The Cold Ones

Chapter Eleven - Vampire

Okay, it wasn’t exactly darkness, the curtains just weren’t open.

I opened the dark velvet curtains and was greeted by a burst of sunlight.

I had a much clearer vision of the room.

There was a massive queen-sized bed in the center of the room, the covers were messy. The bed had not been made up. This was shocking since this was Ian’s bedroom.

There was a working desk, piled high with textbooks and papers. This must be where his brainy juices flow. I laughed at my own joke.

There was large mahogany cupboards filled with all of his off the top clothes.

There was another large round table in the room piled with all sorts of things: pens, papers, candles and books.

I walked over, curious.

I examined the pieces and smiled at the few baby pictures that I found of Ian.

There was a recent picture of Uncle Russell and his girlfriend, Ferra, posing in the garden.

I decided that I’d have to buy Ian a photo-album to keep all of these photos in.

I was rummaging through the photos, smiling, bursting out laughing, but then I came across something that made my lips purse, like I had just sucked a lemon.

The photo was of a girl that looked exactly the same as me.

But I was pretty sure that it wasn’t me.

The girl had long curly hair, lying all to one side.

The picture was browning, so I couldn’t really make out what colour the dress was.

She was standing against a tree smiling, what I would call a seductive looking smile.

I turned the picture around and looked at the date.

19 June 1871.

A lump appeared in my throat.

I tried to make sense of all of this.

Ian, my boyfriend, had a picture of a girl that looked exactly the same like me, that dated to the year 1871.

I started to breathe heavily.

What the hell was going on?

Ian walked into the room, with a big grin on his face.

‘Sorry I took so long.’ He apologized.

‘What is this?’ I asked almost yelling.

He looked at the picture and fear flooded through his face.

‘Where did you find that?’ He said running over and grabbing the picture.

‘That’s not important, Ian. I wanna know why in heck’s name you have a picture of a girl that looks just like me from 140 years ago!’ I shrieked.

The tears started to burst from my eyes now. I didn’t even bother to wipe them away. I was angry, confused and hurt. Ian was keeping things from me, and we were supposedly in a relationship.

‘Marney, please calm down. I’ll explain everything; you just need to stop yelling.’ He said, rubbing my arm.

‘Don’t touch me!’ I said and then ran out of the room, through the long corridor, down the stairs, Ian’s family sitting at the table, looking curiosly at me.

I didn’t care. I ran past them and out of that house. I ran all the way down the road, my heart pounding in my chest.

I tripped and scratched my knee on the road’s hard surface.