Blood of Gold by Duncan McGeary Read Free Book Online

direction. Everything seemed different: the size of the room, the color of the paint, the age of the woman lying on the floor staring up at him with round eyes, as if she, too, had sensed something strange had happened and wasn’t sure if she was more frightened of the change or of him.
    Kelton couldn’t breathe, but it seemed as though he didn’t need to breathe, or move, or think. A coldness flowed over him, and he felt his life drain away, everything he had ever liked, every good thing that had ever happened spiraling down a dark hole in his soul. What remained was hate and resentment, which had always been the biggest part of him, but was now magnified a thousandfold.
    That’s how he was Turned.
     
    #
     
    When he awoke, he was filled with a hunger and thirst such as he’d never known. The old woman was gone. Now, as if laid out especially for him, was a young woman, naked and bound. He felt the usual desires, but also something new. His need for sex was overwhelmed by his thirst, and as he fell on the woman, he found himself sinking fangs into her neck and sucking her dry. Only afterwards did he remember he was horny as well; and, to top it off, he was hungry. New and old desires melded together.
    It didn’t seem strange to him that he was eating another human being. He only wondered why he hadn’t tried it before.
    On the second night, he skipped all the preliminary steps and simply burst through the doors as if they were made of paper. He was strong, stronger than anyone or anything. He’d always restrained his urges, knowing that he couldn’t indulge them for very long before he was noticed. Even moving around the country, he couldn’t fully give in to his desires.
    But this was different. This was the end of the world. Kelton didn’t stop with the first house. Outside was chaos and death, and he knew that what he was doing was indistinguishable from what everyone else was doing. He was just doing more of it.
    In the third house he entered, a shotgun blast hit him, and it hurt, but when he chased down the shooter and tore him apart, consuming every bit of flesh on his body, the pellet wounds were already healed.
    After several nights of this, Kelton remembered the girls. Had he left them enough water? Even as he thought it, he wondered if he needed them anymore. It was time to move on, and this was his chance to get rid of them and destroy the evidence.
     
    #
     
    The three girls were gone. The door to the house was wide open, and he could see the pliers lying on the floor of the hallway.
    Should’ve killed that Simone girl while I had the chance, Kelton mused. She’d been trouble from the moment he’d brought her to the basement. If only she hadn’t been so beautiful. Tall and dark, she’d shed all her baby fat and was starting to look like a model. He’d kept her around for a little spice. Patty had begun to look like an unattractive middle-aged woman, all pinch-faced and squirrely, all mousy limp brown hair and pastiness. Laura was nice, in a dumb-blonde, pimply-faced, busty sort of way, but she had given in to him so easily that she wasn’t any fun anymore.
    What can they do to me? he wondered. Not much. They were vampire now, like him, so they’d be unlikely to show up at the police station. Still… better get rid of the evidence. He took the gas can out of the back of his pickup, went downstairs and sloshed the liquid over the piles of garbage.
    The chains had been pulled out of the wall and the links pried open. He shook his head. He should have realized that if his strength had been increased by the transformation, then theirs had been, too. Dumb.
    In his defense, he’d been busy. The complete chaos outside had been a once-in-a-lifetime chance to glut himself on blood and death. He’d fed on the first two victims, and then he’d killed just for the fun of it: vampire or human, he didn’t care. He was sexually charged by the violence.
    Kelton felt himself getting aroused at the thought