by Atha, DL
My stomach was twisting with hunger and the dizziness was on the verge of becoming incapacitating so eating became a priority. I walked towards the kitchen, passing through the living room on the way, not paying attention to where I was stepping.
Feeling my left foot drag through a thick wetness, I paused with my foot in midair knowing without looking what was clinging to my foot. Looking down to confirm my suspicion, thick maroon blood clung to the entire length of my foot. My blood.
My gut reaction was to scream as the viscous liquid enveloped my skin and now dripped slowly from my sole back into the coagulated pool beneath me, but honestly I just didn’t have the energy. I waited for the expected bile to rise in my throat, but nothing happened.
Since the bloody mess didn’t discourage my appetite, I walked on into the kitchen marking the tile floor with one-sided bloody footprints all the way to the refrigerator.
Grabbing the handle, I swung open the fridge and reached in automatically for the eggs. Carrying four to the stove, I quickly cracked them onto the griddle, tossing the shells into the sink, and turned it on. They were scrambled in a matter of minutes. Spooning them onto a plate, I walked outside into the sunlight. It was still cool, but looked like it would warm up to at least 60, I thought.
Lifting my face up to the warmth of the sun and into the light breeze, I let it it race across my face, turning my head side to side to catch the sun rays on both sides. It felt good to stand outside in the sunlight after the horrendous night. Realizing for the first time in a while how beautiful the daylight was, I looked up into the sun a moment. Closing my eyes, I reveled in the golden light that penetrated my eyelids for a few moments more.
Eating the warm breakfast, I looked out across the pastures, still brown from the winter, and focused on the horses in the pasture. I could just make out the small herd standing at the far southeast corner of the pasture closest to the border of the forest. They were sunning themselves just as I was.
Continuing to survey the property, I realized how normal everything looked. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No one would have ever believed that I had lived out a fantasy-land nightmare.
I had stood on this same deck yesterday just hours before my assault by a mythical creature. Now in the light of day, it was easy to forget what had happened and believe that I had made the entire thing up and that I would be here to see the coming spring. My mother always said, “Everything looks better in the daylight.”
But I hadn’t made this up and I hadn’t dreamed it. The bloody footprints and my dead dog were proof enough to confirm I wasn’t losing my mind. Despite the brightness of the sun, it could no longer penetrate the haze of darkness overtaking my mind, knowing that spring was coming and I wouldn’t be here to enjoy it with Ellie.
Thinking of her brought to mind the promise I had made to the vampire last night. Was I mentally strong enough to stay here and wait for his return? Could I actually keep myself from contacting my mother? Not say goodbye to my daughter?
And that was where I knew that I had to draw the line. Yes, I was strong enough to die for her. I had the strength to leave them wondering what had happened to me. But I wasn’t strong enough to leave without some sort of goodbye. I would have to find a way to tell her how much she had and would always mean to me.
I wanted to tell her how proud she had made me and how much happiness she had brought to my life. Tell her to listen to my mother. If I had listened to her, I wouldn’t be sitting here contemplating goodbyes.
Turning on my heel, I walked back into the house to think about this some more. Absentmindedly, I reached down and rubbed my left arm, expecting to feel the self-inflicted cut, warm and swollen like a fresh wound should be, but there was only the smooth skin of my inner elbow.
Looking down, I didn’t believe my eyes at first. The laceration was gone. Not healed with a visible scar but just gone. Walking over to the window to get a better look in the bright light streaming in, I stared intently at the spot where the cut should have been, but the skin of my inner arm was completely flawless. I hadn’t imagined the cut as the blood was still on the floor. But looking down at my arm again confirmed what I had already seen. The incision was completely gone.
Hurrying to the bathroom, I looked into the mirror, but my neck was as baby smooth as my arm. No puncture wounds not even any bruising, the same as my arm. But I distinctly remembered the sensation of his fangs piercing my skin and hearing him swallow my blood. Just as I remembered watching his mouth close over the flow of blood from my arm.
Turning around, I pulled my shirt over my head and looked at my back. Dark red bruises covered me from my neck to my hips. Turning back around as I pulled my shirt back on, I jerked the sleeve up on my right arm. Deep red bruises along with fingerprints could be seen traveling up my arm, but where his lips had touched me, my skin was flawless.
Leaving the bathroom, I went back to the kitchen. It was well lit, easily the cheeriest room in the house, and the sun alone calmed my frayed nerves. I was safe as long as the sun was shining. Pulling out a bar-stool, I sat down, resting my arms and head on the cool bar.
For the first time today, a split-second thought of Ms. McElhaney flashed through my mind as I walked back to the kitchen. It became impossible to stop the flow of images through my head. I could see her lying dead on the floor with the homemade quilt lying ruined and bloodied beside her, or her body spread out across the old iron frame bed. She had no close family and it would take the few neighbors there were out here a few days to notice her absence.
I wanted to call the police and notify them of her death. It was the ethical thing to do and I knew it. It seemed so unfair for her to be decomposing in her home. Reasoning out loud, I talked myself through the conversation with the police. It didn’t take long to realize that no matter how the call was made, the police would quickly show up here looking for information. Her house was littered with my phone numbers and pictures of Ellie as we had become close to her since we had moved here.
Maybe I should call her house to see if he was lying, I thought to myself. My hand was on a wall phone a full second before I decided that was a bad idea. My number would be on her caller I.D. and I knew in my heart that he was telling the truth. Calling her house wouldn’t help her or me now.
Letting my hand fall away from the phone, I began to pace in the kitchen. My previous dizziness had been pushed to the back of my mind while I was thinking about my sweet elderly neighbor. Panic truly hit me for the first time. I had been a fool. What was I still doing here? Could I escape and shouldn’t I try?
The answer now seemed shockingly clear. He was gone, at least for the day, and I had wasted a lot of very valuable time. I should call my mom and drive as fast as I could to get to Ellie tonight. I could make it by nightfall.
My mind screamed instructions and my body obeyed. I had the house phone in my hand with mom’s number partially dialed. Terror and a near loss of reason caused my hands to shake and I was unable to finish dialing the number. It was as if I had finally used up the last of my sanity reserves and I could handle no more.
I knew that I was about to lose myself in the grip of panic and I used what small amount of mental reserves I had left to bring my rapid breathing under control. I forced myself to breathe in slowly, count to three, and then exhale just as slowly. Feeling my heart rate drop in response, I gripped the phone with all my strength and forced my hand to hang it back up, at least until I could think this through more clearly.
Sitting back down in the kitchen, I ran my hands up over my face and through my hair. The muscles in my back ached at the motions. My hair felt grimy and I suddenly felt very dirty.
Uncertainty clung to me. Logic told me to leave but my gut instinct screamed for me to stay. Nausea returned with my indecision and a thin sheen of sweat formed on my face and under my arms, adding to my unclean feeling.
Deciding to wash my face again, I walked back through the living room, my eyes landing on Samuel for the
first time. I had forgotten him as I had been so focused on my own problems. Tears sprang to my eyes as they swept over him.
Kneeling down beside him on my knees, I knitted my hands into the fur around his neck. It had always been the thickest there and one of his favorite places to be scratched. Even though the faint stench of death was just beginning to become apparent, I couldn’t keep myself from dropping my head against his. The tears flowed down my face and onto his. He had been my guardian and friend for several years. He had let me cry on his shoulder numerous times during the worst moments of my life.
Now I was crying on his shoulder one last time. The tears came until there was nothing left. I cried not only for the loss of my pet, but also for the loss of my future and my life.
Lifting myself up off Samuel, I stood up, taking a second to dry my eyes on the backs of my hands, and then leaned down to pick him up as I refused to drag my beloved friend.
He was heavy and the lack of muscle tone made it even harder to carry him, but I managed to get him to the door. It took a while as I had to lay him down to open the door and then pick him up again, my back muscles burning in response.
Walking out on the deck, I struggled to get him down the steps. I nearly dropped him, but somehow managed to stay upright with him in my arms. Thankfully he had always been on the small side for a German shepherd.
Standing for several minutes deciding on the best place to bury him, I finally decided on the garden. It wasn’t like I would be using it this year and since I had broken the ground up already, it would be an easy place to dig the grave. So with the decision made, I walked to the garden and placed him gently on the grass at the edge as I couldn’t stand to get his fur dirty.
The shovel I got from the barn felt clumsy and foreign in my hands. It took about an hour to dig Samuel a shallow resting place but it was the best I could do as my strength was quickly giving out.
Wrapping him in a small but thick horse blanket I kept in the barn, I placed him in the small hole. It only took a few minutes to cover him up and I packed the dirt down as best as I could with the flat side of the shovel.
Staring down at the grave, the shovel slipped out of my hands and I waited for more tears to fall, but I found I had no more at the moment. My beloved Samuel's interment left me dejected and I felt desperately alone. Glad that he had not suffered, I could not keep from wishing that he could have kept me company while I waited to die.
Feeling dirtier than ever, a bath became a priority. While burying Samuel, my indecision had grown and I was now even less certain of what to do. Reasoning that my mind would be clearer if I were clean, I left the garden and went straight to the bathroom. The tears that I had been unable to cry now streamed uncontrollably down my face.
five
The hot water wrapped around my skin like a blanket as I slipped down into the tub. I had gotten the water as hot as I could take it, hoping to ease my aching muscles from where the vampire had thrown me around.
Red as a lobster, the jets of the tub punched at my skin until that pain began to overtake the muscle cramps. Although the water couldn’t erase everything that had happened, my mind did clear a little and I was able to think more rationally.
It was close to 4 p.m. If the vampire lore I knew was correct, most of which had been gathered from the occasional movie, he would return sometime around sundown. It was mid-February so the sun would be setting about 5:30 p.m. That meant I had about two and a half hours until he returned.
Should I use the two and half hours to make a run for it? Try to drive to Ellie and pull her out of my mom’s arms and get as far away from here as possible. Leave my mother to face his wrath?
It didn’t seem probable that I could convince her we were being stalked by a vampire and we all needed to go into hiding. The psych facility would be getting a call if I told her that story. Then I would be hiding from the police as well as a vampire.
But as much thought as I put into that scenario, I knew I couldn’t leave my mother to face him. It would be better to be dead than to know I had betrayed one of the two people that had loved and raised me and whom I loved more than anyone in the world besides Ellie. Mom deserved better.
I contemplated telling her the truth for a short time longer, knowing all along that it was a dead end road. Mom, most of the time immensely practical except where this house was concerned, would never buy into that story. Not that I could blame her. It sounded ridiculous even to me, sitting here in the daylight in my bathtub.
Sliding deeper into the tub, I let the water run over my head and through my hair. Reaching up, I fanned the long locks out with my hands and rinsed it out of habit. I scoured my scalp and then scrubbed myself from head to toe.
Remembering his mouth on me, I scrubbed at my neck again until the skin felt nearly raw. Giving up because I couldn’t make myself feel clean no matter how long I scrubbed, I leaned back into the tub, trying again to focus on the best solution to my problem.
What about a priest? Was there some sort of exorcism for vampires? And once again, was I willing to risk that person’s life to see?
Could I kill the vampire myself? Another improbable plan, I felt, given the speed of his movements I had witnessed. But of all the plans that I had worked through in my mind, killing him seemed the safest for everyone else involved. If I didn’t succeed though, it would still leave Ellie at risk. He probably wouldn’t feel obligated to hold to our agreement if he felt I had betrayed it.
A chilling thought occurred to me for the first time. What if he didn’t follow through with his word and went after Ellie despite his promise? I mean, how much could you trust a vampire?
The more I thought about my situation, trusting a vampire seemed like the most absurd plan of all. Hadn’t I felt the air change just by his entering the room last night? Didn’t my hair stand on end? And here I was, sitting in my house, like a fly in a spider web waiting for him to return. To be his beck and call girl until he killed me, hoping that he would keep a promise to me, his intended victim, and not kill my family.
Panic seeped into my mind once again while I had been running this scenario through my mind and now I was under its control, feeling its heaviness beginning to suffocate me.
I shot up out of the water, splashing it on the walls and onto the floor with the force. There wasn’t much time. I needed to pack some clothes for myself and some food. I didn’t want to be stopping to eat once I had picked up Ellie. She had clothes at my mom’s house. There was money and a gun in the safe.
Grabbing a towel from the linen closet, I barely had made a dent in the water beading on my skin before I was pulling on my jeans and t-shirt. My hands were shaking as I attempted the combination on the safe and it took three tries for my trembling fingers to get it right. Finally, the lock released and the door swung open on the hinges. I reached into the dark of the safe, my hand landing on the gun first.
Grabbing the small amount of emergency cash I always kept, I stuffed the money in my back pocket and pushed the gun into the waistband of my pants. Jerking the hangers violently, I pulled a few warm clothes out of my closet including a thick down-filled coat and shoved them all into an overnight bag.
I was in my car in less than ten minutes. The clock in the car shone like a beacon in the dark garage reading 4:45 p.m. forcing my mind to register how close I was cutting this. Pushing the garage door opener on my visor, I waited impatiently for the door to open and was pulling out just as the edge of the door cleared my car.
Jabbing my finger down on the locking mechanism, I didn’t give the old house a second look as I roared down the driveway that turned into the winding dirt road.
Taking each curve too quickly, my wheels spun rocks and dirt into the trees covering the road. Since the dirt road dead-ended in my driveway, it was unlikely I would meet another car. My nerves were frayed and my eyes strained around each curve, half-expecting the vampire to be standing in the road waiting for me.
It was still light out, however
, with the late afternoon sun having taken on the dark yellow color rather than the clear light of midday. Coming from an angle, the sun shone through the trees casting long shadows from the neighboring forest across the road, adding to my fear and desperation.
Reaching the end of the eight-mile dirt road, I sat facing the busy highway, left turn signal on, watching the passing cars filled with people. They were probably returning home from work or going to eat with their family or to visit friends. Normal people living normal lives and I so badly wanted to join them.
To turn the clock back and appreciate the mundane, to take my mom up on the offer of going with her and Ellie. Why had I not listened to her? Why had I stayed at that old house, cut off from the outside world for all intents and purposes? If only I hadn’t been so stubborn.
The clock flashed 4:55 p.m. The eerie red numbers glowed more brightly as the light outside began to dwindle.
Driving wildly, I had made it to the end of the dirt road in a record ten minutes. I so badly wanted to punch the gas pedal and take off after Ellie, rejoin the land of the normal, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t risk Ellie’s life on the chance he couldn’t find us.
Despite my previous impulsivity, I knew I had to go back. There was no true way out for me except to return where fate had placed me. He was the way out and when he had consumed me, then and only then would it be over.
4:57 p.m. Reaching up with my left hand, I turned the blinker off. My heart was reacting to it like a metronome. Very little time remained and so making a U-turn, I began the long drive back to my personal hell.
5:05 p.m. I pulled back into the garage, the door closing behind me with a heavy finality. I had driven back to the house with an even greater urgency than I had left it. Inside the house, I placed the gun and money on top of the refrigerator. Grabbing a juice bottle out of the refrigerator, I downed it quickly without stopping for air.