The Vampire and I

Chapter One: Getting Along and Having Fun, In Style.

One day I was walking down a deserted street. I was going slow, admiring the beautiful autumn scenery. Along the way I heard someone, but I couldn’t tell where they were so I ignored the sounds. Then I heard someone say, " Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you."

I spun around and saw something. Something almost terrifying! A young man, about my age, taller than me was standing there, but he didn’t look right to me. I’d seen a lot of guys since I had just turned sixteen so I thought I knew what I was talking about. His eyes had a yellowish tint to them, and his teeth looked strange. They were longer than they should be. And what scared me the most is that he looked drunk. He said, " I won’t hurt you."

I almost ran but something told me not to. I started to say something but he silenced me by saying, " Let me explain, my dear, I already know all I need to know about you." It disturbed me the way he had said ‘my dear’ but I stood there and stared at him anyway. "Only you can see me." He continued. It startled me but yet I didn’t think to run. Then he added slyly, " I’m a vampire too." Only then did I think to run but he said as if reading my thoughts, " I won’t hurt you, please don’t run away." So I stayed fixed to the spot, only problem was that I had fainted.

When I came to about an hour later we (the vampire and myself) were somewhere, but I didn’t know where. "Don’t be scared, I only want a few things from you." The vampire said when he saw that I had come to. " I can make your life as normal as it is now, with only a few exceptions."

"Like what?" I asked puzzled.

"Well," he said, " I do have to have blood." He stopped and waited for my reaction. I didn’t give one so he went on. " I’m immune to sunlight, so I can go out in the daylight."

"So that’s why you could find me," I said fascinated.

"Yes," he said with look that sent a chill down my spine.

" Well," I said trying to make my situation better, " I would like to know your name so that I don’t have to go around calling you ‘he’."

Well," he said casually, " you think of a name."

" Me?" I asked dumbfounded.

" Yes, you." He answered coldly, making me scared.

" All right," I said trying to mask my frazzled nerves, " I guess your name will be, um…Louis, is that all right with you?"

"Louis," He said thoughtfully, "I’ve never had that name before."

"How many names have you had?" I said cautiously.

He said after a moment of thought, "Oh, about three or four including Louis."

"What happened to the other people?" I asked almost afraid to hear the answer.

" They got scared, and ran away from me," he answered matter-of- factly, " They went crazy after awhile so I had to leave them."

"Oh," I said quickly trying to reassure him, and myself, " I won’t run."

" I know." Louis said slowly, "That’s why I picked you."

"Oh really," I said trying desperately to hide the fear in my voice, " Um, how will you get any blood, and how did you get immune to the sunlight? I thought vampires turned to dust when caught in the sun’s rays."

" I can only answer one of your questions, the most important one," He said as I waited curiously. Then to my surprise and horror Louis said calmly, " I will have to get the blood from you."

"WHAT!" I cried with such force Louis took a few steps backwards.

" Calm down," He said as though he was trying to comfort both of us, " it’s just like getting a shot."

"Oh great," I said outraged, " I hate shots!"

" Well," Louis said, " I’ll have to show you how simple it really is."

" I don’t know about that," I said trying to be calm.

" It’s really easy," Louis said almost pleading with me.

"All right," I said giving in, " show me how."

" Tilt your head back and then I can feed," Louis said.

" Please don’t use the word ‘feed’," I pleaded.

" Fine, but I really do need something to eat," Louis said, his eyes searching mine.

As I tilted my head back I saw his fangs grow. When he bit me I gasped, but it didn’t hurt me at all. When he was done he looked at me again and I saw that his eyes weren’t yellow anymore, they were more brown than anything. And I realized that he was smiling for the first time. I also noticed that his fangs were starting to go away.

" Now what?" I asked.

" Now," Louis said, " we go home."

Those first few weeks were interesting, at least to me. Louis was fast becoming my best friend who I could talk about anything with. We never got into any fights, and he was super sweet! Something I never expected from a vampire. Actually I never expected to meet a vampire, but now I had one as my best friend. I couldn’t tell any of my friends about him, even though I wanted to. I had promised him that I wouldn’t. He said that it would be safer to keep it a secret between only him and me, and for some reason I really liked that idea. I didn’t like the idea that I always had to wear my hair down to make sure nobody noticed if I had been bitten or not, but I decided it was worth it to have Louis around. One day he came to school with me and noticed how bad some of the kids were treated and said that if I was ever in any trouble at all to call on him and he would protect me against anything the best he could.

Too bad he couldn’t protect me from a broken heart that I suffered when one of my friends committed suicide a few days later. He did a good job of being there for me though. For almost a week he followed me around everywhere I went and gave me a hug almost every ten seconds! That made me feel stronger and I could help my friends out better because he was helping me so much just by being there for me.

Almost a month had gone by by the time everyone was recovered enough to try to get back to our old routine. Which was a welcomed distraction to our misery. It was that day that Louis tried to cheer me up by saying that he was, "strong as an ox." He knew I would say to "prove it," and he was right, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. As soon as the words left my mouth he grabbed me and threw me up in the air! I screamed but he caught me, gave me a kiss on the forehead, and set me safely on the ground. I told him that he was silly, but what I didn’t tell him was that I somehow loved being in his arms, all safe and protected from the cruelty, hurt, and hate in the world.

The next day I learned something almost as interesting. When I came home from school the next day Louis wasn’t home, and it made me worry. He hadn’t missed a day of waiting by the door to welcome me home since I met him. As I walked into my room I heard a muffled sound behind me. When I turned I saw Louis standing there.

"Sorry I missed you coming in," he said looking into my eyes, as if he was trying to see if I believed him or not.

" It’s okay, but how did you suddenly appear out of nowhere?" I asked confused.

"Oh," Louis said with a smile, " I didn’t tell you about that did I?"

"Tell me what?" I asked uncertainly.

" That I can snap my fingers and go anywhere in the world that I want to." He replied like it was just a little thing.

" How can you do that?" I asked

" I dunno, it’s a little perk of being a vampire I guess," He said with a shrug.

The following week I decided to take him to the mall. We both needed a break from the recent drama, or a vacation either way it was a welcomed distraction. After I came home from school the day I decided we would go Louis was waiting by the front door for me.

"Hello," he called casually when I approached him, " what are you up to today?"

"Actually I was thinking about going to the mall," I answered, adding quickly, "with you," after seeing his expression change ever so slightly.

"The mall?" Louis said obviously puzzled. "I’ve never been to one of those before." He said without so much of an indication he might want to go.

Getting a funny feeling that Louis might not want to go to the mall I offered "If you don’t want to go we don’t have to."

"Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a bad impression, I really would like to go to this, mall." Louis said apologetically.

"You didn’t," I said quickly so that Louis wouldn’t make a show of being sorry.

" Well, can we be off then?" Louis said with a bit of excitement in his voice.

" Why of course," I said in my best portrayal of a snob.

Louis laughed at me and snapped his fingers.

When we ‘arrived’ at Somerset Mall in Detroit Louis could only stare at his surroundings. We found a directory and decided where we were going to go, and how we were going to get there. We wanted to go check out some of the water fountains in the mall before we started shopping though.

Our first real stop was at the three story Hudson’s department store. It was a nice place, but everything was so expensive! We didn’t see anything that we couldn’t live without, so we left.

By this time it was a little bit past four o’clock, and I was getting hungry! Louis, being a gentleman, agreed to go with me to get something to eat. We decided to go to the California Pizza Kitchen there. Louis found out that he didn’t like pizza very much, he preferred blood a lot more. And waited for me to finish eating my pizza. After a small, stuffed crust pizza Louis and I were on our way again.

I had heard from my friends that the F.A.O. Schwartz was a really cool toy store to go see, even if we didn’t buy anything. But to get there from where we were, we had to take the skywalk.

It was so fun to walk on one of those! You walked almost two times faster than you normally would. Louis wanted to scare people by banging on the glass walls, but I made him promise me that he wouldn’t do that. He’d probably make somebody on the street below to crash! He did as I had asked him, and we went to F.A.O. Schwartz and were astounded by what we saw.

When you walked inside the store, you were at the Barbie display and on either side of the entrance were huge fountain-like cylinders, filled with water. Much to our surprise, floating around inside the cylinders were thousands of Barbie shoes!

"That is so cool," Louis said in astonishment.

"It is," I agreed, in as much awe as Louis was in.

Toward the back of the store was a display of motorized fairy tale characters! They were cool, but what caught out attention was the back wall of the store.

There in the very back of the store was a roaring lion doll up on a shelf, that kept going off, and had the jungle background, and next to it was a colossal brontosaurus head that was motorized and he talked to you! Too bad they cost so much, or I would have gotten something for my room to freak my parents out!

We wandered around the mall window shopping for awhile, and we didn’t see anything that interested us enough to buy anything, so we decided to got back across the skywalk, and check out that side of the mall, and then we would probably go back home.

As we walked across the skywalk again, Louis looked like he was up to something, so I asked, "Why do I think you’re going to be getting us in trouble?"

"Um, well," Louis said, " probably because I am planning something right now"

"Oh no!" I cried, "What are you up to?"

"You’ll see," Louis said grinning evilly at me.

"When?" I asked, as I got off the skywalk.

"Right about…Now!" Louis said as he picked me up.

"Put me down," I hissed at him.

He ignored me completely and kept right on walking around the mall, stopping every so often to window shop. He had found that he actually liked to window shop as much as I did. As he was walking around people kept staring at me, as I talked to apparently nobody, and was suspended in midair!

"Put me down," I asked again, half laughing.

Louis pretended not to hear me, but smiled as we continued around the mall. People continued to stare at me, and by this point in time, if Louis had even tried to put me down, I would have fallen over because I was laughing so hard at the stares I was getting.

Louis finally found the store he was seemingly looking for. He walked in and plopped me down on a brand new mattress, then plopped himself down next to me. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. As we were calming down I noticed that his eyes were bright yellow.

"You don’t look so good, hot stuff, I think you need to eat," I said concerned for his safety.

Louis spoke quietly as he said, "I think I will have to agree with you, I am really hungry."

I led him outside the store, and to the bench not far down the hall. I sat down, and pulled him down next to me, and tilted my head back.

"If it seems like I’m taking too long stop me," Louis whispered through his fangs.

"All right," I said as I pretended to be counting the ceiling tiles.

After awhile I said, "Stop Louis, long enough."

Louis reluctantly drew back, and our eyes met. His eyes were still tinted yellow. He needed more blood, but I could not give him any more for at least a little while.

"You need more blood," I said quietly, leaning against him.

"Well, how can I get more?" Louis asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. "You cannot give me any more for a few hours at least."

"I don’t know, Louis, but I will find a way." I said scanning the walkways.

Louis smiled, but he was leaning against me more and more every second we were sitting there. I looked at him concerned and he courageously said, " Don’t worry about me so much, I can wait for a few hours, and then I’ll be fine."

"Ha," I said, "You need more blood here and now, and I think I have figured out how to get it too."

"Really?" Louis said, hopefully

"Yes," I said as I looked at the people passing by.

Noticing me watching people passing by, Louis asked, "How are you going to get more blood?"

"Easy, watch and learn," I said as I got up and walked over to a lady standing nearby.

"Hello," She said as I tapped her on the shoulder.

"I was wondering if you would like to donate some blood to the needy."

"Oh, that would be wonderful to help someone in need!" She cried happily.

I grinned and motioned for Louis to come closer to us. She didn’t see me do this because he was behind us. "There is a few things you need to know first," I told the lady.

"Okay, tell me what to do." The lady replied eagerly.

I looked over at Louis, and noticed he was catching on quickly, and his fangs were growing. I smiled and turned my attention back to the lady. "Please do not move, at all, or talk. It is very important that you do these things... or rather don’t do them."

The lady looked concerned, but said, "Those are strange requests, but I am ready, willing, and able to help the needy."

As soon as the words left her mouth Louis bit into her neck. She gasped, but didn’t move, or speak, as I had requested. She looked bewildered, and kept looking at me. I was smiling, and that just scared her even more. And she was ready to scream, but I put a finger to my lips to remind her that she had to be quiet. Just then Louis pulled away from her.

The lady started screaming, and two security guards approached her. She tired to tell her what she thought had happened, but not even I could figure out what she was trying to say. She kept pointing at me, but I had slipped into the crowd, and she couldn’t find me. The two security guards decided she was too frazzled to stay in the mall any longer, and escorted her off the premises.

As they took her away, I locked eyes with Louis. What I saw took my breath away. I was looking into beautiful, deep brown, sparkling eyes. " You look a lot better," I said trying to mask the amazement I was in.

Louis smiled, and hugged me tightly. He, thankfully, didn’t notice how intrigued I was, and said, " That was a really good plan! I’m glad you came up with it when you did, I was more hungry than I realized."

"Just noticing that?" I asked being sarcastic, and laughing at the same time.

"Yeah," Louis said, and looked at me and laughed, knowing I was teasing him.

I yawned suddenly, and I looked at the clock. Eight o’clock it read. "It’s getting late, we need to get going," I said.

"As you wish," Louis said as he bowed and took us home.

That night when I went to bed I discovered a present from Louis on my bed. It was a beautiful comforter that Louis had gotten in one of his travels. I looked around so I could thank him for it, but I could not find him at all. I was so tired that I had to give up looking for him, and go to sleep.

When I fell asleep Louis emerged from his hiding spot, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He gazed at me sleep for a little while, and then smiled. He kissed my forehead and said, " Good night, sleep well my smart angel of the night."

Copyright � Rachel