Free Thirst No. 4 by Christopher Pike

snoring.”
    He does stop to listen. Sandy snores loudly.
    “Why are you doing this?” he asks.
    “I can’t explain right now. But you have to trust me, I mean you no harm.”
    He struggles in his chair. “Who are you? You sound familiar.”
    “You don’t know me. You don’t want to know me.”
    I drop the pillow and slip behind him. He hears me move but there’s nothing he can do to stop me from slipping my arm around his neck again. He goes out quicker this time, and a minute later I’m sliding the petroleum jelly–coated rubber tube down his throat and holding the bag above his head so gravity will drain the solution of drugs into his stomach. I leavehis duct tape slit open. I don’t want him vomiting in the night and smothering.
    When I’m done with Bill, I return to Sandy. I don’t shake her awake but use the power of my voice. I instruct her to open her eyes and lead her outside to my car. Night has fallen and the street is old and devoid of lights. The dark provides us with plenty of cover. I steer her by her arm and once she’s seated in the front, with her seat belt on, I ask her for the hospital address. I know it already but I want to start engaging her, getting her ready for the performance she’s going to put on at the hospital that will hopefully bring me to the blood bank.
    “At the hospital you will tell people that I’m your niece,” I say as she sits fixed-eyed beside me.
    “You are my niece, Teri Raine.”
    “No. Say I’m your niece, Kim Treach. Say Kim, Sandy.”
    “Kim Sandy.”
    “No. I want you to call me Kim. From now on, that’s my name.”
    “Kim.”
    “Yes. Kim Treach. And when we reach the hospital, if anyone asks what you’re doing there, say you have to catch up on some paperwork.”
    “I do have to catch up on my paperwork.”
    “When we reach the hospital, I want to go to your office first.” Sandy is dressed for a casual night at home. I want her to get her doctor’s coat on her, have her badge in place.
    “We will go to my office,” she repeats.
    We reach the hospital ten minutes later and our entry goes off without a hitch. Sandy’s office is on the fourth floor and she has brought her keys. While she is changing into her hospital clothes, I hurry back down to the security area and find a sole guard overseeing a bank of monitors. Before he can even get a good look at me, I belt him in the temple and knock him out cold. Then I turn off all the hospital cameras and remove the digital cards they were transferring their data to. Now the hospital will not even have a record of Sandy and me entering the hospital.
    I return to Sandy and find her dressed and ready to go.
    Yet I run into a mental block I find difficult to overcome.
    Sandy is a surgeon and like most surgeons she’s used to calling down for blood before or during an operation. She’s too important to actually run to the basement and collect it herself. The habit is so ingrained in her that when I suggest we’re ready to pay the blood bank a visit, she reaches for the phone.
    “I’ll call them and tell them we need blood,” she says.
    “There’s no need. We’ll get it ourselves.”
    “I can call. They’ll take my call.”
    I take the phone from her and put it back down.
    “This is a special case, Sandy. We need to get extra blood and we need to take it out of the hospital.”
    She frowns. “Why?”
    One simple word, but it’s enough to shake my world. Thewoman should not be questioning my orders. I struggle to come up with a scenario that might fit a pattern already locked into her brain. It doesn’t help that my thirst has returned and I’m feeling pissed off. Obviously, I didn’t drink nearly enough of Sandy’s blood.
    What’s so cool about craving blood and having the urge drive you crazy half the night? I remind myself to tell Seymour that he’s crazy to want to be a vampire, especially a newborn.
    “There’s been a major train accident outside of town,” I say. “Many people