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 be conquered by me.
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.
Speaking of which, I am in a location along the densely forested peninsula that was 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 wire. 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 an alert dog would hear me. Hell, I barely heard me...and that’s saying something.
I sensed something out here. Something that was neither animal nor human. What that something was remained to be seen. Or remained to be feasted upon.
Centuries of hiding—hell, millenniums of hiding—were about to be undone in one wild night of hunting. By a real hunter.
By a vampire.
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. Vampires 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 could never 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.
I heard a whispering of sound to my right, perhaps the slightest brush of a foot over leaves—remember, nothing escapes my hearing—when 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 upon the creature (and made it appear to have been a poacher’s handiwork).
Anyway, there was no rhino 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. Grizzly bears had long been pushed to extinction in Washington State. And black bears were far too slow and loud and stupid to hit 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 shoulders and behind me and up into the trees—had me feeling, well, mortal.
And for the first time in a long, long time, I felt fear. Real fear.
I hate when that happens.
So I continued scanning the forest, feeling my heart thumping in my chest for the first time in years. I could not think of the last time that anyone—or anything—had gotten the upper hand on me.
The forest was silent.
No, not quite silent. I can hear what might be breathing. Except it’s coming from seemingly everywhere at once. I keep turning in circles, doing my damndest to get a handle on what is out here; in particular, on what is taking these small, shallow, controlled breaths.
I reached out with my mind. I can do this. I can do many things to hunt and kill and feed. Except I was having difficulty focusing now. Knowing there was something out there, something seemingly faster and stronger than me was unnerving.
Impossible, I think. I am the greatest hunter. The most successful hunter.
I hear my own breathing now which is strange, since I don’t need to breathe. No, I was breathing out of an old habit. A habit of fear. A fear of being hunted.
There. I hear another sound. A tree branch snapping, and now I was moving quickly, covering the open space of the forest floor quickly, pouncing upon the site where I’d just heard the snap—
Except there’s nothing here.
I turn again, spinning, when something reaches around my neck, something much bigger than me, something more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced before. Something inhuman. Hell, something not of this earth.
It is a hand, clamped around my throat, lifting me off the ground.
I fight it, using my own great strength, strength that has hunted and killed and maimed and spread fear around the globe for centuries.
Except I...couldn’t...fight it.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
This isn’t happening.
The hand continues squeezing, and rising, lifting me off my feet. My hiking shoes dangle as I continued fighting, struggling, even as I felt my neck being literally crushed.
Now, I hear the sounds of more heavy footfalls.
I hear grunts, too.
And deep-throated growls.
Coming from seemingly everywhere.
I feel my eyes bulging, slowly being forced from their sockets as the powerful hand continued squeezing.
Hazy images take shape before me.
Huge images. Hairy images. Unspeakably horrible images. The images surround me, watch me curiously, heads tilted...
My vision is fading quickly. The pain is excruciating, unbearable. Even my supernatural ability to heal myself can not keep up with the steady pressure. Still, I fight the clawed hand. The clawed and hairy hand. I dig into it, raking it with my nails, but this only causes the creature to squeeze harder and harder.
The others draw closer, turning their heads curiously, and as their mouths open, I smell ungodly stinks, even as their mouths drip saliva.
The snap I hear is my own neck.
And it is only when the creatures descend upon me, tearing at my flesh and making wet feasting sounds, do I realize that the hunter has been the hunted.
The End
The Bull
I am a superhero.
Well, kind of. If you call a hulking man with a tail and two horns and a bad attitude a superhero, well, I’m your man.