Hunter's Moon

Chapter 12

            “Huh? Wha?” Taylor asked as she woke up. “Oh, no. What time is it?” Taylor looked at her watch and muttered a curse under her breath. “My article!” She pulled her laptop close to her, and within a few minutes of typing, she let out a sigh of relief.

            Matthew looked at her. “Everything okay?”

            “I've gotten a reprieve from the hangman's noose. The article I was supposed to have in by ten this morning . . .”

            “which is in fifteen minutes,” Matthew said with a grin.

            “ . . . I am now allowed to get it in by the evening cut-off and have it not considered late.” Taylor finished. “But, I should also jet back to campus.”

            Taylor worked, as part of a journalism internship with both the college newspaper and local news channel. Among her various tasks were appearing as an on-air personality for one of the talk radio shows. Being the 'intern' involved a lot of stereotypical BS that she put up with because the contacts generated through the job would help her later in life. Other responsibilities were covering a news blog on the college paper's website, the latest update was going up late that day.

            She got up, scratched behind Cal's ear, and walked toward the door. When she got there she turned around, and noticed Matthew hadn't followed her. “You coming? You don't have a car out here.”

            “I'll stay here with Robert. I think getting this figured out is something that needs to be done.”

            “Okay. I'll be in touch, but I've got to get to class.” Then she was out the door, Cal following closely behind.

            Matthew sat back down and looked through the closest tome.

            A few minutes later, Robert came walking into the house, carrying a pair of paper grocery bags, “Matthew, you didn't leave with Taylor?”

            “Well, I just told her we need to figure out what the vampires are doing and I've got no classes today. Figured you could still use the help.”

            Robert nodded, then started putting groceries away. “M'kay. I've been up all night searching. I took a break, to keep the words from running together, and ran a few errands. I've got to get some shut eye. Help yourself to the fridge or pantry if you're hungry. I'll be back out in a few hours.”

            Matthew nodded. There had to be some clue to what the vampires were doing. It was for the full moon . . . he just kept searching.

            Walking out of the Lowell Library, Juli looked at her watch. Apparently searching through the stacks for obscure court cases took a lot of time, but could prove potentially beneficial to her assignment.

            She walked down the front steps. At the bottom she saw someone and smiled. “Ed, hey man, you hungry? I was just about to go grab something to eat.”

            Ed looked at her and then glanced from side to side. “Is it safe?” he leaned in and whispered into her ear. “Word is that you’re dangerous to be around today.”

            She felt her face go crimson from ear to ear, “Oh no. Word spread about me telling off Tony huh?”

            “Already posted to YouTube, baby,” Ed replied sympathetically, “and let me say it was spectacular; you definitely made it clear to him that things were over.”

            They started walking across campus. “Well, last night, with all the calling, and I was suffering through a hangover this morning.”

            “Ah, yes, last night. I was going to ask about that. What got you so spooked?” Ed asked, deep concern in his eyes. When she didn't respond, he paused and took her gently by the shoulder to get her attention, “Julianna Layne, we've been best friends for a long time. I've seen you at your worst. Last night, you were exponentially worse than any time I've ever seen before. Talk to me, girl, what happened?”

            “I . . . I'm not sure . . . I don't know what happened.” Juli replied as she started walking again, “I mean, one second I was sitting there at the table and getting hit on by some low-life, the next I could see myself in his eyes . . . like, I saw the two of us in his eyes . . .” Her voice quavered a bit as the vision came back to the forefront of her mind, “It was awful. He was killing me. No, he wasn't killing me. He killed me, like I was just a piece of meat. In the vision he was a vampire.” She started to shake again, as they entered the university cafeteria. “It was . . . so real, so very real.”

            Ed put his arm around her again. “Whoa, that's . . . this is the guy I saw running out of the club like a dog with his tail between his legs?”

            Juli nodded, wiping a tear away from her eye, not liking how the memory, was that the right term, made her feel. “Please, I don't want to think about it anymore, can we just . . . eat?”

            Ed nodded and they made their way into the cafeteria.