a weak human looking for money, not an immortal killer looking for blood.
When the man walked past him, Darren silently crept up behind him, then brought his fist to the man’s temple. The man collapsed onto the floor in a large heap and as he took hold of the man’s wrists he glanced around to look for somewhere, where he could drink in peace and leave the body where it would be hard to find.
There were plenty of warehouses in this area, a few of which were deserted. He pulled the man into the nearest one, then dragged him behind a few crates.
As he looked at the man, Darren felt his canine teeth grow about a centimetre longer, and after hesitating, decided that it would be better to drink from the man’s wrist instead of his neck. The man’s neck looked like it had never been cleaned, but at least the wrist would probably been washed along with the hand.
As Darren picked up the man’s hand, the man began to move. Darren quickly bit the man’s wrist and began to drink. At first the man’s hand clenched and Darren felt the man’s stubby fingernails digging into the skin next to his eye, but after a few seconds they began to relax, as Darren did. Darren had drunk a lot of wine during his 400 years, but absolutely nothing compared to drinking blood.
When the man’s heartbeat faded away into silence, Darren stood up and proceeded to wipe his hands on his jeans, he would have to rush home so that he could at least wash his face and his hands.
He jogged out onto the street, then he paused to look at his watch, only an hour to go until sunrise. He began to sprint towards home.
Finally Darren reached his home and paused at the end of his driveway to catch his breath. Then he withdrew his key from his pocket as he strolled up to the house.
He let himself in the house and closed the door quietly so that he didn’t wake Daniel up. He glanced at his watch to see how long he had till sunrise - twenty minutes - just enough time to get a shower.
He ran up the stairs and into his room. When he reached it he slung his clothes in a pile next to his bed, strolled into his en-suite and turned on the hot tap instead of the cold. He grabbed the bar of soap and started to wash his hands to clean off the dirt from his victim.
Once he had done this, he stepped out of the shower, lifted a towel off the rail and dried himself with it. When he was dry, he brushed his teeth. After this he went into his bedroom and climbed into bed, where he lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling.
Finally, the loss of feeling in his body and the usual fogginess clouded his brain as it always did as he slipped into oblivion.



Darren stood in the hall waiting for Daniel to join him. They had been arguing about the fact that Daniel wanted to be made into a vampire and that Darren had no intension of doing such a thing, so they had come to an agreement. Tonight Darren was going hunting again, and this time he was taking Daniel with him, and the deal was that if Daniel wasn’t bothered when he saw Darren kill someone, then Darren would turn him into a vampire. If Daniel showed any sign of disgust when Darren killed, then he was going to stay human and he had to stop pestering Darren about it.
Finally, when Darren could hear Daniel making his way down the stairs, he opened the door and stalked outside to stand in the driveway. A few moments later, Daniel appeared at the door and paused to lock it behind him, then he jogged a few paces so that he was stood next to Darren. When Darren glanced up at him, Daniel had a large, triumphant grin on his face.
Without a word, Darren began to walk away, knowing that Daniel would follow him. He walked slower than usual, because Daniel would tire much more easily than him and it was still early in the evening, so a lot of people would be going out and Darren wanted it to be as late as possible before he had to kill someone. Another reason that made him want to take his time was that he wanted to try and talk Daniel out of wanting to become a vampire, because, like most things, it wasn’t as glamorous as it seemed.
By about 12 o’clock they reached the area where Darren had hunted last night. He could smell the rotting body from where he was stood and after much thinking decided that he should hunt at the other end of this estate providing that it was hardly used and contained plenty of places where he could hide the body.
Half an hour later Darren and Daniel stood in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse while Darren was ‘casting’ around for his next victim. When he had finally satisfied himself that there was no one in this area to kill he finally admitted that he was going to have to lure someone back here. This was a power that he didn’t like using because it felt wrong to tell people to walk towards their deaths without them knowing it.
He began walking again and Daniel followed unquestioningly. After another half hour had passed Darren and Daniel reached Warley Road where Darren quickly spotted a likely victim, who was sat on a wall and appeared to be waiting for someone.
Darren started to search the woman’s mind to find out who she was waiting for and found out that it was her boyfriend. He began to search through her memories, to find out what her boyfriend’s voice sounded like, then he closed his eyes and started sending messages to the woman in the voice of her boyfriend, which would be inside her head but would sound ‘normal’.
Patricia, help me…
The woman sat up straight and started looking around for her partner.
HELP!
This time the woman jumped up to her feet and started walking towards Darren and Daniel. Darren motioned for Daniel to start moving but to be quiet.
Patricia…
Every minute or so, Darren sent out the pleas of her ‘boyfriend’ to keep her moving in the right direction. It took slightly longer to find their way back to where they had been before, then Darren and Daniel backed into a gap between two buildings which seemed unused. Once they were fully hidden in the shadows, Darren cast one last bait…
PATRICIA!!
Darren sent out the thought so loud that he was sure he could almost hear it echo. Patricia had no doubts as to where that shout had come from, and ran towards Darren and Daniel as fast as was possible in her stilletto heels. Both Darren and Daniel crouched in the shadows.
When the woman reached the edge of the gap, she slowed down, then stopped. “Derek?”
Darren scraped his foot along the floor, just loud enough for Patricia to hear. When she heard the noise, she began to walk forwards again, until she was within a few feet of Darren and Daniel. Darren watched as the woman squinted her eyes as her vision cleared.
A few tense moments later when Patricia’s eyes adjusted, she saw Darren then Daniel. As she opened her mouth to scream, Darren leapt towards her and covered her mouth with his right hand. When he had done this, he used his left arm to pin both of her flailing arms against her sides. Then he yanked her head to the side and sank his teeth into her throat.
The instant he had done this, he glanced up at Daniel to see his reaction and it shocked him to see that Daniel looked more fascinated than frightened. Darren vaguely felt a sense of disappointment and overwhelming sadness because he would have to keep his word, then there was nothing but the blood…

When the woman’s heartbeat had been silenced, Darren lifted his head and looked at Daniel who had now calmed down from his initial excitement and was looking mildly bored. Again, Darren felt disappointment and sadness at what was going to happen to Daniel.
Darren let out a huge sigh, climbed to his feet and strode off towards home, knowing that Daniel would follow.
He spent the whole journey deep in his thoughts of what was to come.
When he reached his home, he unlocked the door and went inside.
He stalked into the living room and dropped down onto the couch to wait for Daniel, who shouldn’t be too far behind him.
Darren waited almost until the sun rose, as part of him already knew that he was never going to see Daniel again.
He laid his hand on the front pew and glanced around the church, which had been set up earlier in honour of his friend’s memory. None of his family would be here for at least another four hours. After taking one last, long look around, he turned around and left the church. Time to move on.


~fin~


other fics to be read


~return~