Sunrise at Sunset (12 page)

Following a quick recollection of their evening, she still wished that she had handled things differently with him. She turned silently to retrace her steps to street level for the journey back to her home.
It’s a nice night for a walk
, she conceded. Besides, vampires could move very fast when they wanted to, just as Caleb discovered.

“Nights like this are precisely why I’ve stayed single for so long,” she muttered to herself as she made her way down a side alley.

She was very angry with herself for the night’s events, and she berated herself for somehow causing his emotional reaction.
Reaction,
she reconsidered wildly,
it was more like an explosion!

Chapter 3

A Fresh Start

C
aleb saw green eyes blazing out of the darkness in his dream and abruptly awoke on his couch Saturday morning. His heart was pounding, and he struggled to catch his breath as his eyes wildly scanned the room around him. A halo of sunshine emanating through the living room curtains was suddenly quite comforting. The fleeting, peaceful moment passed before a flood of thoughts and emotions once again screamed through his mind with lightning speed.

Katrina’s a vampire!

He had trouble processing the reality associated with that thought. Images from every vampire horror film or novel he’d seen or heard of ran though his mind at once. All the popular attributes of vampires began registering in his mind: pasty skin, fast movements, incredible strength, sharp fangs, vicious bites to a victim’s neck, fear of wooden stakes, aversion to garlic, no reflections in mirrors, transforming into a leathery flying bat, and being the embodiment of the eternal living dead!

It was nearly brain overload. He realized that he needed to sort things out individually.

Okay, she never met with me during the daytime.
Oh God, does she sleep in a coffin during the day?
No, wait, she chatted on the phone and text messaged me during the daytime before.
A vision of her texting on her cell phone while the screen illuminated her face as she lay in a velvet-lined coffin ran through his mind. He would have laughed if not for the very palpable fear he had felt the previous night.

His mind raced through a host of brief recollections about her.
The pale skin -- but then, lots of people have pale skin. She’s a redhead, and I’ve seen numerous redheads with pale skin before. Heck, I’m hardly a sun worshipper myself.

Okay, there was the college parking lot incident where that guy tried to rob me.
Katrina seemed to come from nowhere. But then, I wasn’t really looking for her, either. The guy’s nasty-looking knife captured my focus elsewhere at the time. And lots of people know martial arts, right? Okay, dead end there for now.

He shivered slightly.

Was she intending to kill me last night?
No, wait. She tried to explain everything, but I thought she was crazy.
A pang of guilt touched him only momentarily before his thoughts flew onward.
She saved me from falling over that ravine last night, right? People who want to kill you don’t save you.
She had only ever showed him kindness.
Vampires don’t do that, right?

The speed of her movements filtered through the noise of his raging thoughts. It was like she had been everywhere at once.
Nobody moves that fast!
He ran like a rocket, and yet, it had been as if he were running in one of those nightmares where whatever is chasing you can move fast while you feel like you’re running in quicksand.

He shivered once again at the memory of the previous night. Rising from the couch, he stretched his sore body, noticing that his right shoulder still ached from where she had briefly twisted his arm behind his back. A singular thought struck him with shock.
I tried to hit her with a tree limb last night
!

A sickening queasiness ran though him to the pit of his stomach. He had never raised his hand against anybody in anger before. He had never even been in fights with kids as he was growing up.
Hell, my own father used to beat on me, and I swore I would never do that to anyone. So, what got into me last night?

He sighed. Then a vision hit him like a hammer to an anvil.
Katrina’s eyes, those green eyes of hers.
Sure, her eyes are beautiful, but they took on a whole new quality last night.
The piercing, illuminating green had been like tiny orbs cutting into him. Just the recollection made his heart race.
But why does that also seem so familiar to me?

That’s where the terror had started: her eyes beaming into him with a penetrating green quality. It struck at something hidden and terrible deep in his memory, and his heart began beating rapidly again.
What the hell does it all mean?

Better yet,
w
hat am I going to do now
? he wondered.

His thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone vibrating on the end table. He picked it up and noticed a new text message from Katrina.

R U OK? I’m worried for U
.

His breath caught in his throat, and his mouth felt dry.

He thought of her gentle face, cute laugh, kind nature, and beautiful smile all at once, and the memory stirred a warm feeling in his heart. He thought he had really been falling for her.
So, what changed?

She’s a vampire. But she’s still the woman that I’m smitten with, right?

“Crap,” he muttered wearily as he decided that she at least deserved a reply of some kind.
Better to text her than try to talk to her right now
, he decided.

He typed out his reply carefully, slowly, and as honestly as possible.
Not sure. Confused.

The reply from her came only a few seconds after his.
Take time to think. Call me. I care about U
.

Wow, fast typist
, he mused.
Fast moving, for that matter
.

OK
, he texted back to her.

He started to set his cell phone down, but another message arrived.

No need to fear. Worried about you
.

That’s easy for you to say
, he thought while laying the cell phone on the end table. And for some reason, as he read her last message, Ivy’s “Worry about You” played through his mind.

How odd
.

He realized that he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes and went into the bedroom to take a shower and change.

Katrina wore a pair of green cotton lounge pants and a matching cami with her hair falling around her shoulders as she sprawled across her large, four-poster bed with her cell phone in her hands. Caleb’s replies to her text messages were brief, but she had anticipated he might still be in shock somewhat after last night’s events. Just her recollections from the night before sent a surge of sadness through her, followed closely by a feeling of intense curiosity.
What happened to him last night?
she wondered furiously.

His face had changed in an instant as she’d glared at him. Katrina readily conceded she had been annoyed with him at that point, but she certainly hadn’t felt angry towards him for trying to walk out on her.
I just wanted him to talk things out, that’s all.

But the vision of the horror in his eyes before he turned to flee from her had been striking. She easily recognized a look of terror, and his was textbook. It was as if his mind had suddenly snapped or something.

But why
, she considered furiously.
What did I do?

A feeling of worry mixed with dread ran through her.

What if he won’t see me again
, she thought.
What if he’s too scared?

An even darker thought crossed Katrina’s mind.
What if I ruined one of the only things sparking my renewed interest in life for the past eighteen years?

And for the first time in a long, long time, a tear began to form in the corner of her eye.

Caleb spent most of Saturday at home staring at the walls, the TV, and out of the living room windows. He was thinking about Katrina and wondering what to do. Eventually, his mind was too tired to consider aspects any further. He needed more than anything to have some sense of normalcy back in his life. So he tried to stop thinking and focused instead on simpler diversions.

He cleaned the bathroom, changed his bed linens, and went to the apartment building’s central laundry area. He listened to his iPod and replied to a few text messages from some old college friends. Doug from Texas was still helping his father run the family sporting goods store following his dad’s heart attack. Nancy from Massachusetts was just offered a position at a law firm in Boston. And Martin from South Carolina just proposed to his girlfriend, Brenda. But then Caleb’s eyes glanced at the earlier messages from Katrina, and he found himself reading them over and over while the washer and dryer continued their monotonous cycles.

He spent the evening at home watching TV and eating pizza he had ordered from a delivery service. For some reason, he noticed that the cooks used a lot more garlic than normal.

Garlic. Vampires don’t like garlic, right?
He shook his head and tried not to think about that.
Of course, it’s not as if Katrina’s going to be breaking into my apartment and sucking the blood from me until I’m dry, right?
He considered the idea for a moment, once again recalling the text messages she had sent him. Somehow he felt he was safe and that Katrina’s intentions weren’t hostile at all.

He sighed and tried to concentrate on the television before him as he munched on his pizza. That was his Saturday in a nutshell.

Caleb spent Sunday continuing to distract himself with anything “normal.” He organized quizzes for two of his history classes, prepared some notes for his upcoming lectures that week, and cleaned out his refrigerator.

He went to a local bookstore to browse and found himself gravitating to the horror and science fiction sections. He glanced at the covers of nearly a dozen novels all relating to vampires. He browsed the cinema section and noticed a pictorial on the life of Bela Lugosi, one of the world’s most famous horror film actors, best known for his classic rendition of Dracula. Admittedly, his appearance was nothing like Katrina’s, although, the vision of her wearing a dark cape and baring her fangs seemed to work.
She does have fangs, right?

In the end, he purchased a discounted book on the historic maps of the American Civil War and proceeded to the grocery store for a few items he needed at the apartment. On the way back home, he drove past a Starbucks and sighed as he recalled the first time that he and Katrina met for tea and their first lengthy conversation. It seemed like a long time ago.

In the end, Sunday had been as equally unsatisfying for him as Saturday.

Katrina tried to be patient and wait for Caleb to gather his thoughts, but it was very difficult. She emailed a couple of close friends, including her former mentor, Alton, about Caleb. As fellow vampires, they sympathized with her, but in the end they seemed hesitant to offer any specific advice.

Some friends
, she thought bitterly.

By Sunday evening, Katrina had enough of waiting and decided to check in on Caleb. She waited until after dark and drove around the city to contemplate her feelings while listening to some CDs she’d created for just the occasion. Fiona Apple was perfect for her mood, as well as some lilting classic jazz from the 1960s. She added a couple of melancholy French tunes from the 1940s. One thing you could say about long-lived vampires, their music selections were usually eclectic. Around 11 pm, when “Malibu,” by Hole, began playing, she was ready to head towards Caleb’s apartment.

Dressed in some black denim jeans and black leather jacket, she crept quietly to his fire escape and peeked in from the shadows into his living room. He was leaning back on his couch with his head bobbed backwards against the cushion. A novel he had been reading had fallen into his lap and been forgotten. He looked endearing as he slept with his mouth partially open, and she almost laughed, which helped soften her melancholy mood. She lingered for a short time watching him sleep and decided it was time to go. At least he appeared to be okay, which was more than she could say for herself.

“Goodnight, my Caleb,” she whispered as she blew him a kiss across the distance between them.
At least I hope he will become my Caleb
, she thought darkly.

Seconds later, she walked out of the alleyway and back towards where she had parked her car.

Caleb began the work week teaching at the college, but he was frequently distracted. His lectures were passable, but lacked the usual energy and enthusiasm. It was obvious to himself that he was merely going through the motions. And though he had only been a member of the Social Sciences division for a short time, a number of his fellow professors and division office staff noticed his subdued behavior. One of the secretaries named Betty, a kind woman in her mid-forties, even asked him if he was feeling under the weather.