Scarlette

Preface: It is helpful to read "Only because there's still blood on the blade" in my other writing.

My boots were silent as I glided across the damp grass. I walked between the rows of headstones, hearing the voices from beneath the surface of the earth. The dead have a lot more to say that most of the living. They don't mind me being here, trampling through their resting places, because they realize I'm stuck somewhere between where they are and where they once were. I had been here a few times over the past month or two, so I knew exactly where I was going, and I was no stranger to any of these "people".

I finally came across her headstone. I knelt down so I would be much closer to her. She was silent. She never had to talk with me anyway. She could look at me and everything that needed to be said between the two of us would happen almost instantaneously. She knew I was there, and she knew I had put her in this place. I knew there would be no more looks of 'Help me' or 'I'm yours", but I could feel her blank stare. I had always been waiting for her to ask why. She never did, because she knew.

I noticed Death watching me from fifty or so yards away. One would figure that he'd have something better to do with the billions left on this shit hole planet, but he doesn't. Not now, not while I'm around. Not while I'm on his turf. Then again, what could he do? Kill me? He's not happy with me, especially since we struck our pact. It's billions to one, Death, you're still ahead. I suppose that's why he lets me continue on my path. She's with him now, anyway. He knows it, and the motherfucker rubs it in whenever I am graced with his presence.

Looking back toward the gravesite, the headstone has JESSICA spelled out in bold block letters, and under that her last birth name among the dates and something else I never bothered to look at. Jessica, I didn't kill a Jessica. I reached into my coat and pulled out a matchbook from the club I had been to a few weeks before. "Scarlette's" was written on the front of the matchbook, on the back was a phone number and some cheesy slogan to get men to go view their talent-less, naked whores. I ended up in this place with the girl who was supposed to be filling the gaping whole that she had left. Scarlette, how she lived, how she died...face down in a pool of her own blood. I pulled a cigar from the pocket and lit it with one of the matches.

"I hope you don't mind if I smoke." I said to her. "I might be here for a while and the shroud makes me a little calmer." I could hear Death chuckle from a distance.

I miss her. I shouldn't, but I do. For a short period of time, even shorter for my extended existence, she was everything. She bled, she comforted, she allowed me to play out my perversions, and she craved it. I loved her and she, for a split second, loved me, too. I am a firm believer that things are normally too good to be true, and she was one of them. The replacement, and the one before her, fit into the same category. There's no stability, no sentiment, no honesty, and to be faithful to a vampire...might be a task that no one I have ever come in contact with may be capable of doing.

They laid her to rest within a day of my revenge. Closed casket of course, as the best surgeons in the world couldn't piece together what damage I had cause that night. I stood outside the church where her viewing was, watching her mother cry as she held the little dog back from clawing at her box. There were just a few other people, as she went through friends and confidants relatively quickly. She wanted me to go away, knowing full well I just wouldn't, and she always knew I was around. These people were upset and perhaps hoping she's moved on to a better place. I always told her she'd end up dead without me. Who am I to tell lies?

I had saved her from herself, and evidently, me at the same time.

I rose after a few minutes of reminiscing and my eyes began to turn red. I could see through the dirt and see her decaying body lying, arms crossed, just about six feet down. She was beautiful, peaceful; dead. She was like me, completely empty and void, but I had to continue to roam this fucking place...feeding. I noticed a shovel leaning up against a blank headstone, and after retrieving it, began to dig down.

Within an hour I was standing in the hole, knees pressed against the top of the box, and peering through the lid. She was still silent, just resting, just looking up at me as I stared down at her. I put my hand down on the lid, and I could feel warmth, like a subtle breath gently beating against the wooden cover. It wasn't real, I knew, but I could feel it.

I pulled back the lid and looked down at what was left of her body. Reaching back into my coat pocket, I removed a box. Opening it revealed the ring I had gone back for that night, before the police found her. I had it cleaned and inspected, and now that neither she nor anyone else could stop me, placed it back on her finger. Instantly, her skin, her hair, her lips... reappeared.

It was pristine. All of the damage I had caused that night, and everything I left on her back or neck, or anywhere else was gone; Pale, undamaged, perfect. I reached down and stroked her cheek like I had done hundreds of times before. I ran my fingers over her lips and began playing with her hair. She was frigid to the touch, but she was there, arms crossed, content.

I noticed a trickle of blood coming from the corner of my mouth. It was slowly dripping down the side of my face, and just stayed there. Looking close, I noticed she had one, too. I placed my finger down on her mouth, and tasted it. Her body, cold as ice, lifeless...and her blood was warm. No toxicity, clean. It was a wonderful sweet taste that I have been craving since she left. Her life...gave me life. How foolish I was...

A tear started to form in my eye. It rolled down the side of my face and landed on her white, naked chest.

Just then, her eyes opened wide...