Citizen Vamp

Prologue

Citizen Vamp

By: Amanda Nicole Ramsay-McDonald

Prologue

A man drove along the highway, his intention to go home and leave clues. He drove along in the early cold morning, the road and sky above it, dark. His high-beams cut into the darkness as he thought hard yet drove in silence. His own life was forfeit, he knew this now but there was someone he could save-as long as he did so discreetly. They could be watching him now, his only hope was to keep to his usual routine as if nothing was going on, they could suspect he knew nothing. After all, he was merely human.

            He pulled into a driveway, got out of the car and walked into a home. It was early morning and he'd worked the entire night but knew, he had less than 24 hours to plant the information somewhere, otherwise it would be lost.

            Pushing the heavy oak door open, he entered his home and walked past the only room with a light on, the kitchen. His wife mumbled something he didn't hear as he went by.

            He walked down a hallway and opened the second door on the right.

"Rachael, honey, wake up," he said gently.

            She shifted in her covers, pulled them under her chin and slowly began to open her eyes from a squint. "Dad?" her soft voice cracked. "What are you doing?"

            "Honey, I need you to remember something for when you're older okay?" He grabbed her hand and held it tight. He vaguely heard his wife shuffling on the carpet in the hallway.

            "What?" She sat up in bed and looked questioningly at her mom. From the corner of his eye he saw his wife shrug in the doorway; Rachael looked back at him.

            "You know how all these scary things are now real?" He asked.

            "You mean vampires? They're only a little scary," she said, jutting out her chin.

            "Well, there are other things that are real too, but I can't tell you what they are. So you're going to have to find out what they are on your own, when you get older." He got up and went to her shelf. She had two books that would work well for his purpose. They were books neither he nor Rachael knew anything about, but were adequate for his purpose that morning. He highlighted a verse in a large family bible and scribbled a note in a history book. "So, when you're older you look in these books, okay?" He held them out for her to see the covers.

            She grabbed them, stared at the cover and looked confused. "Okay, Dad," she said a slight slur. He knew she wouldn't ask for the answer, she loved mysteries and puzzles too much. She smiled at him, crawled out of her covers and, kneeling on the bed, hugged him around the waist. She picked up the books again as if to memorize the cover. "Can I read them later? I'm tired." She flopped back under the covers.

            He patted her head, small in comparison to his adult hand, knelt and then kissed the top of it. He heard his wife walk behind him to his left. He retreated to the right to get out of the way and backed up to the door way to admire his wife and daughter.

            "Okay Rachael, time for Kindergarten. Breakfast is in the kitchen, help yourself and then get dressed." His wife stepped towards the bed and held a finger out at Rachael while simultaneously pulling her out of bed with the other hand. "I'm very proud you did your chores last night and made me a beautiful collage, but you can't leave all your craft stuff on the kitchen table over night again, okay?" She said. She ruffled Rachael's hair as she went by.

            When Rachael left her room the father was left standing there looking at his wife, the woman he loved. Leaning in the doorway she smiled at him, "what was that about?" She took a sip of coffee from a black mug.

            "Nothing," he said. "I'll tell you tonight." He waved her off.

            "Oh," she said, pulling away from the wall. "You can't. We have that wedding tonight. You know, Macie and Robert's and I'm going to be super busy." She smiled. "I am the Matron of Honor!" She raised her nose at him. When he didn't laugh she frowned and crossed her arms, the mug's contents perilously keening to the cusp of the mug. "Take your tux to work, okay? I had it dry cleaned and pressed." She said and began walking away. "You can tell me tomorrow," she said as she exited the room and stomped back down the hallway. "Honestly, I don't understand why you can't take the day off when you were forced to work on a case the whole night beforehand. You should talk to your boss about that, I'm sick of never seeing you anymore..." She said the rest in the kitchen and he didn't hear it.

            "Yes, dear," He said, more to himself. He admired how a grown woman could still stomp yet remain refined while doing so.