Fred the Vampire - Part 2

He comes the next night, and taps on the window. He has done a noble thing: he has eaten beforehand, so he won’t be too tempted to bite Heather. Ultimately, he’s not sure, but for now, he just wants to get in. He hovers by the window and taps gently. She hears and gets up. She stands looking at him, in the same nightdress. Her milk-white thighs are meaty and tender.

Then she opens the window.

“Hi”, says Fred. “How are you?”

“Ok,” she says, coming right up to the window and sticking her head out. The ground is covered in frost. “Are you cold out there?”

Fred isn’t cold, but he says: “Yeah”, and shivers slightly.

“You’re so white”, she says.

“Can I come in?”

She looks behind her, as if there could be someone there. “I don’t think so…” she says.

“Just for a minute. I just want to sit down for a minute, and we can talk.”

“Do you promise?”

“What?”

“You know.”

“Oh, yeah. I promise.”

He looks her in the eye and sees her resolve give way.

“Come in,” she says

Quick as a flash, Fred is standing inside. She gasps. “That was fast,” she says nervously.

“Don’t worry.” He’s about to put his arm around her, but remembers his coldness, and thinks it might scare her.

“Can I touch you?” she says.

“Sure.”

She reaches out, first to his arm, then down his chest, her hand moving slowly, exploring. Then she takes it away. “Wow, you’re cold!”

“Yeah.”

Fred doesn’t speak. He knows she’s about to say something.

“So, what happened to you, Fred?”

Fred sighs. He doesn’t want to talk about this. “I guess you can work it out.”

“That time at summer camp, if you had asked me…”

“I know,” he says.

“I was like waiting for you to ask.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I was scared.”

She smiles and starts fiddling with the buttons on Fred’s waistcoat, opening and closing them.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she says.

Fred is thinking, You didn’t, but he doesn’t say anything. He looks at her neck, left exposed by her nightdress. It’s a good thing he’s already eaten, or he’d be seriously tempted. She doesn’t even seem to realize.

She turns over to rummage in her bedside drawer, and takes out a photograph.

“Look, I kept this photo of you beside my bed. I used to take it out and look at it, wondering.”

It’s not just Fred, there’s two other guys in it as well, but it must have been the only one she had. Wow, she really did like me, thinks Fred.

There’s a sound. A door opening down the corridor. Her face turns ghostly pale. “Oh no. It’s my father.”

Fred goes for the window, but he knows there isn’t time. It’s a small house. The door flies open, and a man appears in shorts and a vest, his belly protruding way out over the vest.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Nothing, Daddy. He’s just…” But he goes straight for Fred, gets his hands right around his throat. Fred doesn’t want to fight this guy, so he just removes his grip and pushes him toward the wall then makes for the stairs. Of course the door is locked, so he pulls his cape over his head and goes straight for the window, and falls through with a mighty crash. Once outside, he looks back once, and sees Heather’s dad about to come out through the shattered window. Fred takes a big bound over the hedge and escapes over the fields, swift and silent.

 

Later, Fred is sitting outside the ruined church where he sleeps, waiting for dawn to come. He likes the sunrise, though he never waits till it’s completed. He’s gonna have to find a new place to sleep, and soon. They’re gonna be grilling Heather to find out who he was. He wonders if her dad realized he was a vampire. Probably. The cape is a dead giveaway, and the unusual strength. It’s not easy. He’s starting to feel a bit peckish now, too. There’s a robin sitting on a branch, tweeting for the morning. Oh well. He feels terrible about it, but you do what you’ve gotta do. He crouches like a cat, and with hideous majesty leaps for the branch and grabs the robin in his slender hand, crushing it and then bringing it to his mouth, and drinking greedily from its poor broken body.