Fate of the Vampire (4 page)

I had the dream. The one I had come to know and dread. It wasn’t unexpected. I had closed my eyes knowing there was probably no way for me to avoid it. The dream had become so familiar, it was almost like a memory. But I knew it was more likely a residual memory from Colette Gibson. That didn’t make the dream any less terrifying.

It started at night—it was always night—and I was sneaking out of the house. Not the house I shared with my mother
—a larger house with beautiful wood floors that I also thought of as my home. I felt conflicted; a big part of me wanted to stay safe and snug in my bed with my sister’s steady breathing coming from the other side of the room, but I also felt compelled to go. He was waiting for me, and more than anything, I wanted to be in his arms.

Quietly, I slipped out of bed and put on my favorite dress
—green with little white flowers. The fabric was a little light for fall, but I didn’t mind. It was going to be my wedding dress. By the light of the full moon, I pinned on a small straw hat with silk daisies along the brim.

Making as little noise as possible, I slid a small suitcase out from under my bed. I had packed it that afternoon while no one
else was around. I only took a few of my best things; I wasn’t planning to be gone that long. And when I returned, I would be a bride. His bride. Just thinking about it made me feel all warm and rosy.

Once outside, I started to hurry. I knew I had to get away
, or I would change my mind. It’s not that I didn’t want to marry him—I wanted to rather desperately—but I felt miserable sneaking off to do it. Still, he said his family would never approve, and I knew mine would insist I wait until I was eighteen. But the way I felt about him, I knew I couldn’t wait. All I wanted was to be Mrs. Jessie Vanderlind. It was something I needed to be before I could think of anything else.

Then time hopped around, like it usually does in dreams
, and I found myself in the woods gasping for breath. My hat was gone; my suitcase was gone; and I was terrified because I knew I was not alone. There was something out there, skulking beneath the trees, and it was hungry, hungry for human flesh, hungry for my flesh. I somehow knew the beast was there specifically stalking me.

A noise behind me gave me a start
, and I ran headlong, deeper into the woods and away from the road, away from my only chance to flag down a passing car or signal someone in a nearby house. Branches tore at my dress, and one of my shoes was gone. My foot got tangled in a tree root, and I fell to the ground with a sob. My lungs ached from running.

I freed my leg but did not immediately get to my feet again. I needed to calm down and catch my breath. There was a large log next to where I fell
, and it afforded me some protection from the eyes of the predator. I just needed to rest for a moment and come up with a plan. I wished I knew what was pursuing me so I could better figure out how to defend myself.

Time fast forwarded. I was breathing more regularly
, and I was feeling like I should make a move. The small creatures that provide the night with its music had taken up their melodies again. I thought that maybe the beast, whatever it was, had moved on in pursuit of some other dinner. With great caution, I got to my feet.

And there he was, my love, standing no more than thirty yards away, silhouetted in the moonlight. “Jessie,” I called to him, my heart hammering loudly in my chest. “We have to get out of here. There’s something
…” I started hurrying toward him. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something in the woods.”

Jessie came bounding toward me, eager to be by my side. It was only when it was too late for me to run that I realized I hadn’t called out to the man I intended to marry; I had summoned the beast. I barely had time to scream before it
sank its teeth into the flesh of my throat.

Things were blurry after that
; everything grew very dim. The world only came into focus when my body was jarred, quite painfully. I opened my eyes to see that I’d been dropped into some kind of ditch. There was loose soil all around me. I could barely move, but I turned my head to see the man who killed me standing at the lip of the deep hole where I lay. Just then the clouds drifted away from the moon, and I was able to see more clearly as Jessie Vanderlind started kicking dirt into the hole to cover my body. “Why?” bubbled to my lips and then faded away to nothing.

I woke with a start, my chest aching with fright. I was alone; I was safe in bed; I was myself again. I reached for my dream journal, which I kept by my bed. It was true that I’d had that same dream many times, but the dream had never gone that far before. I didn’t know if I’d just added the details from what I’d learned that day about Colette’s death or if they were uncovered memories. Either way, it took me over an hour to fall asleep again, even after pouring all of my thoughts out into the journal. I hated when I dreamed I was Colette.

*****

By the time I got up Monday morning, the entire town knew about Colette. It was headline news for the Tiburon Sentinel: “Local Girl’s Body Found Eighty Years After She Elopes.” The Sentinel was barely clinging to life as a small-town newspaper, so I guess they were making the most of the story. Someone must have done some quick digging in the archives because there were old quotes from Colette’s parents about how they believed she had eloped but were growing concerned because they hadn’t heard from her. A second article referenced a tramp being arrested for trying to sell some of Colette’s clothing, which he claimed he found in an abandoned suitcase in the woods. A search of the area was done, where Colette’s hat and one of her shoes were found, but no one ever saw her again. The evidence against the tramp wasn’t enough to keep him, so he was released. There was absolutely no mention of the Vanderlinds. I didn’t know if that was because no one suspected them or if their money protected them. Either way, it didn’t sound like Tiburon police investigations were very thorough back then.

I dreaded going to school. Not that it would be the same misery as getting Grandma Gibson to the car through the gauntlet of walkers at the old age home, but teenage boys could be pretty insensitive about anyone’s pain but their own. My mom once told me about her math teacher in high school whose son was a jet pilot that had died in a crash. The boys in her class would make paper airplanes with flames drawn on them and fly them at the poor lady when her back was turned. Mom said a couple times a year the woman would get so upset she’d have to leave the classroom
, and all the guys would think it was hysterical. I didn’t expect to be treated with any more consideration. And Colette was only a distant relative, as far as anyone knew, so the inappropriate humor would probably flow pretty freely.

I was barely out of my car in the school parking lot before Don Updike felt the need to shout at me, “Hey, Aurora. How’s your mummy?” The guys he was walking with all cracked up.

“Good one,” a buddy of his said, high-fiving him.

“Don,” a low voice snarl
ed from off to the left somewhere. I turned to see my ex-boyfriend, Fred Lighton, swiftly striding across the parking lot. He stopped about an inch away from Don and looked down at the smaller boy. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Fred was tall and muscular and on the football team. In fact, I was kind of an idiot because I’m the one that broke up with him. It didn’t feel right to be with anyone but Jessie. If I was sane and living the life of a normal high school girl, I would have been madly in love with Fred.

Don Updike, on the other hand, was on the squirrelly side. He was always getting in trouble for being obnoxious to teachers or other students or anyone who was in earshot. He was definitely the kind of boy who would throw paper airplanes at a woman who had lost her son in a plane crash. I could tell he was intimidated by Fred standing so close to him, but he didn’t want to show it. “I was just making a joke, dude,” he said, trying not to flinch. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem,” Fred said, leaning menacingly over the smaller boy, “is that you’re being insensitive. How would you like it if someone in your family was murdered and then some little twerp was making fun of you for it?”

“That would be cool,” Don said. “I’d love to have a mummy in the family.” He was still trying to show off to his friends.

Fred slowly shook his head back and forth. “You think it would be cool for someone in your family to be murdered?”

“Totally,” Don insisted. “I would think it’s a riot.”

“Let me get this straight,” Fred said, still looming over him. “So you
r mom’s crying and your grandmother’s so upset they have to put her in the hospital, and that’s somehow funny to you?” A couple more people had stopped to watch what was going on.

“Yeah,” Don said, although you could tell he was no longer sure of himself with the way Fred had phrased it. “It’s hilarious.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Fred asked, giving the smaller boy a concerned look. About a dozen people were now taking in the show.

“Nothing,” Don insisted. “Hey, I’m not the one acting all uptight. I was just making a joke.”

“No, I think there’s something wrong with you,” Fred told him. “Maybe you should go see a therapist or something.”

That’s when Don busted out the F word. He took two steps back before he said it, of course.

“Seriously?” Fred asked. “That’s all you’ve got?”

Don repeated his expletive while simultaneously trying not to appear like he was scared witless. He probably assumed he was reasonably safe, seeing that Tiburon High had a zero tolerance policy for fighting on school grounds, but you couldn’t spend your life on school grounds.

“You’re pathetic.” Fred shook his head again. “Seek help, dude.”

“Whatever,” Don
said as he slunk off, tail between his legs.

Fred turned to me. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I told him. “But thanks for standing up for me.”

“My mom told me about your grandma,” he said. “Is she okay?”

That was a complex question, and I wasn’t sure of the answer, but I said, “I think she’ll be all right. It was pretty horrible, though.”

Nodding, Fred said, “Sorry to hear that.” A bell rang, causing all us students to start scurrying. “You know where I am if you need me.” With that, he turned and headed into the school. I stared after him for a moment. When Fred first started flirting with me, I thought he was just a friendly jock. Then we tried dating and he got all sexually entitled, like some guys tend to do
, and I thought he was a bit of a jerk. But he quickly matured past that nonsense and was turning into a pretty awesome guy. The kind of guy girls dream about. The kind of guy I should have been dreaming about if I wasn’t totally in love with a vampire. I wondered, and not for the first time, if I needed my head examined.

“Wow,” I heard someone say, interrupting my thoughts. That’s when I noticed my best friend
, Blossom, was at my elbow, her gaze trailing after Fred. “Now that’s something you never see in a teen movie.”

“What?” I wanted to know.

“A handsome jock standing up to a geek bully.”

“Yeah.” I had to agree with her. “That was pretty bizarre.” It was time for school to start, but I sincerely did not want to go to class. Don Updike wasn’t the only wag out there. I knew more “humor” would be directed my way
, and I was feeling pretty fragile.

“I think I might start crushing on Fred a little after that,” Blossom said, grabbing my arm and towing me toward the building.

“Go for it,” I told her. “Fred’s great.” And I sincerely meant it.

“I would,” she said, “if I didn’t want you two to get back together so much.”

The mummy joke was a hit at Tiburon High. There wasn’t a dork in the school who didn’t feel the need to get in on the hilarity. I was mercifully spared the jocks
’ humor on the subject by way of Fred. Even though we were no longer dating, he obviously felt very protective of me and made it known in the locker room circles that he would not feel very friendly toward anyone who made a joke at my family’s expense. I was profoundly grateful, and I wished I could think of a way to show him my appreciation. Besides getting back together with him, of course.

“Let’s sneak out for lunch,” Blossom said as we passed each other in the hall between classes.

“It’s Monday,” I pointed out. Seniors had off-campus privileges for lunch but not on Mondays for some reason. It was something about “starting the week off right.”

“Oh, please.” Blossom rolled her eyes. “If anyone tries to stop us, I’ll say that you’re too stressed out from everyone in the school being insensitive and that you need a break.”

“And what about you?” I had to ask.

Blossom laid a hand to her chest and said in her sincerest voice
, “I am being a good friend.”

Once we had successfully made a break from school and were happily munching on fries in the closest fast food restaurant, Blossom asked, “So, how are you holding up?”

I shrugged, focusing on dipping a fry in ketchup.

“Sorry I didn’t call you over the weekend,” Blossom said. “I was at my dad’s
, and I didn’t even know anything had happened until my mom told me late last night.”

“That’s okay. I knew you were at your dad’s,” I told her. “How was it?”