Blood Rage

10. Bloodlust

When Rango started to wake up, his body felt numb. But then his senses came back bit by bit. After a while the fog in his head cleaned. The first thing what he realized was, that he was hanging with his arms in the air. He looked down. His tip toes dangled a few inches over the ground.
Where was he? In a cave? Around him stone walls. And not far away there must be the exit, where he could see some stars in the sky. It was in the middle of the night.
The chameleon moved his hands, but somebody had fixed him very well.
A slight cold wind touched him. Now he realized that somebody had removed his shirt. All what he was wearing were his jeans. But his shoes and socks were gone, too.
Suddenly he winced. There were footsteps behind him from inside the cave.
"W-who a-re you?" He stuttered.
First, there was no reply. But shortly after, Rango screamed in fear. A long sharp nail of a finger had touched his neck and wandered down the backbones very slowly, as if the unknown person wanted to count every vertebra.
The finger stopped over the edge of his jeans, and disappeared again.
Rango felt how he trembled.
"What do you want?!" the chameleon asked loudly.
What went through the brain of that guy?
In the next moment, somebody lighted a matchstick and lighted an oil lamp. In the next second the cave entrance was lighted. A long shadow appeared on the floor from behind. Rango tried to look behind, but he couldn't turn his head completely backwards.
The unknown person let the oil lamp on the floor and came closer.
Rango hanged there stiffly. He felt like a prey on a plate. A victim in the predator's mercy. Without chance to run away.
Suddenly, with a harsh rush the shadow passed him and placed himself in front of him. Something covered the figure, what the chameleon couldn't define.
But then...
The stranger opened his arms and wings of a bat became visible.
Around his thin body, the bat wore a black suit and black pants, but no shirt or more.
The bat smiled. "Nice to meet you, little sheriff."
Rango froze in the same second. That bat had sharp teeth in his mouth. And now, everything was clear for the poor captured lizard.
"You... you are a vampire bat?" he asked hoarsely.
The killer lowered his wings. "What a quick perception you have."
He chuckled and Rango felt a shudder over his whole body. It wasn't a nice chuckling.
"You can consider yourself happy. Usually none of my victims catch a sign of me."
Rango's eyes grew wide. Victims?
He tried to swallow down his fear. "So, you did... dried them out?"
The vampire bat grinned and pulled something from the side. It was a wooden box filled with full infusion blood bags.
"I served myself," the vampire bat said and licked his lips. "With a few overstock for later."
"Served yourself?" Rango repeated. "You murdered people!"
"I needed blood."
"If you are so wild about blood, why don't you go to the blood donation station?"
The vampire bat grinned.
"And where should be the fun for me?" He came closer. "Be glad that I clean the world from the rubbish."
Like from nothing he took out a little arrow and held it very close in front of Rango's nose.
"Do you recognize that, little detective?" the bloody bat asked. "Of course, you know it."
Rango tried to figure out where he had given him a stitch.
The vampire bat smirked over his victim's desperation.
"Don't worry, little snack. I gave you something to sleep. Usually I gave everyone a stitch with a special drug of mine. It works similar like curare. It's just effective after an injection into the bloodstream, but ineffective if you swallow it."
He laughed.
"I was merciful that I gave them an anesthesia."
He reached out his bony hand and lifted the chameleon's chin. "But for you, I will make an exception. Your act was a very bad crime."
"What have I done?" Rango asked.
The vampire bat smiled and patted the skin. "You are too nosy. An unhealthy characteristic."
His sharp bat nail wandered along Rango's neck, over his shoulder and over the upper part of his hanging arm. Suddenly, with a quick movement, he slit open the skin a little. The cut started to bleed immediately. Gently the bat stroked with the fingertip of his forefinger over it. Then he removed his hand and held the blood-smeared finger in front of Rango's face. Then he moved it to his mouth and licked it clean.
Rango watched everything with scared face, while the vampire bat licked his lips.
"Mm, your blood is fresh."
"I – I thought vampire bats would only like to eat the blood of mammals or birds," Rango tried to say.
He winced fearfully when the bat grabbed the left side of his belly. "I started to love the smell and taste of reptile blood, too."
He dug his claws around his chest to keep his victim in place.
"Let's start the meal time," the vampire bat said with a dark smile.
He came closer with his face and wanted to suck the little bleeding wound on Rango's arm.
"Hey! Wait!" Rango cried. "Are you vaccinated against rabies?!"
"Can't remember."
His lips almost touched his cut wound.
"NO!"
Suddenly something pulled the vampire bat away from his whimpering hanging victim.
In the next second the murderer stared into the burning eyes of a very raging rattlesnake.
"You chose the wrong playmate for your games!"
Like a lightning the snake tugged the vampire bat outside and threw him in the air.
The rest was just a blaze of gunfire.
Rango didn't realize it. With cramped closed eyes, he was still hanging on the ceiling of the cave and prayed. Prayed that it was just a nightmare.
After a little while the shots stopped.
He winced when a still warm iron touched his bare skin. Burning eyes of the panting rattlesnake met him and he knew: It was over.

The vampire in this story wasn't a mutated animal. Vampire bats live in parts of America like Texas. They drink blood only and can be a danger for humans too, because they can transmit rabies for example. I chose the Vampire bat species Dismodus rotundus here.