by K. A. Poe
I stared into his pale blue eyes, wondering if he was telling the truth. If he really was a vampire there was no telling over how many years he could have perfected the art of lying. “If your kind is nothing to be afraid of, why do hunters even exist?”
“I said a lot of us, not all of us. There are some vampires that are still a definite threat to society, and that is why the Waldron lineage exists. Your ancestors are natural born hunters of our kind. It would overwhelm you to know just how many vampires exist in the world, how many exist in just this little town. That is why hunters exist.”
I gulped at his words, trying to avoid wondering just how many vampires were roaming around in what I thought to be a peaceful little town. Sure, Willowshire wasn't perfect – we had criminals just as any town did, but thinking that there were undead monsters roaming through the city sounded far more sinister than your everyday crook. “Are your special abilities a part of being...what you are?”
“No,” he said quietly, “I have always assumed it was something to do with my father’s heritage.”
“Your last name is kind of contradictory, too,” I said, speaking my thoughts again. “That is, assuming all those vampire stories are true – and that you have been a vampire for a long time...” I was prepared to ramble, but he stopped me.
He smirked. “I suppose you are right. However, how did you know that I'm not as young as you are?”
“The way you talk and dress, your love for classical music and books, and maybe a little that you can’t drive a car,” I laughed.
“Those are all very valid reasons,” he replied, “of course, how ancient must you be to love classical music and books as well?”
“Ha! That has nothing to do with how old I am.”
We laughed for a couple of minutes, but I stopped abruptly and glanced at him. “Well, how old are you?”
“I was born in 1885,” he replied, bracing himself in assumption that I would freak out.
“You're 126?” I gaped at him, quickly doing the math in my head.
“More or less,” he shrugged, “it's hard to keep track after all of this time. After a couple dozen they start to blend together.”
I glanced up toward the auto shop window and saw Paul glaring out at us. I wondered if he could see Salem despite the glare on my windshield.
“We should probably get out of here...” I muttered and Salem followed my gaze.
“Let's go to your house,” he said quickly.
“Why would we go there?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.
“Don't you want to?”
“I guess...” I sighed as I turned left onto the road. “Not like there’s anything there for me now, though.”
“All of your belongings are there.”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“It will make you feel better,” he assured me, but I was certain it would do the opposite. Nevertheless, I agreed to go home...at least temporarily.
7. BLACK BEARS
The house was cold, vacant and depressing. I wanted to run to my room, collapse onto my bed and sleep until this nightmare was over. Salem followed me inside although uninvited, admiring his surroundings as we passed through the kitchen and into the living room. It was incredibly dull and shabby in contrast to his house. I groaned when I smelled the sour milk that had spilled across the dining room floor the prior morning. I quickly gathered the mop and cleaned it up, spraying the area with cleaner to eliminate the wretched smell.
“You never did explain to me how you afford to live in that mansion of yours,” I commented as I watched him look around my place.
“It is hardly a mansion, and technically, I did,” he said as he looked at the TV set, “I told you I can make things materialize at will.”
“So you’re telling me you created a whole house?” I said sarcastically.
He laughed lightly. “No, of course I didn’t. The house was abandoned when I arrived here, barely more than a rotting hull. The furniture and touch-ups, however…”
“How do you do it?” He was still fascinated by the TV. I grabbed the remote off of the boring, scratched up brown coffee table.
“Magic,” he grinned up at me.
I glared. “I’m serious, tell me how?”
“I think of something, and it appears. It is really simple.”
“Anything?”
“No. I can materialize a wide variety of objects. The smaller they are, the easier it is for me. I definitely could never manage anything as large as a house. And it's not something I am in constant control of.”
“What do you mean?”
“I only discovered the ability a few years ago and sometimes it works...other times, not so much,” he laughed somewhat to himself. “Initially, things sort of backfired. For example, if I were to imagine a lamp...it would come out disfigured and broken. I eventually figured it out, though.”
“And what happened when you first figured out you could do this…magic?”
“Well, I was...startled, as anyone would be,” he appeared to be deep in thought. “But considering who and what I am, it didn't affect me as much as it may would others, I suppose.”
I hit the power button on the TV remote and a news report spread across the 32' screen. Salem jumped back.
“Please tell me you’ve at least seen a TV before.”
“I'm 126 years old Alexis, of course I have seen a television,” he shook his head at me. “I just wasn't expecting it to come on.”
I wasn't paying attention at this point; I was watching the TV intently. The slick-haired man behind the screen was talking about an incident in Denver, Colorado. My heart was beating rapidly as I stared. I hardly noticed Salem walk up beside me.
“What is it?” he asked, watching the screen.
I tuned out his voice and heard only the rough voice of the news reporter.
“Earlier today at the Denver Zoo, a black bear escaped its holding pens while a zookeeper was placing food in its enclosure,” he spoke quickly, “the woman was found brutally attacked within the bear's exhibit. We are still unsure how the bear escaped.”
My heart sunk as a picture of a woman was pulled up on the screen. “No!” I screamed.
Salem's voice reached my ears again. “Alexis...” It was merely a gentle whisper, right behind my ear.
“No! Don't you dare speak to me or touch me!” I shouted, pushing him away. “Mark did this! I know it!”
He looked taken aback by my assumption. “You think Mark did this?” he frowned. “We aren't like that, Alexis. There is no evidence that he had any involvement. The reporter clearly said that it was a bear attack.”
“That doesn't make him innocent! It could all be some sort of cover up!”
“You are just upset because he took her from you.”
“That has nothing to do with it!” Or did it? It was more Paul's fault than Mark’s wasn't it? I fell back on the sofa. “Did it say...did it say if she was still alive?”
“I didn't hear anything about her dying,” he sat beside me on the faux leather couch. “I assure you, it has nothing to do with Mark.”
“I won't believe it until I hear it from mom – Janet, I mean.” Not calling her mom was going to take a while to get used to.
“Why don't you call her?” he suggested.
“Right,” I nodded, relaxing just a little as I stood up and got the cordless phone from the kitchen. So much for crude accusations the first time I called her after she left. I dialed her cell phone number. It rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?” a deep male's voice replied.
“Is Janet there?” I said.
“She can’t come to the phone right now. Who is this?”
“This is her daughter,” I said, ignoring the fact that I wasn't really her daughter anymore…or never was, I supposed. “Please, just put her on the phone.”
“She's a little out of it right now, but I'll see if she is able.”
“Thank you,” I said.
&nb
sp; Silence followed, and then muffled voices in the background.
“Alexis?” her voice was different, scared, weak. “I was about to have Mark call you.”
“How are you?” I felt relieved to hear her voice, but something about the way she spoke made me uneasy.
“I have been better,” I heard her laugh, which was cut through with a hoarse cough and groan. “Happy birthday, sweetie.”
“Thanks, mom...” I muttered. “Tell me what happened.”
I heard the muffled voice of Mark in the background but I couldn't decipher what he was saying. “I was feeding the brown bears, when one of them must have gotten loose-”
I broke her off suddenly. “The person on the news said black bears.”
“Right...” she trailed off, “black bears. My mind is a bit hazy right now.”
“Did Mark do something to you?” I blurted out anxiously.
“Of course not!” her voice sounded unconvincing, almost as anxious as my own, “he's right here with me in the hospital, making sure I'm taken care of.”
“How badly were you hurt, are you going to be okay?”
“It's not as bad as the TV might make it sound. It's just a few scratches really.”
“The news reporter said you were brutally injured.”
“The TV was over-exaggerating, like they always do. You know that.” I heard another bout of coughing then Janet's voice was replaced by the deep male again. “Janet needs her rest. I'll have her call you back when she is feeling better.”
He hung up. I crumbled onto the sofa, bawling my eyes out in frustration.
“What did she say?” Salem asked tenderly as he sat beside me.
I filled him in on the entire conversation, including the errors in her story. It must have been difficult to comprehend through my sobs.
“Perhaps she is just hazy like she said...” he said with the faintest hint of doubt in his voice.
“You don't believe it any more than I do, do you?” I said, sitting up and looking into his eyes.
He looked down, strands of black falling across his face. “I believe that Mark was in no way responsible for this.”
“I need to go to her,” I said suddenly, angrily. Was no one on my side today?
“No, you don't. Everything will be fine, trust me.”
“Trust you!? I don’t even know you!”
“Alexis, you need to calm down. Relax.”
“Calm down!? First my mom leaves me, then I find out all this unbelievable crap about Paul and vampires, and now my mom is laying in some hospital bed with some monster supposedly watching over her!”
“Even if it were true about Mark, you wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
“I could help her!”
“No, you couldn’t. And besides…you are too important to risk, regardless my insistence on Mark’s goodness.”
“Important? You barely even know me, Salem!”
“As far as you know,” he whispered.
“What are you even talking about?”
“I can't explain it right now,” he sighed. “Your friends are expecting you to be bright and cheerful.”
“What?”
“It's your birthday, remember?” he grinned. “They're coming over to celebrate.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “That blonde haired girl might have mentioned it.”
“Of course she did...” I grumbled. “Is this the real reason you wanted me to come home so badly?”
“That might have played some part in it, yes.”
8. HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Salem remained downstairs in the living room while I took a quick shower before my visitors arrived. I changed out of my blue jeans and red tank top into a flowing dark blue skirt and white, semi-frilly sleeveless shirt. I felt a little over-dressed, but it was my birthday party after all, so why not. Time passed slowly as I waited for the guests to arrive, and Salem was sitting silently on the sofa staring off into space. I wondered what was on his mind, but before I had the chance to question him someone hammered their fist against the door. Salem came out of his stupor at once and stood up.
I peeked through the tiny peephole and groaned. There were at least ten of my classmates waiting out there. After putting on a false smile, I reluctantly twisted the door knob and let them flood into my house. They piled their presents upon the dining room table and wished me happy birthday individually. I was surprised to not see Jason or Karen among the crowd.
“Karen told me to tell you she’d be a little late,” Brittany Crosswood said casually, as if answering my unspoken question. She was more of Karen's friend than my own. In fact most of these people were little more than acquaintances, despite being in the same room as most of them for countless hours.
“Ah, okay,” I said quietly. Someone turned on the old, black stereo that sat on the end table beside the sofa and started blaring music. I sighed.
Jason showed up about five minutes later, bustling in through the door without knocking and heaving a gift at me with a grin. The present was flat and badly wrapped. “Open it!”
“Now?” I asked, rattling the present around. “Shouldn’t we wait until I open the other presents too?”
“Nah, no one's going to care,” he insisted.
“Okay...” I pulled at the paper and gasped in shock when I realized what it was. I gaped at the sleek, black laptop that I held in my hands, temporarily speechless. “Oh, Jace! This is too much!” I flung my arms around his muscular form in a tight hug.
He laughed happily. “You’ve been saying for so long that you wanted one, so I’ve been secretly saving up my allowance and money from the part time job at Howard's.”
Howard's was a small convenient store in town that Jason had worked at for the past five months or so. I could feel them coming, the warmth of tears building up in my eyes. I fought them, but I wasn't strong enough. Not today. I hugged him tightly again. “You shouldn't have...” I whispered.
“I wanted to,” he grinned, “besides, after what you've been through, I’m extra glad I decided to do it. You needed some excitement, after…well, you know – all that.”
If only he knew just how much I had gone through. I finally released him and happily ran to my room to put away my new laptop. As I headed back down the stairs, I saw the front door whip open and Karen came waltzing in carrying what was unmistakably a cake box. I smiled and approached her.
“Happy birthday, Alex!” she shouted when she saw me. “You look so much better than when you left school. I was worried sick, really.”
“I feel a lot better too, and thanks…I will be okay,” I lied; the excitement from the computer had been enough to mask the stress on my face, for now. “So, what kind of cake did you get?”
I pictured the cheesecake Salem had summoned for me last night, knowing that this one would not compare. “It’s just chocolate with vanilla frosting. It's not very exciting, I know...but I didn’t know what to get. I figured this was the safest bet with so many people here. And I mean, if you don’t like chocolate you can get out! Right?”
“That’s right!” We both laughed, and for the briefest of moments everything else melted away temporarily.
“So he didn’t come, huh?”
“What? Who?”
“That new boy from school. I saw him like, right after you told us about him. He’s got a cruuush on you I think,” she said teasingly.
“He didn’t?” I said as I glanced into the living room, expecting to see him sitting down on the sofa again, but instead seeing a room full of people dancing to the beat of an unrecognizable song playing on the radio. I could barely imagine what it would be like when Jason threw his party – I knew way more than ten people would be showing up for that one. “Let me handle this,” Karen said in disgrace when she saw my face. I watched her casually enter the living room and shut off the radio. “How about everyone get ready for Alex to open her presents while I order us some pizza?”
E
veryone settled down after cheering at the idea of pizza. I smiled thankfully at my blonde friend as she passed by to order the food. The crowd of teenagers deserted the living room and filled the small dining area, surrounding me and the table of unopened gifts. Karen joined them after hanging up the phone.
“You’ve got to open mine first!” she insisted, handing me a small white gift bag.
I knew no matter what anyone got me, it wouldn't compare to the laptop from Jason. I opened the bag to reveal a gift card to Karen's favorite clothes store. I smiled, despite my disappointment. A gift card to almost anywhere else would have suited me better, but she was always insistent upon me changing my style. Chances were that this would only end up lost somewhere, never used – but it was the thought that counted, I suppose.
Next was a present from Mitchell Banner, Jason's younger brother. It was a simple card with ten dollars in it – fine with me; money was almost always my favorite choice of gift – I could get whatever I really wanted that way. I shot him a smile and said ‘thank you’ before tearing open the next gift. As the pile dwindled down to the very last one, I had a mass of random things before me that I didn't need or necessarily want, but was nevertheless thankful for.
“Who is that one from?” Karen asked curiously, pointing at the last remaining present.
The last gift on the table was neatly wrapped in shining teal paper. I eyed it suspiciously, having not seen anyone bring it in. As I picked it up, I felt my heartbeat quicken when I read the tag: 'From Salem.'
“It's from him...” I said quietly.
“Who? That boy?! So he is here?” her voice grew excited as she glanced around the room.
“I-I don't know,” I said honestly, wondering where he had escaped to.
I tore open the paper, and my jaw dropped. It was an entire collection of Edgar Allan Poe's work in a beautiful leather bound book, identical to the one Janet had left behind. There was a thin piece of paper, roughly the size of a bookmark, sticking up between the pages. I flipped through the book and pulled out the paper. In beautifully scripted letters it read 'To my little raven.', and it was placed on the page where The Raven began. I felt my cheeks grow warm. I shut the book hastily as Karen came creeping over to peek over my shoulder.
