Venom

Scarlet

To think the city of Eden was once a happy place filled with peace and humanity is almost as believable as fictional tales of vampires, roaming the streets at night sucking the blood and life out of the young and innocent. But Eden city was just as temptress as it was for Adam and Eve. Everyone was succumbed by their own desires and took what they wanted without mercy. Soon the city was ablaze; people stealing, fighting, and killing just because someone looked at them the wrong way. The government thought of an unholy, unethical solution. Fighting evil with evil to clean up the streets. Snatching the unwanted forgotten citizens of Eden; knowing they wouldn’t be missed and creating a weapon of destruction; Vampires with a venomous bite.

My name is Scarlet Nash and I was once a normal human being; until that one fateful day. I came from a family that had nothing. Growing up poor, being thrown into the workforce at thirteen; I grew up quickly and learned what I could to survive off the streets. By the time I turned eighteen, I knew how to pick a lock, swindle my way in a deal, and shoplift like a damn pro; never once getting caught in the act. I applied for a job waitressing at a strip club. Lying on my job application and with my fake ID, I got it; knowing it would pay twice as much in tips than a regular twenty-four-hour diner.

That’s where I met CJ, the club manager’s son, and the guy in training to take over.

His father retired and CJ took over the joint, while I traded in my skimpy apron for skimpy panties and a pole. Shortly after I moved in with him and things finally seemed to start turning around for me. That was until I caught him in bed with three other strippers; women I called my friends and colleagues had stabbed me in the back along with the man I thought loved me. Telling me I was being irrational and unreasonable for ever thinking he was capable or wanted a monogamous relationship. I was hurt by the sight I was standing looking at, hurt by his words, my lungs constricted, making it hard for me to breathe. He kicked me out of his apartment and fired me after my anger surged up through my body causing me to punch him in the face.

And just like that, there I was. Twenty-three years old, jobless, homeless, and crying my eyes out on the street in the pouring rain. Out of nowhere, I was grabbed and hauled off into the back of a van. And from that moment on, my entire life changed, along with the city of Eden.

I was one of the few first ‘subjects’ they did trials on. Tortured and experimented like a lab rat until they found success. They created us into weapons in the form of vampires. I was kept in what looked like an underground bunker, locked up in a cell along with several others along the corridor until they needed me for more ‘experiments’. They were always watching us, monitoring us, controlling our minds, and testing our strength. They told us our purpose was to hunt, to kill the targeted civilians on the government’s watch list. Their form of sweeping the streets in the middle of the night. Our killing was untraceable, a single bite to the neck injected a venomous poison that shut down their organs. Most of the time it went into their systems quickly as their heart rate was already pumping from the sexual desire I had caused them to feel. Showing no mercy, we live to kill. We’ve been redesigned that way; to not question our purpose, to not feel their pain, to have no triggers to our heart whatsoever that still beats.

Sitting back in my small cell, I could hear the cries coming from the new subjects they had just captured and brought in. A girl much younger than me, maybe around eighteen years of age was thrown into the cell next to me like a piece of trash. She was scared and crying; her mascara running all down her once made-up face and she wore a skimpy outfit like she was out partying. She took one look at me and cowered to the other corner of her cell. I showed her no emotion. I’ve been trained that way; groomed to show fear with a simple look, as well as the tempting seductive looks that draw men in like a magnet.

Line. Hook. Reel. Kill. It’s as easy as that when the humans don’t know what’s coming to them. They think I’m luring them away for a quick fuck when it’s merely a quick kill and onto the next target.

I look back over to the new girl who is skin and bones. Hiding behind her long black hair, her body is frail and tiny. She is weak and needs to toughen up real quick or she won’t stand a chance at survival against what she is about to be put through.

My attention was taken off the girl when I heard the sound of rattling chains coming down the corridor. It signified the government agents coming to collect some of the newbies and take them for their first tests. The bigger of the two agents took a look at the little girl from the cell next door.

“Hey Simpson, get a load of this one.” He leaned in to take a closer look. “Shall we take her?” Conway smirked.

Simpson knew what he meant by those words. Conway enjoyed being a bit rough with some of the young girls who came in; just for his own shits and giggles. He pulled her details up on the tablet he had in his hand.

“Lucy Sawyer, pretty name. Shall we see how clean you scrub up? Open up her cell, Simpson.”

The door buzzed open and Conway entered. The girl was trembling. She shuffled her feet under her, trying to make herself even smaller; keeping her back to the wall to distance herself away from him, she didn’t like the way he looked at her. His large frame stood over her before he grabbed her arm roughly and dragged her up to her feet.

“Walk or you will be dragged.” He didn’t feel it was necessary for the chains; he’d easily be able to handle her on his own.

“I’ll grab another one.” Simpson went to a cell where there was a slightly older man. Clipping the metal collar around his neck and securing his hands with the cuffs he yanked on the chains to make him walk.

I knew what they were about to endure. Phase one of the transformation from human to genetically engineered vampires. This girl, Lucy Sawyer as she goes by, would never really be Lucy Sawyer ever again.