A New Life

This is the beginning of my Vampyre Story. If you have read my earlier story about Jayne, The Vampire Within, you will see how it has changed and how it has stayed the same, lol. I hope you enjoy this and let me know what you think. Later I will post excerpts about the other vampires, some good, some bad and some in-between.

A New Life

by Lisa McCourt Hollar

Jayne never knew she was claustrophobic, not until she died, which was proving to be an inconvenience to her, since she had just woken inside a coffin. Of course she didn’t know she was in a coffin, not right away. Her head was groggy and it was dark so at first she thought she was in bed. Then she tried to sit up and hit her head on something hard. She fell back, rubbing her forehead and letting loose a string of expletives that would have made a sailor blush.

“What the hell!” she griped, reaching up and touching the barrier above her head, wondering where she was. Rolling over, or at least trying to roll over, she discovered that there were barricades on either side of her, trapping her in the most uncomfortable position ever. Feeling along the paneling, her first conclusion was that she’d been hospitalized and was in some kind of medical device, maybe an MRI. She had never had one done, but she’d heard they were tight and confining. Her Uncle Paul had been in one and lost his mind, screaming for them to pull him out.

“Hello,” Jayne called, wanting to make the nurse or technician aware that she was awake, but no one answered. “Hello,” she called again. Nothing.

‘Where is everyone,’ she wondered. Feeling the sides, wondering why they would have put her in an MRI and then left her, Jayne realized that this scenario didn’t make sense. She should remember going to the hospital, unless of course she fell and hit her head. Her head hurt, so that could be possible…except that there wasn’t any noise. Machines made noises, they pulsed, hummed and vibrated and she wasn’t hearing or feeling anything that should make her feel as though she were in a machine. She was lying on her side, running her hand along the paneling, when she came to an odd corner that bent inward, taking her investigation in another direction. There was something about the angle that seemed familiar to her. Reaching up her arm she traced the path of the paneling over her head and then down the other side. Something about the shape was bothering her.

“What the hell,” she said to herself, her voice sounding odd in the confined space. Then suddenly realizing where she was, Jayne began to scream.

It was during that brief moment when she came to the conclusion that she was in a coffin that she found she was claustrophobic. She also discovered she was scared of the dark, which later she would find to be rather inconvenient.

Jayne screamed for an hour, her voice growing hoarse. Banging on the lid, Jayne begged for someone, anyone, to come rescue her. Then she remembered that screaming used up oxygen and she stopped. It was during that quiet that she realized she could hear something. Someone was digging. Her heart leaped.

“I’m down here! Please, help me!”

‘Stop screaming,’ a voice said in her mind. ‘You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.’ Then the voice, whoever it was, started laughing. Jayne was sure it was funny to him, but she wasn’t amused since she was sure she was going insane. The voice sounded like Steve, her boyfriend but she knew it couldn’t be, Steve was dead.

‘Everything’s going to be okay,’ the voice said in her head, ‘just hold it together a little longer’.

“You’re dead,” Jayne yelled, her eyes filling with tears, her voice choking with grief as the image of Steve in his casket came back to her. He’d been so still, peaceful and she’d wanted to crawl in there with him.”

“I’ve gone insane,” Jayne said. “I’m not really in a coffin, I’m at home in bed, dreaming. Or maybe I’m in an insane asylum, but I’m not in a coffin and I’m not hearing Steve’s voice in my head.”

‘Almost there,’ Steve said.

“Or maybe I killed myself and my spirit is trapped in here. Can that happen? If I were a ghost, I should be able to float out of here.” Jayne tried to float out of her coffin but only succeeded in bumping her head again. “SHIT!” Jayne lay back again, rubbing her head.

‘Please be careful, Steve said. At the same time she heard a thud as something connected with the lid of her prison. Slowly, the lid was pulled open, revealing moonlight, the brightness blinding Jayne for a moment. Instinctively she closed her eyes, sensitive to the light. When she opened them again, Steve was standing there, holding his hand out to help her out of the box. He was smiling, his teeth flashing white beneath the moon, canines standing out sharp points, gleaming brightly, menacingly. The fangs of a vampyre, and everything flooded back to Jayne at once. Steve’s funeral two weeks ago, him standing outside her window a few nights later and then disappearing just as quickly and then returning again the next night and every night after that, until one night she opened her window and invited him in. She thought she’d been dreaming, until he bit her and by then it was too late. Hesitantly, Jayne took his hand, allowing him to pull her from her grave, and her new life was begun.

Jayne ran through the streets, tears filling her eyes. These past few months as a vampire had been the worst. That first night she had followed Steve, stopping along the way to feed off of a stray cat. She had been disgusted and tried to refuse the hunger that set her lungs on fire, begging for some sort of sustenance. Steve had reassured her, promising her it would get easier.

“Like this,” Steve said, showing Jayne how to sink her fangs into the cat and rip it open. There was a sound in the bushes and Steve reached in, pulling out another cat and handing it to Jayne. “Go ahead, try. It will make the burning go away. When you get stronger you won’t need to feed as often, but for now you will have to gorge yourself. When we get home I will go find you something a little more filling.”

“Home?” Images of her bedroom filled Jayne’s head.

Reading Jayne’s thoughts Steve shook his head. “No, we can’t go back there. As far as they know, you are dead. You can’t let them see you…ever.” Jayne started to tear up and Steve put an arm around her, “It will be alright, I promise. I was scared at first too, but then I realized if you were with me everything will be okay. Please, eat.”

Steve gently pushed the cat, which was yowling for all it was worth, towards Jayne’s mouth. Jayne resisted at first, pulling away, but Steve held his hand behind her head and pushed back, guiding her mouth to the cat’s throat. The creature lashed out at Jayne, slashing at her face with his claws. Jayne yelped at the pain, baring her teeth at the animal and growling. The sound came from the back of her throat, a primal sound that warned she wasn’t one to be tangled with. The cat struggled in Steve’s hands, trying to escape, but to no avail. Jayne reached out, snatching the creature from Steve and tore its head off in her eagerness for the tantalizing blood. When she had finished and the cat was drained, she hung her head and cried at what she had done.

“Why did you do this,” Jayne asked. “I don’t want to live like this.”

Steve ignored her, taking her hand and leading her towards the edge of town. “Where are we going,” Jane asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“You can’t tell?”

“It looks like we are headed for The Manor.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Steve teased. Jayne laughed, to show she wasn’t, but deep inside she was terrified.

The Manor was an old mental hospital. It was located at the top of Crane Hill, abandoned, but not empty, at least according to stories told by local kids who were always daring each other to spend the night in the place. Last Halloween Jayne had been invited once to go on an excursion into the old hospital. She had been excited at the prospect, declining at the last minute to appease her friend Sage. Over the years Jayne had learned to trust Sage’s instincts and her friend had begged her to stay home that night. Her other friends had teased her, going to The Manor without her. Later, none of the kids ever spoke about what happened inside, but Jayne knew something had occured. One of the girls, Andrea, had to be hospitalized for trauma, that was all anyone would say, though Jayne was sure there was more to the story than that since there had been police up on Crane Hill for over a week. Jayne had asked Sage about it, but she had only shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know. I just get feelings some times and I knew something bad was going to happen.”

Now, heading up the hill, staying off the road so they wouldn’t be seen by any passing motorist, Jayne’s stomach clenched, threatening to empty the blood she had consumed earlier. But even then, everything would have been okay, if it hadn't been for Linda.

continued in Vampire Rage

copyright © 2011 Lisa McCourt Hollar