Chasing Sunrise

Three

"Vampire." The word hung between us, like a dull note struck on a piano that rang in the air, overstaying its welcome. My heart broke. Was I really? More tears flooded my eyes and I began to cry in earnest.

"I mean," he went on, "you are and you aren't. You've got human emotions, which like I said, doesn't add up."

I wrapped my arms more firmly around my knees and settled my backpack against my side. The soles of my boots scraped against the tile as I shifted my weight.

"Okay, look," said Corban. "I do not want to be causing you pain, here. I just... I hunt vampires and I thought you were one and we can't have any running around this school. You can understand that, right? A no-bloodsucker policy?"

"You believe in vampires?" I asked.

"You and I both know they exist, so let's not dance around that whole issue," he said. "Are you some new breed? Have vamps evolved new skills?"

It occurred to me if I called 911 from my phone now, this could be over. Any dispatcher who overheard what Corban said would think he was nuts.

I didn't do that, though, because I was still frozen, and I suspected he wasn't nuts. He was only the second person I'd ever met who talked about vampires being real. Being one of the select few to know about them had been its own little prison sentence for me, so isolating that I'd begun to doubt my memories, despite the evidence I saw in the mirror every morning.

"What do you know about vampires?" I whispered, my lack of voice so breathy, I wondered if he'd even hear.

"I know they're demons who take the bodies of humans, and they spread through a population like a virus. That's why I kill them."

"So you're going to kill me?" I asked.

For a moment, he said nothing. Then, "Do you want a vampire loose in this high school? Be completely honest."

I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand. "No," I said. "I don't."

"Interesting. So, would you agree with me that if you are one, you need to be taken care of?"

"I don't want to die."

"Sure, nobody does. That's a really un-vampy answer, though. Usually it's some screed about how they're the superior race and they can feed on whoever they want and no one can defeat them and all that."

So I wasn't just a vampire, I was also doing it wrong. Great.

"Hey," he said. "That was a compliment."

"Still hung up on the you-killing-me thing," I said.

"Oh... Yeah, that's fair. You seem human, though. Either you're in line for an Academy Award, or you're not acting."

I would never, in a million years, win an Academy Award.

"Tell me what happened to you," he said. "Help me understand what you are. Did someone turn you or... what?"

Those weren't memories I wanted to revisit, especially not to share with a stranger, still, if I had to argue my case, I needed to order my thoughts.

*

The Hawke Academy was a wealthy campus of stone buildings that sent dreaming spires skyward along its rooflines. The doorways and windows topped out in gothic arches. There was a main quad with all the academic buildings and dining hall, and then our dorms were down a hill, abutting miles and miles of state-owned forest land, so remote that we could hear the crack of hunting rifles during deer season. It was the kind of place that evoked a sense of isolation, and everyone there had been in mourning since last fall.