Another Dead Vampire

I poke the pile with my foot and feel a few tiny chunks of glass mixed with the blackened rope. It’s still warm. Only a vampire could get that hot but not incinerate the rope around him. Only one tied up and left on a floor for the dawn. No one really knows why the Vampire virus is susceptible to sunlight. The Enlightenment certainly understood how, a toxic reaction to solar radiation coupled with the virus overcompensating by rapidly mutating to adapt. The mutations caused a cellular breakdown that, for lack of a better phrase, led to spontaneous combustion. The thing that made the vampire virus so incredible was also what kept it from being normal. It couldn’t take a force that it couldn’t adapt to. “Dingo…don’t you know sunlight kills you?” I half-heartedly murmur. Someone would’ve had to beat the shit out of him, tie him up, and leave him unconscious long enough for the light to hit. Once the sunrays started hitting him, Dingo would’ve been in too much pain to struggle against the ropes after that. “That is…someone?” Ferris asked. I nod, “I’m going to guess it’s Dingo. We were friends, before I became human. He’s a…” my voice catches little bit. That sad feeling is coming up again and I can suddenly feel the photo in my pocket. First the kid, now Dingo. They were both gone now. It wasn’t a pain I was used to. My hands are shaking as I try to reach for a cigarette. To reach for anything against this feeling. Ferris takes my shaking hands, her own palms are warm against what must be the icy chill of mine. “He’s a dead vampire, Shade. You’re not one of them anymore. If the Book was here, it would be gone,” she says. She squeezes my hand and I find myself squeezing back. It’s just too much to feel this way alone. “Lets get out of here,” I say weakly. We get back to the car and Ferris drives back to my apartment without me having to ask.