The Making of Healing Wounds

Setting

I've had this nightmare for over ten years of a
dilapidated mansion deep in the woods, overlooking
the sea. Not all of it would work in a vampire
novel, so I picked out only some of the pieces.

In the nightmares, the mansion used to be a hotel
and several owners have tried unsuccessfully to
renovate it. I don't know why I think I can do any
better, but I bought it. In some versions, I'm
alone; in others with my family.

Inside, a balcony looms over me from the second
story. A grand staircase leads to it. I think it
used to be the dining hall. A wet bar spans a rear
corner.

Beyond the empty entryway, a long hallway spreads
out. Holes mark the worn center of the 70's ugly
carpet. The doors don't have numbers. I think the
previous owner removed them.

After I round two corners, the sight of one plain
door makes me shiver, but I go in anyway. The
smell of freshly smoked cigars makes me gag. My
eyes water. Through the haze of smoke, I see old
cigar boxes on darkly stained wood shelves in this
tiny office. Yellowed letters and trinkets hide
inside those boxes. When I open them, I feel
someone watching me. If I stand very still, I
think I hear him breathing.

I leave and the next doorway takes me back to the
entryway. Up the stairs, dread tugs on my feet.
Past what used to be a dining area, I find another
hallway that I hate. Suites that include private
kitchens and grand bathrooms, line this hallway.
The two at the rear corners have bathrooms that
remind me of locker rooms. Someone always startles
me there.

Between them, a jack-and-jill pair of pink
bedrooms makes me want to run. In those sick
rooms, I see two little brunette girls in the
periphery of my vision but never get a clear view
of them. I think they lived here, but don't know
how they died.

I'm afraid to run. If I run, they'll chase me. So
I pretend I'm calm, that my heart isn't racing,
and I force my breath to slow as I back out of the
pink into the hall.

There's a third story, but I can never find the
stairs to reach it. I think someone removed the
stairs, but I don't know why.

The full basement, however is very easy to find.
Many rooms divide it, and in each dream they hold
something different and equally disturbing.

I loosely merged this nightmare (without all the
ghosts) and a picture I clipped from a newspaper.
It wouldn't work next to the sea, because the
coast is so heavily populated, so I changed it to
Colorado.

Heroine

Delores is based on the insecurities of women I
adore (my family), and myself. I wanted a flawed
heroine who's drawn to the dark setting.

I mapped out her character traits and history over
four years ago. I decided then to make one of her
brothers a police officer and mentioned him
briefly.

At that time, my brother was in college as a
business major. After a tour in Iraq, he joined a
police force and went through the intense training
to become a police officer.

Purely coincidence. Strange, isn't it?

Some of Delores' family history, though, is based
loosely on mine.

Hero

Morgan is also a compilation. His physical traits
come from magazine clippings, a cartoon character
I had a crush on as a kid, and the voice I
imagined a shy classmate to have. His personality
and history are from nightmares and daydreams.

Villain

Tamara is cold beauty with an icy layer of
vengeance towards men. In her 40's starlet style
she exudes sex appeal with every step of her
spiked red heels. Her brightly painted lips slowly
part to reveal fangs only when she wants to scare
you. If she wants to hurt you, she'll use her
claws.

Tamara has very valid reasons for vengeance that I
don't explore in Healing Wounds. She takes it out
on all men, rather than the one who wronged her.
When Delores gets in the way, Tamara adds the
awkward human to the list.

If I ever turned to villainy, I'd emulate Tamara.

Vampires

My vampires are infected with a retrovirus that
alters their DNA. If an average person swallows
their blood or smears it on an open wound, she'll
go through a metamorphosis. Like a typical vampire
she'll wake with fangs and retractable claws; be
allergic to sunlight; see better at night; and
lose the ability to digest anything but blood,
water, and hard alcohol. Eternal youth and quick
healing can be hers, so long as her head is never
severed. She'll be telepathically linked to
whoever "turned" her. This newly awakened part of
her brain can also send out electromagnetic waves
to lure her prey and trigger their desire.

If she bites a human, a unique derivative of her
virus will infect the human with an entirely
different disease. The human will become her pet,
unable to feel attraction for anyone but his
vampire mistress. He'll crave her bite and orgasm
while she takes her fill.

However, another part of her brain has been
altered as well. Her pleasure center fires with
the intensity of an orgasm when she inflicts pain
on others. Unfortunately, her pets enjoy her
sadistic attentions after the first bite.

To get her thrills, she needs an anomaly - a human
immune to her derivative virus. With her
heightened sense of smell, she can detect the
protein bybroducts caused by the rare pairing of
recessive alleles that make a human immune to her
charms.

These anomalies also make the perfect vampire
hunter. However, if bitten, he'll become like
those he hunts, unless his thirteen genes affected
by the vampire retrovirus are all homozygous
recessive. This uncommon genome combined with the
vampire retrovirus would allow him to see in both
dark and light, move just as quickly with
retractable claws and fangs, and live forever.
Unfortunately, he'd only digest blood and water,
but at least he won't become a sadist.

Most of the genetic reasonings for my vampires
came from daydreams during a genetics class in
college. The rest came from a hobby. I love
silkies, an exotic breed of chicken. It takes a
rare thirteen pairs of recessive alleles to make a
show-quality silkie chicken. They're the only
breed with fluffy feathers and black skin.
Beautiful birds.