Amy Ford woke up dead.
It was immediately obvious she was dead. Her mind went through a number of distinct memories: driving high on methamphetamine, wrapping her car around a tree, and being flung onto the road. She remembered thinking, as she flew through the air, how her mother had always told her to wear her seat belt, and how obnoxious it was going to be to prove her right.
Amy had landed hard on the ground and laid there for a few minutes, feeling the life seep out of her but too weak to cry for help.
After a short while, Amy heard the sound of truck tires coming up the road, slowing to a stop as they approached the crash site. Then, the clip-clopping of heavy boots stomping their way closer over the gravel.
“Finally,” she had thought with a sense of relief. “Help.”
But as the setting sun cast the figure’s shadow over her, she instead felt the pinch of two punctures into her neck and a draining sensation. As what remained of her blood was sucked away, Amy watched the world grow dark around her.
After that, there were only faded, hazy memories: ambulance sirens, the shouts of paramedics, the priest’s last rites. And then silence. Absolute silence.
Now, lying on her back in the pitch blackness, Amy sensed blood again, resting stationary in her veins. The paramedics must have filled her up with it, the blood of other people, as they struggled to save her.
She found suddenly that the blood seemed to give off a certain odor she had never before noticed, a sort of combination of cream-filled éclair and juicy rib eye and cold root beer.
The smell made her stomach quake with hunger. How long had she been here — days, weeks maybe? She was famished, ravenous with appetite. And thirsty, so thirsty, like she’d been dragging her tongue across hot desert sand. It was worse than that time she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day because she was so busy playing video games, and when she finally pried herself away long enough to go to the kitchen, she found it bare and didn’t have a dime to her name to order pizza.
“I have to get out of here and get some food,” Amy said aloud. Her teeth felt unnatural in her mouth, too big and arranged strangely. It made her voice sound foreign, like she had a lisp.
She raised her hands up to feel at what surrounded her and felt the rough wood- pine, she guessed. Could she break past it?
As she explored the surface, a splinter lodged itself into her fingertip.
“Ow!” She stuck her finger into her mouth instinctively.
A drop of blood fell from the wound onto her tongue. In an instant, Amy experienced a culinary sensation unlike any she had ever imagined. It was like blueberry cheesecake, chicken fried steak and 100-year-old brandy, all rolled into one.
“Oh Lord, I’m delicious!” Amy declared. “Should I taste just a tiny bit more?” She felt her teeth grow even larger, but now the fit felt right.
Experimentally, she moved her arm so that it lined up with her mouth and sank in her teeth. The flavors, oh the flavors! She marveled at the delectable variety. Butterscotch flan, creamy mashed potatoes, freshly squeezed orange juice; chocolate chip cookies, grilled halibut, tart and sweet lemonade; tiramisu, macaroni and cheese, strawberry banana smoothie.
In the back of her mind, a quiet voice timidly suggested that she should stop drinking her own blood, but a much louder voice was delighting in the ever-changing tastes and screaming, “Chug! Chug! Chug!” After all, Amy was never one to say no to excess.
As Amy drank, her mind faded back into the familiar darkness, and she drifted off forever, her fangs still embedded in her arm.
And so, Amy became the first vampire in history to drink herself to death.
Benjamin Logan Miller lives in Houston, TX, where he is studying for his master’s in counseling at the University of Houston. He’s had stories published in two anthologies: The Art of Losing and Face Forward. When he’s not studying, Benjamin plays strategy board games and writes stories about people doing horrible things.
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