Vampire Love Story

 I rolled over in my bed, and looked at the time on my cell phone. 9:30 p.m. My twenty-minute power nap had turned into a two hour snooze.
Oops.

I glanced out the window to check the conditions outside: completely dark with a lot of wind. Not ideal jogging conditions, but it would have to do. I yawned and stretched. If I didn’t get my run in ASAP, it wasn’t going to happen tonight.

I am a professional mixed martial arts fighter, and being one has its drawbacks. The biggest was working out when your body is dead tired. Honestly, the last thing I wanted to do on a night like tonight was exercise. And grabbing a bowl of Captain Crunch and putting on an episode of CSI was sounding damn good. Too good. Time to get up.

There was a knock at my bedroom door.

“Come in,” I called out.

“You decent?” It was Tommy, my best friend and roommate.

“Would I say
come in
if I wasn’t decent?”

The door swung open slowly, and there stood Tommy, wearing nothing more than a tiny towel. His body, as usual, was immaculately chiseled. He motioned to his body and said, “Maybe because you are secretly in love with this.”

“What do you want, Tommy?” I asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.

“I want to borrow some of that cologne I like. Cool?”

“Go ahead. It’s on the dresser.”

He clapped his hands and strode into my room over to my dresser where I had a collection of cologne on the top of it. I had everything from Old Spice to high-end brands.

I stood up and stretched. My back cracked and so did my knees. Since when did a twenty-year-old’s knees crack? “So what’s with the cologne?” I asked.

“I got a date with that box girl at the supermarket.”

“You finally got the nerve to ask her out?”

It had nothing to do with nerve, brother. I finally
wanted
to ask her out.

I rolled my eyes and started to get dressed for my run. “So it took you five months to
want
to ask her out?”

“I like to take things slow before I go in for the kill.”

“That sounds very romantic.”

“I’m taking her to Murphy’s.”

“Wow, classy. “Murphy’s was the fanciest place to eat in San Bernardino. It had it all: ambiance, location, and hot female clientele. “You better keep your eyes on your date and not the waitresses.”

Tommy picked the cologne he wanted from the top dresser. It was my favorite cologne, Drakkar Noir. He sprayed his upper body and both his legs and even lifted his towel to do a nice squirt inside the towel.

I walked over and grabbed the cologne bottle from Tommy’s hand. “Like I said, you’re all class.” I pushed Tommy out my door. “Now get out so I can get ready for my run.”

Tommy stopped himself and turned around. He looked at me seriously, which he rarely did. “Don’t run too far tonight. I’ve got a weird feeling.”

“You do?” I asked, legitimately concerned. Tommy’s feelings were pretty eerie. I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll be careful. I’ll just run to the college and back.”

“Get back in an hour and you’ll be fine.” Tommy thought for a second and then added, “Yeah, an hour will be fine. One more thing, Josiah, the Commission is going to let us know who we fight next month.”

Tommy was also a professional fighter. He’s actually really good and was about to contend for the title.

I said, “I hope the Commission will give me a real fight this time. Maybe I’ll have a shot to move up in the rankings.” The Commission tended to think I was still a cherry and they were taking me along a lot slower than I wanted.

“I just need a tune up before my title fight. I need to work out some kinks.” Tommy was fighting for the title in four months.

“You better hope the Commission gives you just a tune-up fight and nothing more. The last thing you want is to get hurt.”

“I’m not going to get hurt; I’m 18-0, remember that.” Here he goes again with his undefeated record.

“You aren’t the only who is undefeated,” I reminded him.

He stood at my doorway. “Yup, you sure are. Your little 4-0 record is very cute, Josiah.”

“For the love of God, just go on your date.” And I shut the door in his face.

“Not cool, Josiah.”

“And neither is wasting all my cologne.”

“Touché.”

I grinned and peeled off my shirt. I looked at myself in the mirror. I needed to lose 10 pounds before my next fight. Did I even have ten pounds to lose? I was six feet tall with very little body fat. I pinched my belly and grabbed as much fat as I could. I got a good handful.
Okay maybe I did have ten pounds to lose
.

I studied my face. Pretty clean with few marks or scars. That was pretty good considering I had never said no to a fight in my life. In fact, I had been fighting off bullies since I was five years old. My blonde hair was an easy target for most kids to take their shots at me. In most places, I had to fight my way to respect.

Nowadays, I looked more like a surfer than a mixed martial arts fighter. People often misjudge and underestimate me. That’s a good thing. Interestingly, there’s something about the way I look that makes most guys want to pick a fight with me. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I look like I should be in a boy band or that I’m extremely confident; anyway, there’s something about me that makes random strangers want to mix it up with me.

Too bad for them.

An ex-girlfriend once asked me why I love to fight. My answer was simple. Some guys were born to fix cars or play football. Some guys were born to be astronauts or to hit a fastball. I was born to fight. It’s the only thing in this world that ever made perfect sense to me. When I’m in a fight time stands still. I see everything in slow motion. My brain goes into
Good Will Hunting
mode, and I’m able to quickly assess what I need to do to cause the most damage to my opponent.

Anyway, I put on a pair of sweats, a t-shirt, and my running shoes. Once done, I headed outside the house Tommy and I shared and did some stretching next to the big sycamore tree in the front yard.

I was still stretching when I heard a familiar squawk from above. I looked up, and there was Daphne. Daphne was a beautiful red hawk that seems to have developed a fondness for me over the past couple of years. She made herself known each day by squawking or flying low enough so I could see her. I still have no idea where she came from or why she seemed so interested in me. I named her Daphne one day after watching an episode of
Scooby-Doo
. They both had red hair so it seemed to fit.

“I’m off for a run, Daphne, try to keep up with me.”

I gave Daphne a wink and took off running. The beautiful bird let out a nice loud squawk and I headed down the street. At first I went kind of slow with my run. Daphne followed me for about a block or two and then pulled back. I kicked up my heels and began to run at a faster pace. I soon ran out of the neighborhood and headed for the main street that led up to Cal State San Bernardino. I liked running at the college. It was pretty peaceful at night and as long as I avoided campus police, I usually had no problems.

I turned left and headed down University Way towards the college. I could hear loud music which meant I was approaching the Gamma Phi Beta frat house. They always had some sort of party going on, and this Thursday night was no different. Their frat house was a giant two-story white house that stood out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood filled with smaller houses.

As I ran toward the house, I noticed that the party was really raging. Lots of cars were parked out front and people milling around outside. Music thumped from the open front door. I hurried past the house so I wouldn’t have to hear drunk frat boys yelling out things like “Run, Forrest, run!” or, less flattering, “You run like a girl!”

But as I was about to pass the house without incident, I heard a chilling scream. The scream was so distinctive and piercing that it made me stop in my tracks.

I turned around, and as I did so, I heard it again. It was coming from behind the house. The gate was open, so I walked toward it. I thought it could just be college girls having a good time, but then I heard it for a third time. This time it was louder and more fearful.

As I neared the back gate, I saw movement in a window. A young, dark-haired woman wearing a black dress was desperately opening a window. I picked up my pace, running now. She wrenched up the window, looked over her shoulder, and then jumped from the upstairs window.

Holy shit.

She dropped behind some hedges, where I heard her scream and crash through something wooden. She reappeared a moment later, limping badly and bleeding from fresh scratches along her face and elbows.

She and I reached the side gate about the same time. Amazingly, I recognized the girl. In fact, we had gone to high school together at Eisenhower. She was one of those girls who was into Goth and kept to herself. I saw that she was barefoot and the right shoulder of her black dress was ripped. Blood oozed from the opening. Her jet black hair was messed up and she appeared to have been crying.

I would be crying, too, if I had just jumped from the second floor.
What the hell was going on?

Her eyes met mine for the first time, and her first reaction was to shrink away from me, but then they widened with what I could only describe as hope. “I know you!” She shouted at me. “Please help me! Please!”

But before I could react, she threw herself into my arms, nearly knocking me over. I tried to look at her face, but she held me tight.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you hurt?”

She released me and grabbed my arm. “Please, just get me out of here!”

“What’s going on?”

“Just get me out of here!”

“I don’t have a car. I’m on foot—”

“I don’t care! Just help me leave!”

I had just watched her jump from an upstairs window, and unless she was on a bad trip, she needed some serious help. But who was she running from? I didn’t know, but I would ask her later.

“Okay, then.” I grabbed her hand and now we were running back around to the front of the house. The party was still raging. For the most part, her scream had gone unnoticed, although a few guys were watching me. Maybe they noticed her blood.

And just as we hit the sidewalk, a large redheaded guy burst through the front door and down the porch, chasing us.

“Lena!” he screamed. “Where you going, baby?”

“I’m getting the hell out of here, Ron—or Ronnie—or whatever the hell your name is. You and your friends can kiss my ass.”

I was still holding her hand. A crowd was gathering.

What the hell had I gotten myself into? I wondered.
Again.