I Hope They Taste of Me Forever

I was officially accepted by the others as a hunter. I was allowed to hunt with them. Don’t for a second think that I didn’t need to practice, because I damn sure did, but I had more motivation now.

Honestly, everything was going pretty well. I was no longer the defenseless, hollow shell of existence that I had wasted so many years being. I was a person again. I could fight for myself. Even Pete admitted it. I had friends again. Sure, they weren’t the kind of people most people my age would have as friends. They were older than me, nocturnal, spent their lives hunting vampires, and weren’t the people to talk to about shoes or dating. Good thing I didn’t give a shit about that either. I know that my relationship with these guys is weird. Strange. Abnormal. But you know what? I don’t care.

I’d come to the conclusion that maybe Pete was right. Maybe they did care for me more than just a distraction. I mean, obviously Pete didn’t, but whatever. I never expected anything from him. This nice realization didn’t all of a sudden give me any real desperation to stay alive, but it was a good feeling. Knowing that there are people who care about you. And I hate to compare them to my parents, but this is the first time I’d felt so loved since they died. I’m still sure that Matt loved me. He didn’t abandon me. He loved me; he just had an awfully rough way of showing it. It wasn’t always that way, but after our parents died he turned blank and emotionless. The only signs of feeling were negative. Almost like he was incapable of trusting or caring about anyone ever again. I think the real problem was that I reminded him too much of our parents and the life we used to have. The normal life that so many people in this world don’t realize how lucky they are to have. The life where vampires don’t exist and there is no need to watch your back every time you go outdoors. At nighttime, anyway.

Which leads me to where I am now.

This is the first time I’ve left the warehouse while the sun is up since that run-in with hoods that encouraged me to learn how to fight, and that doesn’t even count because it was almost night anyway. This time I was going out for supplies at ten in the morning. I repeat; ten in the morning. Yeah, you try leaving this early in the morning when you usually only get to bed five hours before and tell me how it feels. Not good. But I wanted this. I wanted to see normal people living their normal lives. I wanted to go normal places where normal people went, instead of searching dark alleyways for psycho-murderer creatures of the night. I wanted, if only for an hour, to pretend that I was normal. Yeah yeah, I’m just getting up for the letdown. But I know that my life will never be that way again. I’ve accepted it. In fact, I’m not even sure if I want it to be normal again. I mean, sure, I could live without the mind-reading. I could live without the constant roll of death threats. I could live without being nocturnal. But I couldn’t live withoutPete the guys.

Whoa! Where did that first thought come from? I have no bloody idea but I didn’t mean it. I could most definitely live without Pete. But it’s not the end of the world if he’s part of my life. Even if he does end up killing me… well, I think we’ve established that that wouldn’t be an entirely tragic idea.

Anyway, I couldn’t live without the guys. I couldn’t live normally and just get over my past. And besides… I wouldn’t want to miss all the action.

I’d forgotten how much I loved the sun. It’s not often that it shines in Chicago anyway, but when it does it’s really beautiful. It had been years since I’d been out in it, but back when I lived with Matt I used to look out the window when I was supposed to be sleeping. The sun glistened and made everything seem brighter. The trees were greener, the lakes were bluer, the people were just that much happier, and the endless skyscrapers had a certain charm to them that they didn’t have in the shadows. I’d forgotten the amazing warmth, and the pleasant tingling feeling all over your skin as you walked in the sun. I’d missed that so much amongst the icy vampire bodies I was used to, and the warehouse was quite chilly compared to this warm weather.

I probably looked like a bit of an idiot. I was walking – well, almost skipping because I was in such a good mood – with my head back and smiling at the sun on my face. All I was doing was going to the supermarket and the hardware store, and I looked like I was on my way to heaven or something. But after everything that I’ve been through and can expect to go through again, do you really think I give a damn what a bunch of random strangers think of me? Not really. But I hoped I was invisible to them anyway. I probably was; no one was looking at me.

I went to the hardware store first, a list of brands and instructions scribbled on the small piece of creased, lined paper in my hand. The guy working there thought I was an absolute maniac when I asked him for all this stuff. What teenage girl needed spanners, shovels, duct tape, netting, plaster mix, iron bars and meters of rope?

“School project,” I muttered at his skeptical expression.

I walked out of the hardware store and into the bright sunshine, raising a hand to shield my eyes. How pathetic is this? I didn’t even know which way the supermarket was. This sucked. I really didn’t want to go around asking for directions. How tourist does that seem? Not to mention that it would involve interaction with strangers, something which I am not exceptionally talented at. Then again, usually the strangers I meet are either very intent on taking my life away from me or are assholes like William Beckett who would like to torture me before drinking my blood...

Maybe asking someone for directions wouldn’t be too bad.

I asked an old woman first. She seemed harmless, and hardly immortal. Not that vampires would be out in the sun anyway… god, I sound so vampire obsessed. Anyway, she apologized gently and said that she was only staying here for the weekend with her niece, and understanding that she couldn’t help I thanked her and escaped before she could start telling me all her niece’s ‘great achievements’.

The next person I asked was a woman in her late forties, I guess, but before I could even get the question past my lips she just grimaced at me and snapped that she didn’t have time for ‘pretty girls who had no brains’ and walked off. PMS much? I let it go though. It was quite terrifying whilst she was telling me off for nothing, but I couldn’t be bothered to wonder what was going on that made her so bitter. It did make me wary, though, of who I was to ask next. I would rather avoid another encounter like that if I could help it.

I began aimlessly wondering the street. In fact, I almost forgot about the supermarket, I was so engrossed in my people-watching. Everyone is so different. It’s fascinating to watch them. They’re all the centre of their own worlds. They all have different pasts, different futures, different emotions, different views on society. They’re all so different, yet so similar at the same time. It really is amazing. I must have considered fifty faces before stumbling across one that seemed different than the others. Maybe it was because he was staring right back at me. He looked extremely familiar, yet at the same time I was positive that I had never seen any face quite like his in my entire life. He was pale. Not as pale as a vampire, clearly, but pale nonetheless. Pale for a human, as was I. He had a defined, strong chin and high cheekbones, and the pale skin made a gentle dip into a darker tinge just below his deep chocolate brown eyes. For a second I wondered if it was actually possible that he’d temporarily stolen Pete’s eyes before realizing that that was absurd and that his eyes were a bit lighter than Pete’s anyway. He had wavy brown hair down to about his chin and had the slightest ghost of a smile on his lips. I looked down, but made my way over to him anyway.

“Excuse me, do you know the way to the supermarket?” My voice sounded timid, even in my own ears. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea.

He smiled.

“Yeah, it’s just down the street and to the left.”

He gestured with his hands, so I knew what he meant.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Any time.”

I left and turned around again once I was sure he wasn’t looking at me anymore. I was right; he was sitting now at the coffee place I had talked to him outside, raising a small black cell phone to his ear. I let out a breath and continued my way to the supermarket.

When I was there I stocked up on plenty of food. Some fruit and vegetables, because obviously that’s important. Some cereal, cheese, milk, butter, eggs, yogurt, bread and the few generally edible ingredients for Pete’s drink. Personally, I didn’t feel the need to get any meat. I’m not a vegetarian, but I’m not particularly fond of the stuff, and Pete’s always even more moody whenever the others get to eat meat, so I decided to leave it. I also got myself some hair dye, spontaneously deciding that I wanted a bit of a change, and I got Joe some new socks. He was always asking everyone if they had seen his socks, and everyone always said no. My theory is that Andy secretly steals them one at a time, because half the time Joe’s wandering around with only one sock on. If my suspicions were right, then this pack of socks would probably only last about a fortnight anyway.

As I was walking out of the store, relatively confident on how to get back to the tunnel from which I had emerged, I felt some sort of vibration from the small bag I was carrying. I jumped about a foot in the air from the shock and began to search furtively through the purse, unsure of what had caused the buzz and sudden noise. I thought I only had money and a vial of holy water in there? Obviously not. The culprit of scaring me in public was a small silver cell phone at the bottom of the bag. Cautiously I picked it up, the vibrations running through my fingertips as the phone still rang. Why the curiosity, you ask? Well that’s simple; I don’t have a phone! Almost trembling, I flipped it open and held it up to my ear.

“H-hello?”

I wasn’t sure what to expect. For some reason my thoughts flashed to Travis, to Matt, to that random guy who gave me directions in about 0.5 seconds. I needn’t have been so freaked out.

“Elle?”

I let out a sigh of relief and annoyance.

“Of course it’s me. Fucking hell, Patrick, where did this phone come from?”

I always felt a little bit guilty about swearing in front of Patrick. He’s just so innocent and good all the time. Oh well.

“Sorry,” he replied vaguely. “Pete put it in your bag when you were asleep.”

I grunted in reply.

“Anyway, we need you to do something for us.”

“What?” I knew I was being blunt, but I didn’t much care.

“Okay, so the phone you’ve got has a camera, right?”

I pulled it away from my ear for a second to see the small lens embedded in the top of the phone.

“Yep,” I nodded too, not realizing that he couldn’t see me.

“Okay, well we need you to get some footage of vampire territory for us.”

“WHAT?”

“Relax! They can’t hurt you during the day, and it’s not like we’re asking you to actually go into their lairs. We just need to see what the streets are like during the daytime.”

I bit my lip. I wasn’t so sure about this. What if the vampires saw where I went home?

“Does Pete know about this?”

It was Patrick’s turn to hesitate.

“Uh… not yet. But listen, we don’t need much. Just a minute or so. The streets will probably be near deserted anyway.”

I took a moment to consider it, even though I was pretty sure I didn’t have a choice.

“Are you sure, Trick?”

“Positive. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

I sighed. “Okay. But then I’m coming straight home. I’m hella tired.”

“Fair enough,” he laughed breezily. “Bye Elle.”

“Bye.”

I snapped the phone shut just because I’d always wanted to do that with a flip phone then opened it again to figure out how to set the video mode. It wasn’t difficult, so I began walking towards the normal streets that we hunted around. As I was nearing their territory, I pressed the centre button on the phone to start filming. I didn’t say anything as I wandered the quiet streets aimlessly for a few minutes. There were a few people on the roads, but nothing compared to the business that I’d lost myself in earlier. I stole quick glances at some of the houses. Some of them were pretty run-down, and some of them not so much. I shivered at wondering if any vampires were watching me now from inside their sanctuaries.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that it came as an abrupt awakening to reality when I walked into something and fell to the ground, the phone scattering out of my grasp. I glanced up anxiously, almost expecting a Dandy to be sneering down at me, but that wasn’t the case.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed.

It was the guy from before. The one that gave me directions.

“Uh, that’s okay,” I said, accepting his proffered hand and pulling myself up before bending back down to retrieve the phone.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah I’m fine.”

He looked at me for a second before some sort of realization dawned on him.

“Hey! You’re that girl I saw before. The one who didn’t know how to get to the store.”

I blushed a little in embarrassment and looked down.

“Yep. That’s me. Um, I have to get going now…” I trailed off.

“Okay,” he said, beginning to walk in the other direction. “Bye.”

I muttered goodbye, but it would be a miracle if he’d heard me. I dusted off my black jeans before looking around. Nobody was around now, and it was starting to creep me out. Surely I had enough footage for Patrick now? Well too bad if I didn’t.

I began walking home, and for some reason I couldn’t shake that coincidental not-quite-a-stranger anymore out of my mind.