She Calls Herself Carmilla

Warning: blood and suggestions of violence

She calls herself Camilla after some long forgotten tale. As she stands outside the motel room door, she listens for signs of life inside. There it was, the faint pumping of a heart trying to keep up with supplying enough oxygen to keep a body alive when there wasn’t enough blood to carry it. There was the soft inhale and exhale of lungs almost unable to continue on. Carmilla looked around cautiously before walking through the door.

The scene she came upon was horrific. A scene a forensic team would later tear apart. Carmilla wasn’t horrified by the sight of all the blood mingled together but the smell of it. It wasn’t the fresh coppery scent she longed for, but that of cold, congealing blood that was no longer living. It was everywhere and most of it was Allison’s though two bodies lay on the floor on either side of the bed Allison laid unconscious.

“Allison,” she whispered. There were too many things that needed to be done first and she stood frozen for a moment too long trying to make a decision because a knock startled her out of her panicked state.

“Housekeeping,” someone hollered outside. “Checkout is in ten minutes.”

“Okay,” Carmilla replied. “I’ll be out by then, thanks.” With that she moved Allison to the shower and washed the blood away. She was no longer bleeding and there were no visible wounds. Carmilla was wearing a long t-shirt over a camisole which she removed and dressed Allison in. She found her shoes in the corner relatively blood free and put them on her feet. Finally, she used her fingernail to pierce her own wrist and dribbled a couple of drops of blood in Allison’s mouth. Instantly, Allison’s near lifeless body was as full of life as it had ever been. She could hear the ants crawling along the window sill and smell the fart of the man in the room next door. Her senses overwhelmed her and she froze as Camilla had done a few moments before.

“Let’s go,” Carmilla said, grabbing her arm and leading her towards the door. She knew her meager drops of blood would not sustain Allison for long and they had to get out of there. It wasn’t until they had been on the road for 20 minutes that Allison asked where they were going. Not what happened, she was only focused on the present as her heightened senses started to fade.

“You’re vampires,” Allison blurted.

“No,” Carmilla replied as her passenger lost consciousness again. They weren’t vampires. Vampires didn’t exist. All the folklore and mythology were wrong and based on carefully planted ideas of the supernatural. There was no supernatural. Carmilla and her kind had orchestrated the concept to keep themselves hidden among the humans. Carmilla, like so many of her kind before her, had fallen in love. The bodies that had lain on the floor were her former colleagues who had made the mistake of doing their jobs. No, they were on the run and there was a crime scene left behind.

“Who are you?” Allison asked.

“Call me Carmilla.”

“Why did you save me?”

“I’m not really sure,” Camilla answered. “I saw them take and knew what they were planning to do with you. I just couldn’t stand the idea of your heart stopping forever. I’m sorry it took me so long to get there.”

They traveled in silence for another hour.

“Do you need a break? Something to eat?” Carmilla asked.

“No,” Allison responded.

“I have to get gas soon,” Camilla explained and they continued in silence until a gas station appeared.

Camilla really didn’t know what she was doing. When she first made eye contact with Allison several days ago, she was mesmerized and couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was one of many targets they had picked at random. After they chose their marks, they stalked them to learn their schedules and lifestyles. They looked for people who lived alone and did not have people over frequently. People who would not be missed right away. Allison made a perfect candidate. She had an irregular schedule and could work from home at will and at random. She was known for partying late and staying away from her apartment for a few days at a time.

Their best marks were people who lived “off the grid” in isolation far from urban life. That’s where Carmilla was headed now. Her last job was in the middle of nowhere. It was over two hours to the nearest town and involved traveling along multiple gravel back roads. For decades, a couple of doomsday preppers lived there off the land and hadn’t made contact with another person in fifteen years. When the husband died, the wife buried him in plots they had prepared long before under a beautiful, sprawling live oak. Geraldine notified no one. There was no one. The last of their children had died, but they never learned of it anyway. Their paranoia was too prevalent to stay in touch with anyone including their own family. Geraldine lived alone and had isolated herself from society. She was a perfect victim. Yet, Carmilla had never been able to bring herself to hurt her and kept her secret. But now Allison is the one she loves, and she was willing to let her first love go to save the life of her current love.

Carmilla parked her car two miles away and told Allison to wait for her there. She refused. Allison’s attempts at being quiet frustrated Carmilla. Geraldine wouldn’t go down without a fight and a surprise attack was important. It didn’t help that the land was booby trapped and despite warnings, Allison kept plunging ahead with no deftness or dexterity.

“Stop,” Carmilla whisper-screamed. “You’re going to get yourself killed before we get there.”

“Look,” Allison retorted,angrily, “You said we need to find this old lady and people are after us. I’m just trying to get there faster.” Just as Carmilla was replying again about the many traps, Allison plunged into a tiger pit that had been adeptly disguised.

“Fuck, Allison! I warned you!” She was looking down at her second horrific scene of the day. Sharpened spears pointed up from the ground at the bottom of the pit. Allison had gotten herself impaled on three of them: one through the thigh, one through her abdomen, and one through her shoulder.

“Am I killed?” Allison yelled hysterically.

“Allison,” Carmilla said in a manner she hoped was calming. “I don’t think any vital organs were punctured. I’m going to figure out how to get you out of there.” Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t be too worried, but Allison had already lost a lot of blood and they two drops of her own blood that Carmilla had given her earlier had warn off. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes she made with Geraldine and get Allison addicted, but she wasn’t going to live if she didn’t give her more. Deftly, she dropped into the 12 foot pit and avoided getting pierced. Unfortunately, she missed the covered bear trap in her eagerness to save the woman she loved.

“Are you killed?” Allison asked her.

“No, we’re going to be okay,” Carmilla responded in her attempt at a soothing tone while blood poured down her leg. That’s when she heard the unmistakable click of Geraldine’s firearm.

“Hello, Geri,” she said.

“Who do we have here?” Geraldine asked.

“This is my girlfriend, Allison,” Carmilla explained. “I need your help saving her.”

“Girlfriend?” Allison muttered. “We just met.”

“That’s how she works, Allison,” Geraldine informed her. “Some young woman strikes her fancy and she tears her life apart in the name of love then abandons her once she’s ruined.”

“Geri, please,” Carmilla pleaded. “We don’t have much time. Help me get her to your cabin!” Geraldine took in the whole scene and seemed to make a decision.

“No,” she finally answered.

“What?” the other two women replied in shock.

“You’ve already given her your blood. She’s doomed now.”

“Help me,” Allison screamed.

“I’m going to tell you a story. That will be the help you receive from me.” Geraldine revealed the events of her past that lead to this:

There were visitors who came here with a list of instructions to complete. They were lead to believe that once they had finished, they would be returned to their home planet. They were deceived. They had been abandoned and left for dead, but they found one way to sustain their lives—human blood. For centuries they have been feeding on humans. To cover their actions, they invented stories of creatures like vampires and cryptids to lace throughout the cultures of the world so each society would have an enemy to blame while they lived amongst us. Of course, when I was your age, I knew nothing of this. One day this beautiful woman here showed up on my doorstep and I let her in. She used a ruse to get my father to allow her to stay and became fast friends and then lovers. I was scared of anyone discovering my feelings, but I should’ve been scared of this monster. Each night while I slept, she was feeding on me. Each morning, I woke up more in love.

By this time, I was deathly ill. It’s what happens when they use up their victims, but she didn’t want me to die and rescued me by having me feed on her. I didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to die. I’m ready now. I regret pursuing life for it has brought me nothing but misery.

“I can’t end that,” Carmilla offered. Her intention coming here involved killing Geraldine anyway. Her blood could save Allison. Carmilla’s blood still flowed through her but in a much diluted state.

“I will end things myself,” Geraldine announced. Then she pointed her rifle at Allison and fired. It was a perfect shot. Allison was dead.

“Why?” screamed Carmilla.

“We’ve both lived long enough,” she responded. “You can only live if you feed. I can’t kill you, but I can stop you.” Geraldine was prepared for this moment. She put down her rifle and picked up her dart gun filled with a heavy tranquilizer. Carmilla had the strength and ability to either rip open the trap or rip off her leg. With enough human blood, she could regrow it. While tranquilized, Geraldine drove spears into each limb keeping them spread eagle then filled in the pit with cement.

For six months, she camped out on the slab listening to Carnilla’s pitiful pleas. Once there was silence for seven days in a row, Geraldine swallowed sleeping pills she had been hoarding for this very moment. Thus, ended the lore of the vampire because after killing her two comrades in the hotel room, she had become the last of the aliens left behind so long ago.