He enjoyed the feeling of her skin on his for a moment and then pressed the conference button. “Dad. I’m okay. I just have something to tell you.”
“Mr. Giver? Is this Mr. Giver?” she spoke up with authority.
He set the phone down and waited for the conversation to turn into a circus when she explained who she was.
She continued, “Mr. Giver, my name is Kyli Waterfield.”
“Waterfield? As in the hotel Zack’s at right now?” John’s voice calmed.
“Mr. Giver, I met Zack at the Gothic club he went to. He more than caught my attention,” she smirked at Zack. “Early the next day, I called him up and we went to my hotel to talk more.” her tone seemed to suggest that more happened than what she described.
“Go on,” John merely said.
He buried his head in his hands, silently waiting for it to all end.
“That night I took a liking to Zack. We started talking and talking the next day. I invited him over to spend some time together. We simply were so engaged in such a good playful time, he had forgotten to call you and tell you where he was. I wanted to call and apologize for distracting him so much,” she laid the innuendo on thick as she spoke.
“I’m sure you at least kept him safe,” John commented. “Then are you related to the hotel?”
“Yes sir, I’m the heiress to the Waterfield Heights Hotel chain. I just moved into town a few weeks ago.” She could feel the unease grow in John’s voice on the other end. She heard him cough. She decided to act. “My father lives next to me on the same floor. We share the same wall for safety reasons. So he can hear us should anything happen.”
John sighed on the other end of the phone.
He watched her work. She was flawless as she painted the lie that was going to keep John at bay.
“So I take it Zack’s getting along with you over there?” John asked.
“Yes, of course Mr. Giver. As of last night, I’m Zack’s girlfriend,” she laid the big guns out.
He tried not to laugh. He played along, “what she means is that I asked her out and she said yes.”
“Yeah, that’s usually how these things happen, Zack. Now put Kyli back on the phone,” John told him.
“It’s okay Mr. Giver. You can rest assured that he’s welcome to stay here as long as he wants.” She wanted to put the last touches on the conversation.
“Okay, all I ask is that you call me every couple of days, and in time, introduce me to this girlfriend of yours,” John told Zack.
“Sure dad,” he was happy to hear John agreed to the arrangement.
“Good to hear. I’ll talk to you later Zack. I take it this is a good number to reach you at?” John asked.
“Of course,” he responded as he looked up at her.
“Yes, Mr. Giver. This is the direct line to my room in the hotel,” she politely added.
“Good. Then I’ll go. Later Zack,” John said goodbye.
“Later Dad,” he said under breath.
“Nice talking with you Mr. Giver,” she signed off.
He hung up the phone, “what was that about?”
“Buttering up your father?” She continued eating, “or the girlfriend part?”
“You’re playing with him. He’s not going to like that,” he stated.
“No. He’s thinking that we’re getting it on in a private hotel room.” She smiled, “and what’s wrong with that? You do like me, don’t you?”
“More than I can understand,” he spoke instantly and honestly. “There’s just more to it when you involve my father. I just don’t want him hurt by all of this. He’s been through enough. Promise you won’t tell him?”
She could tell he was sincere. She wanted to make him happy, “I promise.” She thought about his comment. It made her blush again.
“As you were saying?” he gestured to her and took her hand in his. The warmth struck both of them again. It was soothing.
“All we needed was to make him think you’d be busy for a while. Last I checked, a teenage boy all alone with a new young girlfriend is pretty much the busiest thing around. You won’t want to be disturbed. It’s the easiest way to get him to go along with what we needed to do.” She had a plan. It was unorthodox, but it was sound. “Were you wondering any more about the vampire gifts?” she nursed her omelet.
He thought about it for a moment. The idea of a power that could overturn continents. It was desirable. The idea of a blood fueled strength that could overpower anything and everyone that might context him. It tempted him. His mind began to wonder. It began to ache again. The room faded slowly.
She released his hand.
A waft of scent plumed in the air as she let go. He thought that this must be the different smell she was talking about earlier. It seemed to come out with deep emotion, exertion. He didn’t say anything. He concentrated more on her than her words as the world around him grew darker. The scent was of cherry and lavender again overtook him. He figured some of it was perfume, but that there was a part of the smell that was actually her. It was sweet.
“Zack!” she pulled his shirt forward. She smacked him across the face and returned her hand to the fabric before it had a chance to uncrinkle. It looked to him like she did it in one motion instead of three. “Are you okay?”
The headache somehow subsided. He felt better after being struck. He held his head for a moment, “what happened?”
She wasn’t sure how to tell him. She had read about it in the report. She had been told it might happen and she had been told to hit him as hard as she could to snap him out of it. But she wasn’t sure of how exactly to tell him this one truth. She didn’t know what to say but to tell him exactly what she saw. “Zack, your eyes had turned pitch black.”
Chapter Thirty Nine
The Walk
Del walked for a few hours through the night before an uncontrollable hunger overcame him. He felt weak, drained of energy. His throat was parched. It was different than the normal mid summer’s day thirsts he had experienced in his decade of farm work. He attributed it to his compromised health and simply walked on. He was great at ignoring himself before his goals. He would always put others ahead of himself. It was normal to him. Regardless of his desires to continue, he collapsed on the side of the road.
He was at the eastern most farmland in the county. He looked around, exhausted and found a horse trough. He easily jumped the fence and guzzled the water. He was surprised at how much strength he still had. He felt tired, but his body didn’t seem to reflect it. The water was cold and fresh, but no amount eased his drought.
He looked around. There were horses on one side of the fence and cows on the other. He slowly approached a tall gallant white horse speckled with bits of black. It was cautious, as if it had something to fear from him. “Settle your apprehension steed. My thirst cannot be satiated by you.” He approached the horse and brushed its mane. The horse calmed. He exhaled after a deep breath, “but what am I going to do?”
The horse spooked, rearing up in front of him in the open field. Something inside him reacted to the rapid heartbeat of the animal. There was an urge inside him that he wasn’t used to. It tried to assume control. He noticed his hands ready to attack. It was an action he didn’t want to take.
The large horse thrust its hooves into his chest instantly. The impact threw him back, crushing a section of the fence. He looked down to see that the left side of his ribs were all exposed and broken. They poked through his shirt. The horse ran off with blood on its hooves.
He struggled to breathe. There was a gripping in his veins. He wanted to kill something. He began to feel a strength in him that he had never known. It was infernal.
In the distance, the rest of the livestock kept to themselves. He saw the cows react the fierce hunger in him. The depression in his chest filled. His ribs retreated back into his skin. He began to breathe easier. He stood up and slowly walked forward.
His arms were light. There was a pain in him, but it didn’t seem to affect his body. He began to run towards the livestock. There was a tingling in his arms and legs. It told him there was power in his actions. He ran and flew through the air with vast speed, and leaped onto the nearest black and white cow he could find.
He tore the right side of its neck out. It bled, gushing to the grass below. It saturated his pant legs and stained his chest. He was pressed into the cow’s flesh. His face was engulfed by the fresh red blood. He breathed in the liquid of the cow. He inhaled it into his lungs, his mouth, and into his being. It was relieving, refreshing, and satisfying. He didn’t remove himself to breath, think, or pause. He only drank and smothered himself in the cow’s flesh. His face, his chest, and his arms were covered in the warm flowing life. The other animals watched as he continued to devour it. They could sense that he was now a predator and not the trusted handler he once was. He ripped the bones from the cow’s shoulder as more blood gushed out. It was an effort to consume everything. There was no thought in his actions, only need and sustenance. He could feel his stomach filling, his needs sating.
An hour had passed. He finished the last drops from the cow’s severed heart. The pile of meat before him did not resemble the animal it once did. It was formless and mangled into layers of pulp, a level of mutilation that would normally be reserved for trained slaughterhouse workers. He accomplished this with no tools only using his hands and teeth in less time.
He breathed heavily when he finally regained his mind. He realized what he had done. He also knew the satisfaction that had come from the act itself. He had lost his humanity. Whatever he was, he had been changed. What that strange young woman had done to him had altered the course of his life. She had taken away his chances of happiness, his newfound life, but not his goals. He was still determined to follow Mr. McHugh’s advice to the letter. He didn’t care if Demy didn’t want to be with him anymore. He had set out on a goal to better his life. He was going to finish his schooling.
By morning, he found and partially hid under an overturned wheel barrel that had been left abandoned and rusting in the field. He watched the sun come up over the horizon. It burned. His eyes were blinded. He could feel the skin on his hands boil and rise when they were touched directly by the rays. The sensation was mind numbing. He finally passed out under the safety of the wheel barrel.
When night fell, he awoke to a strange sight. His eyes were fine and the burns on his hand were gone. His jacket was still shredded from when he had torn at the cow. There was no pain anymore. He only a sense that something was wrong with him. He thought that since the bright sun had hurt his eyes and caused him to black out, that somehow his body was now completely intolerant to the sun. He didn’t understand it, but he knew it was real and happening to him.
He took great measures to avoid the day as time passed. He ducked into barns, ran for cover under large trees, and even hid under the occasional tractor. He hadn’t read anything but nonfiction books while in college, so he had no reference to what he had become. He merely continued to observe and adapt to his present situation. He made mental notes on what he was able to do and then eventually on what he shouldn’t.
Chapter Forty
Coming To Terms With A New Reality
Zack stared at Kyli as he noticed the light come back into the room. The headache had subsided. He felt better, but disoriented. He remember what she had said, “what do you mean my eyes were black?”
She let go of his shirt, “they turned black for a moment. It was like a wet film glided over them and filled them in from behind the lens itself,” she was unnerved by the experience.
“Is that normal for a vampeal?” he asked.
She shifted in place. She was uncomfortable with giving any answer at all. She lied, “it happens sometimes.”
He could tell there was something else on her mind, but he was too groggy to ask what. He sat down and sighed.
“As I was saying. Your dad doesn’t know you’re a vampeal. So we’ll keep it that way. You just have to not let it out of the bag when you’re around him,” she took a sip of the root beer to calm herself. She didn’t want to think about those black eyes and what they meant for the future of their relationship.
“How would I do that by accident?” he didn’t see the problem.
“Gallons of blood,” she pointed out.
He said nothing.
“That’s right. The reality is your secrecy is what’s keeping you free and alive, at least for now,” she took another sip.
“Then someone might want to kill me?” he rubbed his face. “For being what I am?”
She could smell a sweet scent coming from his chest. She could feel a slight layer of sweat on his warm but cooler skin. She enjoyed the sensation as she breathed it in. She needed to steer the conversation again.
She covered his eyes suddenly with one hand, “Zack, what am I wearing right now?”
He thought about it and answered best he could, “practically nothing.”
“Just tell me from memory,” she reinforced the question.
“A tank top and short shorts.” He thought about her thin, sculpted body. It was a nice image.
“Exactly. You can see most of my body, right? For all intents and purposes, I’m naked.” She pressed her strange point. She uncovered his eyes and slid her hand to the side of his face.
He didn’t resist. He enjoyed the touch as it burned his skin.
“Then can you tell me which part of my body gives you the slightest hint that I’m not just another hot thing for you to stare at? Can you really tell me that I look anything like a monster that could kill you and drink your blood at any fleeting moment?”
He shook his head, “I would have never known.”
“It’s the same with everyone else. Unless we give anyone a reason to think otherwise, we’re the status quo. Unless you spill blood in front of him, John will never know. Unless you get excited around a vampire, they’ll never know either.” She sighed as she hoped he would accept the answers she had given him.
“Then a vampire can do the same,” he figured.
“As much as I can hide as a human, a vampire can do more. To the average person a vampire appears to be simply a perfect specimen. An attractive person that just happens to be talking to them.” She placed her hands on her hips and tilted them for a second. “If I had never said anything and just attacked you, you’d be dead.” She shook her head. She thought of something that bothered her. “I could have had my way with you and left. You would have never been the wiser. That is if I had to.” She dropped her arms down and took a breath.
“That’s if I hadn’t caused you to miss your first note,” he pointed out the small flaw in her reasoning.
She smiled as she thought about the feeling of his arms around her. The sensation when he caught her falling body in an instant.
“Did I say something wrong?” he didn’t notice anything strange as she stood there, but he felt it. He could somehow feel the both the pleasure she remembered and the underlining pain she felt about a decision that was still warring in the back of her mind. He understood there was something that she didn’t like, something she had refused to do. There was something that morally tested her. He didn’t know what it was and didn’t think she would actually tell him at that moment either. He looked at her, at her beautiful blue eyes. They were slightly green towards the center, a deep contrast to their blue tint. He decided to lighten the mood finally and speak again. “You know your eyes turn almost green when you get upset. Did you know that?”
She turned on the faucet in the kitchen. She wiped her face and returned to him. Her eyes had become a thin blue again with her regained composure. “It’s nothing special,” she wiped her eyes again. “As for being with a vampire, if the vampire didn’t want to tell him, he wouldn’t know. In the daylight we may be able to easily pass for human, but at night, so can they.” She opened the island refrige
rator. She grabbed a small pack of blood and bit into the top. She instantly grew fangs. She let off of the pouch. “Watch,” she poured the blood into a glass originally meant for mixing the milk or OJ before she put them into the eggs. “The teeth react if we need them to. Vampires just don’t go around with their fangs out everywhere they go. That would be too obvious. If you need to bite into a bag of what-not, your fangs will pop out before you ever need to think about doing it. It’s like a muscle. It’s automatic. You’re the same. When you bit into me, they came out.”
“Then we’re immune to sunlight? And we have full control over our fangs?” he suggested.
“No, we can get sunburns if we spend too much time in the sun ourselves. As for the teeth,” she smiled, showing off her two pairs of long teeth. She swallowed the rest of the blood in her mouth. She breathed deep, and smiled again. The fangs were gone. “It’s as easy as that. You’ll learn to consciously do it in time.” She reached for the glass of the remaining blood. “Now for the hard part,” she slowly drank the glass of blood to the last drop. She set it down and smiled. They were still normal.
“They didn’t change.” He stared.
“Yeah, freaky isn’t it?” she commented, happy she impressed him.
He had no idea that watching a girl’s teeth do nothing could be a true sight to behold, but it was considering what he knew about her.
“You can control it. It’s a mental trick, like sitting still. It’s against impulse, but it can be done. You have to think of the blood as something else, something sweet and delicious, other than what it actually is. It becomes easy with some practice.” She set the glass down.
Chapter Forty One
The Daylight Hours
The creature looked like a man now. Naked and perfect in the morning glow of the bright sunlight. His long black hair danced in the heat of the summer wind. He turned and disappeared from the rooftop.