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Vampirism is a disease by Caitlin Elizabeth Miller

Dr. Morgan slipped on her white doctors coat and went into the faculty lounge for a cup of coffee. It was late at night and she was alone with a couple other staff members in the Lancaster County Hospital. “Late shift again” Barb, the secretary said her eyes blood shot form the shift. She nodded and sipped her coffee. “Its not like anybody going to come in this late at night anyway” the doctor remarked. Suddenly, a shadow crossed the hallway. “Hello?” she called out putting down her coffee. She gasped and cupped her hands over her face. Her work had just begun, “your covered in blood.”

“Carol!” Dr. Morgans voice was droned out by the sound of the phones ringing off the hook at the front desk. “So much for a break” she groaned pulling on her daughters black belt. “Mom” Carol began trying to explain why she was in the janitors closet. As she tried to get out of trouble she started to peel away her black nail polish. It was a sign that she was lying. Dr. Morgan felt her pager vibrate and let go of her punk, rock daughter. “ You get away this time” she said pulling a strand of Carols Honey colored hair as she walked away.
Carol watched her Mother walk away, looking sophisticated in her gold rimmed glasses and professional coat, her hair pulled tightly back into a bun. “Who would wanna be a doctor anyway” Carol huffed realizing her hate for the work her mother had to do. She walked away form the janitors closet and through the mind numbing hallways. She followed the painted blue lines on the linoleum floor.
“Ow” she said bumping into a doorway. She hissed with pain and looked up. “Room 66" she said to herself. She opened the door. A boy was tightly secured on the hospital bed, Red bed sheets covered what looked like a dead body. The horrid smell of the room made her grip the wall, covering her nose. Was this legal, to keep a dead body in a hospital like this? She thought. The dead boy stirred, his pale hands tugging at his restraints.
His red eyes looking straight at her. So he wasn’t dead but he sure looked like it. She was speechless but had the question, what the hell happened to you, in her head. Carol became very curious of his condition as he stared at her. She walked closer until she could see his face.
He looked to be her age, with a starved looking face and thin, chapped lips. His scrapped dark hair was soaked with sweat as it rolled down his forehead and onto his long eyelashes that brimmed his mysterious colored eyes. Are they really red, she wondered wanting to poke at his eerily, pale skin that was hidden underneath his hospital robe. What disease had possessed his body to make him look like this?!
“He came here last night, Dr. Morgans been doing everything for him.” Carol flinched. Rachael, her mothers intern, had surprised her. “Oh” Carol said. When she looked back at him, his eyes were closed. She wanted his eyes to open again. “Still unresponsive” Rachael said tugging nervously at her floral scrubs. Carols eyebrows went up as she watched the boy clench his fists as Rachael came nearer., “what’s wrong with him?” she asked keeping her eyes on his hands. Rachael was not paying very much attention and started to scribble on her clap board. “Don’t know” Rachael answered walking out of the room and mumbling, “your mom wants you.”
“Great”
Inside the blue walls of a, red shutter suburban home Carol was at war with herself. She locked herself in the bedroom, her dell computer frozen on the goggle homepage. The sickly boy was still lagging in the back of her head. She had looked up every possible disease she could think of resulting in his physical side effects. She was now at a blank.
“Sweats, starvation, pale skin, red eyes” Carol said aloud reviewing the obvious. She sighed. She felt like she could help him too bad she didn’t have a degree in medicine or else she might have thought of something scientific and reasonable by now. She typed in the sentence, “mysterious red eyes and pale skin...medical reasons?” As if putting the word mysterious in front of it would give her anymore links, she thought laughing at herself.
Mysterious red eyes and pale skin-vampires. Oddly the definition of a vampire came up. “Couldn’t be” Carol said aloud putting an index finger to her chin. She thought over her first impression of him and her eyes widened. She got up and scanned her bookshelf. Dictionaries of mythical and Celtic beings were stacked on top of one another, filling every space she had on her small shelves. All she had learned form them came back to her.
The red eyes, pale skin and bloody remains, it all pointed to vampirism. Duh, she thought. Her conclusion making sense in her mind. She quickly grabbed her black duffle bag and filled it with some of her most knowledgeable books about the patients subject. She looked out the window and saw winter doing its nightly habit of snowing.
She groaned and knew walking through the snow covered drive way in the middle of the night was not an option. She would have to go out through the back. Her cat Libby brushed up against her leg scaring her. “Its just you” Carol sighed with relief. She stepped over Libby and opened up her closet. Her gothic lifestyle had only started a month ago, so a few pink shirts and skirts had survived the change and hung at the end of the rack. “I am a different person now” she whispered to them as she took out a dark skeleton hoodie and closed the door.
Libby jumped on her computer rubbing against the screen. “Seeya” Carol whispered walking down the staircase as silently as she could and out the back door. When she got to the white picket fence she saw that the handle was iced shut.”Crap” she hissed jiggling the lock and trying not to make too much noise. Moms gonna kill me if she catches me now, she thought remembering her last attempt at escape. She smiled as the handle came loose and the fence was unlocked. She took the opportunity to run the rest of the way to the hospital.
The snow fell eerily on the simple look alike landscape of suburbia. The moon reflecting in every late night devils eyes. This was the secret nights of East wood and its perfectly green grass and close living inhabitants like her parents and neighbors. When Carol Morgan moved here from a city in her pink sun dress on a bright August day her old friends called her lucky but no new friends took their place to say the same. Carol was alone, angry and hated the quiet and quant suburbs.
As the hospital came in sight for the first time she was grateful the hospital was so close to her home. It lay just outside her district and a couple blocks from a catholic church. It was the perfect place. She walked in and looked around for barb the late night secretary. “No barb” Carol said happily convinced it was okay to move around the building.
Room 66, Carol thought opening the door. Her eyes widened.. He wasn’t there, how could that be? She dropped her duffle bag and walked closer to the red stained sheets. She cupped her hands to her face. “He...he Couldn’t have died” she told herself feeling remorse becoming the girl she used to be. A shadow moved across the wall and shifted before her. “Carol” the vampire said moving the hair form his red eyes. Carol looked up when she herd her name and instantly went back to who she was. “How the hell do you know my name” she asked sternly even though happy thoughts were filling the back of her mind. He was okay
The vampire showed his fangs for the first time and said, “I know a lot about you...everything.” Carol gripped the wall and started to smell the awful stench again.
“Like what?” she asked pinching her nose.
“Like why you’re here, you came to try and save me.”
Carol slowly nodded and started to feel cornered and remembered a darkly colored image of a vampire ripping open its victims heart. She started to feel fear.
“I am dyeing” the vampire said at last sighing with regret. “Why would you feel something that is dyeing”he started to cry. Carol flinched as he put his hand on her shoulder. He was starting to fade like a spirit. “W-what can I do” she asked mortified that she came to save him and now all she wanted to do was run.
“I need blood” he opened his jaw and sniffed at her neck before sinking in to her throat. She was taken to a dark world and the vampire stood before her in this world with her, holding her hand as she lay without pain or feeling. “You know me” he spoke his eyes dazzling as he looked into hers. “I am your friend”
“ No, I am alone” Carol replied as light started to show through the dark, emotionless world.
“you used to be” the vampire said before lightly shutting her eye lids.

Mrs. Morgan scratched at her puffed cheeks and tried to cover her bloodshot eyes. “Maybe you should go home” Barb cooed patting the doctor on the back. “Its not like her to disappear form more than a day!” she shouted slapping the secretary hand away. “Go home” Barb said again, “its rare for somebody to walk in this late at night anyway.”
Dr. Morgan started to take off her white coat when something in the doorway caught her eye. “Carol?” she said quizzically dropping her coat on the floor rushing to her battered daughter. “Mom...I need” Carol started her red eyes watching her mothers hands lift and wipe away the blood on her forehead. “What, what” her mother cooed kissing her temple. “We need blood” Carol finished as she gripped her mothers neck and devoured her.