by H. T. Night
“An hour spent squirming around for the most part,” said Peter, again with this obsessive need to clarify the specifics of what happened, though this time I detected sincere worry and compassion in his voice. “I was ready to call the paramedics but Tyreen stopped me. It looks like she was right, that you’d come out of whatever this thing is.”
Hmmm …to hear him talk like this. I’m referring to his tone—not the actual words. I tuned out most of the message. But the voice? I’ve seen other girls nearly swoon over his chiseled looks and charming smile, but I must confess it’s the sexiness in his voice that gets me…the warmth and assurance that he will always be there when I need him. It’s what my heart confirms, when he finds the right thing to say and doesn’t obsess so much.
“But you seem a lot better now,” Tyreen added. “So as long as you take it easy tonight and rest up, you should be fine.”
“What about our date?” I asked, the disappointment in my voice readily apparent, I’m sure. “It’s not too late to make it to the restaurant before they stop serving!”
“It might be pushing it, don’t you think?” said Peter, his tone even more compassionate.
Little Pepino’s stayed open until eleven each night, and I knew firsthand that the kitchen remained available for patrons until midnight. Best Italian food in Knoxville…or so the staff will tell you. I didn’t wait for him to go on about how this was a bad idea, and sat up…until the room started swimming around me again.
“See? I told ya’ll she can’t go anywhere tonight,” he continued, motioning to me while Johnny and Tyreen looked on. “It’s best if she stays here.”
He sounded like the damned vampire, only worse.
“Well, I know you two had planned a special night on the town,” said Tyreen, wearing her pained expression again while she nodded, like she could picture the swirling drain my birthday celebration was being sucked down into. “We could get you two something to eat and bring it here—how about that? It might not be Little Pepino’s, but you could do a lot worse than Olive Garden. The birthday cake the girls and I brought here earlier should keep for a few days.”
“How about a couple of pizzas and a six pack of Killian’s for us all?” Peter suggested, looking over at me after nodding to Johnny as if my preference for the evening’s revised agenda was an afterthought. He blushed once he saw my disdainful expression, thrusting his hands into his pants pockets while nervously straightening his back with an ‘oh shit!’ look on his face.
“Actually, I’d prefer a box of truffles and a big bottle of Chardonnay,” I replied, offering a grimace that would’ve been a wry smile if not for the steady throb inside my head. I mean, can a chocolate rush and wine cure an oncoming migraine? Maybe that was a little ridiculous, but at this point nothing sounded good…nothing but a long night of restful sleep. And just an hour ago I felt totally jazzed to go out and celebrate the final phase of my teenager status.
It made me wonder even more about my earlier visitor…. if it was someone from the netherworld that decided to show up tonight, on the last birthday that announced the final stanza of my adolescence, it definitely marked the event to where I’d likely never forget. I shuddered at the thought it might’ve been the vampire’s intent in the first place.
“Hey, sweetie…Johnny and I should go so you two can decide how you want to spend tonight,” offered Tyreen, exchanging looks with Johnny before moving up to kiss my forehead. “But if you need anything, you call me. Okay? I don’t even care how late it is. I’ll leave his broke ass and be here in a minute, or go out and get anything you need.” She chuckled, amused at her own joke while Johnny scowled.
“All right…sorry for the trouble,” I told her, smiling weakly. “Peter and I should be okay, once we figure out dinner.”
“I’ll call you guys if her condition worsens,” Peter added, moving to the door.
Tyreen and Johnny followed him out. Then after a hug from her and a brother handshake from Johnny, he closed the door behind them.
***
Peter stayed with me all night. Despite my early protests that I could handle things on my own just fine, I was actually glad he didn’t leave.
He ordered a pizza for us after I declined his proposal to order Chinese…I just didn’t think my stomach could handle fried pork or anything like it. As if the pizza wouldn’t wreak havoc on my system either! But, it was good, and I started to feel better. Not enough to go dancing as originally planned, but ready to enjoy a night of backgammon, DVDs, and snuggling with him.
I did, however, sneak a peek in the mirror at my neck around ten o’clock. Not only was there still no sign of the puncture wounds that drew my blood earlier, the redness around my unusual birthmark had faded noticeably. And no tenderness. In fact, the twin tear marks were hardly detectable—just like normal.
Peter tried to sing happy birthday to me after dinner. At least no dogs or cats were present to chime in, or it might’ve been a really awful serenade. Still, his vulnerability made him so adorable, raising up the ante in regard to the push-pull tug on my heart.
Sometimes I thought about the tense excitement between us when we first started dating, hoping to hang onto that feeling. Such incredible intoxication! The beginnings of love, that tender bud of burning desire which nearly drove me mad at times, even though I suspected the feeling was always a little stronger with him than with me.
But that night it was almost impossible to think of any romance with him, or reflect upon our best intimacies since September. Instead, I found my thoughts drawn repeatedly back to Garvan…. Garvan, tonight’s pale intruder. Garvan, the messenger of doom?… Or, maybe he’s just some guy who happens to portray a dashingly handsome vampire. That would make him more real.
For the moment this single thought lifted my heart for him, this stranger, while pulling a little bit more from my current beau. Not even my mysterious illness and the dried blood absorbed by a handful of Kleenex tissues in my wastebasket could dampen Garvan’s allure. Nor did his inhuman ability to appear and disappear in an instant change my attraction to him. If nothing else, I desired to find out if he was an actual vampire, or something else.
What stayed most with me that night was not the wound to my neck, or our brief conversation. It was his eyes. So unusual in their fiery luminance, as if fueled by some unfathomable ocean of feeling. Magnetic, and yet dangerous. Also very hard to get out of my mind.
But all of this engendered other questions as well…much more worrisome. If he was a vampire, what would he want with me, a warm-blooded human being? Other than to suck my body blood-dry I couldn’t think of a good reason. And why would Garvan show up the evening of my nineteenth birthday? Was that merely a coincidence born out of concern for my welfare? It didn’t make sense. At least not yet…so many more pieces to a puzzle I had just begun to put together, but not nearly figure out.
I shuddered again as I thought about it all, and the swirling questions stayed with me long after Peter and I said goodnight. He slept in my top bunk while I took Tyreen’s bed below. Soon after midnight I heard him snore. How I longed for that same sweet solace, especially once the whispered voices returned. I couldn’t help but listen, straining my eyes to discern elusive movement in the shadows outside my window. Until finally, I lost the battle to stay awake.
Chapter 4
It’s funny how things seem so different in the full light of day. When I awoke the next morning, the girls on my floor were already moving back and forth from the showers to their rooms. Any male company had quietly departed, except my guy, who reluctantly left once I shooed him out after demonstrating I was all right. I assured him that whatever illness I suffered from the night before had left me completely. Surely the frantic scamper around my dorm room to gather my shampoo, soap, and toothpaste helped sell the notion I was fine.
Tyreen had just returned to our room when I finished my shower. She was already dressed in jeans and her favorite beige pullover for class, and apparently waiting on my but
t to get ready so we could eat breakfast together. Like the night before she looked upset, tapping her right foot nervously while sitting on the edge of her bunk bed.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I told her, while moving over to my dresser to put my lotion away and grab my makeup bag. “I haven’t had a chance to make your bed yet, but I promise it will just take me a moment to do that right after I dry my hair.” I grabbed my hairdryer and brought it over to the vanity’s mirror.
“It’s okay, honest…really it can wait until later,” she assured me. But still, the look of worry remained. “You seem a lot better. Are you feeling as good as you look?”
Right then I resembled a drenched river-rat with my hair dripping down my shoulders. But her wan smile told me this wasn’t a joke at my expense. Besides, she has often stated her envy of how my hair holds just enough natural curl to where I don’t need to fully dry it.
“Yes, much better,” I told her, offering a bright smile. Maybe even a little exaggerated, since her foot had begun tapping again. I worked diligently to put my makeup on. “So, did you and Johnny have some fun after you left last night?”
“We did…although I guess he didn’t care much for my little joke about leaving his ass behind if you needed me,” she said, winking and chuckling for a moment. Then she grew serious. “Did you hear about the murder that took place on the north side of campus last night?”
“What?!”
I was in the process of securing my earrings when I whipped my head around to face her.
“When did it happen?” I asked, scarcely believing what I heard. “Was it someone we know?”
“No, but it was a student,” she confirmed, and then sighed, deeply. “The victim lived off campus, in one of the apartment buildings off 21st Street.”
Not that Knoxville is a crime-free city—far from it. But the last murder involving UT students took place a couple of years ago, so this news came as a shock.
“It was a girl,” Tyreen continued, her eyes misty. “They showed her picture on the news earlier this morning, when Johnny wanted to see how the Cavs did last night…. She looks just like you!”
She started to weep. I may not be as soft-hearted as her, but I do have compassion for others and for her especially. I rushed over and threw my arms around her. She bawled in my shoulder while I held her tight.
“Damn it, I really thought something bad had happened to you—that you somehow bullheaded your way into making Peter take you out after all!” said Tyreen between sobs. “It wasn’t until Johnny told me the name—some other weird name like yours, but different—that I started to settle down. I thought I was going to have a heart attack—really I did!”
I didn’t know how to respond to this, or even if I could. When I opened my mouth to say something my throat constricted. All I thought of was Garvan’s warning: someone waited outside my dorm, somewhere on campus, intent on taking my life. Could this killing be related—especially since the victim apparently looked a lot like me?
When I awoke that morning, to warm sunlight pouring into our dorm room, my first thought was the previous night’s craziness was largely in my head, and that no supernatural being—especially not a vampire—had visited me. If it proved true, then the fact my birthday celebration plans got botched would be the extent of my disappointment.
But now I had to deal with the reality last night’s visitor was real—that I really did have a guest from beyond the world I understood, and one who might’ve saved my life.
“Well…are you going to say something or just let me carry on like this by myself?” asked Tyreen, when all I could do was shake my head. “It really could’ve been you, you know!”
“Do you remember the girl’s name, or anything else about her?” I asked, looking for something to say. “And, again, when did the murder take place?”
“Johnny said the police aren’t sure of an exact time. It happened sometime after we came to check on you but before midnight,” she said, pausing to take a deep breath. She started to regain her composure.
“Did the police say how it happened?” I could hardly wait to get my cell phone, so I could Google the info and find out the details for myself, though I expected much of what happened would be sketchy until police nabbed a suspect. It might be difficult at best, if the menace that committed the act came from the same place as my surprise visitor last night.
Tyreen shook her head, and patted me on the shoulder, letting me know she was ready to get up.
“No…just that the girl was attacked and killed,” she told me, as she gathered her purse and backpack and headed toward the door. “Are you coming? We can talk about this later. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more as the day goes on.”
“That would be my guess,” I agreed. Really, I didn’t want to speculate any further, as my head already swam with a plethora of questions. Concentration during my morning classes, English Lit and Poli-Sci, would already present a major challenge. “Let’s go eat.”
***
Irma Goizane. That was the victim’s name.
Strange name, like mine, and like Ybarra, Goizane is Basque.
Tall and slender, with light skin, dark hair, and green eyes—she looks a lot like me, or looked, I should say. Not as athletic as me, it’s probably the reason she couldn’t effectively fend off her attacker, or attackers. At least that’s how I’d like to think things might’ve turned out differently if it had been me, instead of Irma. Her throat was torn out completely, and ‘word on the street’ said her head was barely attached to her body. Drained of all her blood, too, which is why the maintenance man who found her body next to a dumpster didn’t immediately see anything out of place. The corpse wasn’t lying in a puddle of blood.
Oh, I’m sure it was a grizzly affair despite the absence of blood. And how did I find this out, when the news reports and every internet search I accessed turned up only the standard blurb on the homicide?
Johnny has friends. Tyreen’s boyfriend got us the scoop on what went down…although nobody could tell us how the crime played out. And Johnny was so anxious to tell me and Tyreen what he found out from his campus guard buddies during lunch that he completely ignored the fact we were eating. Neither of us females finished our meals, especially after Johnny went into specific details as to what the maintenance guy found that morning.
“Thank God you got sick last night, Txema,” Tyreen told me, once we had all the information about the victim and what happened to her. “I’m really scared…It could’ve really been you!!”
Johnny nodded in agreement, thoughtful, as if afraid now to reveal anything to further upset us. Not that I was angry…just saddened for this girl, Irma. I thought again about Garvan’s warning last night, although not for long. Realizing it only led to many more unanswerable questions, I forced myself to think about my afternoon Lit assignment instead.
“But it wasn’t me, and I’m so sad for her,” I said, gathering my backpack from the cafeteria table and removing my tray. “I just hope they catch whoever did this quickly before they hurt somebody else…. Are you coming with me to the library?”
“I hope they catch this sicko too,” Tyreen agreed, standing up with her tray as well. “And, yes, I’m coming along with you. But damn straight we ain’t staying there long. Yours and my ass had better be back in our dorm room before it gets dark.” She shot me a sly smile, though the look in her eyes said she was really worried—even more than she was the night before.
***
Tyreen got her wish, and we left the library by four o’clock. Two and a half hours can be plenty of time to get homework done—it used to be, anyway, back in high school. But that afternoon I got very little accomplished—largely because Tyreen couldn’t stay focused on her own studies long enough to give me peace. And every time she wanted to talk about what happened and what it could mean to her, me, and the rest of the females on campus, I had to practically start over on whatever research I presently worked on. Of course, I wasn’t much help to my cause
either, as every time this happened it got me thinking about the murder, Garvan’s warning, all the shit from last night, etc, etc.
The temperature had dropped nearly twenty degrees by the time we walked back to Massey Hall, which often happens when the sun begins to set in eastern Tennessee in late fall, or so the older students say. However, it seemed a lot colder than usual that afternoon. Every shadowed archway and stairwell—even the thick juniper bushes—looked suspicious to us, and we almost ran despite our brisk pace.
Once safe and sound in our dorm room, Tyreen immediately turned on the TV to learn the latest news on the murder, while I turned up the heater in our room. We already planned to order take-out of one variety or another. The debate between Chinese and the local Steak-out hadn’t been decided yet, when my cell phone rang.
It was my father, calling from Richmond.
“Txema?”
“Yes, Papa,” I replied, while Tyreen motioned that she was going to order for us on her phone, telling me the decision on what it would be had already been made…by her. I shot her a playful scowl.
“So, you are all right!” He sounded relieved. His Brooklyn accent sounds almost like a mobster when he gets upset. “We heard about the girl who was killed today a little while ago.”
“Yes, Papa, I’m fine,” I assured him while waving my money at Tyreen. “My roommate and I are staying in tonight, so don’t worry so much. Okay?”
“Stefan Goizane is an old friend of mine in New York, and your Grandma tells me his daughter attends college down south. It’s got to be the same girl…how many Goizane’s do you know, eh?”
It pained me to hear my normally jovial father so worried. But I was his only daughter and very much a daddy’s girl, so I tried my best to assure him I would be careful and validate his feelings.