Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Vampire Summer ❯ . . . Is There? ( Chapter 2 )

 

 

Sam showed up on Sunday morning. I was still asleep and Crystal was in the living room eating a bowl of cereal when he walked in. He still had a key.

 

“I'm taking Crystal for the week,” he told me, glaring at me as I stared up groggily at him from my bed in the back bedroom. No word of greeting to me, no indication that anything might have been wrong to drive me away from him, from our house, our life. He didn't want me. I hadn't thought he wanted Crystal either, but maybe I was wrong.

 

“But, but. . .” I sputtered, still half-asleep. “We're. . . on vacation!” I protested. That's what I had told him in the note I left him last week. He'd never called, never questioned it.

 

“I'll bring her back Saturday,” he said, as he moved around the cottage putting Crystal's empty bowl into the sink. He didn't bother taking any of the clothes I had packed for her. Why would he? She had a whole closet full of clothes at home.

 

I had to let her go. Sam was her father. He had stopped being my husband a long time ago. The pain of that knowledge twisted through my stomach. It was why I had finally left him. I struggled to get out of bed. “You'll bring her back next Saturday?” I repeated. “What time?”

 

He sneered. “Why? So you can be sure you're back from your date?”

 

I sat back down suddenly. That wasn't fair. I blinked back tears, too tired to argue. I had never cheated on him! He had never cheated on me, to my knowledge, either. He just wasn't there for me, in body or spirit. For the past few years, it had been Crystal and me. Sam was never around.

 

Crystal was oblivious to the tension between us. She was genuinely happy to see her father. “Bye, Mommy!” she called, holding his hand as he led her out the door. “Say good-bye to Johnny for me!”

 

Sam glanced back, his lips tightening. “Johnny. I should have known.”

 

“No, no, you've got it wrong!” I quickly clarified. “Johnny is just a kid. He's Crystal's friend, not mine.” I don't know why I was telling Sam this. What did I care what he thought?

 

“Johnny's a vampire,” Crystal added helpfully.

 

“Great,” Sam muttered, giving me a disgusted glance as he pulled Crystal behind him. He buckled her in and drove off, spraying a cloud of dust as he went down the dirt road.

 

The cottage seemed empty without Crystal. I didn't bother turning on the TV. Instead, I puttered around, putting Crystal's things away. Sam had better bring her back on Saturday, or he'd have my lawyer to deal with. If I had a lawyer. It was beginning to sink in that I might need one. I had gone to the cottage to think things over, but it seemed as if Sam had made my decision for me. I shuddered. After having Crystal to myself for all of her young life, it was going to be difficult to share her.

 

In the late afternoon I drove into town to buy groceries. I also bought some multi-vitamins. My mind kept shying away from the thought that Johnny might actually be a vampire. I wondered if maybe blood loss was affecting my ability to think clearly, which is why I bought the vitamins. I also bought steak—and liver. And leafy green vegetables. You couldn't be too careful.

 

The town of Lockwood was about 10 miles east, and between the lake and town there was nothing but woods and fields, with the occasional old farmhouse set far back from the road. I had left myself plenty of time to get there and back before dark. The sun was a huge orange ball against the horizon, and I was driving straight into it. I shaded my eyes with one hand as the road seemed to shimmer in front of me. Suddenly, I thought I saw something in the middle of the road.

 

I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a stop. When I looked again, there was nothing. I checked behind the car, just to be sure, but again there was nothing. Must have been my imagination. Shakily, I got back into the car and continued driving. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a figure standing off to the side of the road. Was that Johnny? I couldn't be sure, and even if it was, I had no desire to stop. I stepped on the gas.

 

I made myself a fine dinner of steak and spinach, and topped it off with a big glass of cabernet. I figured I deserved it after the day, after the week I'd had. Before I went to bed, I double-checked all the doors and windows. Johnny never showed up, to my relief. It never occurred to me to go home, to the house where Sam and Crystal now slept. I'd made my bed; Sam had made that quite clear to me today. I wasn't welcome in our house anymore.

 

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was everything all at once, but finally the tears came, and I cried myself to sleep.

 

It was that velvety black that only came in the middle of the night out at the cottage, which was isolated even from the moon and stars by a thick canopy of tree branches. I started awake, and couldn't see my hand in front of my own face, but I knew someone was in the room with me. My heart thudded painfully against my chest.

 

Suddenly I was pushed back into the pillows, and an angry voice shouted right in my face. “Where is she? Where's Crystal?”

 

I couldn't breathe. I gasped, searching for air, and my captor lessened the pressure on my chest. A moment later, the room was flooded with yellow light. I blinked rapidly. The transition from dark to light was physically painful.

 

Johnny stood over me, a look of pure fury on his face. I don't know how I ever could have thought of him as young. My earlier words to Sam echoed in my head. `He's Crystal's friend, not mine.' A shiver went down my spine. It was true, wasn't it? Johnny came because of Crystal. It had nothing to do with me.

 

“She's gone with her father,” I said dully, not looking up.

 

I finally glanced up after a few minutes. Johnny hadn't moved, hadn't spoken. He looked like a statue staring down at me. Then he turned, and before I could register what was happening, he left. Quickly, I scrambled out of bed and followed him. He couldn't have gone too far. I hadn't heard any door or window open. I found him in the front bedroom, lying in Crystal's bed, staring up at the ceiling. One glance at the front door showed me it was still locked and bolted. How had he gotten in?

 

“Don't think you can keep her from me,” he said in a low voice without turning his head. “It will be worse if you try.”

 

For the second time that day I was taken aback. I hadn't tried to do that. I should have. If I had been thinking straight, I would have taken Crystal far away from Johnny and the unspoken danger he represented. But I hadn't. I hadn't even thought about it. “It's only for a week,” I blurted, before I realized what I was saying. This had been the perfect opportunity to let Johnny think she wasn't coming back, and I'd let it slip past.

 

Like lightning he was up and grasping my forearms. “Good,” he said softly, sounding not at all like a teenager. “Then I'll only punish you this time.”

 

Everything went black. If he sucked my blood, I didn't know about it. This time I woke up on the floor in front of the cold fireplace, feeling sick and faint. This couldn't go on. I was going to die if it did. For the life of me, I couldn't drum up the energy to care.

 

Later in the day, I forced myself to get up and sit outside in the sun for a little while. I took one of my vitamins and ate a bowl of Crystal's cereal because it said `fortified' on the box. I went for a walk up the dirt road behind us, and picked some wildflowers from the side of the road to put on the little fold-down table on my porch. I thought about calling someone, maybe Crystal, to hear her voice, but I decided against it. What would that do? She was safe with Sam.

 

Johnny didn't come back for three nights. I lived in constant fear, or was it anticipation, that he would return and finish what he started. In the meantime, I ate well, more healthily than I normally did, at any rate. I exercised. I kept busy. I should have left. I should have gotten into my car and driven away and never looked back. Johnny didn't know where we were from. He seemed so clueless about ordinary things. I didn't think he would know how to look us up. His threats the night Crystal went home with Sam were just that—threats. He couldn't hurt anyone else. How would he find them?

 

But something in the back of my mind nagged at me. What if I were wrong? What if Johnny had the means to track us down, either through technology or through some esoteric means known only to vampires? I didn't want to take a chance, so I stayed.

 

By the third night, I had stopped looking over my shoulder for him, and I resumed my ordinary routine. I decided to strip Crystal's bed and wash the sheets so they would be fresh for when she came back on Saturday.

 

I froze, one hand on the edge of her mattress. There was an indentation in her pillow that hadn't been there yesterday. I know, because I'd fluffed that pillow out myself. He had been here. Johnny had been in this very room and I hadn't known it. Why was he so fascinated with Crystal? With both of us? Why us? With a sudden wrench, I tore the sheets off the bed and ripped the pillowcase off the offending pillow. He could just find somewhere else to sleep. I quickly re-made the bed with fresh sheets and closed the door behind me, almost stumbling into Johnny as I turned the corner.

 

“Oof,” I said, dropping my armful of dirty laundry.

 

He looked at me, then at the closed door to Crystal's room, then he grabbed my elbow and led me over to the table. I sat, confused and a little apprehensive. Was he mad at me for taking the sheets off Crystal's bed? Still not speaking, Johnny walked over to the kitchen sink and poured a large glass of water, which he handed to me.

 

“Drink,” he said, watching me intently.

 

“Why?” I asked suspiciously, but I drank the water.

 

“Crystal's coming home soon, right?” he asked. “She's going to need you.”

 

“Going to need me. . .” My voice trailed away. He was making sure I had plenty of liquid to replenish my blood, just like I'd told him.

 

Johnny looked at me solemnly. “She'd better come home,” he said, just before he came close to me and gently removed the glass from my slack hand. “If she doesn't need you, then neither do I.”

 

It was always sudden, always violent, and I floated away into oblivion. When I woke the next day, another tall glass of water sat by my bedside, with a multi-vitamin next to it.

 

Crystal's homecoming made me happy. Even Sam was civil to me. We talked, while Crystal played on the beach. We would be getting a divorce when I came back home in the fall. Sam was going to get things started. He wanted to be a bigger part of Crystal's life. That was a laugh. My old self would have said something cutting, or bitter, but my new self was glad he was determined to be there for his daughter. She might need him after this summer. I couldn't tell Sam about Johnny. Not yet. He wouldn't believe me. But if anything happened to me, I knew Sam would be a good father to Crystal. That's all I'd ever wanted. Not really. I wished he still loved me, or I still loved him. But that boat had sailed. I had to face it.

 

“I'll take her every other weekend until we get this settled,” he told me, and I agreed, mainly because I couldn't think of a good reason not to. `The vampire might kill me if you take her away' didn't sound like a viable excuse. We shook on it, then Sam took off in his car, which he had driven right to the beach. He had never been big on walking anywhere.

 

If I was happy to get Crystal back, Johnny was ecstatic. He was at the cottage when we walked back up from the beach, and for once his face looked as young as it should have been if he had been an ordinary boy.

 

“Johnny!” Crystal squealed as she ran to him. He caught her up and swung her around effortlessly, his slim body being a lot stronger than it looked. I watched, but he didn't seem interested in her blood. They sat on the floor in front of the fireplace and played checkers and Candyland while I sipped a glass of wine on the couch. I felt a little out of sorts. It wasn't right. Johnny was younger than me, at least in physical appearance, but he was certainly older than Crystal. What was he up to?

 

He tucked her in when she finally fell asleep, and I followed them to make sure he left her there, safe and sound. He grinned at me, amused at my rather obvious train of thought, as he gently closed her door over so the light from the living room wouldn't shine in her eyes. “Don't worry, I won't harm her,” he assured me.

 

“And me?” I asked. Last time, he had pointed out that I hadn't asked for myself.

 

“No promises,” he answered. “But I won't kill you, not yet. Crystal needs you still.”

 

He kept saying that. What did he mean? “What's Crystal to you?” I asked him.

 

“She's my life.”

 

No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. Crystal was my life! Why did everybody keep wanting to take her away from me? “She's just a little girl,” I said, trying to keep a handle on my feelings. “What could you possibly have in common with a little girl?”

 

Johnny's eyes gleamed. “She won't be little forever. I can wait.”

 

“What do you mean? You're going to wait until she's older to—to—drink her blood?”

 

Johnny laughed. “Yes,” he answered. “And she will drink my blood, and we will be together forever. I knew it the moment I saw her. I told you—she's my life.”

 

That was not going to happen. Not ever. My eyes hardened as I regarded the baby-faced vampire in front of me. “You'll have to kill me first,” I gritted out.

 

“Not first, later, when Crystal doesn't need you anymore,” Johnny affirmed. “Then I'll kill you.”

 

“I'll tell,” I threatened, sounding like a second-grader.

 

“No, you won't,” Johnny said, smiling.

 

“Why not?” In my anger, I lost some of my healthy fear of him, which was unfortunate. He didn't answer me with words. This time, it was a day and a night before I woke up again, and when I did, Johnny was there, cooking supper for Crystal. It wasn't that I didn't care after that; it was more that I didn't have the energy to care. And that's how he controlled me.