Alejandro squinted at his phone screen. The beaming summer sun made for lovely weather, but not being able to see the map was a bit distracting, as was the need to wear light clothing so as to not be baked to another death. He set his old-timey travel bag down on the asphalt, and took out the umbrella he had been pressing between his cheek and shoulder to stay hidden from the sun. He was stood still, studying the screen, when a loud car horn blared right behind him. The sudden interruption made him almost drop his phone, and he juggled it in the air before catching it and turning around. Right in front of him, he found a truck, and from the driver's window leaned a skinny girl.
"What are you doing standing in the middle of the road!?" she inquired loudly, yet her expression was not angry like her tone might imply. Perhaps she assumed the rumble of her engine was loud enough to obscure her voice, or perhaps she was equally as startled as Alejandro himself.
"I was looking at the map," he replied as if that was supposed to answer her question.
"In the middle of a straight road!?" The girl sounded now mildly worried, like she suspected him to be slightly insane. Alejandro supposed she wasn't entirely wrong.
"I have a very bad sense of direction," Alejandro informed her. The girl's expression shifted to one of boredom, and slight irritation.
"I can drive you to town if you stop standing in the middle of the road," she offered, patting the headrest of the passenger seat of her vehicle. From that, Alejandro perked up quite a bit, before he picked up his bag and wordlessly climbed into the truck. The moment he got the door closed, she got the car moving again, not waiting for him to put on his seatbelt. Alejandro put it on as they drove, then looked at the travel bag on the 3rd seat between him and the driver. He frowned and grabbed the seatbelt for that seat, then threaded it through the handle of the bag and clicked it closed. Happy with his handiwork, he rested his elbow against the truck window. The umbrella rested against his leg as it leaned against the seat on the floor.
Alejandro could feel the driver glancing at him curiously from time to time as they drove along the asphalt road that split a seemingly-infinite hayfield. The area had no shade in a several-kilometer radius. They sat in the air-conditioned truck in silence. As seconds rolled by, the driver's looks grew more frequent, as if she was trying to study him. A smile started to tug on Alejandro's lips, and while he attempted to hold it back for a moment, he failed. With a grin and while still looking out of the window, he spoke to himself humorously, "I thought vampires were supposed to all be white and pale."
"I wasn't thinking that!" the girl yelped in surprise, her eyes wide.
"But it did cross your mind," Alejandro replied. He turned to look at her and smiled softly. "I get it a lot."
"Hm," the girl hummed "I was about to ask if you were a vampire." Alejandro nodded.
"I'm Alejandro Ortega, and I'm a vampire." He introduced himself with a hand on his chest and a bow of his head. "Nice to meet you, Ms...?
"Just call me Tilly," the girl laughed, and her long, red hair bounced with the movement. "Tilly Mazie," she added.
"Lovely to meet you, Tilly," Alejandro smiled even wider.
"What brings a vampire to our small town?" Tilly inquired.
"Ah, I have been flying a long way," Alejandro explained, "I needed a place to nap for the day so I crawled into the drainpipe under the road near where you picked me up, but I appeared to have fallen asleep and some rats demanded I be evicted from their home before the harvest comes, since they use it to huddle for safety." Tilly chuckled at his story.
"How did you fit in there?" she looked him over with wide, curious eyes.
"I can turn into a bat."
"Just one? I thought it was a swarm."
"I'm neither old nor experienced enough in vampirism to have those kinds of powers quite yet. I'm quite young by the standards of dead folk."
"So like, you don't have enough vampire XP...?"
"Exactly!" Alejandro answered with delight, "I don't have enough vampire XP! I need to grind for more!" He laughed lightly, which Tilly responded to with relieved laughter. Alejandro noted that her aura and the posture of her summer-tanned shoulders were now considerably more relaxed.
Tilly took a moment to get control over her chuckling. "Where do you want me to drop you?" The scenery had gone from the endless sea of hayfields to now being dotted with areas of forest, branching roads and some houses in the middle of the hayfields. A stripe of forest was now also visible behind the fields, signaling that they were getting smaller as they neared town,
"I do not know. I suppose now that a human knows I'm here, I should rent a hotel room," Alejandro pondered aloud. "I don't want to jump on the toes of any local vampires."
"Oh, we don't have any," Tilly said. "Vampires, or hotels, either, I don't think.... Or I haven't seen any hotels yet, at least." Alejandro gave her an inquisitive look, and she smiled awkwardly, "I'm also pretty new to the area."
"I will check my map just in case." Alejandro pulled his phone out and navigated to the app. He quietly searched around, then frowned. "You appear to be correct. The closest inn is rather outside of the city."
"Inn?" Tilly raised an eyebrow.
"One of those rent-a-room-for-a-short-period-for-cheap places."
"Oh, the Big Fox Diner? I think they only have one room available, and it's always taken, anyway," Tilly informed him.
Alejandro leaned his head back and sighed. "Do you know anyone who might rent me a room? I really need nothing more than a closet or attic to slip into a coma for a couple of months."
Tilly seemed thoughtful for a moment. "I have no friends here yet. I moved in just a month ago, and I'm homeschooled," she told him.
"Do you, by any chance, live on a farm? I will pay as much as you want to ask for, if you have a barn or something such like."
"Kind of..." Tilly began, with an uncertain tone "We do have a guest room. You will need to ask my dad after he comes home from work."
"May I accompany you to your errands for the day, then?" Alejandro smiled.
"Don't you have places to be?"
"The only thing I can think of is sightseeing, and I can't do that before the sun goes down," Alejandro chuckled. "I'm stuck in the shadows during day time."
Tilly grinned. "I guess you can sightsee as I get groceries. There aren't many places to see in the town. You will have to go to the forests for that."
So, they did just that. Tilly drove to a farmers market to pick up groceries, and then showed Alejandro the only remarkable landmark in the town. It was an old, gothic mansion located near the mayor's office, surrounded by the rest of the town, like it had sprouted all from that one central point. Tilly explained that the settlement, in fact, had mostly been sponsored by this one family when it was founded. Alejandro admired the black structure that was most likely around his own age, the towers that poked sharply at the sky, and the contrast the house had to the vibrant environment around it. The garden, as huge as the house itself, was immaculately groomed, and a black gazebo that matched the main structure sat in the backyard with a rainbow of flowerbeds. The building was big and leaned toward the road like it wanted to scare all passersby into submission.
Alejandro asked lots of questions about the town as they drove toward Tilly's family's farm, which she said she appreciated as an exercise for her upcoming local history test. All and all, Alejandro felt he had successfully endeared himself to his new host. Now, he had to do the same for her father as well.
The Mazie farmhouse awaited them at the end of a long dirt road that cut through more wheat fields. The house itself stood at the edge of a forest, the front pointed toward the open fields that rolled on into the horizon. There, a tiny dot stood, marking the nearest lone, standing barn, in the middle of a field. The back of the house pointed towards a dark and dense leaf tree forest that, instead, climbed up a distant mountain. The landscape was extremely flat in every direction, disregarding the out-of-place small mountain range. The yard of the house was surprisingly small compared to the environment in which it was located. The only two structures besides the house was a tractor shed at the end of the driveway, and a smaller tool shed behind the house. The home itself was a light grey, quaint little thing. A traditional small farmhouse, with two stories and a porch that stretched all across the front. On the right side was a chimney and at the back a smaller mudroom and porch combination covering the backdoor. The forest started almost immediately from that porch, the yard was so small. The only thing that fit on there was a small herb garden, overrun with weeds, lining the back wall of the house, with a spot nearest to the driveway being mostly clean, implying that it had been taken up as a project recently. The front porch was lined with a railing that had been painted white, but the sun had yellowed over time. As Tilly led him to the front door, Alejandro noted that the porch was huge, yet hauntingly empty. The only decor on it was a pair of white wooden chairs around a small, matching round table, and an antique white metal jug, now used as a flower vase for dried brown summer flowers. The matching vase stood on a separate, even smaller table, next to the other one. Aside from that, the porch was deserted, and, based on the amount of dust on the chair's seats, not used often for entertaining guests.
Alejandro had left his bag in the car. He closed his umbrella before stepping in, and left it to wait under the coat hooks. The house was small, and opposite to the front door were the stairs to the second story. To Alejandro's right opened a room with a fireplace, a bookshelf, and a small sofa sat under the window. A doorway opposite the sofa showed a glimpse of a small farmhouse kitchen, which made Alejandro delighted with its quaintness. The living room he was standing in, however, conjured no such feelings, as, once again, the dust covering the bookshelf and sofa signaled a lack of patronage. The room appeared by no means unkempt or dirty, merely unlived in.
"This is the sitting room. If we had a TV, we could watch that until dad comes home, but I don't really think this place even has a spot for a satellite."
Alejandro nodded. He harboured a respect for the owner of this home for not installing an ugly and unwieldy satellite dish for a device they would not even use. A lot of homes he had visited had committed such an unnecessary sin, and he was glad Mr Mazie hadn't fallen for the hype around that technology.
Tilly turned to the left and gestured toward a small hallway with two doors on either side. "Here we have the bathroom on the left, and dad's room on the right." She turned to eye Alejandro for a moment. "I assume you won't need to worry about those."
"I highly doubt I will need to visit your father's courtiers," Alejandro gave her a cheeky smile, which she responded to with a grin. Then she pointed to the kitchen.
"You won't need that either, but just for my perfectionism's sake, there's the kitchen. Feel free to use the fridge if you have blood bags or something with you." Now it was her turn to give him a cheeky smile.
"I will be sure to take advantage of that offer," Alejandro laughed. Then Tilly directed him up the two flights of stairs. At the top of the stairs, a hallway awaited them.
"The right door goes to the guest room," Tilly told him, "And this..." She opened the door on the left, "...is my room." The space was nice and open, the floor being the same size as the living room and kitchen combined, making it take up almost half of the second floor. To the left of them was a twin bed pressed against the opposite wall, and a bookshelf on the wall next to the door. To their right was a work desk with a laptop on it, accompanied by a warm-coloured Persian rug on the floor and a fireplace which mirrored the lower floor's placement of the wall opposite from the door. The hearth had been blocked off with a veneer board, and a painting leant on it. On the mantlepiece were all sorts of nicknacks, but it was mostly covered in plants in colourful terracotta pots. There were all kinds of plants on the desk and bookshelf, as well. The big windows above the bed and desk supplied them with plenty of light, and the room was warm due to the effect of having both sides of the room exposed to the summer sun.
Alejandro sidestepped a big square of sunlight on the floor as he stepped into the room. Compared to the muted earth tones of the rest of the home, Tilly's room was a breath of refreshingly bright air. Tilly sat on the desk chair and gave him an unsure, yet hopeful look.
"This place is lovely." Alejandro smiled at her. Then he bent to examine one of the plants of the mantlepiece. "So you are the gardener in this place?"
Tilly chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I have become a bit of a plant mom from being here all alone so much." Her voice took on a slight mournfulness at the end.
"From what I have seen, you are a very lovely girl," Alejandro consoled her, "You will make friends in no time."
Tilly gave him a thankful smile and then shrugged. "I would be all good if the internet wasn't so bad here. Most of my friends are online, anyway." She said this quite a matter of factly, appearing to have collected herself. "I'm trying to get dad to install a better wifi connection." She then eyed Alejandro thoughtfully. "Do you even know anything about the internet?"
Alejandro smiled and sat on the rug with his legs crossed. "I'm quite adept at using the googles and the facebooks."
That made Tilly cringe in pain. "You sound just like my dad."
"I know," Alejandro aimed a smug look in her direction. "I might be a zombie, but I'm not some dinosaur."
"Zombies don't burn in the sun," Tilly pointed out.
"They do in the hit videogame game Minecraft from the year 2011. It's all the rage these days." Alejandro grinned.
Tilly rolled her eyes. "That's a kid's game."
Alejandro raised a brow. "There are video games for other people than kids?"
Tilly huffed and opened her mouth to argue, but stopped as she noticed Alejandro's cheeky grin. She rolled her eyes again. "Yes, and I play them only."
"What do you play, then?" Alejandro inquired.
"WoW," Tilly told him, her arms crossed on her chest and a faux uppity look on her face.
"Oh, we have a pro," Alejandro nodded thoughtfully. "Let me guess, all your friends are from your guild?"
Tilly's eyes went wide, and then she scrunched her nose. "Oh shut up." She turned her chair away from him, but Alejandro could tell that she was holding back a grin.
He looked around the room some more, then flopped on his back onto the rug, spreading his limbs wide. His right hand hit the patch of light on the floor and he withdrew it like it was a hot stove. Tilly jumped and looked at him with concern. "I'm fine," Alejandro laughed as he shook his hand a bit and then rested it on the floor, a bit closer to himself this time.
Alejandro's eyes circled the room once more. The place was more lived in than the rest of the house for sure, but the paintings leaning against the walls and empty space on the bookshelf made him think.
"Does this place feel like home yet?" he asked.
"Kinda," Tilly seemed thoughtful. "I'm still growing into it." Indeed the space felt inviting, but by no means complete yet.
"I think you are doing a great job-"
"I'm home!" A male voice bellowing from downstairs cut him off. He stared wide-eyed into the hallway where the voice had come from.
"Dad's here," Tilly smiled. She stood up and walked to the door, beckoning for Alejandro to follow. "Did you have a good day?" she asked as they made their way to the landing, Alejandro cautiously following her.
"It wasn't too bad," Mr Mazie responded with a jolly tone as he hung his coat behind the front door. His smile wavered a bit once he noticed Alejandro standing on the stairs.
"Good afternoon sir," Alejandro greeted him cheerfully with a bow of his head. Mr Mazie looked to Tilly with unsure eyes.
"This is Alejandro," she introduced him. Tilly seemed irritated by her father's audacity to be worried about the stranger in their house when she already knew better than that. The stranger with very obvious ghostly blue glowing eyes that Mr Mazie kept glancing to as they moved to the kitchen to talk.
Mr Mazie was a fit man; a mechanic, as Alejandro came to learn. He also looked no older than thirty, yet he had flecks of grey hair mixed in with the dark brown. Neither attractive nor unattractive, Mr Mazie had an understated, mundane kind of face. The kind that disappears in a crowd but was, by no means, unpleasant to look at. He poured a cup of coffee for himself as Alejandro explained his problem.
"I would be very grateful if you could spare me a room," he finished. Mr Mazie looked still unsure.
"And what is your intention with my daughter?" he asked, gesturing to Alejandro with his mug.
Alejandro smiled in bafflement. Tilly, on the other hand, seemed rather offended.
"Dad!" she protested.
"I know your mother got you to read Twilight!" Mr Mazie protested back. Realization washed over Alejandro as the two started to bicker over weather or not the book was any good.
"Sir, sir," he interjected with a chuckle. "I have no such intent." He tried to give the man a reassuring smile, to no avail. So, he turned to Tilly instead. "How old are you, anyhow?" he inquired.
"I'm turning 17 this winter," Tilly said, toying with her long curly hair.
"She is 16!" he exclaimed to Mr Mazie in shock. "I turned 100 before her grandmother was born!"
"I don't have a grandma," Tilly grumbled with a sulk, ignoring Alejandro and Mr Mazie exchanging glares. Mr Mazie's glare softened a bit, though, as he seemed to approve of Alejandro's genuine reaction.
"What did you say you would pay to stay here?" he asked with a measured tone.
"Whatever you would like to ask." Alejandro's voice was shaky from the burst of emotion, but he collected himself quickly. "How does your one month's salary sound?"
Mr Mazie swirled his coffee thoughtfully. "If you can give me a thousand bucks in my hand, I think we can spare the guest room for a month." He lifted his eyes suddenly. "You don't deal in gold coins, do you?"
"No sir, no gold coins," Alejandro laughed in relief. "I'll give it to you right-" He rose, but then stopped as he remembered where he had left his bag. Alejandro turned to Tilly, who leaned over the table, eyes half closed from the boring adult talk. "Could you-?"
Tilly straightened up and seemed happy to be anywhere else but this kitchen at the present moment. "Yeah, I'll go get it for ya." She disappeared out the door, and the house before she had even finished the sentence.
Once the bag was fetched, Alejandro handed Mr Mazie a stack of bills for his effort, and then quickly kicked the bag shut once he noticed Tilly's prying eyes trying to peek inside. She didn't look greedy, but rather more like a kid, studying the window of a candy shop with wide eyes.
"Is that a blood pack?" she pried. Alejandro pulled out a red leather diary she seemed interested in.
"No, blood would rot within an hour in this heat." He felt Mr Mazie's eyes on the back of his head, and turned around to add, "I'm on a fast, thank you for asking." He turned back to find Tilly's big eyes now more interested in his fast than the book in his hand.
"So, you don't drink blood?"
Alejandro slid the diary back into the bag and shook his head somberly. "I prefer to sleep rather than drink. You see, some of us do have standards."
A faint cough might have sounded from the living room as Mr Mazie went to his chambers, but Alejandro ignored it. He would rather curl up in a nice, dry and warm place to sleep in for a month, where his clothes and other things would be safe as he slumbered. With these thoughts, he said goodbye for now to Tilly and locked himself into his brand-new tomb for rent.