I wrote this story based on a prompt from writing-prompt-s on Tumblr. The prompt said: “I pulled myself together and got up. The autopsy technicians could only stare in horror.”
The last thing I remembered was getting shot in the head by one of those “Hunters”. There was just enough time for me to memorize her face as she ran away. And then… nothing.
I woke up on a table in some hospital’s morgue. It takes a little while for people like me to regain full consciousness and the ability to move again. The morgue was very cold, but that’s not really a problem for my kind.
Someone was poking a metal device into the hole in my head. One of them asked their colleagues a question.
“Are we certain that this is the right corpse? I’m asking because the x-rays we viewed showed that at least half of this one’s head had a huge hole through it. But now? All I see is a hole the size of a quarter.”
Tiring of having my brain poked with a metal tool, I opened my eyes. There were three people in lab coats – all of whom slowly backed away from the metal table they had placed me on.
“… The eyes! … Maybe that was a… a nerve impulse?” one of them asked.
Humans, even educated ones, can be incredibly/hopefully stupid when scared. This was to my advantage. It takes a lot of energy to regenerate one’s self – and I was HUNGRY.
When I sat up, the three humans seemed paralyzed in fear. I was covered in blood – probably my own – thanks to the gunshot wound.
Part of this “autopsy” resulted in one of them cutting into my chest. My heart was visible. I allowed the humans to watch as my heart started beating again (a parlor trick some of us can do) as my skin and bones grew back.
Staking a vampire doesn’t always require a sharpened, wooden, post. And, it doesn’t actually kill us. We just sort of go into stasis. It’s very boring. I suppose these metal implements they used served well enough as a stake – right up until they removed it from my heart.
I don’t know what they did with my clothing, but that’s not really important right now.
Moving faster than human eyes can see, I launched myself at the nearest person in a lab coat. He didn’t even have time to make a sound before my fangs entered the artery on his throat. His co-workers screamed and ran away as I drained him dry.
Within seconds, I felt like myself again. His blood surged through me, and I could feel the adrenaline that had been mixed into it. The borrowed body heat felt wonderful, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever.
Realizing that I couldn’t walk out of the hospital looking like this, I used the nearby sink to wash the blood off of my skin, my face, and from under my nails. My hair also got a quick wash so I could remove the blood and gore that it collected after I got shot.
There was a pristine, white, lab coat covered in plastic. I bit into that with my fangs and ripped the package open. The size wasn’t perfect, but it covered most of me. I popped the collar up like I did back in the 80s, when I was still a human.
As I was buttoning up the lab coat, I realized that my legs were still somewhat visible, and that would make me stand out. I’m sure that the human I drained wouldn’t mind if I “borrowed” his pants and shoes.
The other two, the ones who ran away… forgot to close the door to the morgue. I smiled, retracted my fangs, and walked down some corridors which eventually led me outside.
The moon was shining brightly, and I was feeling strong. Time to locate the Hunter who thought she killed me.
I wrote this story on Tumblr. It is based on a writing prompt: “I pulled myself together and got up. The autopsy technicians could only stare in horror” and is not allowed to be copied.