***
Sitting still and not doing anything for many hours at a time had never been one of my strong points and now the daytime boredom became my biggest challenge. At first, I amused myself with trying to control my fangs, concentrating hard on making them go in and out, but that soon stopped being fun. Often, the only place I had to hide was under a lot of hay, and there was nothing to do except lie still and think. It was hard, as I was missing my family and friends a lot.
The nights were spent looking for food. I found I didn’t need much to keep the hunger at bay and the countryside provided enough animals for food and unattended washing lines for clothes. But my craving for human companionship grew stronger. I missed all the people I had known in Edinburgh; my friends, my family and Fiona. I knew I would never see them again, so I tried to push them out of my mind. I looked less and less at the picture of Fiona – that world now seemed unreal and very far away.
I wandered on, staying in the countryside around Paris until one cold November day the bells rang out for Armistice Day. I heard the parties and the cheering and I realised that war was finally over. Then I saw the soldiers marching home and men coming back to work the land and tend their farms. Normality was returning for most, but for me life was anything but normal.
At least, with the threat of being caught for desertion gone, I didn’t need to hide at night anymore. I’d never been on my own for any length of time growing up, and I didn’t want to be alone any longer. Gradually I started to come out of hiding and go into a village café now and then. I found the villagers friendly and warm and it did me a lot of good being amongst people again.
I survived on farm animals, but I craved something more. One night, I discovered I wasn’t alone in the shed I had chosen as my daytime hideout. A man had decided to make his bed there too, but he was hiding there for the night. My stomach rumbled at the smell of his human blood. No one would miss this tramp, an unfortunate that needed to spend the night in a shed. It had been four years since I’d last tasted human blood – and Lily’s uncle had deserved to die. I didn’t want to kill, but my body gradually started to dictate otherwise and the urge became just too strong. The smell of the blood was almost hypnotic and it took over. I had to kill again.
Afterwards I felt nothing – no guilt, no shame, just a warm feeling of having quenched a thirst. I felt full of life, strong and more confident, yet I knew that too much would be bad for me. I found a shovel and buried the body. Why should I hide, surviving on animals like another animal? War was over and I wanted to live again.