A Brush With Death

January turns to February, and not much changes. The only difference is that the mysterious man stays in the shadows, watching her from a distance and rushing off every now and then to God knows where. She forces herself to keep a safe distance away from him. After all, she has no idea if he’s the reason Dan is missing.

Every night she returns and every night she feels safer, constantly growing more convinced that something big is being covered up here, that the newspapers and the police were holding something back. How is it possible that so many people can disappear or die, yet she visits every night and leaves untouched? She thinks back to the man in the shadows. It has to be something to do with him. She’s considered it before but now, walking through the graveyard, she can’t help but think about it more. Every night he follows her, and every night she returns home safe. He’s behind this somehow, but she doesn’t know exactly why he follows her. He’s either the one causing it or he’s protecting her for some reason, but why her? What’s so special about her that means she needs protecting more than Dan and the others?

She’s snapped out of her thoughts by a figure that drops from the trees above her. She feels a sharp pain in her shoulder and screams, stumbling backwards, staring into the menacing silver irises of her foe, unable to move.

Run, Olivia, run. The words in her mind are barely a whisper. She wishes she’d never stepped foot in this place, how could she have been so stupid? Her body threatens to explode with the fear she’s kept inside, almost knocking her to her knees. Her eyes glance down at the crimson spreading slowly on her shirt, her breath stuck in her throat as she fights desperately to scream or to run or to do something, anything.

The man crowds closer, a yell pulled from her mouth as his body is suddenly thrown to the side by something which then begins to drag him away. She’s unable to see what it is – maybe a bear – but surely a bear wouldn’t be in a cemetery. There’s a sharp pain on her arm and she cries out, her eyes glancing down to see blood dripping onto the floor; she pulls her sleeve up roughly to expose the cut, which doesn’t actually look like a cut, it’s- is it a bite mark? Has she been bitten?

Growls echo around her, surrounding the girl now almost blind with pain. She continues to stare at her arm, shocked. Something isn’t right. Everything begins to spin and she collapses to the floor, her whole body trembling.

“Olivia!” The man runs over to her, lifting her up with one strong arm firmly under her knees and the other around her shoulders, carrying her with his eyes fixed on the gaping gash on her arm. He knows he was too late, he should have been quicker, but he was so taken in by her that he forgot to stay on guard.

He takes her back to his house, placing her carefully on the sofa and kneeling on the rough carpet to clean up her cut. He winces. It’s nasty; if he’d have been a moment later it would have been too late. His eyes notice the bite on her arm; he’d only seen the vampire’s nails cutting into her shoulder as it dropped in front of her, he hadn’t realised she was bitten.

He sits and watches, waiting for her to wake. He knows that when she does wake up she will have questions, and he doesn’t know if he’s prepared to answer them. No mortal should know the answers to those questions. He muses the issue for a while – he doesn’t know how long, he loses track – and by the time he stirs again the sun is beginning to rise, bathing the room in a beautiful golden light.

Olivia’s eyes flicker open and she tries in vain to sit upright. He offers a hand and she gladly takes it, although there’s still fear present in her eyes. She should have listened to him; she should never have gone back to that graveyard. She looks around confused, no memory of how she got here. Her mind replays the last moments she remembers, jumping up in panic as she realizes. She sways slightly, still wobbly on her feet.

“What the hell was that? Where am I?” Olivia stares at him but he just shakes his head. He can’t tell her; how can he?

“I’m Alaric. You’re at my place, you passed out.”

“Someone bit me, right? Something was there; I saw something drag that man away from me.” She’s starting to remember. She’s sure there was an ear-piercing scream from the man’s mouth as he was dragged away from her.

“No one bit you,” he says, calmly.

“I think they did.”

Alaric laughs, shaking his head. “No one bit you, Olivia. You tripped and hit your head; you’re just imagining things. A fox ran past you and you completely freaked out.”

Does he think she’s stupid? She saw the bite mark; she felt the pain, but when she looks down at her arm now she realises there’s nothing there. She’s so sure it happened; there are huge dark bloodstains on her top to prove it. She didn’t imagine it, and there was no fox either. What is he trying to hide?

“I saw it! It was on my arm, that’s why there’s blood everywhere, it was really bad!” She knows what she saw, but how could it have been so bad if it didn’t leave the slightest mark? She hates to consider it, but maybe… maybe he’s right, maybe she did just fall and hit her head. She doesn’t know what to believe any more, this whole thing gets stranger every day. Her eyes narrow, flickering up to him accusatorily.

“You- you know that- that thing! You’re trying to cover this up! That’s why you’re out there every night, you- you watch it hurt people and then you clean up its mess!” She needs to get out of this place now. She has an uneasy feeling about being here; what if he’s been watching her for someone else? Going and telling this other person about everything she’s doing?

“I need to leave.”

“Olivia, you can leave any time you want. The door is right there and it isn’t locked. I’m not forcing you to stay and anyway, I am not trying to protect him.” Alaric’s eyes close and he takes a deep breath, realising his mistake.

“‘Him’? I knew it, I was bitten! I never mentioned a man or woman, so the only way you’d know it was a man is if I was right!” She waits, staring incredulously at the man. She would – and probably should – be running right now, but she needs answers. Alaric stares back, his steely green eyes boring deep into hers. After all this, she can tell he’s still not ready to tell her the truth.

“Fine then, I’ll just go to the police and tell them everything; I’ll give them this address and tell them I woke up here with no memory of how I got here.” She starts towards the door, Alaric merely nodding behind her.

“Off you go then, Olivia. The police know me well. They’ll know you were wandering around that place and just tripped and hurt yourself. Tell them whatever you want, just stay the hell away from now on.”

Olivia rolls her eyes and nods before leaving the apartment, giving the door a satisfying slam as she goes. On the way home she can’t stop thinking about the little flashes of memory she has from last night. It was real; she knows it was, she saw the bite mark right there on her arm. Her eyes glance down automatically but there’s still nothing. A laugh bursts out of her lips, slightly hysterical. None of this seems real. The last few days have been crazy, but she isn’t giving up. Not yet.