“Anna, stop saying that. Look, we have to help. We have to get these people out of here. They don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The doors began to bow behind the force of whatever was on the other side. It was getting more and more insistent on getting out or coming in. The scent of wet dog hair filled the room and made me want to wretch. Fear shocked my system and sent electricity through my fingers and toes. I wanted to run or go for a weapon.
“You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? You know because you’ve seen it. You can’t ignore like the rest of the sheep. It’s coming and it’s coming for all of us. It’s coming for you. The world will never be the same.”
“Anna, this doesn’t sound like you. What is this?”
The clicking of metal on polished concrete brought my focus back to the door. Several of the screws had been forced out and clanged on the floor. The doors cracked and bulged in the middle, and splinters of wood flew out in all directions. They swung back and forth on the loose hinges, ready to give at any moment. The smell of dog and sweat permeated everything. It tasted thick and slimy all around me.
My fists balled and my back tightened. I knew what was on the other side, and I needed a weapon. We were all going to die if I didn’t get one. I looked toward the stairs and saw it. My spear was there, leaning against the handrail.
“I don’t know. It’s pretty far away. I don’t think you are going to make it, blood bag.”
That wasn’t Anna’s voice.
When I turned my head, my suspicions were confirmed. Lea sat in her place, staring at me. Her black eyes stared at me like a hungry animal. Her sharp teeth stuck out below her lips. A low growl hummed in her chest.
With one quick movement, she lunged at me. I raised my hands to defend myself, but it was no help. Lea grabbed my face and bit hard into my neck. She didn’t spare me any of the pain, and I could feel the blood flow out of me and into her. I struggled and tried to scream.
“Grant!”
I awoke in my seat in class with a start and looked around in a panic. The classroom had almost completely emptied of students. The professor was gone. When I looked to the double doors, I found them intact and unharmed.
“Hey, Grant, are you okay?”
There was a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up, I saw the voice and the hand belonged to mousey Melanie.
“Um, yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I think I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? You were twitching a lot.” She was looking down at me sweetly and with genuine concern in her eyes.
“I must have dozed off again. Sorry if I bothered you.”
“It was no bother. I was just making sure you were okay. Looked like a pretty crazy dream from my end. I was worried.”
She blushed a little. I guessed this was her idea of flirting.
“Yeah, it was. It was all just a crazy dream.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Grant, one year later
The rain fell down on my head in large, heavy drops as I exited the English wing of the faculty office building. This had been my third meeting with professor Zilkner, and she had decided to downgrade her description of my performance in her class from “needs improvement” to “just shitty”. I removed my jacket and threw it over my head as the thunder rolled on in the distance, and I watched electricity rip through the sky to light on whatever object was the most appealing.
The spectacle didn’t appeal to me, nor did it leave me with any sense of awe like it might have before my trip to New Orleans last year. Nothing felt the same as it had before that particular trip. It was if the volume had been dialed down on my life. Nothing felt the same. Everything was numbed after experiencing what I had, how could I possibly go back to my former life?
I made it to my dorm as soaked as if I had jumped into a swimming pool with all my clothes still on, but it didn’t make a difference to me. Trudging up the stairs to the third floor entailed shoving a tour group out of the way, but they quickly gave me room when they noticed how completely drenched I was. The tour guide shot me a few disdained glances that I caught but promptly ignored. Who tours a college during a thunderstorm anyway?
I made it to my hallway with the professor’s words still ringing in my ears. “You were one of my most promising students last year, Grant. What has happened to you? Your performance has slipped steadily for a while now, and this last paper you turned in isn’t fit to pass a sixth-grade English teacher’s inspection. My God, kid, get it together.”
Get it together? How could I? How could I write anything after what I had seen and done? How could I think about anything except the way that werewolf had looked as it shoved the spear I was holding into itself to try to get at me? How could I concentrate in class when all I wanted to see was Anna’s face again and to feel her warmth near me? How could I possibly live this painfully normal life when the memory of those inky eyes and the smell of that blood filled my very waking nightmares? I couldn’t. That was the answer. I couldn’t, and people were noticing.
I entered the room I shared with my roommate, Eric, to find him sprawled across his bed and listening to music with his ear buds firmly secured in his ears. He looked up from his textbook when he saw me come in and sat abruptly. He greeted me with an expectant smile and pulled out his ear buds as I sat on my bed opposite him. I let out a big gust of exasperation, and his face dropped.
“That bad?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“She didn’t like your latest paper, I take it?”
“Nope.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, that I’m a disappointment, and she expected more than this of me. She asked me if there was something going on in my personal life that I needed to talk about.”
Eric raised his eyebrows at me. “What did you say to that?”
“Nothing. I told her I was sorry and I would try harder. I told her my personal life was a little hard right now, but it was my fault I wasn’t performing. Blah blah blah.”
“How did she respond?”
“Like they all have. It seems like after the second or third meeting, they all say the same thing. I think it’s in their welcoming packet when they get hired or something. It’s always, ‘You showed so much promise, so we know you can do this, but if you don’t pick your grades up, you will be placed on academic probation’. They all seem to be drinking the same Kool-Aid.”
Eric stared at me. I knew what he was thinking because he had tried to give me his own version of an intervention after regarding my flagging interest in life and college. He had attempted the tough-love approach with me only to be met with my intense opposition and a load of anger. Eric had finally backed off and let me brood and destroy myself in peace.
I wanted so badly to tell him what had really happened in New Orleans. Lord knows, he had asked me a million times about what the rest of my time with the strangely beautiful blond had been like. I kept picturing myself unloading the whole unbelievable story on him and watching his face become overwrought with concern and sympathy over my ordeal. His attitude would change from skeptical to empathetic, and he would understand what a horrible time I was having adjusting to living in the real world after enduring it all. To lose Anna on top of all that was unbearable, and he would banish that look of incredulity from his face forever.
Maybe if I just told everyone about the vampires, the prisons, the blood and the werewolves, they too would feel sorry for me instead of making me go to senseless meetings. Of course, I knew that I could not possibly tell Eric or anyone else for that matter. I had made a promise to Anna, and it was one promise I intended to keep.
“So,” began Eric again, “how many meetings does this make?”
I thought for a moment with my face skewed in disgust. “Four.”
“Four? Four different teachers?”
“Yep. I’ll probably go on academic probation by the time summer is here.”
“And you are cool with that?” He was looking at me with exhaustion written all across his face.
“No, but what can I do? I’ll try to get my grades up, but I’ve been trying all year. I’ll probably get kicked out eventually,” I said in a resolute tone.
“Grant, I know you don’t want to hear this, but if you just crack down and—”
“You’re right,” I stated quickly and with a deadpan tone. “I don’t want to hear it. I know what I need to do, and I’ll try. That’s all I can promise.”
He sighed but said no more as a tense silence floated into the room and seemed to engulf all of the oxygen for about five minutes. When the silence was just too much for him, he broke it with an enthusiastic, “Oh!”
“What?”
“I nearly forgot. I grabbed our mail from downstairs, and there was one of those letters for you. I put it right over here.”
He sprang to his feet and retrieved the pale-blue envelope I had come to recognize as Anna’s. My eyes lit up, and I felt a smile spread across my face as I reached for the letter with all the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning. Eric saw my reaction and brightened as I took the letter from him.
“I figured that would brighten your day. I know how these always seem to make you happy. Someday, you’ll have to tell me who this Lois is,” he said with a wink.
He looked more relieved than rueful, and I saw just how hard Eric had been trying to be a good friend to me. I knew I hadn’t been making it easy on him. He left the room with the excuse of a promising game of mud football now that the rain had stopped, but I knew he was trying to give me some privacy. Either that or he was just tired of trying with me.
Either way, I opened the letter with renewed vigor after looking out of the window to note it truly had stopped raining. A fluttering of wings took up residence in my stomach as I pulled out the one neatly folder piece of paper, followed by the slight disappointment that the letter was only one page long. This was the same feeling I always got when I saw that familiar light-blue envelope coming my way. I was excited beyond belief. In fact, opening Anna’s letters provided me with the only rush of emotion I felt these days.
She had been true to her word, and she’d diligently sent me one letter a week. I returned the favor, which accounted for the only bought of writing inspiration I had experienced all year. We were careful never to give anything away. She wrote to me under the name of Lois, and I wrote to her as Clark. We never used real names, nor did we ever reference the events of the previous year, no matter how much I wanted to talk to her about them.
She began to reference someone named Lex in her letters, and I quickly realized she was referring to Lea as Lex Luthor. Anna had been happy to report that Lex, or Lea, had been more open to talking with her, and that the relations between the two factions had improved drastically since they had worked together. My letters had mainly consisted of how miserable I was at school and how much I wanted to see her again. She never responded to my requests to see her, and I was terrified that every letter I got from her might be the last.
Then, another light-blue envelope would grace my door, and my heart would leap again and be pacified for another week. I peered down at this letter, and my jaw nearly dropped all the way to the floor. I was really glad that Eric had left me in peace before I had opened it to read.
Dear Clark,
I understand the woes of your life of late. I know the time we spent together is the main reason for those woes. Though I may not show it in my letters to you, please know I still love and adore you just as much as I always have. You are brave, remember that.
I was afraid a year ago that the trauma and high emotions might have swayed us in favor of doing something rash that we might not have done had we had time to think about it. I have only kept us apart in an effort to keep you and my family safe, and to save us from making a huge mistake we couldn’t reverse.
Lex and I are on good terms these days. I picked a time alone with her to show her the picture we stole. It’s hard to say what she thought. Lex looked at it a long time and just handed it back to me. I told her we were once friends and that you found this out for me. All I got was a sad nod before she walked away, but her demeanor has changed so much since then. She’s…kinder.
Unfortunately, a new threat is on the horizon, and it is one that could endanger all of us. Instead of keeping you away in an attempt to keep you safe, I think bringing you closer and allowing you to help us again might be the better answer. You proved yourself to be more than valuable, and it sounds like your current life is not progressing very well.
If you are at all interested in helping us with this new threat, please go to your window now. You will see me standing underneath the largest tree in the courtyard. If you wish to help, please come out and speak to me. If you want me to leave you alone, stay in your room and I will never write to you again. I will respect either decision you make, Clark.
Sincerely and with love,
Lois
I leaped up from my bed with what felt like an electric shock flying through me. One of the bolts of lightning might have struck me on my way back from the professor’s office, and I was just now feeling the effects for all that I knew. Hell, it could have killed me on the spot, and this was my entrance to heaven. I didn’t care. If Anna was truly out there, I could die happy.