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k_a_webbJohn didn’t really have any expectations. He was looking for something that was safer than hunting, but the donor house wasn’t necessarily going to what he was looking for, and he wondered whether any other vampires did feel the same way he did. Logically the donor house was a place for vampires like him. Unfortunately logic and vampires rarely mixed.
“This, as I’m sure you’ve realised, is the reception,” Alice said, dragging him out of his thoughts. “We like everyone to sign in and out for safety purposes. From here we can go to three places. Upstairs we’re set up to house sixty donors and twenty vampires, but it’s not very full at the moment. Most of the first intake of donors were short term, so we’re looking to get in more long term donors, and at the moment only three vampires live here on a permanent basis. That’s me, my creator Nick, and Nick’s business partner Issac. To the right we have a shop, which is still a work in progress.” Alice shook her head. “Really this whole place is still a work in progress, John. It’s not something that anyone has ever created before and a lot of what we’re doing right now is guessing.”
“At least your honest about it.”
Alice smiled at him. “To the left we have everything else. Through one door is what the donors call the cafeteria, but we were aiming for more a kind of buffet restaurant thing. Basically anyone can walk in there at any time and get fed. If you walk through the other door than you can go the the library, which is a bit lacking in books right now, or the games room, or several other rooms which don’t really have names yet. They’re just gathering rooms really.”
“What is the donor house for, Alice?”
“The donor house is for a lot of things.” She sighed. “Originally it was Nick’s idea. When you first meet him I think you might understand better than any of us did to begin with. He wants somewhere safe for vampires to feed that is just as safe for the human donors. The whole set up with paying off debts should hopefully be a starting point for us to begin teaching humans that not all vampires are like those who go to the auctions, buy humans and end up turning them into addicts.”
John looked at her for a long moment. “What are your aims?”
She shrugged. “I really don’t know, John. When I first got involved with this whole thing it was because I wanted to be an advocate for the human donors. It’s been so long since Nick and Issac were human that I can’t help wondering if they even remember what it was like.” She glanced at someone walking past and then looked back at John. “I wanted them to really feel at home here, even though most of them only enter the house in order to help their families pay off debts, and now that I’ve started to get to know some of the vampires who regularly come here I find that I want to look after them as well. Before I didn’t have much interaction with vampires, so I didn’t realise how many vampires actually find vampirism difficult to cope with.”
Smiling, John found himself liking Alice even more because she was honest. “If the vampires were changed in the same way that I was then I’m really not surprised. My creator changed me because he thought I was pretty.”
“I’ve heard that from most of the vampires who enter the donor house.” Alice frowned. “In some ways I think I got lucky because that wasn’t why I was changed.”
“Is that something you’re open to talking about?”
Alice studied John for a moment. “Some other time. I’m meant to be giving you the grand tour and so far we’ve gone nowhere. Where would you like to see first?”
John shrugged. “Do you have somewhere you would suggest going first?”
“Well, at this time of night you’ll find most people in the cafeteria, so I think it would be a good idea to go there first. Are you looking to feed tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it. If you’re nervous then there are a couple of donors I would recommend. Do you have a gender preference?”
“I prefer feeding from women if I have a choice.”
Alice nodded. “Then I know exactly who I can take you to.” She glanced up at the clock. “We have a couple of hours, so you have some time.”
“How does the donor system work?”
“Shall we walk and talk?”
John nodded and they started walking towards the first door on the left. It didn’t take them long to reach the cafeteria. People looked at them both as they entered, a couple did stare at John for a short time, but they soon went back to whatever it was they were doing. He soon saw that there were small mixed groups of vampires and humans sat all around the room.
“Every donor is the house has a two hour block when they are available. You will find that some vampires have favourite donors and there are specific days when the vampire will visit their favourite donor. No vampire can visit a human more than once a week, for two reasons. The first, obviously, is so that the donor doesn’t get addicted to that vampire’s bite and the second is so that the vampire doesn’t end up getting obsessed with their donor.” Alice looked at him. “We’ve had to remind a couple of people that those rules are in place for their own good, but so far we haven’t had any major problems.”
“How do I know if a donor is available?”
“If you look around the room you’ll see that there are people wearing white. Those people are donors who are not available to be fed from.”
“That sounds like a system that could easily go wrong,” John said, as he looked around the room.
Alice sighed. “It does occasionally, but we’ve found that a donor will only make the mistake of not wearing white once.”
“Surely there’s a better system you could use.”
“Like I said, John, it’s a work in progress.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.