Winter Thirst

by Ilia Bera

“You’re scaring me, darling. What is it?”

  “Am I a bad teacher?” Wade asked.

  “What? No—Of course not. Why would you say something like that?”

  “A student told me that I was.”

  “Let me guess—A student who happens to be doing badly in the class?”

  “No—Well, yes. But she isn’t dumb. She’s actually not dumb at all.” There was a tone of surprise behind Wade’s voice.

  “Wade—you’re the best teacher in the town. You’re doing something for those kids that no one else will—Did you tell her that?”

  “That’s the problem! I did tell her that!”

  “That’s the problem?” Laura asked.

  “Yes. That’s precisely what is wrong with me. That’s what I need to change!”

  “I think you might have a fever. Let me take your temperature.”

  “I don’t have a fever, Laura. I’m just—I’m just tired of letting people down. I don’t want to let her down. I don’t want to let another student down.”

  “Her?”

  “Brittany—the student.”

  “You aren’t letting her down, sweetie.”

  “Yeah I am! Even though I know I’m wrong, I can’t change. I’m afraid of looking weak.

  “Okay—Well, let’s get to the bottom of this. In order for Brittany to do well in your class, what needs to change?”

  “She needs to respect me.”

  “So tell her that.”

  Wade threw his head back and his body went limp in defeat. “I need her to respect me without me caring about her respecting me.”

  “After twenty-five years together, I still don’t understand you.” Laura smiled.

  “If Brittany fails my class—or any other class ever—then I am a failure, and I don’t deserve to teach.”

  “Is this a mid-life crisis?”

  “No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s me waking up—me being born again.”

  “I already have a newborn. I don’t need another one.”

  “I’ve got it,” Wade said.

  Laura walked over to the staircase. “Michael! Come downstairs for dinner!” she called out.

  “I’ll be right down!” Michael called back.

  “I’m going to cancel the next assignment. Instead, they’ll all write a paper about their idol—what makes their idol a good person, and how they could embody those qualities.”

  “That sounds lovely, dear. Come get some dinner.”

  Michael ran down the stairs. “Hey dad,” he said.

  “Hey. You’re all sweaty,” Wade observed.

  “There’s a Utica Comets tryout in Prince George in two weeks. They’re picking four guys to bring down to their training camp. I’m going to make the trip down.”

  “Really?” Wade asked.

  “Yeah. They announced it this morning. It’s totally private—Invite only.”

  “Michael got an invite from the coach himself,” Laura said with pride.

  “I’ll come,” Wade said.

  Laura and Michael both turned and looked at Wade with surprise.

  “Really?” Michael said.

  “Yeah—I want to be there,” Wade said.

  Michael laughed. “They probably won’t let you tryout,” he joked.

  “I want to be there. Is that so strange? What’s so strange about that?” Wade asked.

  “Yeah—It’s cool. It’s just—remember last time?” Michael said sheepishly.

  “What last time?” Wade asked. “What happened the last time?”

  “When I was fourteen, trying out for The Moose—you kept leaning over the boards and telling me the coach was an idiot. Then you yelled at the ref, and you kept telling me to shoot five-hole, because that was the goalie’s weak spot—even though the coach kept telling me to shoot the corners?”

  “But you made the team,” Laura said. “Thanks to your father’s advice.”

  “I know I did—but…”

  “I just want to watch—see all those new skills you’ve got,” Wade said.

  “Really?” Michael said, still not sure what to believe. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  “Really.”

  “Cool. Yeah—I’d love for you to come.”

  “Ready to eat?” Laura asked.

  “Where’s Cassie?” Wade asked looking around the room for his daughter.

  “She’s at another sleepover. I guess she’s finishing up some big assignment for school with her friends and they wanted to make a fun weekend out of it.”

  “She’s sixteen. She’s too old to be having sleepovers,” Wade said.

  “Every girl has sleepovers, Wade. I have friends my age who still have sleepovers.”

  “Those aren’t sleepovers, Laura. Those are lesbians,” Wade said.

  “For the last time, Jenna and Darlene are not lesbians!” Laura laughed.

  “Who is Cassie sleeping over with?” Michael asked.

  “Her friend Vanessa,” Laura said.

  “Vanessa? The girl with the blonde hair and the lip ring?” Michael asked.

  “Why?” Wade asked, noticing his son’s sudden worried apprehension.

  “Oh—I don’t know. I just don’t know about that girl,” Michael said.

  “She seems nice enough. Her parents are so funny,” Laura said. “I’ll go set the table.”

  Wade could see that something was bothering his son. “What is it?” Wade asked, quietly enough that his wife couldn’t hear.

  “I’ve seen that girl at frat parties,” Michael whispered.

  “Cassie can handle herself around drunk frat guys,” Wade said.

  “It’s not drunk frat guys I’m worried about.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “I don’t know—It’s probably nothing.”

  “What is it, Michael?”

  “There’s this party that a bunch of bikers throw every year—it’s where some buddies of mine were headed tonight.”

  “Bikers?”

  “Yeah.”

  Wade stared at his son for a moment.

  “Come eat!” Laura yelled.

  “Go get your sister. Don’t freak out your mother,” Wade said.

  Wade looked his son in the eyes. Both men felt it—that strange pulsing shiver in their spine. Perhaps it was just the mutual worry for Cassie, or perhaps it was something else—or perhaps it was absolutely nothing at all.

  Wade turned around and walked towards the kitchen, feeling that strange tingling in his body growing stronger.

  “Let’s eat!” Wade said, forcing a smile.

  “Michael, are you coming?” Laura called out to the living room.

  “Sorry—I just remembered that I was supposed to meet the guys for nachos. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Laura smiled. “No—go ahead.”

  Michael smiled, and then took off.

  On the table was a long rack of short ribs—Wade’s favourite food.

  “Whoa,” Wade said, looking at the delicious dinner. “What’s the occasion?” he asked. “I thought we were having spaghetti tonight.”

  “I don’t know. I woke up this morning, and I felt like we should have ribs. Maybe my wifely instincts told me that you were going to have a bad day.”

  Wade smiled at his wife.

  “Well don’t let it go cold!” Laura said.

  Michael got into his father’s car, which was still warm from Wade’s drive home. He fired it up, and took off swiftly.

  Michael hadn’t even noticed that he’d walked right underneath Brittany.

  Brittany was sitting up in the Fenner’s tree, shrouded by the shadows of its thick branches. Her fangs were fully extended, and her eyes were a deep red colour. She was thirsty, and she couldn’t fight it any longer.

  She watched Wade through the window, devouring ribs like a starving baboon. His blood would be fatty—and filling. Fat blood was a treat—like a desert. It was sweeter and richer than normal blood.

  Anger and
thirst are a deadly combination—especially with a vampire who never properly learned to control their thirst.

  FOURTEEN

  love

  With their fingers warmly and tightly wrapped together, Connor and Hanna walked through the snowy streets of Snowbrooke, underneath the warm glow of the amber street lights.

  As Christmas drew closer, the town of Snowbrooke began to embrace the Christmas spirit. More houses than ever before were beautifully decorated with contemporary sleek white and yellow Christmas lights, instead of the classic red and green ones. The orange glow from the private lives within each house glimmered against the deep white snow that buried the small town.

  “You know—you really don’t have to walk me home,” Hanna said.

  “I insist,” Connor replied.

  “I always stay on the main roads where it’s light. If there is a deranged killer out there, he’s not going to attack me out here.”

  “I’m more worried about a mouse,” Connor joked.

  Hanna playfully hit Connor in the arm. “You better hope I don’t find out what you’re afraid of.”

  “Me? I’m not afraid of anything,” Connor said.

  “Oh—Yeah right.”

  “What? I’m not. I can watch any horror movie with all of the lights off, and I won’t even flinch.”

  “What about The Exorcist?”

  “Didn’t faze me.”

  “You’re so full of crap!” Hanna laughed.

  “It’s true—You can even test me.”

  “Okay. I’ll go rent The Shining and we’ll see how you handle it.”

  “Great. I look forward to it.”

  The two arrived at Hanna’s old, decrepit house. Connor looked up at it as an eerie sensation crossed over him. He couldn’t help but notice the boards on the windows, and the door hanging on by a single hinge.

  “So, are you renovating or something?” Connor asked.

  “Um—Yeah,” Hanna said.

  “You live with your parents?”

  Hanna thought for a moment, trying to think of a believable response. “It’s complicated,” she said.

  “I hear that.”

  “Be sure to let me know how your mom is doing,” Hanna said.

  “I will,” Connor said as he took a step closer to Hanna. He smiled as he looked into her eyes.

  “I’m sure she’s doing great,” Hanna said as she stared back into Connor’s incredible blue eyes.

  They kissed.

  Connor gently tickled Hanna’s bottom lip with the edge of his front teeth before pulling his head back.

  “You know, I could come over one day and quickly fix up that door,” Connor said, walking towards the house.

  “It’s really not necessary,” Hanna said, running to catch up with him.

  “No—it would be simple. I’ll just grab some new hinges from the hardware store, sand down the frame and stain it up. This door doesn’t even have a weather strip. A few bucks and a couple of hours and your house would be way warmer—and you’d save money on your heating bill.” Connor stepped up the porch steps and reached for the handle.

  “That’s okay—really, Connor.” Hanna stepped between Connor and the house before Connor could open the door.

  “Seriously—It would be easy.”

  “I just—don’t want to make my dad angry. The house is kind of his baby.”

  Connor looked up at the decrepit disaster zone of a house—remembering back to Andrew’s story about the murder of Hanna’s father. Hanna was acting strange, like she was hiding something.

  “Is everything okay?” Connor asked.

  “I’ll talk to my dad about it. Maybe he’ll say it’s okay. But really—don’t feel like you need to do it.”

  Connor looked into Hanna’s eyes. Hanna looked down coyly. Gently, Connor placed his fingers under Hanna chin and softly lifted up her head.

  “You don’t need to be shy around me.”

  “I know,” Hanna said.

  “Do you?” Connor asked.

  Hanna smiled. “I do—really.”

  “I like you. There’s nothing about you that I don’t like.”

  “I like you too.”

  “Whatever it is you are scared of me knowing—I want you to know that it won’t affect how much I like you.”

  Hanna’s smile faded away slowly. “No one’s ever liked me before.”

  “I can’t believe that. There’s just no way it’s true.”

  “It’s true.”

  “People are just hard to read sometimes.”

  “No—People have never liked me. I know that it’s hard to understand, but it’s sadly true. I’ve been beat up, spit on, mocked and humiliated more times than I could possibly count—And I don’t mean metaphorically.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “Everyone.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never known. So it’s weird for someone like you to not see it…”

  “See it? See what?”

  “What other people see—What everyone else apparently sees in me.”

  “I only see a beautiful and talented girl.”

  Hanna blushed. Connor leaned in again and gave her another long and passionate kiss. Hanna’s heartbeat soared as her body became light.

  “I love you,” Connor said.

  Hanna’s heart stopped and everything froze. She’d never heard those words in her life—except for on television or in songs on the radio. Until that moment, that word love was mythical—never meant to touch her ears. She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out.

  “Don’t stop being you,” Connor said.

  “I—I love you too,” Hanna said.

  They joined together for another, longer kiss. Connor wrapped his thick muscular arms around the soft shy girl. He held her tight as motionless snowflakes floated around them.

  Connor leaned his head back. “Can I come inside?” he asked.

  Hanna thought for a moment. “You’d better go see your mom before visiting hours are over,” she said.

  “Right—I almost forgot. Maybe tomorrow I can come over, and you can show me your place.”

  “Maybe,” Hanna said, forcing a smile.

  “Cool. That would be fun.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Hanna said, waiting for Connor to leave before she opened the door to her mysterious home.

  “Bye,” Connor said as he stood smiling, waiting for Hanna to go inside before he turned to leave. Hanna nervously fondled the door handle with her hand.

  The standoff lasted a moment, before Connor started to laugh. “Okay—Okay. I’ll go,” he said with a charming smile. “Good night, Hanna!”

  “Good night,” Hanna said, waiting for Connor to reach the sidewalk before turning around.

  Carefully, she slipped into her house and closed the door behind her. The inside of the house was dark and cold. Hanna reached for the old switch that controlled the foyer light.

  The little dangling light bulb began to flicker for a moment before turning on and lighting up the entryway. On the wall adjacent from the front door were the words “Demon Child” spray-painted in large, red letters. It wasn’t the first hate-message that had been written on her wall.

  Under the words “Demon Child” were various other words and phrases, including “Murderer”, “Killer”, “Die Satan”, and “Burn in hell”. Hanna had tried to clean each one off—but spray-paint didn’t exactly wash out of solid wood easily.

  Hanna looked around the house. Her floor was littered with beer cans from the drunken college kids who came from time to time for a cheap thrill. Every window on the main floor had been smashed, and subsequently boarded up. The floor was covered in an inch of dirt, broken glass and mildew. The kitchen and the downstairs bathroom had been completely ravaged—not that Hanna used them anyway. Upstairs was still mostly in tact, as kids rarely made it up the stairs before chickening out—but it was still eerily empty, dusty and neglected.

  Hanna
couldn’t let Connor see the house the way that it was. “Old, broken and out-dated” was one thing—but the “abandoned circus attraction” it was now would almost certainly send him running for the hills.

  On her hands and her knees, Hanna crawled through the house and picked up every single beer can and broken bottle shard, stuffing it into a number of garbage bags.

  Hanna went into the basement and dug through her father’s old tool-kit. She managed to find a sheet of old sandpaper. She made her way to the front entrance and started to scrape away at the years of humiliation and torment.

  The most depressing part of it all was that all of her hard work was ultimately in vein. Within a week, the floor would once again be littered with bottles and cans, and the entry wall would once again mock and degrade her.

  The job took hours—but eventually, the house resembled any other foreclosed dump.

  Exhausted, Hanna retired to the attic. She sat down in her usual spot, and began to write a new poem.

  FIFTEEN

  outcasts

  There had always been something about Hanna’s family that made people uncomfortable—something that no one could ever properly put into words.

  Even before the controversial homicide, people made a point of walking on the other side of the road from the Wilkinsons. On a number of occasions, Hanna overheard other students, teachers and even total strangers saying, “There’s something wrong with that girl.”

  Hanna could never figure it out. It was a plague that never ceased infecting her family.

  Even people who didn’t know her father, or what he did for a living, found Hanna’s presence uncomfortable. It was an incredibly unfortunate part of Hanna’s life, which she sadly grew up with.

  Hanna’s mother became fatally ill after she gave birth to Hanna. She was a very small, fragile woman—shorter than five feet tall, weighing much less than ninety pounds. She was a beautiful woman—no one ever denied that.

  Olga was the daughter of two lower class Russian farmers—the Pytrovichs. She was born in Russia, but her and her family moved across the world, just outside of Snowbrooke before she was old enough to walk.

  She was the quietest person you would ever meet. As a matter of fact, she never spoke a word to anyone. The only people who had ever heard the young beauty speak were her parents, and eventually her future husband.