At the Twilight's Last Gleaming (18 page)

I
T’S FUNNY HOW people can talk around things.

As I took his hand and pulled myself up from the couch, there was a definite awkward silence. The scent of our passionate kiss hung around us, for a bit, like a tear after a sad Beatles song.

But by the time we’d gotten into the car and were on our way back to my house, we were jabbering away with excitement about the upcoming debut of Crossland Drama’s version of
Dracula
.

We’d already seen the sets the scenery department had created and everyone agreed they were just fabulous. Somewhere the director had found an enthusiastic
Dracula
fan who not only had donated money, but genuine Victorian furniture and the effect on us all was like putting us in a time travel device and sending us back a century. Costumes had just come in, and we’d done a full dress rehearsal that had not only pleased the director, but had been a lot of fun.

“I heard Mr. Crawley is thinking about asking us all to clear out extra time on your schedules,” I said, as the Rolls slid through the chilly Maryland night.

“For extra performances to satisfy the demands of play lovers everywhere?” Emory said with a trace of Southern-fried sarcasm in his voice.

“Championship competitions!” I said excitedly.

“Are we Off-Broadway bound?”

“Aren’t we already Off-Broadway,” I shot back.

“Way off Broadway, I’m afraid.”

I laughed.

I was relieved. Just immensely relieved.

We’d gotten through that awkward after-kiss spell, and now things were friendly and ebullient again. More than that, I detected a real improvement in our relationship A true ease. We had something we shared now, and not just Lucy and Count Dracula .

We had that incredible kiss!

We continued to chatter on amiably and before I knew it, we were in front of my house.

“Well, Lucy,” said Emory. “I believe this is our stop.”

“Thanks Count.”

“Shall I walk you to the door?”

“What a gentleman! Sure!”

` We got out.

Abruptly, outside I felt awkward and nervous again. I rather wished I had demurred on the walk in. We spent it in silence.

My breath misted into the night air. I could hear my heart hammering in my chest again.

We got up to the door and I turned around.

Emory was standing a full two steps behind me.

“Rebecca,” he said. “Thank you so much for coming and meeting my Daddy tonight. It was an honor to have you in my home.”

He was extending his hand to shake mine.

I looked down with surprise at his hand. The gesture totally broke the tension that was lifting up in me.

“Oh you silly,” I said. I stepped forward, reached up and gave him a big hug and a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, looking sheepish and a little befuddled.

He stepped back, waved and took off, his footsteps clattering on the sidewalk as he hustled off to his waiting car and chauffeur.

I let myself in with my key and was happy to see that my parents were not in bed.

I put my coat away in the coat closet and hurried back to my bedroom. I turned the radio on to the classical station, and just lay in bed a while, my head swimming.

The station was playing Chopin.

I
WAS RUNNING
in the woods.

I was running in the dark woods. Wind whipped tree branches around me. A moon shown full as clouds parted above.

There was something behind me, chasing me.

My breaths were hot my lungs. I turned around but could see nothing in the darkness. I heard growling and howling, growling and howling of anger and hunger.

Suddenly, it seemed my feet froze. I felt as though they were moving through quicksand. I looked down and saw that the ground fog was swirling all the way up to my thighs.

I ran smack into something and stopped.

I looked up and saw that it was Emory Clarke in his Dracula cape.

“Good evening, Rebecca,” he said. “You kissed me, my dear. Now I get to kiss you –”

He leaned toward me and I glimpsed a flash of ivory fangs in the moonlight

…A
ND I WOKE.

I was in darkness. I felt disoriented. A piece of classical music I didn’ know was droning from the radio.

Almost immediately, I was aware of the pain.

I grabbed at my neck. The pain was severe, cutting into me, penetrating up.

“Oww,” I said. “Owww.”

I had that headache again too. It was fierce and pounding.

Hand still to my neck, I struggled up to sit at the edge of the beside, trying to catch my breath, as though I’d really been running, as though that dream had been real.

“What’s going on?” I mumbled.

I got up and I staggered down the hall.

What was wrong with me, I thought groggily.

What is wrong with my neck
?

I needed some aspirin. I desperately needed something for the pain that I was feeling.

I turned on the light switch.

I was surprised how much it hurt my eyes.

“Oh gee,” I said. “Fell asleep. Fell asleep in my clothes.”

I was in fact still wearing my turtleneck. The girl who looked back at me from the mirror was rumpled and frousled, her eyes squinty. I’d worn just a touch of mascara and other make up last night, and it was smeared.

My neck hurt.

My neck throbbed.

I pulled down my turtleneck sweater to see what was going on there.

I gasped.

On the side my neck, like two small lanced pimples, symmetrically placed were blood-red puncture holes.

Bite marks!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“H
AROLD.”

“Yes?”

“Doing much today?”

“It’s Saturday. Saturday morning I hang out and read. You know that.”

I clutched the phone like a lifeline.

“Harold,” I whispered into it. “I’ve got to come over. I’ve got to talk to you.”

.”Oh man! You’ve gotten to be such a drama queen. Ever since you got that part. What’s wrong now! I’m reading the new Keith Laumer, and it’s way good.”

“I promise you,” I said. “It’s serious!”

“Can’t we just talk on the phone?”

“Okay,” said Harold, resignation filling his voice. “Come over and I’ll make some sandwiches for lunch.”

“And tea. Lots and lots of strong tea.”

“Sure. I can arrange that.”

I put the phone back into the cradle and heaved a sigh and a shudder.

I went back into the bathroom. My bathrobe was bunched up around my neck. I opened it.

The bite marks were still there. The swelling had gone done quite a bit, and the pain was gone. But yes, there they were two bite marks.

Not only had the pain gone, but, physically, I actually felt pretty good. My mental state, of course, was quite another matter.

Last night after I’d taken a look at the marks, I’d just taken some aspirin and stumbled back into bed. I was convinced that I was having a nightmare. I got into some pajamas, and buried myself in sheets and blankets and pillows, a blessed numbness flowing over me.

It hadn’t been long before I was asleep. Not, fortunately, a sleep of nightmares, but a deep and dreamless sleep.

When I awoke, I felt great.

A feeling of peace and contentment covered me like a full length blanket. Often as not when I wake up, I’m a mess. I feel rotten, tired and cranky. I just want to throw my alarm clock at the world, tell it to go away and bury my head in my pillow. But not this morning. Now, I felt peaceful and refreshed, as though I’d slept the sleep of a baby.

Until, that is, I’d remembered about my neck.

I’d groaned. I felt a pang of fear.

A shiver went through me.

But the sun was coming in through my drapes, and I still physically felt fine. No, better than fine. I laid back in my bed, my arms tight around my pillow, and other thoughts swept through me.

I thought about that kiss.

I thought about my lips on Emory’s, and how it felt. I thought about my body against his. I had never felt anything like that before, and now it wasn’t so much a memory, as a flashback. It was overwhelming, enveloping. Something so immersive, I lost myself again.

That was, until I felt a little stir of pain in my neck again.

“Oh my God,” I said.

And so to that mirror again, and so ascertaining the state of the tooth marks upon my neck.

After talking to Harold, I hurried back to the bathroom, where I took a long, hot shower. Then, bundled back up in my voluminous robe, its hood up and concealing the gaping holes in my neck, I hurried back to my room and closeted myself.

“What’s wrong with me!” I muttered to myself as I sat at my desk, gazing at a pile of gothic romances. “I should be stricken with dread and horror. I should be quaking in my loafers!”

I went to the window and stared out.

The day was not gloomy.

In fact, the day was rather — nice.

It was one of those winter days after a snow storm when the air is clear and clean. Any clouds were long gone. A benign sun hung high in the sky. A family of robins were swooping about in the walnut and elm trees in the back yard. I opened the window and took a deep breath of the cold air. It was deeply full of the rich smell of wet soil and of the humps of snow that marched off into the woods at the beyond the neighboring house. Somehow, amidst the snow, I could taste the promise of spring, I could smell the seeds promising to sprout in April.

I blinked.

I shut the window.

What a rush. I felt very good, very good indeed!

And I had to talk to Harold. I just had to!

My bedroom was suddenly a prison that I had to escape from.

I dressed quickly. Fortunately, I had plenty of clean turtleneck sweaters. I selected a black one and donned it. Then a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. Brush hair, get coat….

I managed to avoid contact with parents and brother. Harold’s house was quite a walk, but fortunately the roads were quite clear, so I took my bike. I suppose I could have borrowed one of our two cars as I had gotten my driver’s license last month before Christmas, but frankly I didn’t want to be tied to getting back home any time soon, and besides I really didn’t like driving a car, especially with all the snow and ice about.

No, my bike was steady and sturdy and would do just fine.

And so it was that about a half hour later, I pedaled past Crossland Senior High. It sat like an alien spaceship from a planet of weird geometry newly landed in a winter wonderland. A ragged plume of gray smoke wound up from its top, reaching for the blue sky.

Everything seemed very solid and real now, but somehow all the same, everything felt brittle and unreal. Hidden deep in the shadows it would seem, were hidden levels of reality like caverns under rocks.

I shivered and peddled all the harder. I wanted to get to Harold’s where I would feel safe.

The spell of insecurity passed just as soon as a pulled into Harold’s driveway. I parked the bike in his breezeway and rang the door. His Dad, smoking a cigarette and dragging a big comfy book with him, smiled at me and let me in.