by M. D. Bowden
Soon it is time for them to leave.
“Just think of us listening hard in our special relativity lecture while you’re meeting up with a hot guy,” Trish says, rolling her eyes.
I pull a scared expression.
“You’ll love it! You never meet up with men,” Trish says.
“Apart from me,” Mark says.
“But he doesn’t count,” says Trish.
“Hey!” Mark objects.
“You’re not date material because we’ve known you forever,” Trish says.
Mark makes a pseudo-hurt face.
Trish and I laugh, and then the three of us group hug.
“Have fun in physics,” I say to them. “Thanks for staying with me.”
“No probs,” says Mark. “Enjoy your hot date.”
He winks at me, and I whack him on the arm.
“Stay safe,” Trish says.
ALFIE
I go back into my flat and close the door behind me, reassured that it is light outside, but wondering how I will cope with tonight on my own. I’m not meeting Alfie until two p.m. so I spend the morning working on a new website which someone has commissioned me to design for them. It is not anything particularly interesting, a shop site, but it is well paid.
I eat a quick lunch (during which my new phone arrives!) and then spend ages debating what to wear, before choosing a dark blue long-sleeved top, tight jeans and brown knee-high boots. I cover most of this with my warm coat, which nearly reaches down to my knees, and wrap a fluffy black scarf around my neck – which has the added bonus of covering my wounds.
The Waterfront is on The Quay, only a five minute walk along the river from my flat. As I approach the pub I spot him immediately, how could I not? He is taller than anyone else in sight. He is looking out at the water, leaning against the veranda by the outside seating of the pub. He is also looking gorgeous, definitely as good-looking as he appeared in the dark. He looks younger than I had thought though, maybe the same age as me. I walk towards him, trying to breathe normally and not hyperventilate. He looks up and his face breaks into a wide smile which shows his teeth.
I smile back, but not in such a relaxed way as him. “Hi,” I say, and then unnecessarily I add, “I’m here.” I feel so foolish.
“I can see,” he says, and chuckles. “How are you feeling?”
He has dimples. It’s very cute.
I shrug. “I think I’m ok now, but kinda freaked out by it all.”
“I don’t blame you,” he says, meeting my eyes, and it seems like he is trying to convey some hidden meaning, like he knows more than I do.
I ask, “What do you want to do?”
His eyes twinkle mischievously. “Hire a boat. You up for that?”
“Sure, sounds like fun.” And will give us something to do so I feel less awkward – I am so no good at situations like this.
The boat hire place is only a few feet away, so we go over and wait. While he is arranging our vessel I am free to watch him. He is wearing baggy blue jeans, a casual checked shirt, and a scruffy old leather jacket. Over one shoulder he is carrying a rucksack. He is very large, I am guessing six foot four, and well built, making me feel quite petite even though I am five foot eight and not at all skinny, just a normal weight. His face looks like it will be rugged and masculine when he is older, but it is a lot more boyish than his body suggests. His hair is naturally wavy and looks unstyled.
He hires the boat for four hours! Yikes. It is a rowing boat with one set of oars. He gestures for me to go first, and I climb in, the boat wobbling, me trying not to fall into the river again – that is something I could do without.
Alfie practically jumps in, making the boat wobble violently, but he has such good balance he just laughs at my expression, sits in the middle of the boat, tosses his rucksack on the boat floor behind him, and takes up the oars. He paddles us away and down the river, while I rest back and look around, up at the bank as we go past the shops and pubs.
We have to climb out of the boat again and carry it beside the overflow, so we can join the canal. I feel happier once we’re back in the boat and Alfie is rowing again. For a bit I don’t say anything, but keep meeting his eyes and smiling. After a while I start to feel more relaxed.
“Thank you so much for the other night. I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you,” I say.
For once he doesn’t smile, anger flashes across his face. “You would be. But it’s no problem; saving people from vampires is what I do.”
Oh my God, did he just say that? I gape at him, unsure what to say.
He laughs. “I’m not crazy! But you know it was a vampire that attacked you, even if you don’t believe it.”
“How can I believe it?” I shake my head. “How can it have been a … a … vampire? I must have been seeing things… I can’t have seen his teeth grow like that … it must have been the light. He probably had fake fangs. Extra sharp ones.” I look across at Alfie, challenging him to enlighten me.
“Extra sharp fake fangs?” He laughs again, but in an affectionate way. “Nope, they were real, and vampire fangs do that growing thing you just described, just before they feed. You are not delusional. Neither am I.”
“Huh,” I say, my mind reeling, no idea what to think. “And you regularly save people from vampires?”
“That’s a fact, but I don’t regularly take them on boat trips,” he meets my eye and smirks.
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“You think I’m crazy,” he says, and laughs again. He has a great laugh, and I wonder how he can take this all so lightly. “But I’m not. I’ll show you; prove it.”
“Why?”
“Because you are very pretty and I’d like to get to know you better. But I have a feeling that won’t work too well if you think I’m a loon.” He laughs again, but this time like it is some secret joke.
I feel my cheeks heat. He is so confident! He doesn’t seem at all embarrassed by what he just said. I watch his face as he looks around us at the scenery; we are now away from the houses which line the area around The Quay, we have passed my flat – which I didn’t point out to him in case he really is crazy – and are out into a more rural area, surrounded by reeds and trees, although there is a canal path near us and we still see the odd couple walking past, so we are not entirely alone. Regardless of his light-hearted manner, he seems deadly serious about this vampire business. I don’t know what to think. He seems genuine though, and I don’t feel threatened by him, so feel I may as well go along with this and see where it leads.
Also, something did attack me and I’d like to know more.
Suddenly he grins at me. “Your turn.”
“Ha, you’re going to regret this,” I say, getting down on my knees and shuffling to the centre of the boat, while he stands and makes a show of balancing around me.
He whistles nonchalantly, looking around us, while I get to grips with holding the oars the right way. I push them against the water and we do move: closer and closer to the bank.
I catch him smirking. “Hey! It’s tricky with going backwards and all.”
“Very tricky.”
He doesn’t seem bothered at all, or inclined to provide any advice, so I push harder into the water with one oar, trying to change my trajectory, but to no avail. There is a grating sound and we come to a stop.
He grins at me.
“I told you you’d regret it!”
“You’ll get better; all you need is practice.”
“It’s a good job you booked this for a while then.”
“I’m in no hurry.” He has a look around; we are surrounded by reeds and under the shelter of a willow tree, its drooping branches nearly reaching our heads. “In fact, this seems like a good place for a break.”
He picks up his rucksack and stands up. The boat tilts and I grip onto the sides, scared the boat will capsize, but he expertly climbs over me and onto the land, taking the rope out of the boat and tying it loosely around the trunk of
the willow tree.
“Come on!” he says, smiling wickedly.
I stand up very carefully and hold onto a bunch of wispy willow branches, which are quite crunchy with the remnants of autumn leaves, to ensure I keep my balance until I step onto the bank and sigh with relief. While I’ve been doing that Alfie has opened his rucksack and pulled out a waterproof-backed blanket, which he has spread out on a dryish patch of ground. He sits down and motions for me to join him. As I sit by his side he gets out two bottles of beer and a large bag of chilli crisps.
He opens a beer with his teeth, making me wince, and passes it to me.
“Thanks.” I’m not normally a beer drinker, but I take a sip and it is not too bad.
He opens his and downs half of it in one, then relaxes back onto his elbows.
“This is very nice,” I say. “Shame it’s not summer though, then it would be perfect.”
“Are you cold?”
“No, I’m wrapped up warm. Are you?”
“Nope, don’t get cold.”
“Not even after you jumped into the river to save me?”
“Nope, not even then – too much of an adrenaline buzz to feel it.”
“I didn’t get a buzz,” I say, thinking about my attacker.
“I’m sure you didn’t. Sorry I didn’t kill him for you.”
Not sure if he’s serious I ignore that comment. “Thank you for fighting him off. It’s horrible to think he’s still out there though – I really hope he hasn’t attacked anyone else.”
“He will, but we’ll catch him, don’t you worry.”
“We?”
“My pack.”
“Your … err … pack?”
“I’m a werewolf, in case you hadn’t figured it. You know, werewolves, the traditional enemies of vampires, always at war, all that malarkey,” he says, laughing.
His face turns serious and he looks intently into my eyes. His eyes are a light brown with rings of golden amber. They are very appealing.
“I’m not kidding,” he says. “I’ll prove it to you at the full moon.”
I raise my eyebrows. I do not believe him, or I don’t think I do, but he is good company, and even if he is delusional, right now I would quite like him to be my friend as he is a lot of fun.
“That, I’d like to see,” I say.
He laughs and leans back, looking up through the branches of the tree at the white puffy clouds moving overhead across the sharp blue sky. “Good,” he says.
For a while we munch away at the crisps without talking. I ponder him and what happened the other night; it is very perplexing, I wonder what Trish and Mark would think if they knew what he had said? Would they tell me to get away from him? Maybe I should, but I don’t want to, and he did save my life, so he can’t be that dangerous.
We stay there until the sky starts to darken. “We should head back,” I say, eyeing the sky. “We’ll get stuck out here in the dark.”
“No we won’t, werewolf remember – I have great eyesight. You can practice with the oars until it gets dark, then I’ll get us back.”
I decide to trust him, and take the risk. Back in the boat I push an oar against the edge until we are far enough from the bank that I have some leeway to make us move. It takes a while to get back into the centre, but I do succeed, and after rowing for a while I get a little better and begin to enjoy it, but darkness eventually comes and I have to give the oars back to Alfie.
As he rows back to The Quay we chat about other things, no more about werewolves and vampires, just about music, movies and computer games. It’s pretty watching the lights of the city get closer, and by the time we get back it is completely dark. The man in charge of the boats has left for the day so Alfie ties ours up with the others and this time he actually acts like a gentleman and helps me out of the boat.
“What next?” he says, a cheeky smile spreading across his face. “Cinema?”
“What? You haven’t seen enough of me yet?”
He laughs. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
I consider it (while blushing!); it is either staying home alone freaking out about what happened, or spending time with the guy who saved me. Regardless of his possible craziness, I trust him after what he did; I feel safer with him than alone.
“Sure, why not?” I say.
“Great.”
We walk back along the river, towards the site of my attack, and my heart rate picks up.
“Don’t worry,” Alfie says, “I’ll protect you.”
He must be able to sense my fear, either that or he actually possesses some common sense.
I nod. “I can’t avoid this area forever.”
As we approach where it happened I see someone sitting nearby on the concrete steps that line the river. Alfie spots me looking.
“It’s not him,” he says.
“You can tell from here?”
“Yes, werewolf remember; great eyesight.” He laughs, and I give him a sideways look, scrutinizing him. “You’ll believe me soon – only a few days until the full moon,” he says, looking up at the sky. As he looks up a cloud exposes a three-quarters full moon, looming on the horizon.
“But if I watch you change … won’t you bite me?” I say, playing along. Although he did navigate us back along the canal with no problem – he is right about the great eyesight. And he did fight off my attacker. And according to the movies vampires have super-strength, therefore he must have super-strength to have fought him off. That is if that guy really was a vampire, and not some freak with very sharp false teeth who freaked me out so much that I imagined them growing, then Alfie could have just regular strong guy strength; he does look muscly, and he is very large.
As we pass the guy sitting on the steps I feel his eyes on me so I look up, and for a second stop walking, and just stare back at him. He is beautiful. Black hair, wavy like Alfie’s, but a bit longer. He looks delicate, but intense. Dangerous.
Alfie puts his arm on my back. “Come on Ava,” he says, in a low voice.
This jolts me back to the present, and I realise I am still staring at this guy, and he is staring back at me. His lips quirk at the side, and then he looks away at the river.
I start walking again with Alfie, embarrassed that I had such a reaction to the guy on the steps. Whatever possessed me to stop and stare at him? What must Alfie think?
“I don’t want you walking alone at night again,” Alfie says. “I’ll walk you home tonight.”
“Thanks, but are you sure? I could get a taxi.”
“It’s no problem.”
We walk on, chatting about computer games again, but I feel shaken by that guy. There was something about him – the way he looked at me. I feel unsettled, it is weird, and feeling unsettled takes me back to the night I was bitten, getting me thinking about it all. A vampire … and now I am with a guy who claims to be a werewolf – is he serious or just messing about?
I look at Alfie again, thinking about his strength, his size, the rings of amber in his eyes, his eyesight…
“What is it?” he says.
“Just wondering about you – do you really think you’re a werewolf?” I say, as we reach the main road. Even though it is dark it’s not late, so it’s noisy with cars and there are plenty of people on the pavements.
“I don’t just think it – I am it! It’s hard to ignore changing into a wolf once a month.”
“What’s it like?” I say, really having no clue what to think. If it wasn’t for how safe he makes me feel there is no way I would stick around.
“It’s exhilarating. A real rush. Great fun, running around with my mates.”
“Do you hurt people?”
“Not me – no way!”
“But werewolf legends talk about werewolves attacking people, biting them to make them turn, or to just kill them.”
“I would never do that!”
“But what about other werewolves in your pack?”
“No! It’s forbidden to hurt humans in
my pack, and anyone who did would be chucked out. I have heard that other packs might, but I don’t know.”
“If you bit me would I turn?”
“Nope, it’s not like that; it’s a blood line thing. If you had a kid with me it might turn, but not you.”
Ignoring the comment about us having a kid together, I say, “Hey, what about vampires. I was bitten – I’m not going to turn into one, am I?”
He smiles, like he’s amused by my lack of knowledge. “Not unless he fed you his blood first, and then killed you, and if he did I must have missed that. And you’d be vampire already, munching on my throat. And you would have burned up in the sun.”
“They do that?”
“Well – let’s just say they can’t handle it well.”
He is either the best actor in the world, completely delusional, or telling the truth. It is very strange that I am not running, I am guessing I am in denial as a result of my ordeal.
“This is all so crazy,” I say, and look up at him. “You know that, right?”
He laughs loudly. “I know it must seem that way to you. To me it’s just life.”
“Are you allowed to tell me this stuff?”
“Yep, because you’re in the know; you saw one of those things. I can’t just divulge this secret info to any pretty girl to impress them.”
“I’m not sure it would be the best strategy anyway,” I say.
“You may be right,” he replies, still light-hearted.
We arrive at the cinema and spend a while debating what to see, before settling on a thriller. We buy large popcorn packs instead of dinner and munch through the movie. His upper arm leans against mine right the way through, but I don’t know if this is on purpose, or whether it is just because he takes up so much space. At one point we have a mini popcorn fight, until we get shushed. He is definitely a fun guy, good to be around, and very nice to look at, but I don’t know if I actually fancy him. And I kind of suspect that maybe he does fancy me – I hope it doesn’t get awkward.
