And I Was Hungry
A poem by Sarah Baethge
© Sarah Baethge, 2014
All Rights Reserved
Story of the Poem
And I Was Hungry (the poem)
Story of the Poem
Would you believe that this poem got its beginnings from junk email?
I got an email trying to tempt me into a short-story competition with the prompt ‘And We Were Hungry.’ Somehow that just made vampires spring to my mind. I just about instantly wrote down the first 7 or so lines of my story without thought and decided it looked like a poem more than just a story.
Deciding that it could be fun to try to keep it as a poem as I told the entire story, that’s what I did. I wrote at it for a week or two before I came to the end, and I was fairly happy with the outcome.
I did extend my story a bit farther than I originally intended, because its word count hadn’t reached the minimum for the contest. Now I’m glad it turned out that way because it caused my creation of a new character.
I enjoyed this poem’s story’s plot and characters so much that I did go back and create a prose novella of an extended version that I call Radiant Shadows: Beginnings.
I gave up on the contest because I decided that the rules sounded as if my simple entering was equivalent to signing a contract giving them permission to slap my name on whatever piece of writing they wanted to, even if I had no part in creating it.
That may be the wrong impression, yet I didn’t think it was a circumstance worth risking.
And I Was Hungry (the poem)
I write it here, and write it well;
This story that I dare not tell,
When in my presence, others dwell.
Of how my world was turned to Hell!
Insanity I cannot quell;
The voices in my head doth yell,
If for a moment I can smell-
-
..
I don’t recall the sunset when it came that final day. My memory finds the sky already somewhere black to grey. I follow Caroline’s whim- I am sure is only play. She says her sentry of the streets keeps vampires at bay.
Vampires?
Yeah right-
But it’s hard to find the fault with what one you love wants to do. Even when you think it’s crazy, fear their senses are untrue.
“Just one more check,” she says, “’fore we go home and have some stew~”
..
Stew
And so now looking back then at that terrible night when all was lost and all was taken; both of our lives would be forsaken- if only I had known back then, the truth there was within her fight; I’d convince her she had the right,
The duty;
The need!
To let the streets care for their own. To just ignore that cobbled stone.
Encased in shadows is the night- she didn’t need to seek its blight!
Oh how I yearn to touch daylight…
But my thoughts just said, ‘appease her,’ and so merely then to please her, I followed along mutely. Thought her strange task was done quite cutely; I liked to watch her in this gothic mood. And afterwards- hey, we’d have food!
Great deeper thoughts were hardly on my mind.
Because the day was nearly done,
I now could let her fancy run;
No sense of danger anywhere to find.
A final task, a time to think;
To choose which wine we ought to drink-
I followed in her wake to simply let myself unwind.
My thoughts were miles and miles away; just followed as go where she may;
What path we took, I cannot say.
My attention truly had been left behind.
The week was through, the day was done;
I’d earned my rest- perhaps some fun,
and I was hungry.
Approaching us, a silhouette, now made her stop and stare; Caroline then halted me. I think she said, “Beware-“
And although this new and shadowed form, might hold more menace than the norm; I really had to wonder why her eyes took on that glare.
Caroline was firm yet quiet as she told him, “Randy, you need to leave.”
Mockingly the figure bowed to her and answered, “I’m just looking for Steve-“
I could feel her indecision when she glanced over my way, her displeasure I stood with them was something now I could perceive.
The moonlight caught his grinning question; “Don’t want this one picked up in our fray?”
Peering back without an answer, hatred of him on her face did play.
“Exactly what’s the problem here?” This awkward tension made me say.
“He doesn’t know..?” incredulous, this Randy did backtrack.
“Marshall won’t believe.” She answered, grabbing my hand to walk away.
“Wait, what’s going on?” I planted my feet, to stay back.
Randy’s evil laughter at her now erupted in a bray. His answer for me came as just a simple quick attack.
Caroline tried to step before me, placing herself as my defense; I just couldn’t let her do that- I angrily brushed her off, and hence,
I caught his full assault head on…
I think his fist unhinged my jaw,
I heard the mighty crack, and for a moment blackness saw-
The world before me spun away to hither and to yon.
The ringing in my head then caused me helplessly to simply fall;
I saw Caroline address me, but I never even heard her call.
And as she shook me by the shoulders, I could feel nothing at all.
Aware there was no pain; I had to wonder ‘Am I dead?’
Could this lunatic have killed me with just a punch unto my head?
Great grief I saw on Caroline’s face, and yet she didn’t start to cry,
As she clearly argued with herself, a strange look overtook her eye…
The exact events that followed, I never quite want to be sure;
At first no sounds are in my memory and the picture has a blur-
The time becomes disjointed;
Caroline, at me she pointed,
On her knees before him pleading;
Out from me, my life is bleeding.
And then the glint from Randy’s eyes-
Strikes down upon my fallen frame;
To me it’s lightning from the skies-
And yet to him it’s just a game.
She doesn’t see his evil smirk, as he agrees and walks to me; that seems to be his special perk, saved just for us that cannot flee.
He now with unexpected might does yank me up to my full height.
His fangs into my tender neck doth tear- with guilty eyes she turns herself away; the pain now suddenly for me is there!
Randy’s will- frozen somehow does make me to stay.
And as the blood from out my neck is pulled, my breathless throat, it does go dry;
Next, tearing his own wrist with those same fangs, this bloody paw, upon my face he bangs-
My lust for the moisture so intense, inhale this life I have to try.
What I saw and heard and felt, words can’t ever quite explain, for what right there to me was dealt- a total ecstasy of pain. And yet from off my greedy lips, Randy’s sure to pull his hand away; need had me now teeter on collapse, but out of my reach he did stay.
His same now quickly healing arm, swung with a snap at Caroline’s back.
This brought a blank look from her of total charm; her pulse calling to my great new painful lack,
and I was hungry.
The hope upon her face was wrong,
I couldn’t look for very long-
Inside I only felt the need,
To have her veins upon me bl
eed.
I saw the joy that lit her face,
Evaporate and turn to fear.
Her heartbeat hammered in a race,
Her warm blood all that I could hear.
Her shoulders in my arms were quickly caught,
Though I remember moving not.
Her surprised and desperate fight with me was just so woefully wrong. And though my actions, I could clearly see, my intentions never came along.
I heard him laugh throughout it all; Randy, who was the one to blame; it left me feeling quite so small, drowning out there within my shame.
Yet, I’d no power to relent,
Caroline’s strength to fight, now soon was spent,
There’d be no way I could ever repent;
And, my satisfaction never came.
Dead within my arms I held the one I’d loved so dear;
Dead without a heartbeat or a breath that I could hear.
And though another I may blame,
I still can hear her scream my name.
Even though I’d sucked her body dry, taken all the blood that I could try; my need was almost greater than what it had been before. This was my first look at what the world now had for me, in store.
Helplessly I held her body, like a ragged little doll,
Desperately I begged of it forgiveness; frantically out to her, my grief made me call.
And I guess he just got tired of us,
Randy sometime here did slip away.
Stephen arrived after the initial fuss,
Yet was still in time to see my morbid little bit of play.
When he first joined with me, I was then unaware; my sobbing had taken me out from the world. I finally noticed moonlight reflect from his silver-white hair, and the near glow of his skin, it was so light and so pearled.
As he reached out to touch Caroline in my arms, I took notice of something that oddly wasn’t quite there; the smell of live blood in my head now rang the sharpest alarms-
Yet of that scent, this man was somehow actually bare.
‘Tell me you didn’t…’ he mournfully pleaded of me when her torn neck he saw.
“Who would you be?” I snapped, quite sure I’d never seen him before.
Before he could answer, his grey eyes darkened as they lit upon my now bloody maw. I pushed her body to him, trying to wipe my face clean of all blood and gore.
As he gently laid her down,
He answered without looking up.
He said, “My name is Stephen Brown-
“I work with Caroline in town;
“Vampires we were booking up.
“She was a huntress of renown.”
“You can’t seriously mean…” I started trying to deny…
He looked at me coldly, “Do you still have any doubt that they’re real??”
Thinking on that even-ing, I couldn’t call his words to be a lie-
And, just what other terrors could this man to me reveal?
“Come,” he said, “I’ve a cabin in the woods where we can hide.” My questioning look brought anger to his face. “This is the one and only kill you’ll ever get as a free ride! You’ll be away from humans at my place.”
“But you..?” Was he really gonna make me say it…
“About as much as you are now, god-damnitt!”
Stephen then grabbed my upper arm as he did move to walk away, but I didn’t want to just leave her behind. And then I almost tried to fight him; propriety said that we should stay!
Until he told me the new worry upon his mind;
“While knowledge of these foul blood-suckers clearly isn’t your true skill; a simple fact of life for them I’m sure you know: sunlight’s a glittering inferno on your skin now; if you will…? You want to have a roof that you can hide below.”
Stephen’s offer of protection hit me with mild surprise, after finding his horror with what I’d done. Could blind trust of his intentions truly be very wise? Should I just maybe chance the sunlight and run?
I suppose my indecision didn’t escape his sight; his expression now took on a guilt and shame. He said, ”Don’t think it’s your fault, ‘cause that isn’t quite right, forgive me Marshall; I’m the one to blame.”
He got down on his knees before me; his shining eyes were turned away, waiting for my wrath upon him to fall.
Though a serene air about him caused my attacks to simply stay,
Angelic choirs stopped them, one and all.
“How..?” I finally asked him when my anger was controlled.
I caught his nervous inspection of his own hand. “We traded her good for my evil,” with a whisper he told; “immune to Randy it’d make me; so had we planned. Though with the swap, the need to get him in her mind must have burned; just like your pining for her blood once you were turned,-
And now; without her, I can’t go back to normal, understand?”
“So this is what, some strange forgiveness?” I followed him and had to ask.
Stephen looked at me and slowly shook his head; “She made me promise what I’d do for her; guarantee one final chore, should fighting the vampires ever leave her as dead. “I’d watch after her dear loved ones; keep them safe and stand before~ revenge for her work, to them -by death- was led.”
Death through some revenge my hunger might fin-ally abate,
But I didn’t want to argue that case; I just followed as he led the way out to his car. Death through standing still in sunlight could not be my chosen fate, not with my thoughts of the flames I’d probably now have to face. I prayed that his cabin wasn’t out too very far.
I should have just accepted he’d said all I’d need to know,
But his odd silence in the car made curiosity grow.
I wasn’t trying to intrude,
Or let conversation grow rude.
The topic never really occupied my mind!
It must have just been simple fear;
I needed some noise in my ear…
But the answer he gave I cannot ever un-hear!
Stephen’s disgust with me, I can’t un-find.
He’ll talk if you pose a question, my thoughts at that time did proclaim; “If down you fell, what then would be her task?”
With nervous eyes he checked upon me, to make sure that I was tame; “Only one thing ‘twas I ever thought to ask…”
Pulling up now to the cabin he got out and turned around; “I made her promise just to kill me if as a vampire I’m found.”
He quickly closed the driver’s door and simply turned to walk away; shaking now in the quiet car I, for a moment, had to stay.
So here I write these cursed words,
With little company but birds;
His hatred when he sees me, might now actually grow less,
But not the torments of my own mind, I must confess-
They won’t let me claim my own actions to be another’s misdeed,
not when remembering my own need and want and lust to feed,
for when I took away her life, it was done through my own greed!
and I was hungry…