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I opened my eyes and squinted up at the moonlight streaming in my window. What had woken me? My nose twitched, ah that was it. I had an itch. Shame I couldn't scratch it. I tried wiggling my nose, even scrunching up my face, but no luck.

Why is it that an itch would normally sit there in the back of your mind content to be just a mild distraction but as soon as you consciously thought about it the damn thing becomes an insidious form of torture?

Any normal human would reach up and fix the problem. Then they could roll over and go back to sleep. But not me, no sir. I wasn't normal, not any more. Now I was nothing, a waste of space and precious air. God I wish I could be normal again, to take everyday things for granted. I mean I have a goddam catheter shoved up my dick just in case of emergencies in the middle of the night. I can't dress myself, wash myself - shit I can't even feed myself - and sex, well you can kiss that goodbye, brother.

I looked across at the torture device sitting in the corner of the room. That wheelchair was my prison. I fought the tears that threatened to fall. Shit I'm only thirty-two I have the rest of my whole fucking life ahead of me trapped in that thing.

It's not like it was even my fault! I was the passenger for chrissake why did I pay the price and the fuckwit driver walk away without a scratch?

C5 spinal injury the doctors told me. Any higher and I'd be breathing with a respirator instead I have a slight movement in my shoulders and that's it folks! Well whoop-de-fuckin'-do!

"I hate my life." The whispered words forced a bitter smile across my lips. That sentence had become my creed, my motto since the accident. I was sure they'd put it on my tombstone.

The counsellors all tell me to make the most of what I have. To be grateful that I'm still alive and to thank god, like that bastard really cares.

I look over to the bedside table trying to see the time. The blurred green numerals remind me that I'm not wearing my glasses, yet one more thing I can't do for myself. I squint trying to decipher the numbers. Three something, I think. Great almost a whole hour before Nurse Holier-than-thou comes in to turn me.

I wonder if she will come tonight. As if my thoughts had summoned her I hear a faint tapping.

"Come in," I call out quietly.

The window slides open and she steps into my room.

I don't know who she is, not really, but she is womanhood personified. Tall, willowy with a pale luminescence to her skin. Sea-green eyes and the longest, silkiest red hair I have ever seen. And her lips - boy are they big, red and begging to be kissed, and that ain't just my hormones talking, my friend.

She smiled at me as she glided across the room.

I licked my suddenly dry lips. "Hi," I manage to stammer out. "Listen could you scratch my nose for me?"

Her smile faltered slightly before revving back up to high beam. Reaching out she took my nose and twisted it savagely.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. "What did you do that for?"

"Because you asked me to," she purred. "Better?"

My nose smarted but at least the itch was gone, though I'd be damned if I was gonna tell her that. "Why did you come?" I asked, as if I hadn't been breathlessly hoping she would.

"To see you," she purred. That woman had only one way of talking. "But if you'd rather I go?" she let the sentence dangle in front of me, like a lifeline to a drowning man.

"No," I quickly replied. "I'm kinda glad you came. I want to finish our talk."

She had turned up one night about six weeks ago. Even though I didn't know who she was I still invited her in. Common sense should have told me that beautiful women don't arrive through the window, especially when said window was found three stories up. But I'd stopped talking to my common sense months ago. At the time, I think, I was just glad to have someone visit who wanted to talk to me, not the cripple in the bed but the real me.

At first I didn't realise what she was but I soon worked it out. It was the little things that gave it away, like needing to be invited in the first time, always visiting after dark and the time when she asked me to remove the crucifix that adorned one wall. She was a vampire! A living breathing - except she wasn't either of those - vampire and I wasn't scared - not even a little. Why should I be? What was the worst she could have done? Bitten me, oh if only. A chance to end my pitiful existence at the lips of that temptress. No, she just wanted to talk. Which is pretty much the only good thing I have left that I can do for myself. We talked about everything from politics to the state of the education system to my favourite bands. She was very intelligent, especially when we drifted onto topics about history, and all the time she'd stand there with a mischievous smile on her lips waiting for me to ask that question. She knew I knew but she wouldn't start the subject. Finally one night I took the plunge and asked. "You're a vampire aren't you?"

She tilted her head forward until she was looking at me through a waterfall of red hair. "Why do you ask that?"

"Don't shit me around I know you're a vampire. What I want to know is why are you here?"

"Maybe I like to do charity work, brightening the night of some poor unfortunate."

In my past life I would have clenched my fists in anger, now all I could do was frown and swear. "Well if that's the only reason you can piss off back to your coffin you fucking bitch."

She laughed at me. At me! "I love a man with spirit," she said. "No that's not the reason I come to visit."

"Then why, dammit?" I could feel a bead of sweat run down my temple and settle in my ear.

She clapped her hands together and rested them against her lips. Like a little girl who was delighted at the performance of a well-trained dog. "I like you and I don't like just anyone, you know."

"Well lucky for me," I replied quickly getting tired of the whole conversation.

She reached out and trailed a delicate hand down the side of my face. "Oh the things I could show you."

"Well you'd better bring them all here cause I can't go to them."

"Ah, yes about that," she said. "I was wondering when you ask that question."

"What question?"

"Hmm, maybe you're not quite ready."

And with that she kissed me goodnight and left.

I think the question had always been with me. That it had crept in via the back door of my brain right from the moment I had worked out exactly what she was. But to say it out loud was to admit that this crazy scenario was for real, that demons, ghosts and things that stalked you in the night really existed. So it took me about a fortnight before I did it. Before I finally said: "Could you make me into a vampire?"

She laughed a deep throaty laugh that made my insides tighten. "Bravo, but that still isn't the right question."

I thought hard, trying to work out what she meant. I needed to come up with the correct question, for some reason I couldn't quite understand I desperately needed to appear smart in her eyes.

She had been drifting about the room, picking up things and looking them over, when it hit me. The hiss of breath as it rattled in my throat made her turn.

"Ah, yes now you know the right question." She smiled down at me. "Well, ask it."

"Could." I swallowed several times, my Adam's apple bobbing up and down in my throat. "If you made me a vampire, would I be able to move?"

"Ah," she clapped her hands together delighted at her performing human. "Now that is the question, isn't it?"

"What you mean you don't know?" I rasped back. She had been tormenting me, the bitch.

"It's never been done before," she explained. "But wouldn't it be the most marvellous experiment?"

"Oh god," I whispered.

Just the thought of moving. Of being able to get out of bed and kick that damn chair to pieces, to be a man again. But at what cost, what price would a person pay to be whole once more?

She watched the thoughts as they flickered across my face and nodded. "Such a decision is not easy, I know." She reached out and captured one of my hands. I looked on as she began to kiss each fingertip wishing I could feel some physical sensation. "I will not hurry you but remember all you have to do is think of me and I will come." She dropped my hand onto the bed. "Soon we will dance together under the moonlight."

Moving over to the window she left me alone with my thoughts and that was the last I saw of her, until tonight.

I don’t know the exact moment I made the decision. I think it just stole over me one day as I contemplated my shitty existence but once it was made I could never go back. Not even if this was all a hoax, not even if this was the world's idea of a cruel joke. Kicking the cripple while he was down.

"Well?" she said as my silence stretched into the night. "Is there something you'd like to ask me?"

"Several, actually," I replied.

Her smile deepened. "Always with the questions. Good then at least it shows you have thought this through."

"What is it like being a vampire?"

"I drink blood to survive and sun, stakes and holy objects can harm me," she said. "In return for all that I will never age or die and I can observe the squalling masses of humanity around me impassively. We are part of the world, yet not. We observe yet do not participate."

"Why did you become a vampire?"

She shrugged. "It seemed a good idea at the time."

I settled my head against my pillow and looked about the room. "Would it really work?" I finally whispered.

"I don't know," she told me. "Would you like to find out?"

I ignored the question for the moment and just listened to the sound of my blood as it roared through my ears. I had always been comfortable with silence but I wondered how I would cope when my heart stopped beating. An eternity of days hiding in coffins and dark places waiting for the night, waiting to rise and stalk the streets. Would I be alone then, or would there be others like her to talk to and perhaps, briefly, to drive away the loneliness? I'll admit that I was already in love with the idea, the romantic gothic-ness of it all.

"I'm afraid," I said. "If it doesn't work I'll be just the same. Except I wouldn't even have death to look forward to. Can you imagine an eternity trapped in that thing?" I jerked my chin towards the chair.

"My love," she leant over me and gently brushed my hair. "I promise you if it doesn't work then I will personally stake you through the heart and send you back to the grave. One way or the other you will be free."

Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. "Why me?" I whispered.

"I read of your plight, my love. Such a brilliant mind to waste, I wanted you all to myself."

That made me want to laugh bitterly as my heart soared. She wanted me, it cried.

"It's a big decision," I said.

"You'll be dead to your family and friends," she whispered in my ear. "The world will shun you and if they knew of your existence they would try to kill you and you'll never see the sun again."

"That's alright," I replied. "I'm from British stock I don't tan I just burn."

She laughed. "Well if you never did before you'll surely will now."

I stared into her green eyes and smiled. "I don't care. I want to move - to be free again - and I know you can help me. Please make me one of you."

She stepped backwards and looked down on me. Her expression was grave. "You'll give your life to me?" she said. "You'll pass from this realm of light and life into one of death and destruction?"

"Yes. I'd give my soul to the devil himself if it meant I could walk out of this damn room."

She smiled. "Well I don't ask for your signature in blood or for your soul, I'm not even sure if I believe in that anymore."

I arched my head backward, into the pillow, and bared my throat. "Kill me so I can live again." I instructed.

"As you wish." She leant forward and I caught a glimpse of her enlarged incisors before she gently kissed my neck.

"What's your name?" I whispered. It was funny I wanted the last words I'd ever make alive to be so profound, to have meaning, but that was the only thing I could think of to say.

"Meredith," she whispered into my jugular vein and then she bit down, hard.

SYDNEY - The body of Darren Charles Illingsworth, 32, was taken from the St. Vincent Hospital morgue late last night.