Vampires 101

Chapter One

If only people knew the truth.

The truth is out there and visible to anyone who cares to look beyond the chaos of every day life. If you peer into the darkness long enough - suddenly reality becomes all too clear. At least that’s the way it happened for me.

Some say they were the first vampires.

Really?

Vampires?

What an absurd idea. That’s what I thought, but only up until the night I came face to face with what exists on the fringes of reality. That was the night that I almost died, but in a way, it was also the night that I was reborn. It was the night that my eyes were opened to a darker reality that most can only sense.

It didn’t happen all at once, but that was the beginning. I would never again look at the world in the same way.

On that night, not only would I awaken to the unseen world, but I would also come face to face with a being so mysterious - so beautiful, that anyone I had known up to that point would pale in comparison.

Even after discovering the truth about who and what he is, thinking about him is still so awe-inspiring that it literally takes my breath away.

Ours is a forbidden love - a love that must be denied, no matter how painful. But how can I deny something that is as natural as breathing?

It has always been him. All my life there has been this void in my soul that I could never quite fill. Only he could fill that void. I may not have realized this while in the waking world, but my subconscious knew it.

So are they the first vampires?

Yes, but they are so much more than that.

Though my story really begins when I was a child, my memory of it doesn’t start until one hot July night when I was twenty-one years old. This is also the night that I first discovered the importance of listening to your intuition. If you have a bad feeling about something, you better listen to what your instinct is trying to tell you.

That night I didn’t listen to what my gut was telling me. I walked home anyway. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. I’d walked home from work before. Not that I did it on a regular basis, but on this night I was on foot because my car was in the shop again. This time it was the fuel injectors. I really needed to get a new car. Now if I could just convince the bank of that.

It was late. Working second shift at Jake’s Diner paid a little more, but I was seriously beginning to wonder if it was worth it. Walking a mile in the dark to get home had a way of prompting a reevaluation of your priorities.

The quickest way to the apartment complex where I lived was through the old cemetery. When I say old, I am in no way exaggerating. This bone yard is just about as gothic as you can get. With the many headstones and the occasional crypt, there are plenty of places for someone to hide.

I hate cemeteries. Night or day it doesn’t matter. Beyond the obvious creepiness of these places, there has always been something about them that bothers me. Maybe it is the finality of death, or the reminder of my own mortality? Whatever it is, I tend to avoid cemeteries whenever possible.

On this night I was just so tired, all I wanted was to get home to a hot shower and my bed. Ignoring the whispered warnings of my inner voice, I started through the cemetery.

If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, maybe I would have noticed him before. My boss down at the diner was in the process of doing what he called, a restructuring. That was just Jake’s fancy way of saying there was going to be a layoff. Since I had been working there less than a year, I definitely had reason to be worried.

The first indication that something was wrong was the utter and complete stillness around me. I had grown so used to the sound of crickets and the flapping wings of owls that I was actually startled by the silence.

Stopping abruptly, I listened. All I could hear was the sound of my own rapid breathing. There were few streetlamps along the narrow road that twisted its way through the cemetery. The lamps provided enough light to keep you from tripping over something, but not much beyond that. If I stayed on that road, it would eventually take me down the hill and to the riverfront apartments where I lived.

After spending the last eight hours on my feet, my aching body urged me to disregard the eerie silence and keep moving. In twenty minutes I’d be home and the walk through the cemetery would be nothing more than a spooky, but insignificant memory.

The hollow sound of my feet hitting the pavement seemed to be unnaturally absorbed by the complete stillness that was all around me. When I think back on those moments before my life would change forever, I have to wonder if Mother Nature herself was holding her breath - waiting for the explosive drama that was about to unfold.

What happened next would later remind me of a car accident. The world seemed to move in slow motion, but at the same time, it happened so quickly that I had no time to react. The man leaped from behind a large headstone and grabbed my arm. At the time, I was too shocked to feel any pain. That would come later.

That moment will live eternally in my mind. The man’s features contorted so that he appeared insane - maybe even something less than human. But that was not the worst of it. The pure evil reflected in his eyes filled my heart with so much terror that I was literally paralyzed. Even if I’d had the strength to fight him off, there was no way I could move.

When I think of dark souls that spend their nights stalking victims, usually what comes to mind are unkempt men with grungy clothes - stringy hair - men that are just plain yuk. Maybe they need money to feed a drug habit, or possibly they stalk women to satisfy some perverse - sexually fueled need to control, but this monster was none of the above.

He was pure evil - a killer that murdered just for the sheer joy of taking someone’s life. He killed to consume his victims.

With the exception of the glaring madness on his face, he didn’t look like a killer. He could have been someone’s Uncle Tom, or even the nice man that worked as a janitor at the local grade school. He was so clean-cut and average; he could have been any nondescript person living life beneath the radar.

Before I could jerk away and make a run for it, he was already dragging me into the grass. My knee slammed against the edge of a headstone, sending shards of excruciating pain up my leg. That was nothing compared to the agony in my arm - the same arm that he was dragging me through the grass with.

A scream ripped from my throat, but there was no one around to hear it. I was completely alone with a killer. To top it all off, I was sure my arm was broken. Fighting him off was not even close to realistic, so I did the only thing I knew to do. I screamed again, and kept screaming until my throat was raw.

He stopped suddenly and stared down at me with sadistic - hateful eyes. If my brain hadn’t been such a tangled mass of shock and terror, I would probably have noticed that there was something strange about his eyes - something not quite human. But in those few moments that I walked a tight wire between life and death, all I could do was scream.

My attacker did not demand that I stop screaming. That would have been too much trouble. Instead he wrapped strands of my long brown hair around his hand and used it to pull my head up and smash it into the ground.

My skull exploded with pain. If I hadn’t been in survival mode, I would surely have blacked out. Though it did about as much good as fighting off a bear with a flyswatter, I started hitting at him with my good arm.

If my rescuer hadn’t have shown up when he did, I’m sure I would have died that night. There’s no way I could have lasted much longer. I could already feel the warm blood pouring from my head. Another few hits, and my skull would have been crushed like an overripe melon hitting the pavement.

One minute I was slamming a fist into his chest, and the next I was hitting at air. He was just gone.

There was a gurgling sound coming from somewhere to my right, but in my panicked state, I wasn’t seeing anything but a blur of movement. Forcing my eyes to focus was easier to think about, than actually do.

When the muddled fog in my head cleared, I could see again, though I wasn’t so sure that I wasn’t hallucinating. Standing against a backdrop of white tombs and gnarled - ancient trees, was a man so breathtakingly beautiful - so hot, that if I hadn’t been half dead at the time, seeing someone so perfect would have injected me with such a large dose of nerves, I would have been running for cover.

Men in general didn’t make me nervous. It was just those guys that looked like they belonged on the silver screen. These were the type of guys that tended to make me jittery. I always imagined I would look way too dumpy and plain next to someone so awesome. Why put myself through it? I did have some vanity and self-respect, and what little I had, I wanted to keep, even if it was nothing more than delusion.

Damn it! Concentrate Cassie.

What were the chances that my rescuer was also some kind of lunatic?

I surmised fairly quickly that if he was hanging around an old cemetery at night, he probably wasn’t your normal - everyday guy.

But he had pulled the monster off of me. That had to count for something.

The problem was that he was at this minute, tearing the guys throat out with his hand. That was where the sick gurgling sound was coming from - my would be killer was struggling to take his last breath.

Dropping the lifeless body to the ground, he turned to look at me with eyes so stunning and hypnotic, I instantly felt myself falling into those pools of radiant black ice.

If I had stared into his eyes even a moment longer, he could have done anything to me, and I wouldn’t have put up a fight. No way was I going to survive an attack by Killer Tom, just to die at the hands of some guy that might be even more dangerous.

By then I had already decided that he couldn’t be real, at least he wasn’t just a guy. I closed my eyes and the spell was broken. That’s when I really started to feel the throbbing in my arm. Regardless, I stumbled to my feet and started moving in the general direction I thought the road might be. My escape effort didn’t last too long before my knees buckled beneath me.

When I opened my eyes, he was there, kneeling beside me. Even close up he was stunning. Waves of dark hair curled around his wide shoulders, framing a face that was almost a work of art - a one of a kind masterpiece.

Focus Cassie!

A smile tugged at the corners of his sensuous mouth. I’m not going to hurt you Cassie.

I swallowed hard.

How could he know my name?

As strange as my predicament was, I was surprisingly calm. That fact alone should have set off all kinds of alarms, but I felt no fear. It really was like I was under some type of spell.

Reaching behind him, he picked up the purse I’d lost during my struggle with Killer Tom. Without hesitation, he pulled my phone from the side pocket where I always kept it.

How did he know it would be there?

He stared into my eyes for a long time before handing me the phone. Call for help, he said. It was not a request.

Dumbfounded, I stared down at the phone as if it were some foreign object that I’d never seen before, and hadn’t the slightest idea how to use.

You’re hurt. You need help. His deep - smooth voice was as hypnotic as his eyes.

Hurt was an understatement. It was more like I’d just crawled out of a train wreck, but strangely enough, the pain was barely making its way to my brain. There was no doubt that I could use a shot or two of the best pain killer Pine View Regional had to offer, but as bizarre as it sounds, the pain wasn’t what was on my mind most at the moment. No, topping my list of things I had to think about was the strange - drop dead gorgeous guy that was kneeling beside me.

Who was he?

Where had he come from?

I had so many questions, but had absolutely no way of asking them. My tongue seemed to be glued to the roof of my mouth. My lips parted as I tried to force words from my mouth, but it just wasn’t happening.

Though he was still smiling, his eyes reflected a storm of emotion. This should have never happened. He brought his fingers up to gently caress my cheek. His touch was electrifying - a combination of fire and ice. Though his skin was cold, his fingers left a scorching trail of fire across my face. I found myself struggling just to breathe. There was no way I was going to be able to say a word. This is something I would deeply regret later. I had so many questions.

It happened so fast that even now I can’t be sure of what exactly did happen. A blast of wind stirred up last years’ dead leaves, creating a cyclone of debris. When the wind died, he was gone.

Stunned, I looked around for him. What I had just witnessed was impossible. He must be hiding somewhere.

Forget it. He’s long gone.

I jerked my head around to see who else had decided to join the scare Cassie to death party.

The girl was about my age, maybe a little younger. She wore a fluorescent orange skirt and purple blouse. Her blond ponytail had streaks of orange pain running through it. If she were standing beneath a black light, she would have resembled a walking neon sign.

As odd as she looked, it was the piercings in her nose and lip that really disturbed me. Suffering unneeded pain was just so wrong, but then again, I had never been one for pain, needed or unneeded.

Now that I was thinking about it, the pain in my arm was getting to the point that I thought I might pass out. I stared down at the phone and thought about calling 911, but at this point, I wasn’t sure if I was awake or in the middle of an extremely weird dream. I mean really, if I weren’t dreaming, why was the cemetery suddenly populated with crazy people?

I so wouldn’t do that if I were you, Neon Girl put in her two cents while pointing to my phone.

What would you know? You’re just another figment of my imagination. Besides ... my arm feels like it’s about ready to fall off.

Neon Girl sat on the grass beside me, as if we were getting ready to engage in casual conversation. No really. You don’t want the police here. There’s a dead guy over there, she pointed to the corpse of Killer Tom.

Wincing from pain, I tried to shrug my shoulders, but could only manage to lift one. "I didn’t kill him, but he did try and kill me. At least I’m sure he would have."

She waved a hand in front of her, brushing away my words. My eyes caught the glint of long pink fingernails.

You’ll never be able to explain what happened to him. They’ll lock you in the nut farm, she warned.

Narrowing my eyes to slits, I gave her my fiercest, don’t screw with me glare. Just who are you? And what are you doing in a cemetery in the middle of the night?

Oh ... I was afraid that you’d ask those questions. A sheepish smile touched her lips. My name is Shadow, and I was following you, she admitted.

Really? I asked while shaking my head in disbelief. Why?

"I was trying to see if I could get a look at one of them."

One of who? I was getting more upset by the second, especially since my arm was absolutely killing me.

"One of them. You know ... like the one that killed that guy over there, she said, pointing to Tom. By the way ... he would have killed you. I’ve seen him do it before."

My mouth fell open at this point. Why haven’t you told anyone?

Shadow lifted her hand to study her perfectly manicured nails. They would have been gorgeous if it hadn’t been for the god awful pink polish on them. I wanted to take him out myself.

This is just crazy. I said, trying to get to my feet so I could get out of there. I was totally sure I had tripped while walking home, and at this very moment, I was lying unconscious somewhere. There was no other reasonable explanation for what was happening.

"Don’t you want