There Are Vampires in Paradise

A Sookie Hawthorne Short Horror Story

Photo Credit: @ph0t0.philia

Model: @gianna.kathleen05

The last light of day fell behind the Pacific Ocean on a calm Tuesday evening off the coast of O’ahu, Hawai’i. Tallulah sat in her space in the sky-rise condominium she’d lived in the last twelve years which over looked the city of Honolulu. From here, she had three-sixty-degree views of the Ko’olau Range, town, and the ocean. It was her sanctuary. She sat on her velvet deep green sofa and watched the lights begin to flicker on across the city and in the homes in the mountains. Tallulah licked her lips and smiled; it was almost dinnertime.

She had anticipated tonight. It was the celebration of her three-hundred-and-thirty-fourth birthday, or twenty-sixth birthday as she would say this year. It seemed ludicrous, for a vampire that cannot experience the island sun’s kiss to be living in the tropics. It wasn’t terrible, with the sun setting earlier, she usually got twelve hours inside during the sunlight, protected by her UV-blocking glass, and twelve hours into the moonlight. She couldn’t help it, Hawai’i always spoke to her, and Polynesian blood was her favorite. It carried centuries of ancestral lineage dating back to the first Tahitian settlers. Blood spiked with magic from the Days of Old and the tiniest hint of li hing mui, thanks to Chinese plantation workers. When she drank, sometimes she heard the drums. It was a delicacy not to be greedily consumed. She only saved it for special occasions, stalking her prey and their ancestry for months before hunting them and draining them. Otherwise, she preyed on the easy targets: tourists. It was easy as a beautiful “young” woman with money to lure almost anyone back to her place. Sometimes she kept them around for a few days, a few weeks, depending how good the blood and sex were. She only ever killed the men and women she fell in love with, which happened often. The others she released after she had her fill or got bored. There was only one person she kept around for several months, compelled, unknowingly controlled by her. Her name was Gemma. Tallulah did not like thinking about Gemma.

Tallulah was complex; soft enough to fall in love with humans but cruel enough to end their lives in the blink of an eye and not think about it again. She was not always like that, there was a time she kept a human around for several years. But when she finally turned him, he left her, and she never saw him again. That’s why she always murdered the ones she didn’t want to let go. If she couldn’t have them, no one could. And she was too free a woman to settle down with another vampire. Most of them that wanted to come here for the long-term stay were not just vampires in the sense that they were bloodsuckers, they were also land-grabbers. Billionaire real estate investors that had used their immortality to build empires throughout the decades, skyrocketing prices and pushing out the locals to the mainland to find affordable housing. She hated them for it and wanted no part in those schemes. While she was a cold-blooded killer herself, she liked to believe she still had some ethical standards and morals. Even with the self-interest of less available true Polynesian blood.

Tonight though, she was hungry for it all: blood, lust, and kill. Her friends Dmitri, Sabine, Jackson, and Sylvester were in town tonight to join her in festivities. It was not uncommon for vampires to hunt in groups, bringing their prey back to their homes for orgies and then mass murder to feast. It had been several years since she participated in a party hunt, the mess was always so much to clean up and she preferred to be solo. But it was her birthday after all, why not have a ball?

A soft knock came to the door. Surely, it couldn’t be her guests, how would they have arrived through the sunlight? Tallulah slowly slinked over to it and looked through the peephole. It was her neighbor, Francis. A short, elderly woman that always wore patchouli. Tallulah sighed and opened the door.

“Aloha, Francis,” she said politely.

“Tallulah! I brought you some guava bread from Big Island. You been hiding, you stay okay?” Francis was sweet, she looked out for her, worried about a young woman living alone. But Tallulah did not enjoy standing around talking to neighbors about things she didn’t care about. Francis always brought her food she could not eat, and sometimes this made her feel guilty. Human emotions like this were unacceptable and a waste of time.

“Thank you, Francis. I really appreciate you. I’ve been okay, just wanting to be alone lately.” She took the bread and exchanged a few more sentences before closing the door.

She walked into the kitchen and threw the bread in the trash, staring down at it, remembering a time in her human years when she would bake bread at home for her family. Tallulah accidentally killed her family when she was turned. Her husband, Jonathan, and their two young children. It took her Maker chaining her to his basement to keep her from walking into the sun.

She sauntered into her bedroom and pulled out the silver slitted sequin dress she’d ordered for this occasion. The strappy back and plunge front were perfect. She’d find more than one person to take home showing off this much skin. She only had one tattoo, thin cursive script lining her spine that read, “ut luna sit dux meus.” Latin for, “may the moon be my guide.”

Her bathroom was lined with numerous expensive skin care and beauty products. She always rotated between her favorite ones, her long blonde hair was her pride. She picked up a bottle of Good girl gone Bad by KILIAN and spritzed some on her neck and wrists. She stopped midway applying her makeup and stared at herself in the mirror. There was a time in the past when she felt guilty for killing. She would curl away and starve herself until she could no longer take the hunger pains after each feed. Tallulah was pulled out of her deep thoughts when another knock came to the door. She could smell them.

She wasn’t fast enough, as she emerged from the bathroom her front door swung open and four vampires sped into the room, knocking furniture to the ground in crashes and tackling her while she was still in her bathrobe.

“LOOLAH!!!” They yelled as they continued to cause commotion in her condo.

“You are destroying my furniture! That’s thousands of dollars!” She laughed as she play-wrestled back. She truly loved her friends. It’s impossible not to after knowing each other for a couple hundred years.

“Well, I think it’s unfair for you to have such nice things and nobody to share them with,” Sabine was always a softie when it came to romance.

“I am perfectly happy on my own. Besides, nobody I try to see for long ever works out anyway,” Tallulah motioned to the air.

“Yeah, ‘cause you fuck ‘em then kill ‘em like a damn praying mantis or some shit,” Jackson never held back. They all erupted in laughter.

The group stayed at the condo for some time, catching up, drinking, cracking jokes, and getting hungry. By the time the clock struck ten-thirty p.m., they headed for Waikiki. Running through the streets of Honolulu, they were too fast for the naked human eye to catch. Sylvester liked to race, and he and Sabine scrambled through the hustle and bustle of the height of tourist season, scaling up and jumping off buildings and over cars driving in the roads. Tallulah kept up as fast as she could, but she wasn’t quite as fast as them.

She scurried through the streets toward Waikiki, passing over tent towns carefully and quickly. She had only ever drank from a homeless man once, in her early years when she was desperate. She vowed never to do so again after that day. Tallulah jumped on top of a car and used it to propel herself into the air, over a small shop and back on the pavement, bobbing and weaving by the unsuspecting passersby, creating wind for each one she flew by. A woman with purple hair, a man with face tattoos, a young couple on their first vacation.

The group rendezvoused at the outskirts of the sector, and calmly made their way toward the hotels, clubs, and bars lining Kalakaua Avenue. It was fun to people watch here, to pick out the ones that would be easy to grab and take into the night from the ones that would lead to questions. Tallulah had a taste for the finer things, she’d usually spot someone strolling out of Dior or Balenciaga and follow them. Not tonight, though. Tonight, she’d have her real prey after the party.

The vampires casually strode into The Tiki Sun Hut and made their way to the bar, all eyes on them. The smell of blood was intoxicating, it was always better after someone had been drinking, a spiced delight. Tallulah ordered an old fashioned on the rocks. As soon as the liquor touched her lips she was ready to celebrate hard. Bodies smashed together in heated masses of sweat and the anticipation of sex. The bass roared and vibrated the floor, and it wasn’t long before she found herself dancing with two men, taking turns tasting them from their necks and using her eyes to compel them into staying silent. The whole group went around doing this in the multi-level club, Dmitri hunting them down after a couple hours to pass out some ecstasy he scored off of his last victim.

The drugs heightened everything. Tallulah fell into a pit of sinful lust and wild hunger. She took a woman into one of the bathrooms and fucked her while feeding. Her skin smelled like vanilla dreams and her blood was a divinely spiked vodka potion. When Tallulah climaxed, she had to pull herself away to keep from draining her and leaving a dead body in the bathroom. Her whole body tingled with white hot and lethal sensations. The woman was beautiful, auburn hair and green eyes and if Tallulah hadn’t had her eyes set on her real present tonight, she would’ve taken her home and kept her there for a while.

She left the bathroom and sniffed out her colleagues. Once regrouped, they sought out some humans to bring back to the condo. Tallulah grabbed a couple men she’d found staring at her earlier in the night, just for show. Jackson had two men of his own. Sabine had two women and one man. Sylvester and Dmitri had three women each. They took the party out of Waikiki and back to Tallulah’s condo. Walking at a normal pace, the walk took a little over forty minutes, but it was fun.

The proceeding few hours were nightmarish for anyone who doesn’t love a good horror film. Once the drinking and playing with their food wore off the sex was explosive, loud, and straight out of a porno. It was during the sensual behavior that the bloodbath began. Throats were torn open and bodies were left with bite marks all over them. Blood seeped in pools on the floors and sprayed the walls and décor in a show of art that could only be described as, “Special Death.” It was during this time that the vampires were focused on their killings that Tallulah quietly slipped away.

She set off into the night alone and headed mauka. His name was Koa, and she had been watching him for seven months. He had tribal tattoos covering a majority of his arms and legs, he stayed up late into the night writing on his computer, and he was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen. He was thirty-six years old and had a family. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop. Tonight would be his last night alive.

As she approached his home in the mountains, the atmosphere began to shift. An ominous mist rolled over the hills, almost as if it were reaching for her. She paid no mind to it and continued toward the stranger she would take for herself. When she reached his house, she found him in his usual spot at three-forty-three a.m. He sat on a sofa in his den, laptop in his lap, typing relentlessly. She would steal it afterward, she craved to read what that mind had to say. Still covered in blood, she approached the large window in front of him and lightly tapped the glass. She had him when their eyes met, and softly said, “Invite me in.” He had no choice but to unlock the door and do so.

She took his hand and led him off the property, into the starlight and the dense jungle of the forest. Tallulah brought Koa to a rocky split that overlooked the sea, waves crashing under a full moon.

“I know you don’t understand what’s happening, that I’m doing this to you… but I have waited for a long time for this. I need you to be very quiet,” she said while looking into his innocent gaze.

Spell-bound, he nodded obediently and said, “I will be very quiet.”

She reached up and caressed his face, bringing him closer for a desperate kiss. She made love to him and couldn’t stop her fangs from coming out. She bit into his neck during the act, and it was so much sweeter and better than what she had earlier in the night. The blood dripped down his chest and she couldn’t get enough. It was like heroin. She bit him all over his muscular body. It was the best blood she’d ever tasted; she stopped herself before draining him. Just like that, she was in love, deeper than ever before.

“I can’t kill you. You’re mine now. Someday I will be your Maker, and we’ll be together forever.” Tallulah grabbed his wrist and started toward town. Yet just before they made it out of the forest, he stopped following.

She turned and looked at him, and he saw right through her. Still as stone, Koa made no movements, it was as if he turned into a statue. She couldn’t make him move, he was rooted to the ground. The mist grew heavier and cloudier around them. The smell of death lifted in the air.

Off in the distance, what were clearly torches scaling down the mountain could be seen. Then came the drums. Silent at first, then louder and louder until it sounded as if they were being played right in front of them, behind them, all around them. The chanting followed suit shortly after.

“No…” Tallulah softly whispered in fear.

Night Marchers.

She let go of Koa and tried to run, and then realized she, too, was stuck; frozen in time as the ghostly apparitions of ancient warriors drew near. Tallulah panicked and started screaming, trying to escape the fate that was to come.

The Night Marchers approached quickly, torches in hand, torn garments and battle armor, weapons ready, and vengeance in their dead grey eyes. The chanting and drums were so loud she could not hear her own thoughts, voices overlapped and drowned her cries. The ghost of an old Ali’i marched in front, and when they reached the pair of them, they all halted. The silence was terrifying. Tallulah looked into the chief’s cold eyes and waited for the jump scare. The Ali’i raised his arm, pointed his finger at her, opened his mouth, and screeched a violent encore of chants, the other ghosts following suit. Ropes and chains fanned out from the group and violently wrapped around her body, dragging her to the nearest tree and binding her to it with no chance of escaping.

Koa slowly began to move again, walking toward home with the ghost of an elderly man carrying no weapons, a Kupuna watching over.

The rest of the Night Marchers circled around the tree she was tied to. They bowed their heads and chanted, and she could feel the ropes and chains tightening, digging into the skin. It wasn’t long after that the apparitions turned and made their way back into the mountains, leaving her there untouched but for marks the bindings were already beginning to leave.

The hours passed painstakingly slow, and the sky began to lighten. The blue hour was incredible, sky and sea met in different shades of cobalt, navy, periwinkle, and slate.

Tallulah looked up to the heavens, and silently begged for forgiveness for the creature she’d become. The sun rays rose from the horizon, kissed her skin, and she burst into flames.