The Unforgotten

“Beth…I don’t even like Paul. Why should I have to go to his party?” Typical Beth, always trying to push Eva into joining the ‘fun crowd’ never could tell when to just back off. Sure her intentions were good, and her heart in the right place, but her methods were without thought and the benefits purely one-sided.

“It’s not Paul’s party, it’s a Phi Beta Sigma party. So ha! Problem solved.” Beth retorted with triumph, thinking she had just won the argument.

“Problem not solved.” Everyone knew that Eva didn’t like parties. It wasn’t that she felt out of place or socially awkward by any means. She saw no point in the affair. What was so enjoyable about watching ones peers drink themselves into a stupor far past stupidity? To make continual wrong decision after wrong decision, just to wake up in a strangers bed and regret the night they couldn’t even recall. It was a pathetic waste of time in her opinion.

“Eva, please! It’ll be so much fun, I promise.”
Right on cue, Eva thought. Beth had been her roommate for the past few months and in that time Eva had quickly picked up on some of her off putting habits. Incessant whining being pretty high on the list, among plenty of others like her inability to put her crap away when she was finished with it. Eva was a neat freak to say the least. She put it off on her up-bringing, much like her inability to be impolite to friends. Well, the closest thing she had to a friend anyway.

“Fine,” she sighed, knowing her argument would be futile and hearing Beth beg would only worsen her mood. “when will you be back?”

“Twenty minutes or so, I just got off the freeway. I got this great top at the mall!” Beth seemed excited. Eva didn’t understand why when she probably wouldn’t have it on for more than an hour. “What are you wearing?” Beth asked her.

“ I don’t know, probably what I’m wearing now.” Eva sighed in irritation. Why should she have to dress up? It wasn’t a formal event or anything. Just a group of people getting together to consume way too much alcohol.

“Eva! You can’t just wear regular clothes, you’ll never catch anyone’s attention that way.” Beth laughed as if Eva were the punch line to a joke only she knew. “Pick something sexy of mine and send me a picture of it, I’ll tell you whether or not it works for the party.”

To Beth this was something exciting. Going through every article of clothing in the closet to decide if it looked good. But what Eva didn’t understand was, if there was a possibility that it didn’t look good, why buy it in the first place? But Eva was willing to do whatever it took at this point just to end the phone call.

“Alright, let me find something.” She said into the receiving end of her cell phone as she held it to her ear with her shoulder. She reached into Beth’s closet aimlessly for something she would never willingly wear. “Okay, I’ve found something.”

“Great, hang up and send the picture. I’ll call you back as soon as I see it!”
Oh great, Eva rolled her eyes as she ended the call and threw down her phone on the bed.

She hung the nearly transparent black gossamer shirt on the closet door, just over the full length mirror. In the reflection she could see the disgust in her pursed lips and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She scoffed and turned to retrieve her phone.

Eva snapped a picture of the top and quickly sent it to Beth. She walked over to the opened window and peered out at the sky, darkening into a shade of blue that tugged at her heart and threatened to pull tears from her soft golden eyes. She violently shook her head and pushed open the window, letting in a rush of cool air that seemed to sweep away her memories. Though it took a moment before the image of that dark blue gaze left her alone, staring out at the tree tops, losing shape and definition in the shadows.

–—

Beth set her phone in the passenger seat and waited for Eva’s text. She was so excited to actually get her out of their room for once. She thought Eva needed more interaction with other people. She needed to socialize, try to be normal for once.

Beth focused on the road in front of her, an old narrow road that ran along the edge of an apple orchard. Twilight had fallen over her surroundings and left her feeling a little cold.

Her cell phone buzzed with an incoming picture message and she reached down to open it. Glancing at it she recognized the top she bought last summer. Now that’s more like it, she grinned.

Glancing back up at the road Beth was sent into a panic. A dark figure stood in the middle of the lane and wasn’t moving. She couldn’t see very well without her headlights on but she knew in that split second that it was human.

She hadn’t even had time to release her phone when she jerked the steering wheel away from the figure and ran head on into an apple tree, never even hitting the brakes.

Beth’s head slammed forward and made excruciating contact with the steering wheel, shattering her consciousness and leaving her dazed. Still, in the back of her mind she knew she had to move. She had to make sure that she hadn’t hit that person standing in the road. She had to move and make sure that she, herself, was not seriously injured.

Lifting herself up off the steering wheel, she leaned her head back gently. A sharp pain seared at her eyebrow and she felt the blood running down the side off her face before she saw it. She reached up and wiped at it, checking her fingers for confirmation.

She pulled down her visor, examining the cut in the vanity mirror, sucking in air through her teeth as she reached for the wound.

“Shit,” she swore.

Noticing the phone still clutched in her other hand, she readied herself, knowing she’d have to call 911. But before she was able to, her car door was fiercely yanked open, the screech of metal on metal deafening.

A dark shadow stood inches from her and before Beth could utter a sound, it reached out and grabbed a hold of her throat with an icy hand, heaving her from the car as if she weighed nothing.
A mere scrap of paper in the wind.

She was thrown against the ground, her head slamming into the asphalt, teeth knocking together painfully. She fought to move, to breathe. The grip on her throat only tightened. The hand must belong to someone strong, she thought somewhere in the back of her throbbing head.

“Please,” she choked out. “I can’t breathe.”

“Well that’s not good, now is it?” The shadow spoke with a voice so cold and menacing, yet it stilled Beth in an instant. His voice was deep and dark, yes, but smooth like velvet and chocolate. It coated her in a type of warmth that told her she didn’t have a need to fight.

He loosened his hold on her and slowly sat her up to face him. Her body trembled but her mind was foggy and warm, so she sat still. Her eyes adjusting to the dark began to form the features of this mans face. He was beautiful. His dark blue eyes were intense and piercing, staring right into her soul. And she knew he saw her fear.

“Please, you can’t kill me!“ She choked out between sobs. A single tear rolled down her cheek, she could not pull from his gaze.

“Oh, but we can.” He smiled.

“We?”

“We.” Came a second voice from behind her. She and the man in front of her both moved to look.

Another man stood there, tall and poised. Beth would have never guessed he posed a threat to her. Until his lips parted in a wide grin. Two sharp fangs peeked out from under his perfect pink lips and shown as bright as pearls under the moonlight.

Beth wanted to scream now. She turned back to the man in front of her and he too displayed a set of razor sharp teeth within his smile. He lowered his head slightly, peering at her from beneath full, dark lashes, biting his lower lip softly as if he were flirting with her. She stopped, the scream stuck in her throat, tight and building with pain.

“This won’t hurt…much.” he spoke in a voice like satin.

In that instant his face changed, contorting into something dark. Something only ever seen in movies. A monster. The kind children pictured living in their closets or hiding under the beds. It was a face of pure evil and it ripped through the calm Beth had felt only seconds earlier, pulling at her mind, telling her to run. But she couldn’t.

He pulled her head to the side, exposing her bare neck. Her pulse thrumming just below her jaw was like music to his well tuned ears. It pleased him. He opened his mouth wide and in less than a second had buried his fangs deep in her throat.

The scream she could not seem to utter moments before was now tearing from somewhere inside her. Pleading with her mind, to just shut down and hide from this impossible horror. She soon lost the ability to scream as blood filled her airway and she began to choke and sputter over the hot coppery liquid.

The other figure came closer now, kneeling beside her, taking her hand in his. He raised her wrist to his lips, kissed the soft skin once before sinking his teeth in and latching onto her.

She was quickly loosing sight as her vision blurred in and out, everything fogging over in a haze. As they drank the last drops of blood from her fragile body they broke their hold, surfacing for air.
Her sweet crimson blood staining their pallor faces, lost in ecstasy. The first figure reached up to wipe at his lips when Beth’s hand slipped from her lap and landed softly against the road, her phone falling from her grasp and clattering against the asphalt.

He reached down and collected the device, almost dismissing it. Yet something about the picture on the screen stopped him. At first glance it was a simple black top. But the reflection in the mirror behind the shirt is what stopped him, stealing the breath from his lungs.

“Kohl? What is it?” the second figure asked, now concerned by the look of shock on his friend’s face.

Kohl stared at the picture, willing himself to make sense of the tugging sensation at the farthest, frayed edges of his memory. The girl, she was familiar to him. Her soft brown curls, the curves of her face, her golden eyes.

The realization slapped him with such force he nearly fell over. Steadying himself, he stared harder, unable to believe.

“Kohl, what is the matter?”

“She…it’s impossible.” Kohl murmured, stunned.

His companion came around and took the phone from his hand and looked at it, eyes widening as her face came into focus in his mind.

“Erik, I…how…she-” Kohl’s once sultry and seductive voice was now incomprehensible blabber.

“Is that?” Erik began to ask, but couldn’t find the name.

“It can’t be Erik, that was three centuries ago. She can’t be…” But what if she is? Kohl knew he wouldn’t rest until he was certain.

Kohl set his jaw with determination, and Erik knew they wouldn’t be leaving this town anytime soon. He would stay and help his friend, that’s what he always did.

Kohl glanced down at the phone one last time before pocketing it and turning into the shadows, disappearing into the night as well as his thoughts. Only one word fluttered through his mind. A name. Her name.

Evangeline.

–

Glancing down at her phone, Eva noticed that it had been nearly seven minutes since she sent Beth the picture and still she hadn’t replied. Hmm…odd. Eva opened her messages and saw that the picture had sent just fine. It felt strange that Beth hadn’t yet called.

Eva gave it another minute before she flicked through her contacts and found Beth’s number. Pressing ‘Call’, Eva held the phone to her ear and waited. It rang once. Twice. Three times before the call was answered. Yet the line was silent.

–—

Kohl walked with an aimless determination through the orchard with Erik following close behind. He had to find a place to stay for the night, where no one would bother them. He had to find out everything he could about the girl that they had just fed from. Though, since they bled her dry, she wasn’t going to be any help.

A buzzing in the front pocket of Kohl’s jeans broke his reverie. He pulled the phone out and there she was. Evangeline’s beautiful face lit up the screen. A second buzz sounded in his hand.

Erik looked up at Kohl and shook his head, watching as his thumb hovered closer and closer to the screen, ready to answer the call.

A third buzz and Kohl could resist no longer. He swiped at the screen and raised the phone to his ear. Silently Erik stared at him with unfathomable eyes as Kohl waited on the edge of a precipice, anxious and unreadable.

Then she spoke, and Kohl fell.

—

“Beth? Beth are you there?” No one answered. “Beth, if you can hear me, answer me.” Still no one spoke. After a few seconds Eva hesitantly hung up.

Air rushed in the opened window whipping her hair around her face wildly. It sent shivers down her back, but not because it was cold. No, something was wrong, and the wind was carrying it right to her. As if it had a secret to tell her. It brushed across her body and straight through her mind, shouting a single word.

Danger…