13 April 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2341: Consumers of Blood - Critical Mass

This post was inspired by today's 5-minute writing prompt in the Freewriters Community - "Consumer of Blood"

Enjoy !

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

The queue of people stretched for almost an entire block, all shabby, all with the look of the lowest dregs of society. The were all waiting for their turn at a single small window at the back of a tired-looking building.

The faded sign over the front of the building read "Venn Pharmaceutical", but it was the back of the building that the waiting derelicts were queuing for.

The next tramp stepped up to the open hatch, his turn arrived. Inside the window, a small man in round spectacles waited. He had a white apron on, covering a grey suit. He really was a little grey man; grey suit, grey balding hair, even a slight tinge of grey in his skin.

The grey man asked a simple question; "Are you a consumer of blood ?"

When the tramp gave a sullen nod, he was handed a beaker of dark red liquid, and a purse with coins in. He knew the drill; before he was allowed to take the coins, he had to knock back the drink.

The drink was, of course, blood. Nice fresh blood.

Hidden in the shadows inside the room at the back of the building, the vampire Jean DeVenn smiled a wickedly toothy grin as more and more down and outs consumed beakers of blood.

"Another week of this," he said to his assistant, "and we should hit critical mass. The Vampire Hunters introduced a new sensor that could detect if someone had blood in them that wasn't theirs. This programme will render that utterly useless with a flood of false positives."