The Urge

THE URGE

By Brandi Wanto

I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun light. The sun turns to darkness before I leave for my work. My routine is always hurried, rushing to stop the urge before it hits me. My desire to avoid the urge usually results in success. Once it is safely tucked away my mind relaxes almost becomes calm. I can reflect on the past comparing it to how much things have evolved.

Man does not experience true darkness anymore. The lights from the city changed it. Darkness is chased away by lights beaming for blocks. The lights of the city as a collective are blotting out the stars. The restaurants and shops open all night use lights to move customers in or keep criminals out. Despite the reason the darkness is no longer black, but a foggy grey.

This makes my work more difficult, the darkness provided cover keeping me from being seen. Now I am forced to crouch in doorways or stay between dumpsters. My post is the same block every night waiting for my clients to find me. Staying out of sight is just part of the work at least until the regulars come looking. They walk the block peering in the blackened crannies of the alleyways desperate. They need to find me, and I oblige. I move into their line of sight slowly don’t want to spook them.

That is the normal routine of my night, but tonight I lost. My hands were shaking, and cold sweat spilled down my back. The urge was seizing me. “Hurry up” my mind screamed, “Where the hell are they tonight?” My eyes tried to focus as the aching in my bones and joints moved down my limbs. I placed a hand on the wall to steady myself. The breath in my lungs burned with the rise of my chest. I was close to panic.

I almost missed her, if not from the sounds of her retching she would be gone. The malady of the urge coursing inside me. Somehow the hope of seeing her helped me force it under control. Hopefully, my control will stay just long enough. She wasn’t one of my regulars, but I didn’t care.

She was thin and pale almost a walking corpse. Her stringy blonde hair was plastered to her forehead soaked in sweat. Her tiny hands tremored as she held onto a brick wall. The wall held her upright and she used it to help her walk.

“You looking for me?” I asked in soft friendly voice. Don’t wanna spook them. She used the wall staggering down my alley towards me. “Are you St. Nick?”, her voice cracked with the question. She was trying to hold back retching again.

“Yeah, they call me that and I don’t mind it” I answered pulling the bundle of Heroin from my pocket. Her hand reached out to take it, but she stopped. “I don’t have any money” she said. Her eyes were sunken in, but still a pretty hazel color. They probably sparkled before she became a junky. I forced myself to smile feeling the urge try to push back into me. “No charge that’s why they call me St. Nick” I put it in her hand this time closing her fingers around it.

She tried to straighten herself smiling at me, “Thank you” she said retching again doubling back over. I caught her helping her to sit on some boxes. I pulled an unopened needle from my coat and handed her a kit. Standard really, a spoon, tourniquet, cotton balls and a lighter. She was able to get it ready herself heating it, straining it through the cotton ball and applying the tourniquet. She quickly injected herself taking a deep cleansing breath.

“Why do you give it away for free? What do you get out of it?”, she asked as her breathing slowed down. I couldn’t help, but smile. The urge was chased away by the drug once she injected it. Her mind was free to reflect and think. She was intelligent before the urge dominated her life.

I put my head down the hand tremors were back. The shaking was worse, and the sweats started again soaking my shirt. “A little longer, hold on a bit longer.” I muttered under my breathe.

She was unconscious her breathing was barely noticeable. The time between breaths was longer and longer. I picked her up in my arms tilting back her head. Burying my fangs in her flesh. Her jugular flooded my mouth with warm copper and Heroin. Each gulp of her blood vanquished more of the urge from my body.

I staged her lifeless body next to some trash bags. I left the tourniquet on her arm with the needle still sticking in the vein. Open shut no question what happened. They don’t look to hard for why, if the dead body is a junky. My mind opened again allowing me to reflect gifting me the ability of reason.

The dose I needed to stop the urge would kill her. I knew it as soon as I saw how tiny she had been. If it is a normal night my regulars get the drugs for free. In return they willingly let me have some of their blood. I just need enough to keep the urge away. I don’t feed on them. Bad business killing off your regulars.

Nobody knew Vampires could become addicted to heroin by taking blood from a junky. We are forced to feed our fix by drinking blood that contains Heroin. Our bodies cannot process Heroin or other drugs. Anyway, enough reflection back to work. Five more should do it tonight, maybe six.

END