Chapter 8 - Visitors

After a long day I had finally fallen asleep at about two am. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things Daniel had told me. The things he could remember as a human, which wasn’t much, then up to the things that happened while he was a vampire. He went into detail on things and some things I could tell he held back. He had such an interesting life, moving around a lot, meeting all kinds of different people.  I would love to do that someday, if only I had the chance.

One memory of his specifically stuck with me. One where he had said he gained an enemy from. A vampire was killing women all over town that seemed about her age, though he didn’t really know why, but he recognized her. He remembered her from his last human moments. Suddenly it became personal for him, he never thought he would ever have the chance to see her again. He decided then that something needed to be done. Not only because did he want his existence to stay secret, her killing spree would surely expose him, but she was the one who had stolen his human life away. He had to, and wanted to, destroy her. After he had he realized that she had been married and her vampire husband was soon following him, threatening to someday get him back. Daniel hasn’t heard anything from him in almost 7 years.

That was the last thing I remembered before falling asleep, and that was probably the reason behind my newest nightmare. In some ways it was the same, but some details were more visible, like the man’s face for instance. I was watching from my own eyes again, and my vision wasn’t blurry this time. I could see every detail of his face when he looked at me. Now every time I closed my eyes, it was all I could see, the face that matched the vampire that was soon coming after me, for no reason that I or Daniel could see.

It was seven am and I just wanted lay in bed for a while. Thinking about things I knew I shouldn’t think about. I was sure to send myself into panic attack. Thinking about my dreams, still not sure if it was really going to happen or not, terrified me. I moved off the subject of me and focused more on Daniel’s past. I thought about that vampire that wanted revenge. I wondered if maybe he had given up or just hasn’t found Daniel yet. It was then I got the crazy idea that Daniel’s enemy and my dream were related. I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it because my phone started vibrating on my night stand.

I picked up my phone, not wanting to move yet, and read the caller ID. Daniel, of course. I thought and answered it.

“Hello.” I tried to sound like I didn’t just wake up, but it didn’t work.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He said.

“You didn’t wake me up, I woke up about 30 minutes ago, I just haven’t gotten out of bed yet. Actually, I haven’t even moved till I got the phone.” I said with my voice breaking on the last few words and I started laughing a little.

“Oh, ok. How did you sleep.” He asked

“Uh, good.” I answered, but he wasn’t convinced. My lying was horrible.

“Why do I don’t believe you?” he laughed. I knew it.

“Nothing new, just that same nightmare as usual. A few more details added is all since I could see clearly.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, since I was trying not to think about it before he called.

“Oh, alright. Well I just wanted to call and say good morning and see if you wanted to do something this afternoon, not that I have anything in mind, but we could figure something out I’m sure.” He was laughing a little again. Of course I would never say no to spending time with him.

“Definitely.” I said, sounding a little to eager.

He laughed again, harder this time. “I’ll call you when I want to come get you.”

“Sounds good.”

“ok, well I love you and I’ll see you later.”

“I love you too. Bye.” I said and then hung up the phone.

 

***

I was sitting on my porch waiting for Daniel to come get me. He said he had nothing planned, but I was suddenly not so sure of that, that might have been why I was a little nervous. I had pretty much the whole day to spend with Daniel. My grandparents took Lilly out with them for the day. Something about shopping and spoiling her, Lilly would love it. So I was just sitting on the porch all alone, impatiently waiting for him to get here, even though I was ready way ahead of time. I couldn’t get rid of those images in my head of the vampire from my dream and I wanted to talk to Daniel about them.

He finally pulled in the driveway and I jumped up and practically ran out to him. I got into the car and he has a huge smile on his face.

“In a hurry?” he asked while laughing

“No, not really, just don’t like being home alone.” I said and laughed too.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked.

“Grandparents took Lilly out for the day.” I told him with a smile. He smiled too.

“Sounds nice, ready?”

“Yep. So, where are we going?” I asked

“My house.” He said and he had kind of a smiled that confirmed my nervousness that he has a secret plan.

“Oh, ok.” With him it was hard to try and figure out what he was planning.

We were quite the whole way to his house. I didn’t know what else to talk about besides my dream and I didn’t want to bring it up now. I was sure he didn’t want to talk about it now, since he didn’t bring it up ether, and he knew I needed to talk about it.

When we got to his house, he walked next to me to the doorway, once he opened the door he stayed behind while I walked in. I froze a few feet in, the house looked totally different. The lighting was different, shades were pulled down and there were a few new lamps scattered around the room. There were bouquets of roses placed on tables; each had a variety of colors. Pink, white, and red roses seemed to be everywhere. I walked a little farther into the living room and from there I could see the dining room table. It had a chandelier above it that was lightly lit causing it to slightly have a gold glow to it. The table had another bouquet of roses in a pretty silver vase. This one was smaller, only this one had white and red roses mixed with leaves and some small pretty flower I couldn’t quite remember the name of.  The table had plates and silverware on it and it all looked really fancy. The table mast were a deep red color and the table looked like it was an antique with carving of flowers down the legs. The chairs matched. I just stood there and stared at it.

“You like it? I hope it’s not too much.” He said as he was looking down at his shoes.

“Y-yeah, it’s beautiful.” I stumbled on the words beucase it was and I had no idea why the house looked this way.

“Really? Well, there is a reason I wanted to bring you here.” He glanced back up to me and then slightly looked away. This time he looked nervous.

“What is it Daniel?” I asked suddenly feeling even more nervous than before.

“Well, I… ” he paused again still struggling. “I want you to meet someone.” He finally said.

“Oh.” Was all I could say, he never really mentioned anyone he would want me to meet, he never really talked about anyone.

“Yeah, is that ok? I mean, I know I should have warned you.” He laughed a little. “But, she’s really the closest thing I have to family and when I told her about you, before I could tell her to wait, she showed up last night and wanted to meet you. She brought her husband too.” He added with a hopeful smile.

“Uh, yeah. Of course.” I said, I couldn’t really find any other words.

“Great. By the way, she’s the one that made the changes to my house. She said it barely looked lived in, even for a vampire.” He laughed a little harder.

 A girl in the house, that explains a lot. I laughed a little too, I didn’t know what else to do. I was comfortable with him being what he was, but I had no idea how I would feel with another one. Assuming it was only her. Suddenly I thought of what vampire normally eat. I remember Daniel telling me he was different from others, and he drank animals’ blood. That didn’t really surprise me, I remembered reading an article online once about vampires who strayed away from “normal” vampire behavior. He laughed when I told him about that, he said he was glad that things about him didn’t totally surprise me. So was I, but I instantly became worried about this girl who was visiting, and what her lifestyle was like. I hoped it was close to his. He noticed the change in my expression and immediately understood what was wrong.

“Don’t worry Rayanne, she’s a lot like me. You have nothing to worry about.” He said trying to ease my worry and it worked.

“Ok.” I said and laughed nervously. I didn’t know of any other way to react.

He laughed at my reaction and held my hand. He led me to the dining room table. He pulled out a chair for me and I sat down. He walked over and sat across from me with a smile.

“So, um… What’s all this for?” I asked. I knew she had made it looked lived in but why did the dining room table have to be all done up.

“Well, I actually had something planned for later after she goes out.”

Before I could ask what those plans were, I saw someone appear out of the corner of my eye. I jumped a little and then felt embarrassed for my reaction, but before I could try to cover my embarrassment, I got a good look at her. She was beautiful, more beautiful than I have ever seen. She had golden brown hair just passed her shoulders, she had the same odd, but beautiful brown eyes, perfect nose and lips that had just a little bit of a red tint to them, that I could tell was natural. Her skin was the same pale and Daniel’s, but it had a slight glow to it that brought out her beauty even more. It was almost hard to look at her, but I did anyway. I just hope I didn’t look as ridiculous as my thoughts were sounding.

“This is Laura. She’s pretty much like my sister.” Daniel looked at me and I forced myself to smile.

Laura walked over to me and I stood up, almost falling down. “Hi, it’s very nice to meet you.” She said.

“It’s very nice to meet you too.” I tried to say, I just hope she understood me. She just smiled.

A man appeared behind her and I guessed it was her husband.

“And this is Logan.” Daniel said lifting his hand slightly in the man’s direction.

Logan just stood there, gave me a little wave and said, “Hello.”

“Hi.” I said back. I couldn’t tell from my distance if he seemed friendly or not, but he did seem to be a little awkward.

“Um, humans tend to make him a little nervous sometimes; he’ll be fine once he gets to know you.” Laura added.

I just nodded and looked back to Daniel who was starting to look a little uncomfortable. He walked over to me and put his arm around my waist tightly, almost possessively. I didn’t know what to make of that.

“Well, we better get going, we’ll be back later tonight. I hope to get a chance to spend some time with you Rayanne. The way Daniel talks about you, it’s almost like I already know you.” She said as she grabbed my hand with both of her hands and smiled. Good thing I was used to the cold thing.

 

After Laura and Logan left, Daniel wanted me to stay sitting at the dining room table. I didn’t know if vampires could cook, so I didn’t know what to expect for dinner. I just sat there and admired the flowers and thought about his “family.” Laura seemed nice, someone I wouldn’t mind getting to know more, but Logan seemed a little cold and too hesitant. I didn’t think he would loosen up like Laura had said he would, he just didn’t seem like he was that easy to persuade into to liking someone.

By the time I was finished with my thinking, Daniel had finished dinner. I looked and smelled great. He made spaghetti and you really can’t go wrong there, that’s why it was my favorite.  He just sat there while I ate and we talked a little. I felt weird being the one eating, but it was a good thing I was hungry. He had asked me what I thought of Laura and Logan and I just said I thought they were nice. I told him I was looking forward to Laura, but I didn’t say much about Logan. He noticed that and laughed when I changed the subject.

I was done with eating and Daniel suggested going to the living room to talk. I realized this was my chance to talk about my dream. I actually hadn’t thought about it since we’d gotten here, but I couldn’t forget it for long. He sat down on the couch and I sat next to him, leaning against him with me legs brought up to my side. For a few minutes we didn’t say anything, just enjoyed the comfortable silence. I broke the silence by starting the conversation about my dream, I couldn’t avoid it anymore.

“Can we talk about my dream now?” I asked.

“Of course, what exactly happened now?”

“Well, like I said, it was pretty much the same, just my vision was more clear. I could see his face, I could see the room, and I could see what time it was all going on. What I cant really figure out is, why at that time, would my grandparent and Lilly not be home. Whenever they took her out, they were always back by seven pm, in my dream it was three am. Just doesn’t make sense.” I could feel the panic I felt echoing through my voice now.

“Right now there has been no talk of any trip they may take, that they would want to take Lilly on? Nothing comes to mind?” he asked.

“No, nothing. I thought about it for hours Daniel, and none of it makes sense. The fact that I’m having this dream over and over, with more details becoming noticeable, pretty much tells me that this isn’t just a dream.” I paused, I didn’t like that realization. “At least I know what he looks like now, that has to help somehow.”

“Well, what did he look like?” he asked, weird sound in his voice that sounded like a mix between, curiosity and anger.

“Hmm, well not enough to describe to point out, especially since it was dark in my room. He had short brown hair, he was pale white of course, he had dark clothes on, glowing red eyes that I could barely see from the moonlight that showed through my room, and well that’s all I could really see.” I sighed, I was mad that there wasn’t more I could tell him.

“Yeah, that really isn’t much to go on is it.” he laughed.

“I know, it’s just hard to describe someone in so many details, but I saw him, I could point him out. It just might be too late by then.” I pushed myself tighter against him and he wrapped his arms around me.

We just sat there in silence for a little while longer. I was thinking about the things I could do, and some things that I maybe shouldn’t do, anything to give me hope that this might not happen. The only things I did know and I kept reminding myself this, someone was after me, no idea who exactly, but it was going to happen soon. I wish I knew how soon it was.

We sat there talking for a few hours, about anything and everything we could think of that wasn’t related to my dreams. We talked about how he met Laura. At that time Laura had also just met Logan, but when Daniel first met her he was just passing through Michigan and stopped in a little town, he didn’t even pay attention to the name, and was hunting. He had no idea there was any other vampires there, but he bumped into her when they were both about to attack the same bear. They immediately became friends once they realized that there both different from the “normal” vampires. She introduced them to Logan then, and they all three lived together for about 8 years. He got tired of the area and decided to travel a while, he would go back occasionally and stay with them, and sometimes they moved around together, and then he would be off on his own again. I guess he’s known them for about, 20 years now.

After the day we had, I started to get a little tired, so he decided to take me home. I didn’t want to of course, but I was tired and I had a little girl to take care of, otherwise I would have stayed with him forever. He didn’t talk much on the way home so I ended up falling asleep.

I had just barely gotten into my dream when I felt something cold touching my forehead, and opened my eyes to Daniel. He was kissing my forehead.

“Your home now.” He said, not sounding any happier than I was.

“Oh, ok.” I was still half asleep and my mind was still filled with the images from that dream, even though I had just started it, a lot had happened.

“You ok? You look a little scared.” He asked still hovering over me a little bit, his eyed widened a little bit and he moved back.

“Um, no… not scared, just… worried?” I wasn’t sure what I felt at that moment.

I stopped to really understand what I had seen. It was the man from my nightmare as usual, but this time it merged into something else. I saw a man following Daniel. The man was walking around his house. Daniel had been inside the house, I couldn’t tell what kind of house it was since it was dark and all I could see was the man looking through the window, while smiling. Just before I had been woken up it switched back to the fuzzy vision of me in my room, with the man from my dream walking towards me. Could they be the same? Was that me in the house talking to Daniel? Was that even possible? I felt a rush of fear flood through my veins, and icy cold chills ran through my spine.

“What is it Rayanne? Did you dream something?” he asked, sounding panicked now too.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“M-my normal nightmare, and then I saw the man that is s-stalking you, outside your house. But not his face, I could just see him smiling while looking into your house.” I mumbled and stuttered the whole time.

“What are you saying Rayanne?”  he asked, all panic switching over to anger.

“I-I don’t k-know. Really I don’t. It could mean nothing. I fell asleep thinking about that guy following you and well I don’t know.” I was shaking now. The connection was made, and there was no denying it now.

I sat up and looked out the window. It was just starting to get dark outside and my grandparents still weren’t back yet.

“Well, I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I.” I said. “But I’m exhausted and I want to see if I can pick up where that dream left off, if you don’t mind.” I asked, while yawning.

“No, of course not. Just please call me for anything. Even if you just scared, I’ll be here.” He said while wrapping his arms around me in a hug.

“Ok, I will.” I leaned up and kissed him as he let go, then got out of the car.

I didn’t really like going into the house alone, but I knew my grandparents would be home anytime, and I just wanted to go to sleep. I had no idea why I was so tired, except I had been through a lot lately, well more than normal, and I wasn’t sleeping that great with the dreams. Once I got in the house I stood in the doorway till Daniel drove away, then closed it and locked it then went straight to my room. I didn’t bother changing into any comfortable, I just hoped right into bed, taking my phone out of my pocket to set in on the table, and went right to sleep.

The dream I had was almost like any other day. It started out with my waking Lilly up and playing with her after breakfast. The day went on to us going for a walk enjoying the nice day and then going home for lunch, hanging out with Grams, then the three of us going shopping. When we got home from shopping , Lilly stayed out in the living room with Grams, and I was in my room reading my Edgar Allan Poe Complete Collection book. Then we all sat together for dinner, and then me and Lilly relaxed on my bed while watching a movie. After the movie we went to bed.

I didn’t understand why I was dreaming this, there wasn’t anything special about it, it was just a normal day. Well, not really normal, there was no Daniel. I realized soon that I was dreaming of what my life would have been like without Daniel. Not much different, just a little less exciting. With realizing that, I noticed I wasn’t dreaming anymore. I rolled over to look at my clock, but I noticed a light flashing on my phone first. I picked it up and I had one missed call from Grams. I pushed the button to listen to my voicemail.

“Hi Rayanne, you’re probably home now, and I’m not sure why you’re not answering you phone, but I just wanted to call you to let you know that we won’t be home tonight. We went to visit some friends and Lilly got to playing with their granddaughter they had visiting for the weekend. We decided to stay till tomorrow. I hope that’s ok. There’s food in the fridge to heat up and we’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. Good night honey, see you then.” Grams said.

Great I thought. A second later I was flinging myself out of bed. Oh S**t! I thought. I glanced at the clock. Three am. Oh no no no no. This can’t be good!  I thought again.

It was three am and I was home alone. I glance out my door and the hallway was dimly lit. I started panicking, my breathing sped up, and my hands curled into fists. I realized then that I was still holding my phone. I hurried up and opened it to call Daniel.

I had just started ringing when suddenly there was a shadow slowly moving in the hallway, I gasped and froze. I slowly back up till I was at the edge of my bed and my heart stopped. So far this was exactly like my dream. My eyes never let my doorway. I lowered the hand that had the phone in it to my wais, I had no idea if Daniel had answered or not, but I snapped the phone closed, just as the shadow turned into a tall dark figure standing inside my doorway. I looked up to his smiling face and I couldn’t breathe. A panic attack was on its way while once again seeing one of my dreams come to life.

He slowly walked towards me, laughing. I knew he could sense my fear, and he enjoyed every bit of it.  His hands reached out for me, putting one hand on my lower arm and slowly moved up to my shoulders. I had to do something, had to stop this from becoming my dream. I could feel his grip tighten on my shoulders and then loosened. He glanced down to my hand and noticed my phone. His laughing stopped and he reached down for it and crumbled it in his hand, and started laughing again.

I forced myself to breath and got one gasp of air in. He stared me straight in the eyes, and smile started to appear again.

“W-What do you want?!” I shrieked.

“You.” He said, laughing harder now.

That one word sent chills through my whole body, and I was now more terrified than I have ever been. I opened my mouth to say something else, though I wasn’t sure what to say, but he reached up and covered my mouth. He then picked me up with the one hand he still had on my shoulder and threw me up on my bed. I hurt my shoulder make a little cracking sound and I screamed. When he let go my shoulder throbbed in pain and I was glad at that moment that I was too scared to cry. He would enjoy that too much.

He was hovering over me, just like in the dream, and ran his hands slowly from my inner thigh all the way up to my neck, while slowly stopping over my chest for a moment. He rolled over to his side and gripped his hand in my hair, so tightly is hurt, I just winced at the pain. His head moved down to my neck, and I hoped he was just going to kill me, but of course he didn’t, he started kissing me down my neck. He stopped and then brought his hand from my neck down to the edge of my shirt. I knew what he was about to do, but he was interrupted by the noise of something breaking in the living room.

He jumped off me so fast, I almost flew off the bed. In that instant we were suddenly not alone.

“Daniel?” I yelled, relieved.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Daniel said towards the man standing on the other side of the bed from me and I realized that my dream in the car was telling me that they were the same man. My knees almost gave out.

“Revenge remember?” the man said.

“You are NOT going to kill her for your revenge. I will not let that happen.” Daniel said, and his voice was filled with pure rage.

Daniel took one step forward into the moonlight, and he didn’t look like my Daniel anymore, the rage brought out is vampire side. A vampire I didn’t recognize. Of course it was still Daniel, but I’ve never seen this side of him and that scared me a little, I just stood there completely frozen.

“Oh no, much more than that.” the man said, laughing again.

Daniel growled, “What?”

“Killing her would be too easy. No, I want to do something much more than that. I want to do something that will leave her, in much worse shape, something that will eventually kill her, but I want to watch you suffer over her pain. What I’m thinking of will last oh, about 2 months. Maybe less, but that enough and at the end, she will die, and then I’ll have my reward and reminder of my revenge.” He laughed again and once again it sent chills down my spine.

Daniel just stood there as frozen as I was, with the rage still clear on his face, but I saw a flash of pain cross his face. I had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently Daniel did and he still didn’t say anything.

“Well, it won’t happen tonight obviously, but I will be back. You can’t be with her every second Daniel and I’m counting on that.” Just as he said that, he was gone and I fell to my knees.

Daniel broke from his statue pose and his eyes darted straight at me, yet he still didn’t move. He just stared at me and the last thing I remembered thinking, before everything went dark, was that something very horrible was going to happen to me and that vampire was going to make sure it happened.

Author's Note

I'm new at writing and I except any criticism. I just ask that you please be nice about it. There may be some grammar errors, but I haven't made things final yet.