Space Vampire

He was looking at the night sky. It was clear, and all the stars glowed brighter than usual. The cold air blew and it brought chills with it. At first, the cold effect made sense, but then, he felt another wave, a colder wave; he remembered something. He remembered a story that his father told him when he badgered him, as kids do, to tell him something scary before going to sleep. Why something scary? He couldn't remember.

His father wasn't much of a storyteller, nor a reader, unless if it was a book about chess or soccer. Later in his life, he learned that his father used to be a big reader, but for some reason stopped. That night, in a dark bedroom, he started telling him a horror story which he told as if it actually happened at some point in not so distant past.

He talked about a vampire that used to kill the livestock in some old village. That vampire got caught eventually and the villagers burned his body. One would imagine that ending a story where the bad guy/monster gets its due is a wonderful story to tell to a seven-year-old boy who loves movies with monsters. But, his father didn't finish the story there, no, he found, for whatever reason, that it would be awesome to add the post-credits scene where the vampire's spirit is sent to the sky with the smoke and that even to this day there are reports of animals and even people being found with their bodies completely drained of blood. He had to add, "You see, the vampire is somewhere in the sky above us, just waiting to swoop down and take a bite." Which, of course, scared the living shit out of a seven-year-old boy who then called for his mother for comfort through tears and shock in his little voice.

"Weird thought to pop up right now," he thought to himself. He stood there for a little while, he tried to deny the sudden urge to get back inside, the sudden feeling of being watched, of being targeted.

"Yeah, screw that," he mumbled to himself and quickly got back in.

#

"Hey, you look like you've seen a ghost," Peter said while analyzing the blood sample from the recent victim.

"Very funny, haha," he replied while trying to hide his discomfort. It could be that the case was getting to him. He considered that as a cause of his sudden flashback. The victims were drained of most of their blood, but there were no bite marks, just tiny dots that matched the size of the needles used for blood drawing purposes.

He considered getting back to work, and instead went to the bathroom. He hoped that splashing some cold water into his face would snap him out of whatever he was experiencing.

"Hey, Robby, where are you going? You just got back in."

"I think that chili dog from earlier is taking its revenge now," he answered and hurried to the bathroom.

When he returned Peter was nowhere to be found. He looked around the lab, and he saw a tall person in a corner, it was covered in a shadow and appeared to be doing something to Peter's limp body. Before Robert had a chance to react, the tall person was done and suddenly it appeared face to face with him.

Robert had his mouth agape and couldn't move. The face of the tall person appeared to be that of a man, an elderly man who was bold and had a sharpness to his features. Robert couldn't handle what he was looking at. The smile on this person's face gave him a familiar chill, and its black clothing of some kind appeared to be sucking in all the light in the room making this face the only beacon of dim light. They looked at each other for a little while and then Robert found himself all alone in the lab, with Peter's body on the floor in a nearby corner.

#

He couldn't tell the truth to the police. He briefly considered it when officer Linda Stevenson started asking him about the events as Linda, a girl who once spilled a glass of chocolate milk on a white carpet during the movie night at his parent's place way back when, and his solution was to try and hide it by spilling a glass of milk on top. And still he couldn't do it.

"Refill?" A friendly waitress asked him.

"Sure," he said. "Excuse me, but can you tell me how full this place gets at night?"

She looked at him with a confused and worried look on her face.

"It's just that I don't want to be alone tonight," he said. He momentarily realized how pathetic that must have sounded to her.

"Hon, if you need some company, we're not that kind of place," she said with scorn in her voice.

"I didn't mean it like that. You know what, I'm sorry," he paid the bill and left. It was still bright outside, which gave him very little comfort. He didn't know why he was left alive, and he didn't know whether or not he was safe during the day more than during the night, but the paranoid thoughts were plaguing his mind. The only safety that he could think of was to be in large crowds, preferably in a closed space.

He took out his phone to look for some ideas, but seeing yet another missed call from Linda gave him pause.

"That's for plan B," he thought to himself and proceeded to look for 24/7 restaurants with heavy traffic.

He visited many places, but they all seemed not to be the type of crowd that he needed. The dive bars were too dark and the people in there were barely sober. The fast-food joints were surprisingly pretty similar, but better lit. As the day was turning into night, Robert found himself leaning toward plan B.

He soon realized that even the places that were more to his preference, the people there were too much into their own little movies. He felt that if he would be attacked by that tall man, no one would notice. The only way to ensure that such an event doesn't happen was to find himself, someone, to hang out with. But, he was definitely not a good company, and he felt that anyone could tell that. There was no salvation in that direction, he concluded.

"Fuck it," he finally said to himself. He quickly turned around to make sure that no one heard him, and no one had. He called Linda.

"Hey," she answered with excitement in her voice. He immediately stopped nervously stirring his coffee trying to focus on what he wanted to say.

"Hi, listen--"

Linda cut him off, "We got him."

"What?" He asked and went to a quieter area.

"Did you hear me, we caught the bastard."

"Really?"

"Yes. We have enough evidence that he'll be locked up until he rots. By the way, if you are still beating yourself over for being stuck in the bathroom during the…. Incident, it wasn't your fault. The bastard laced the food he delivered with some drugs. Apparently, you didn't get enough of the dose to kill you. Well, anyways, just wanted to let you know that you can relax."

"Great, I guess I'll try to get some sleep. We can celebrate some other night." He couldn't believe it. He had trouble remembering the lies she told her, but maybe it was that drug.

#

On his way home, as the darkness fell, he felt that chill again. He couldn't shake off that paranoid feeling. He tried to rationalize it. It's possible that his father's story, a legend that he told him that night, it was true in a way. Maybe that was what scared him then, and is scaring him now. The truth was that no one knows who or what is running this show. The sky, the universe, it might be infinite, but with all the recent talks about the big crunch, about black holes, and the end of the world, there is a space vampire out there somewhere. At any moment, that space vampire, be it a god, or gods, or just the natural order of things, at any moment all of this could disappear. Even in the case of something that one would expect to be requiring some time to detect, like the "big crunch", there's no guaranty that it wouldn't happen in an instant. In the case of a single creator, there's nothing stopping the Creator of all that is to simply say, no more. He felt another chill, a stronger one this time. He ignored it. He knew it was coming from that place of fear. If there's no one running the things, well, that was even scarier, because what would the rules be in that case, would there be any rules?

With those paranoid thoughts still buzzing in his head, he sat down on his sofa and turned on the TV. He tried to find the dumbest talk show, and when that was over, he switched to the worst reality TV that he could find. He chased the dumb thing after dumb thing, and with every new program he felt the buzzing decrease, together with his self-respect, but it was a worthy sacrifice. The worst part was the ending of any of those fixes, he felt crashing down like a heroin addict. And with every crash, the chill would swoop in, and with every new fix, it would go away. He wondered how long could he keep doing this. He looked at the clock on a weather channel, it was only 3 a.m. Another 5 hours until morning, fucking winter, but then what, he got scared again. He was aware that at some point he will have to go to sleep, with or without the chills, with or without dumbing himself down with awful programming.

At 5 a.m. he figured that he had gathered enough strength, or rather lost enough of the brain cells that he should at least try to go and take a nap. As he turned off the TV, the chill came over him, and as he was preparing to turn the TV back on, he saw in the TV's blank screen his own reflection, he appeared paler to himself than he thought possible, and then he saw someone standing behind him, and then over him.

He didn't turn, he didn't react. He simply said, "and to this day there are reports of animals and even people being found with their blood drained out." He thought to himself, maybe he should have called his father, just to chat a little bit. It has been a long time since they actually talked, and far more since they actually saw each other face to face without talking about worrying topics like his declining health and the lousy pension plan.

"I guess, I could have spent my last day in so many better ways than trying to hide from you. It's kinda funny, and sad, isn't it? Does that mean they got the wrong guy?"

The tall man's reflection in the TV shook its head.

"Really. But, you did kill Peter?"

The tall man's reflection in the TV nodded.

"And, I'm next?"

The tall man's reflection in the TV jumped at Robert's reflection, and a few minutes later only reflection of Robert's paler and even thinner body remained. It soon simply fell on the couch, as if he was taking a nap. As it did so, it managed to turn on the TV, and the promo for the next episode of Real Housewives of someplace filled out the room which was slowly getting brighter as the sun was rising.

They never figured out what happened to Robert. They didn't found any traces of needle pokes, but his body was drained of all the blood.