Vampire Auction

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is dedicated to Queen Bitch and Eternal Romance for giving me advice and for encouraging (or harrassing haha!) me to HURRY UP WITH THE GOL DANG STORY. Thank you.

I was scared. I mean, really scared. I sat in the darkness of my mind, hoping for someone to free me from the cave. To my surprise and relief, someone did. Even if it wasn’t from someone I expected.

“Beth! Beth wake up, you lazy sister!” Slowly I opened my eyes to see Jade standing next to my bed, with a smirk on her face.

“Whaaa?” My head wasn’t working to its full potential yet.

“Here, let me give you a hint: the first word is “community.” Okay, that rang a bell. Momentarily forgetting my previous worries, I looked at my clock and it said 7:00am.

“Oh, crap!” I flung myself off my bed, swearing at myself for not remembering the community service I bided out along with 700 dollars.

As I hurried to my closet to change, a wave of dizziness washed over me and I tripped over the coffin on my bedroom floor. From the corner of my eye, I saw Jade shake her head from side to side like she was chiding me. Then she walked out closing my bedroom door, leaving me alone on the coffin.

I quickly got off the coffin, cringing away from it like it was the biggest snake in the world. I stared at it, half- expecting it to open and suck me in or something like that. I giggled hesitantly at myself. I must have finally lost my mind. My friends always told me I had too much of an imagination.

I walked slowly to my closet, trying to ignore my fears by asking myself about what I was going to do for community service. I opened my closet, pondering on the question. I grabbed a white shirt and a pair of jeans. I put on a pair of mismatched ankle socks and shoved my feet into my hiking shoes. What can I say? They’re very comfortable shoes.

I treaded downstairs only after I locked my bedroom door. I know I’m being overly cautious about things, but after all that’s happened, don’t you think I have a right to feel this way?

I walked into the kitchen, still feeling a little light- headed. Jade was sitting at the counter eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes and listening to her ipod. Silently, I took a seat next to her with my own bowl a Frosted Flakes and ate it slowly. I returned to my thoughts and flitted through a few options on what I could do for community service and finally settled on asking Mr. Fisher since it wouldn’t really matter much anyway.

“Are you sick or something?”

Jade’s voice broke into my thoughts. Startled, I looked at her. “What?”

“Are…you…sick?” Jade exaggerated the length of the words like I was retarded or something. But I did hear a small note of concern in her tone.

“Me? Sick? No, I’m not sick. Why?”

“You’re not usually this quiet in the morning. Normally you would start complaining about some nonsense and then start barking orders at me. So, did you catch anything last night?” Wow. Jade was worried about me. But she is right. I guess interactions with vampires (cringe) changes a girl a bit.

“No, I’m fine. Just more tired than usual, I guess.” I waved my hand in that dismissing gesture to end the subject. Jade got the hint and stopped asking questions. We finished our breakfast and I went to my room and relocked the door behind me. There I stood facing my fear: the shiny black coffin that I wanted so badly just so many hours ago.

I took a deep breath and worked up the courage to go to the coffin and sit down in front of it. I stared at it, still not sure whether to open it or not. I looked around to make sure no one was there in my room with me, even though I knew (sort of anyway) that there wasn’t. Then I caught a medium- sized square bandage at the base of my neck in my full length figure. It was towards the back of my neck, so it was almost completely obscured.

My hand flew to my neck, touching the band aid. How did it get there? I tried to remember when I put it there, or why. But my memory was hazy and foggy, so that do any good my ego. The lack of memory pulled up some feelings of fear. Carefully, I started to peel the band aid off. But before I could get my fingers completely under it, a cold feeling hand covered mine from behind me, stopping my hand in its tracks. I almost yelped in surprise, but then another hand came around and covered my mouth so I couldn’t make a sound.

“I wouldn’t recommend taking that off. You won’t like what’s underneath. And do you scream at everything?” From the corner of my eye I saw Dead Guy. He continued speaking. “You need to change your name. It shouldn’t be Beth, it should be Paranoid or something along those lines.”

Huh? Wait one gol dang second. How did he know my name? What is he now? Mister Know-it-All? Now that I thought about it, I didn’t know his name. I was too scared in our previous conversations to ask. I leaned back onto his chest unintentionally in attempt to move away from the hand covering my mouth so I could speak.

“Where the hell did you pop up from?” As I asked the question, I tried to pull back from the other hand on my neck, but he held me still.

“I was in your room the whole time. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone by yourself. I plan to follow you around almost everywhere you go.” That didn’t thrill me too much.

“But the sun’s outside.” Well, he is a vampire after all.

“Don’t have to worry about that either. The sun doesn’t bother me at all.” There was a hint of a smirk in his voice.

“Why?” If he was a vampire, then he shouldn’t be able to go out into the sun, right? I mean, give this terrifying thing some limitations, if only for the sake of some possible other victims.

“It’s a myth,” He shrugged, a smirk still planted on his face, “We vampires circulated those stories around humans so that they don’t feel as paranoid as they used to way back then during the daylight hours. Ya’know way, way back when everyone actually believed in vampires.”

“Or was it because a certain someone slipped up and had to cover it up with lies?” I regretted the words the moment it came out of my mouth. One moment I was trapped against his chest and the next moment I was pinned very painfully against the black coffin that was laying on the ground. The edges of the coffin digging into my back as I stared fearfully into the dark, cold eyes of a vampire. His hands wrapped around my arms tightly, probably leaving bruises.

“That mouth of yours is gonna get you killed one day. So I suggest that you watch what you say, especially in front of me or any other vampires. You’re lucky it’s me, otherwise you would already be dead.” His voice was only a whisper; deep and cold. His quiet threat more threatening than if he had yelled it out loud. Me, on the other hand, could barely manage a small nod, much less speak or move. I was shaking violently, but most of the vibrations were stopped by the hands gripping my upper arms.

Finally, he let go and I winced in pain as I felt the blood flow back into my arms. When I looked up, I saw him pacing the room with an almost visible black and dark aura surrounding his being. Cautiously, I stood up. When I started moving towards the door, he stopped pacing and I froze in response.

But all he did was look at my digital alarm clock resting on my bedside table. He looked at me and said irritably, “Get to the school, I’ll need you there to let me in.” With his inhuman speed, he had my bedroom door open and gestured me to go out.

I stepped out, but before he could shut the door closed (like it was his room instead of mine) and before I could chicken out, I asked him hesitating a little, “What’s…what’s your name?”

He gave me a sidelong glance, like I should already know. I waited, then he said, so quickly that I almost didn’t catch it, “James. James O’Dell.” He closed the door gently without another word, leaving me standing in the hallway, wondering.