The Vampire Next Door

Chapter four

She dragged herself out of bed to answer the front door, whoever it was had no patience. She opened the door ready to rip shreds off who it was and was greeted by an overly chirpy Zak.

“Morning!” he said cheerfully.

She let him inside and stormed into the kitchen, Zak frowned she obviously wasn’t a morning person, he thought as he watched her slamming cupboard doors and banging about. He looked at the clock, it was ten he was actually an hour late, yet she looked like she had just rolled out of bed herself and obviously hadn’t noticed his lateness.

“Are you alright?” He asked she looked pale.

“I’m fine why wouldn’t I be?” She snapped, of course she wasn’t alright she had been a witness to a murder that had happened a lifetime ago, but it wasn’t like she could say anything about it.

Zak huffed and walked out into the garden, she was going to be difficult to work for, maybe he should pass the job on to someone else. She opened the back door, handed him a coffee, and smiled at him, it wasn’t his fault and she had no right to take out on him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t sleep,” she told him apologetically.

Now he could see her in the sun he could tell, she had bags under her eyes and looked stressed out and exhausted. He nodded and took the coffee from her; he wondered whether it was worth the risk asking why she hadn’t slept. She might have had a man round last night and that’s why she was sleeping in late.

“Any particular reason why you didn’t sleep?” he asked her boldly, knowing that she was probably going to tell him to piss off.

“I had a bit of a run in with my neighbour and it played on my mind all night,” she confessed, she wasn’t about to tell him exactly what she had seen though.

Zak raised his eyebrows, “What was it about?”

She sighed, “I called the police, there was noise coming from there turns out it was nothing, and well he wasn’t very happy about it.”

Zak didn’t like what he was hearing, who did this man think he was? Going round to her house when she lived alone. He didn’t like bullies and if they had a run last night and she hadn’t slept because of it, he must have scared her. “Do you want me to go round there? I’ll put him in his place he won't bother you again.” he offered.

Paige resisted the urge to laugh; he wouldn’t open the door during the day, and if he could Zak wouldn’t come out of there alive. She shook her head at him and smiled. “No it’s fine, I can handle myself but thanks anyway.” She told him.

“Well if he does it again let me go round okay?”

Paige nodded again not wanting to talk about it further; it wasn’t like he could actually do anything. She left him to his gardening while she went upstairs to try to get some more sleep. When she woke up again she felt refreshed she hadn’t had any more nightmares, which she was glad of. She tied her in a ponytail, and was just about to go downstairs when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, the two fang marks were an angry red, she quickly untied her hair and strategically placed her hair over the offending area.

Zak had cleared a big space of trees, but there was still a lot of work to remaining, he smiled when Paige walked into the garden looking fresher than she had that morning. She sat down and closed her eyes as the sun shone down on her face, and he couldn’t resist it, with the hosepipe in his hand, he turned the water on and soaked her.

She screamed and jumped up, the water was dripping down on her furious face and Zak regretted it as soon as he had done it, as she stormed into the house looking far from impressed. He was such an idiot what a childish thing to do, he was still kicking himself and hadn’t noticed that she had come back into the garden, she tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned around he got a face full of ice cold water.