by Jill Nolan
The stakes are just backups though. I’m banking on wooden arrows working the same way. I've got my uncle's recurve bow, and I've used it enough over the last six years to feel somewhat comfortable with it, so hopefully I'm good there.
In my research, I also found a bunch of things that might hurt a vampire or weaken it. Those were less agreed upon, and some seem really stupid, but I collected as much of them as I could. Garlic was a big one. I bought a ton of the stuff and placed it around all the doors and windows in the cabin, trying to hide it so Allison didn't notice it.
I decide to bunker myself in the corner of my room by my closet. This will allow me to be furthest away from the balcony door and windows as well as the hallway door, as well as use my bed as cover or hide in the closet if I need to.
In this spot, I place my weapons, extra garlic, two sunlamps, holy water, and freshly made vervain tea, which may or may not protect me from compulsion. I'm already wearing the silver cross necklace.
As night nears, my panic really starts to set in. I’ve never been a fearful person, but fear has infiltrated my soul, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same again. I just have to hope for the best, while I've prepared for the worst. I’m holding out hope that the vampire couldn't care less about me as the dark begins to take over the sky.
I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Please, please don't let him come for me.
Chapter 8
I stayed up all night, drinking Monster to stay awake, which seemed fitting. I drank so many, I was able to try pretty much every flavor. As soon as I saw the first hint of the sun, I zombie-walked to my bed and fell asleep immediately, stake in hand.
I’m finally awake, early afternoon, have already gotten shit from Allison about sleeping so late again, and found out that she’s going to hang out with Tom again tonight. I really don’t want to spend another night alone.
I guess technically I wasn't alone since she got in around two am. I practically had a heart attack when I heard her pull up – I expected her to sleep over at Tom's. And then I couldn't breathe until she made it from the car to the house. I just kept picturing a creature sweeping through, snatching her up before she made it inside.
Basically, last night was miserable. I went through cycles of turbulent emotions: scared, nervous, bored, anxious, angry, exhausted. I can't do that again tonight.
He didn't come for me. I'd like to believe it's because he doesn't care to kill me, but I can't stop thinking of the other possibility: he is waiting to catch me off-guard. Maybe he needs an invitation inside and is just waiting for me to be vulnerable at night.
Either way, I could use a night that I don't have to spend alone. I had plenty of time to think last night; I had seen Nic just before I went to pee, so I'm almost positive he can't be the vampire.
After ten minutes and six rewrites, I finally send him a text: Would you want to come over? Allison won’t be around tonight and it’s super creepy here alone. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea or anything…just want to hang out.
I check my phone every few seconds, waiting for his response, worried he’s busy or he won't feel like hanging out. After a few slow minutes, I get his text: OK, let’s do it.
I picture a devious smile spread across his pretty face. Great…but in reality, there will be no doing it…just so that’s clear.
He responds almost immediately: Whatever you say ;) be over soon.
Hmm, a winky face. I’m not sure if he’s just being playful, or if he thinks I’m not being serious…whatever, that’s his problem. I was upfront about what is not happening tonight.
Or maybe I was too vague? Should I have specified that I am in no mood for anything even close to sex. Should I have covered all the bases, so to speak, whatever they are?
That probably would have gotten awkward fast.
I let Allison know that Nic will be over, in case I'm wrong about him, and he is the vampire, and he kills me. That won't really help me once I'm dead, I guess, but maybe it will mean he won't get away with it. Whatever, it makes me feel better.
I run upstairs to change my clothes. I look around my room, which has weapons covering the floor, and realize it looks like the apocalypse is in full swing. I shove everything in my closet but hide a few weapons throughout the room.
When I hear his car pull up, I run to meet him at the door. I smile and hold the door open for him as he walks up, but I don’t actually invite him in.
I feel some relief when he just walks through the door, unaffected by the lack of invitation or the garlic I’ve hidden all over the place or the silver cross showing around my neck.
“Why is there garlic everywhere?” Okay, maybe it’s not as hidden as I thought…
“It’s, like, a natural bug repellent.”
He gives me a skeptical look. “I think you have to eat it for that to work.”
“Oh, really? I heard you could also put it around the house to repel mosquitos and other bugs? I guess I’ll actually have to look that up later. How was last night?”
“The bars were fun. Would have been more fun with you there.”
I smile at his comment. I know he’s just being a flirt but that’s okay. "Well, we can hang out now."
"Only because you're too scared to be here alone. What are you afraid of?" He searches my eyes with a teasing half-smile on his face.
What does he mean? Did I make a huge mistake letting him in? The closest weapon is a knife in the table by the door. If he makes a move, I just have to make it a few feet to reach it.
I shrug and break eye contact.
“Bats, maybe?” He's still smiling. How does he even know about that?
“What?” is all I can manage.
“Tom told me how freaked out you got, from a bat.”
I let out a breath and relax slightly. Goddammit Tom. “He told you? He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone!”
“Why not? I—”
“Who else knows?!” I try to keep the panic from my voice, but I don’t think I succeed. I'm too flustered.
“I don’t know. He was just telling me the other night. Are you that embarrassed about it?”
“Uhm, yeah.”
“Because you thought a bat was going to kill you?” Oh, great, he relayed that part of the conversation too.
“I just got scared in the moment. I’m sure bats have killed before…and your hair is short so you don’t know what it’s like to have a bat in your hair.”
"You don't need to worry about the bats around here; they're only fruit bats.”
“Yeah, well, they could still have rabies.” I feel slightly bad throwing bats under the bus. I know the bats here are harmless and that people aren't likely to get rabies from them, either because only a small percentage of them carry rabies or because they don't often bite.
“Why were you in the woods anyway?”
“I don’t know; I was drunk and being an idiot, I guess.” Why is he interrogating me? I try to suppress my annoyance. I want tonight to help me forget, not make me relive that night and fear for my life again. “Let’s watch a movie. There’s no internet or cable, so we’re pretty limited. The movies are over there; I’ll let you pick.”
◆◆◆
I definitely should not have let him pick. He picked some weird war movie that’s very violent and bloody. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but it just keeps bringing me back to the woods. I should at least be grateful he didn’t pick a horror movie. I would have straight up said no to that one. I’m living a frickin’ horror movie right now; I can’t handle any more.
Damn it, why did they have to have a close up of that guy’s neck wound? And now there are limbs flying everywhere.
“Are you hungry? Maybe I could make some…" I think through what we have in the fridge. "Cheese…on garlic bread?”
“Cheese on garlic bread? Sure.” He reaches for the remote.
“No need to pause it.”
“You don’t like the movie?”
“It’s fine, but I’ve
seen it before. I can hear it from the kitchen, anyway.” I may have seen it once, like ten years ago. I don’t really remember it, and I don’t really want to.
I busy myself with making cheesy garlic bread. By the time I’m done, I realize I only missed around fifteen minutes of the movie. We're probably only half way through this thing.
As I eat my cheesy bread, which turned out pretty well, I try to suppress my annoyance at Nic for picking this stupid movie and annoyance at myself for letting him. I can’t get into it at all, and it's making me feel restless. I should have made him watch Mean Girls with me or Remember the Titans. Anything but this.
New distraction plan.
I snuggle up close to Nic, then I look up at him, waiting for him to kiss me. He gets the hint immediately, and before I know it, we’re already making out. I put my hands on either side of his face, pulling him into me, and his hand moves to my butt, pulling me closer.
He shifts me so I’m straddling him. I feel his hands slip under my shirt. I let him slide my shirt off, and then I’m pulling his off. I like the feel of his skin on mine, the warmness of him.
His hands knead my thighs, my butt, my hips. His touch relaxes me, and I melt into him more. He rolls me over so he’s on top of me, while pressing myself into him. His hands explore my upper body, squeezing my breasts and my hips. I move my hands to his neck and down his shoulders, feeling the muscles there.
I open my eyes and the first thing I see are those eyebrows. Hello. They are so big, and now they’re right in my face. Why am I thinking of his eyebrows? I close my eyes and try to bring my focus back to what’s happening, ignoring all the gunshots from the movie.
He’s exploring other areas of my body. I decide to let him; it does feel good after all, like a massage.
He begins trying to work the button on my pants, and my eyes shoot open, his eyebrows right in my face again, men yelling in pain in the background. I push him away. This isn't what I want either.
“Sorry,” I say as I sit up and try to reorient myself. "Let's keep watching the movie." I grab my shirt and hastily put it back on. I don’t know what I need, but it’s not this.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just got a lot on my mind. It’s been a weird weekend.” I rub my face, wondering how to act less crazy. “Family stuff,” I add, hoping that is a good enough excuse to be acting this strange.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really. Thanks though...for the offer. Actually, can we watch something a bit lighter?”
“War movies not your thing?”
“Not my favorite, no.”
I put in Mean Girls and cuddle up to him, managing to forget about my situation for brief periods while my focus is on one of my favorite movies. It turns out Nic hasn't seen this movie, and we have a lot of fun watching it together.
He stays over, and when we get in bed, he falls asleep almost immediately. I lay awake, staring out the window, wondering if the vampire is out there, waiting for his chance to strike.
Chapter 9
After we get home from our internship Thursday, I find myself exhausted. At least the physical work of it helps to keep my mind from obsessing over my situation.
"Want to get dinner at the Zí?" Allison asks.
"Nah, I think I might have a quick meal and take a nap." I throw a frozen meal into the microwave, not caring which one it is, just wanting to quell my hunger before passing out.
“Okay, come on, what is going on with you? You've been weird all week. You never nap. You hate naps. But this week you've napped almost every day. Is everything okay?" Allison asks, concern on her face.
Well, aside from the murder I witnessed, committed by a creature that should not exist, I’ve barely been sleeping for almost a week now. I've been staying up until three or four in the morning and then getting a few hours of fitful sleep. Most of the time I'm just laying awake in bed, stake in hand, scared.
“Yeah, I've just been feeling kind of sick recently and not sleeping well.”
"Did something happen with Nic?"
"No," I wave the idea away dismissively. "I think I'm just fighting something off is all." If she were a guy, I'd claim to be on my period to end the conversation. Unfortunately, she's not a guy, and we're on the same cycle.
"Alright, I guess you do kind of look like shit.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“I'm sorry, I mean, you look tired." She can always make me laugh even as she’s insulting me. "So, what is happening with you and Nic Nic?"
"Nothing, we're just hanging out, having fun."
"Keegan, that man is so hot, you need to get on him. At the rate you’re going, he’ll be lucky if he gets a wiener graze by the end of the summer.”
I give her a mock scowl. "You know how I feel about that word in this context. How would you like it if I asked how girthy Tom is?"
“Gross, stop it. And I don't know yet. Anyway, I’m just messing with you. Does he know that you're 'just having fun'?"
“I don't appreciate your air quotes. I think he knows. How could he not? We're only going to be in the same country for the summer, so I don't know how he could expect anything else.”
"I thought he was moving here next year?"
"That's his plan, but who knows. I don't even know where I'll be next year.
“Would you be upset if he hooked up with someone else?”
I take a second to think about it. “I wouldn’t exactly be happy about it, but I wouldn’t really be upset about it either.”
“Sounds like you don’t like him all that much.”
“I do like him,” I defend myself. “I just don’t really like him."
“I'm just warning you, make sure you're on the same page."
I nod. "I probably should. Don't want it to get awkward."
"You're so going to make it awkward," she says with a smile. "Think back to the hug."
"In my head I'm perfectly unawkward."
"You enjoy that fantasy."
"Jerk," I say with a reluctant smile.
When my meal is cooled off enough to eat, I scarf it down, barely noticing the taste. It could use some salt, but it's not worth the effort of retrieving said salt.
Allison looks up from her phone suddenly. "Did you hear about that guy who went missing?” My stomach drops out as my mind races. Is it the guy I think it is? Or something unrelated? Or a different victim?
“No, who?” I ask with forced casualness.
“I don’t think either of us really knew him, but he was at that party in the woods. Derek something. He was the one who took a picture of that girl peeing.”
“What do they think happened to him?”
“They didn’t say. Tom thinks he did something stupid while drunk, since this guy was a big drinker.”
"Oh," I say, at a loss for words. I want to look all the details up, but I can't here. I've never been so frustrated with lack of internet until now.
◆◆◆
As soon as Allison leaves for the Zí, which is an agonizingly slow twenty minutes later, I drive into town and park, looking up as much as I can on the new missing person. I find out that his name was Derek Sheppard and that he was twenty-four years old. Of course, the article uses present tense, but I know better than that. I stare at his picture, superimposed by the image in my mind's eye of his terrified expression and lifeless eyes. I see him covered in blood. I see him decomposing in the ground somewhere.
The article mentions his dad, who is looking for him, worried about him.
I have to tell someone. I have to go to the police. His family deserves closure. That missing girl's family deserve closure.
They’ll never believe me.
Maybe I leave out the vampire. I can say it was so dark I couldn’t quite make out much beyond the fact that someone was murdered. And that I just ran away, not seeing what happened.
Then they can try to figure it out when they find his blood but no body and tracks that mysteriously disappe
ar. Maybe the tracks would be gone by then, so they wouldn’t even realize that they had disappeared.
But then they would wonder why I didn’t come in sooner. They may even blame me or charge me with something.
No, they couldn’t charge me with anything, could they?
Even if I tell about the murder, there’s no body so they may not just take my word for it. I’m sure his dad would still hope that I was wrong about what I saw, that I thought I saw him die, but really it just looked like he was dead.