Rated R for some bad language.

We Must Go Out in the Evening

The sky stretched across the evening like black velvet, and the stars were diamonds on it's soft black surface. They twinkled merrily as they sat in the sky, and the moon was a slice of silver."

What a piece of shit! I tossed aside the grubby piece of paper, and shook my head. People really wrote like that? I'd seen the night sky more times then I can count, and I've never seen it look like black velvet. Velvet's fuzzy and thick. The sky isn't either of those. And the stars as merrily twinkling diamonds? Please! They're friggin' balls of gas.

I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, and sighed. Poetry'd gone to hell, as far as I was concerned. All it was was mopey teenagers with nothing better to do then pour out their hearts in bad verse. Kerouac. He was a poet. Nice and angry and loud. Why couldn't they make poets like Kerouac anymore?

But I guiltily retraced my steps and retrieved the bit of paper. It wasn't even a poem, more of the beginning of a short story. Well, the kid who'd wrote it would never finish it. She was dead. The world wouldn't miss her much, she was nothing but a runaway. But she was dead, and all that was left of her was the little bit of paper I held, and since I had killed her I felt sort of obligated to keep it. I didn't know why. I didn't exactly go in for the guilt thing. That was more Louis' claim to fame.

I guess it was mainly because I was lonely. I'd been lonely for a couple of years. Ever sine Armand left. That's the way I always phrased it. Left. Left me anyway. But I didn't care. I was tough, hard. I didn't feel anything. Not me. Big tough vampire Daniel.

Then why the hell did I still have that piece of crap poem? Why not. It had it's good points. Black velvet and diamonds and all that. I liked diamonds.

I idly wondered if the kid had been on drugs when I took her. Did that have any effect? I sure felt fucked up. My thoughts were all over the place, jumbled up like on of those balls of wool you see kittens play with in commercials. The wool's always some bright color. Red or yellow. Blood and gold. Can't go wrong with that combination. Or maybe it was ketchup and mustard...

I really didn't know what was wrong with me. It was like I was hysterical. I used to get that way, when I was mortal. If I had been a kid now, they would have pinned me with ADD in two seconds flat. But I wasn't a mortal kid. I was a vampire. And all in all, a pretty crappy one.

It was like I didn't have a niche. I wasn't mysterious or intriguing. I wasn't charismatic or dashing. I wasn't dreary and gothic. I wasn't even angry. I just was.

I didn't really blame Armand for leaving me. He did make a mistake. Oh, I'd admit it readily. I hated it, all of it. But I loved it! It was like living a forbidden pleasure. Like the man who sins because it's sin, and that's what he gets a kick out of. I knew what I was was evil, and I loved it! Yeah! I'm the big bad.

But it came in shifts. I'd be high on the blood, all full and alive and running all over. Then all of a sudden it would hit me. I was a killer. A freak. I didn't deserve to live. I should be dead. God or nature had given me a disease that should have killed me. I had no right to be alive.

Then it would be gone. I didn't understand it. Some sort of undead bipolar disorder? Or was I just trying to find my niche? Everybody needs a niche.

The weird thing was, I never once considered offing myself. Didn't enter my head once. I guess I thought it would be wrong. Not morally. My morals were long dead. But...selfish. Armand went through a lot to make me what I was. It hurt him, I think. And if I killed myself, it would be like saying 'look, I don't care that you went back on everything you believed in so I could be alive. I laugh in your face!' I couldn't do that. Not to Armand. I loved Armand. I always did.

But I was so lonely. Not alone. I had a couple of mortal friends. One of them even knew what I was. I liked flirting with danger that way. I told her on s spur of the moment decision. "Hey guess what? I'm a vampire!"

She didn't believe me at first, but I proved it to her. She just sort of shrugged. I remember it so clearly. She was standing in the middle of the apartment. I was still holding onto the man I'd taken that night. There was blood on the floor. It was funny, because it stained the carpet and it looked just like spilled wine. I looked at her and I said. 'I killed him. I have to, if I want to live." And she just shrugged.

She knew how to write poetry. God I loved poetry. As far as I was concerned poetry and blood was all I needed. Real poetry. None of this velvet midnight shit. Maybe she'd want the poem.

I wandered for a while. I loved the city. The cold bleak beauty of it all. I was a child of the city, there was no doubt about it. I'd go crazy anywhere else. I needed concrete under my feet, and skyscrapers on either side of me.

But I got bored quickly. I went to her apartment, and let myself in. I always did. She was lying on her couch in a black silk bathrobe, the kind you see in the window of Victoria's Secret. I just looked at her. Short blond hair, pointed face, green eyes and a slim build. I didn't feel anything for her, not really. She was something to do to pass the time.

"Daniel." She said, not looking at me. She was watching TV. The one eyed antichrist, that's what it was.

"Yeah." I said. I let the piece of paper fall onto the coffee table. Her eyes followed it's short flight, and her hand darted out to snatch it up.

"What is it?"

"Something I found." I lied. I didn't want to tell her it came from a sad little runaway I'd killed. Killed. Dead. They were such hard words. Dead. Boom. Hard and sharp and small. Like a gun, or a knife.

"It sucks." She said, tossing it back to the table.

"I know." I sank into a chair, and rubbed my hands over my face. "I know. It's a piece of shit."

"You look like hell."

I was suddenly very upset with her. I stared at her, and I saw a flicker of fear pass across her eyes. Yeah that's right. I'm the big bad wolf, baby. You'd better be afraid.

"You look like a whore." I snapped."

"Don't talk to me like that." She stood up, and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. She really was pretty. Not much flesh to her, not that it mattered. But I had always liked a girl with a nice rack.

"I'll talk to you however I want to." I rose as well. Don't play with me babe, cause I play hard. Then I sat. I lowered my head, staring at the ground.

"You've got to stop this."

"I can't. And I don't need you to lecture me. You don't know what it's like, and you never will." I was amazed at the intricacies of the carpet. Every fat little fiber covered in lint. "You don't want to, anyway. Not that it matters. He told me I'd hate it, but I didn't listen. I never listen. And I hate it."

" 'Never meet the reaper with love only.'" She quoted. I shot her a glare, exiting quickly without saying anything.

I hated it so much. I guess I was in one of those self loathing stages. I was all full of the blood, too. Usually I was high on life. I shot a glance up to the sky. Black velvet, eh? The moon was full. I imagined for a minute that it was laughing at me. Big round moon face laughing it's ass off at me, down here, hating everything. I flipped it off, and started walking aimlessly again. What would the little runaway have to say about the moon? Would it be a pearl, or a great big diamond. I thought it was more like an opal then anything, but I was never a good poet.

I wandered downtown. It wasn't that late, and there were plenty of shops open. People were hurrying here or there, dripping with packages. I watched them for a while, imagining lives for them. I did that sometimes. Sitting in a restaurant or somewhere, and making up little stories about the people I saw. Sometimes I'd look in their minds and see if they were true.

That one there, the woman in the black miniskirt and the leopard print to. She was meeting her secret lover for a little forbidden romp. Her boyfriend was working late. The man with the thick beard and umbrella was a Mafia lord. The umbrella was really a gun.

I tired of my little game soon enough. I hadn't felt this empty or alone for a while. A while. I acted like I'd been this way forever, not just a couple of decades or so. How would it be when it had been centuries? Would it get better, or worse? Would David come to me, and make a book of my life?

I doubted it. My life wasn't the stuff of best selling novels. Ho hum, lost vampire wanders around questioning existence. That shit's been done before. I guess what I was going through wasn't that uncommon, since everyone seems to have gone through it at some point. Maybe I was just an early developer.

I blame society. The age I was raised in was lacking, I think. I never really learned the value of life. Not till I started taking it, anyway. So, that's my excuse. I was born in a dead time, so it only makes sense I hate conforming. I'm the friggin monster out of my nightmares. They say you become what you hate. I'm hating what I've become. Poetic justice? I think not.

I lifted my eyes once more to the sky. It really was pretty, but it would be prettier in the desert. I remember that. I went on a road trip, in college with my girlfriend. We drove through the desert at night, and we pulled over at a rest stop about twenty miles outside of Vegas. There was no one else there, it was like two in the morning. She had to use the bathroom, but I stayed outside. I looked up, and there were more stars then I'd ever seen before. They were everywhere, so bright and cold. It was like they were staring at me. and I just kept thinking that they didn't care. It just made me want to prove I was alive. We ended up in the back-seat of the car a few minutes later.

That doesn't matter anymore. The stars still don't care, but I'm dead now, so it doesn't matter. I'd always be dead, no matter what I do. But I was alive to enjoy. Life was my grave, and I had black velvet and twinkling diamonds to adorn my eternal coffin.