DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL (4).

 

CHAPTER 4.

As he drove up Mt. Hood Pass, the thick forests of the Cascade Mountains reminded Terrill of the old Black Forest of his youth.  He was comfortable with the shadows, the darkness in the rocks and streams.   Once, upon arriving in the Northwest, he had experimented by bundling up and walking the Pacific Crest Trail in daytime just to see if he could do it.  He had gone for miles, evading sunlit areas, hopping from shadow to shadow.  He loved the rain and the thick growth.

He had never been east of the summit.

At the height of the pass, the trees changed -- it seemed within seconds -- from thick fir forests with heavy underbrush, to larger and more expansive Ponderosa pines, with little undergrowth.

The air became dry, fragrant with the smells of needles and bitterbrush.  The sun seemed brighter, and lower to the earth. 

He almost turned around.  He could do nothing to bring the girl, Jamie, back. What would he accomplish by putting himself in danger?  In the rear view mirror he saw the comfortable slate gray skies overhanging the Willamette Valley, with the dotted trails of rain clouds.  Ahead he saw brightness and danger.

The High Desert -- a part of the Great American Basin -- was something he'd purposely avoided by flying over by airplane every time he needed to travel.  East of Bend, he knew, were miles and miles of lava rock slopes, filled with low scraggly Juniper trees and dry, wooded sagebrush.  He felt exposed just thinking about it.

Vampires thrived in the visceral fluids of men and of the earth.  In the darkness and the cover of the cities, in dark and rainy forests and mountains.  They avoided the sparseness of small towns where a person might be immediately missed and a stranger immediately suspected.  Above all, a vampire avoided the sun and exposure to the sky.

He pulled over to the side of the road. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked himself out loud.

He could turn around, head further north, into the Olympic National Park and on to the equally rainy Seattle area.  It wasn't too late.

"Were are you from?" Jamie asked.  It was after their first lovemaking session.  She had started off stiff and uncomfortable, but his need had been great and he ignored her discomfort at first.  Then something had switched inside him, and he slowed and tried to bring her along with him.  That had never happened before.  He took what he needed and wanted from humans, without care if they liked it.

But he had to admit; it had been a more satisfying experience somehow when she had climaxed with him.  Or -- at least pretended to.  She was a whore, he reminded himself.

"Nowhere and everywhere."

"That's too bad," she said.  She frowned.

"Why?" he asked.  Most people were intrigued by his answer, envious of his world-weary traveller pose.  She seemed almost to pity him.

"I love Bend, my hometown.   It's the best of all worlds.  It has everything I've ever wanted."

"Yet -- here you are, in Portland."

"Only for awhile.  As soon as...."

"As soon as what?"

"I have a couple of things I have to work out.  There is.... someone... I need distance from.  But eventually, I'll go back.  I know it."

He watched her face as she was speaking, and her enthusiasm was irresistible.   He grabbed her and slid her underneath him, while she laughed.  

"You should visit sometime.  I think you'd like it there!"

"I like it right here, right now."

 The summit of the Mt. Hood pass was half in shadow and half in light.  He pulled out onto the highway and drove down into the light. 

 Half the trees were orange, seemingly dead.  Pine beetles, Terrill thought, thinking he’d read something about it in the Oregonian.  The dryness didn’t make him any more comfortable.  The mountain lakes were bright blue, and the roads to them paved with red cinder.  He kept to the main highway, drove through the quaint tourist town of Sisters, and on into Bend.

He’d become practiced at finding the local motels where he could pass unnoticed.  Not too fancy, not too seedy.  Not too new, or too old.  Bland and slightly downhill of their peak, that’s what he preferred.

It was still hours until dark.  This late in the winter, he’d be able to venture out after around 4:00 P.M. as long as he wore his hat and gloves and long scarves wrapped nearly around his face.  He was a couple hours early, so he drove around, exploring the town.  It didn’t take him more than hour to drive the main roads.

Finally, he judged it dark enough to pull up to the motel office overhang and hopped out.  He rented a queen size, with microwave and refrigerator and paid for a week.

He checked into his room and then consulted the yellow pages for the nearest independent butcher.  He got back in the car.  He ordered several pounds of steak, and drove back to the motel.  He ate the meat raw, licking the butcher paper clean of blood.

The blandness of the blood brought back the memory of his feeding on Jamie.  He hadn’t wanted that.  Especially after trying for decades not to kill another human.  Especially not her.  He had really liked her, perhaps more than any other mortal woman in his long existence.

He felt defeated, sick, and the raw meat did little to make him feel satiated.  He wouldn’t feel satiated ever again, not if he could help it.  He would starve first.

So he told himself.

But the memory of waking up, staring into an empty mirror, and feeling the old blood lust was overpowering.  Even as he sank his teeth into her neck, he’d been aware of the wrongness.  Even as he drained her, he had known he was killing her.

He couldn’t stop.

Never again would he trust himself to seek comfort in another human being.  No, that wasn’t right.  He wasn’t human.

He was a monster.   He had always been a monster.  He would always be a monster.  


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