I push the door open as quietly as I can but cringe horribly when I hear it creak loudly. Well, so much for the element of surprise. I take a deep breath and creep inside, wishing my shoes didn't have to crunch the snow so much beneath them. Everything is pitch black inside so I decide to leave a small crack at the door, even though the light from the lightpost outside is a bit dim. The small shack is a mess, just bundles of dirty, crumpled up rags in each corner. I do however catch the metallic scent of blood wafting in the air. It's so potent I have to cover my nose and mouth with my scarf. There are no furniture inside – a homeless person would have considered himself extremely lucky if he so much as found one on the streets – and as far as I could see in the darkness, no lurking vampire on the prowl.
"S-Sophie?" I whisper, looking cautiously around.
I hear a low grunt within one of the bundles and a moment later I see it stir.
"Sophie?" I ask again while tiptoeing towards that particular bundle.
She rises groggily from the bundle, yawns, looks around and spots me. She sends me a lazy smile. "Evening," she says and stretches her arms.
I stare at her. She looks horrible; her shoulder-length raven hair is a matted tangle, her clothes are all dirty and wrinkled, and her neck and mouth are caked with dried blood.
"Oh god," I gasp and turn away from the sight.
"What?" Sophie feels around her face, picks up some of the dried blood with her fingernails and studies it. "Oh, this? Well, I was hungry yesterday and after I was done feeding I was too tired to wash my face," she shrugs.
"So you are the one behind those decapitation murders?" I ask without looking at her. My heart is hammering in my chest by now and I'm sure that she can hear it.
She grins wickedly. "Yeah, that was all me, baby!"
I turn to her now as I can't hide my disgust and horror any longer. "Why?" I ask. "Why did you kill those men? Was it to send me some kind of horrible message?"
Sophie shrugs again. "I was hungry last month and I was hungry yesterday," she says. "But I guess I also wanted to give you some kind of hint of getting your ass here."
I realize that my hands have started to shake, out of fear? Anger? I quickly clench my fists to try to ease the shakes. "But why those men?!" I trudge on, my voice rising slightly. "And why did you have to rip off their heads?"
Sophie's violet eyes darken and her voice is low and dangerous. "Would you rather I killed someone you knew? Perhaps someone from your family?"
My eyes widen in horror and I shake my head. She rises to her feet but keeps her knees bent as in getting ready to pounce on me, her eyes fixated upon my features.
"Because, as you can clearly see, I can do that easily," she growls. "So you might want to keep your voice down in here."
I gulp, feeling anxiety-induced sweat run down my spine. "I-I just want to know why," I stammer quietly, hating myself for not being able to keep my voice even when I am standing in front of someone who I used to consider my friend. Do I not consider Sophie my friend anymore? I stare back at the creature bending low before me, its eyes dark and daring as if she is baiting me to continue shouting, begging me to give her a reason to rip me to shreds.
Sophie continues gazing at me for a moment, then sighs and straightens up. "It was just a drug dealer," she says. "I killed him because he sold me bad drugs, alright? I can't really taste much when it comes to food and stuff but I can tell when someone is trying to cheat me from a good coke."
I can hardly believe my ears. She killed him because of bad drugs? Over such trivial matter? Sophie can probably see the mortified look on my face because she continues on with her absurd reasoning.
"I mean, if anything, I think I did a good thing by removing him from society alltogether. One less problem from the drug world," she says while striding along the shack and rummaging through the bundles of rags, apparently looking for fresh clothes. Somehow I have a feeling she will find nothing fresh in those piles. I detect blood smears on most of the clothes.
"Ma-Maybe he was doing it on purpose?" I suggest, inching my back closer to the wall when she draws near. "You know, to wean addicts from the drugs?"
Sophie throws back her head and laughs. She always had a pretty laugh that would sing through the air, making others join in on her merriment but the mocking tone that accompanies her laugh now is not contagious.
"I can't believe you're still so fucking naive, Leia," she says and shakes her head, fragments of her laugh still shaking her small shoulders. "No, he was doing it because he wanted more money from his clients. The good, old greed. Never fails. He sold me some bad drugs filled with non-smelling laundry detergent and he thought I wouldn't find out? So I drained him and ripped his head off for good measure. Should send a message to other dealers in the neighbourhood, wouldn't you think?"
"And the other victim?" I ask, trying to push the image of other dealers being dealt with in a similar, gruesome fashion out of my mind.
Sophie shrugs. "Nothing personal there," she replies. "I was just hungry and the guy happened to be at the right place at the right time. Although I might have not been able to control my urges at the end." She adds matter-of-factly but I detect no remorse in her voice, in her whole demeanor. If anything, I am the one to feel pity for the unfortunate man to have stumbled upon her.
"Now then," Sophie turns to me again, admitting defeat of finding no clean clothes around her, and leans against the wall opposite me with her arms folded. The condescending smirk is back on her lips. "You owe me a word of thanks, if I recall correctly,"
I gape at her. We were arguing about two deaths just a minute ago, something that she did not really care for and even have the slightest regret, she even ambigiously threatened my life and the life of my family, and now she wants me to say ‚thank you' for her action two months ago? Even for a vampire, all covered in dried blood, she is unbelievable! She raises an eyebrow when she sees my incredulous expression and my silence so I hasten to answer her.
"Thank you," I mumble into my scarf, avoiding eye contact.
Sophie says nothing for a while, then scoffs. "You're lucky that I've got a keen hearing," she says.
"Look, I'm not here for that," I huff while taking off my schoolbag and grabbing a bottle of water. I hesitate before I toss it over to Sophie. "I'm here because you promised me that you would explain everything. But first, would you please wash yourself? Your look is making me nauseous."
Sophie catches the water bottle as she answers. "I don't remember ever promising you," she drawls but opens the bottle and douses herself in water nonetheless. The dried blood becomes moist, mingles with the water and dissolves into a dull pink liquid as it runs down her mouth, neck and chest. She pours the rest of the water over her hair and sleeks it back, making it seem like she had just risen out of the pool. I suddenly become worried that she might get hypothermia because of the obvious March coldness.
"Aren't you cold?" I blurt out, wishing I had brought a towel or blanket for her. A fresh one, at least. I wouldn't want to touch the dirty piles around us with a ten-feet pole. Imagine the grime, the blood, the germs! I shudder at the thought of it.
Sophie chuckles. "Can't get any colder when you're already below the average human temperature," she says, wringing the water out of her black concert T-shirt. "We're already dead, well undead basically, and we don't generate the same kind of heat as humans do."
"So you don't mind if your hair and clothes become frozen?" I ask, already aware of the increasing cold creeping up as the day transforms into night and I keep my arms closely folded between my chest.
"Nope," she replies. "Now come on, keep them coming. You're on a roll now." She gestures for me to continue, a grin on her face.
I pause for a minute, thinking hard of what to ask next. It's funny, there are like a million questions and wonderings running around in my mind but I'm blank at the same time. I would have wanted them to be floating peacefully like they usually do in my mind because it would have been easier for me to grab one of them and present it to my undead friend. But now it's like they are doing a scavenger hunt in my brain and it's a race on which finishes it first so they're all over the place.
My brain decides to run back a clip from the movie An Interview with a Vampire, where Christian Slater is recording the story of the vampire Louis and I immediately regret not having a recorder on my stupid old phone. It's not a smart phone like the rest of the world owns because my dad has this crazy idea that more apps means more money even though I tried to explain to him that most of the apps are free and that you're only paying more if you use the internet. Wait, why am I thinking about phones? Stupid brain! Focus on the questions! Sophie is waiting and I have a feeling that she is still impatient, but probably more on the violent side of impatience. My mind reaches feebly for the movie clip and shoves it down my mouth.
"Is it like the movies?" it comes out fast, almost a blur out of my lips and I hasten to elaborate. "I mean, is there some truth from all the movies and the books?"
Sophie snickers. "Most of it is complete bullshit,"
"Like what?"
"Like the whole deal with the garlic. Doesn't faze us, we can even eat it with no problems but there are some vampires out there who have sensitive noses so the smell bothers them."
"What about crosses?"
Sophie almost burst out laughing. "So typical of you humans to think that we have something to do with religion!" she chuckles mirthlessly, shaking her head, drops of water hitting the frozen floor. "Completely useless against us. We can enter a church, a mosque, a temple without us getting hurt and you wouldn't notice a vampire praying among you. I even heard that some vampires out there are in fact religious to an extent."
"Sunlight?"
Sophie's expression becomes dark. "Now that is lethal towards us. But it doesn't kill us right away; burns us more quicker than it does to humans. But thanks to our senses, we can pretty much feel it when it's either sunrise or sunset."
I nod, taking it slowly all in and trying to store this newfound information within my mind while simultaneously throwing away the useless things I had previously thought about the nature of vampires into my mind's garbage disposal. "Is sunlight the only thing that can kill you?" I ask absent-mindedly and then I immediately regret asking. Sophie's eyes flashes and she leers at me, bending her knees once again.
"Trying to fish out info on how to kill me, huh?" she growls in a threatening tone. "That's pretty ungrateful of you, considering the fact that I went out of my way to save your life from a pathetic mugger."
"I d-didn't mean-„ I whimper and stagger backwards to the end of the shack. Did I close the door? Am I trapped in here? Shit, and I didn't let my parents know where I had gone! In the complete darkness of the shack, I search frantically for the door handle behind my back, my heart practically doing jumping jacks in my chest, but then I hear laughter.
"Relax, Leia," laughs Sophie. "I won't do anything to you. Besides you're too weak to be able to hurt me in the first place."
My eyes search for the creature in front of me in the dark and I see that she is still standing in the same spot, hands behind her back now. My hand is still furtively looking for the door handle but I sense that my heartbeat is slowing down. I think my brain is convincing it to relax or otherwise I might have a heartattack. I also think that my brain, against my better judgment which would be my heart, trusts in Sophie's words. She is still looking at me with mild amusement but she hasn't moved from her previous spot. Soon my hand drops to my side and I take few steps away from the wall.
"There's a good girl," Sophie praises me and I feel myself blush at the praise. My hands jerk together and they clap once, twice in a muffled sound.
Sophie shrieks with laughter. "So you still have that quirk of yours? That's adorable!" she squeals joyfully.
Mortified, I lower my hands and curse loudly within my mind. I'm feeling heat and sweat once again all over body and this time it's not because of fear, anxiety or general warmth in the air but of deep shame. I thought my meds would suppress it! I thought I was in the clear, it never happens to me whenever the teachers at college praise me for a good assignment or essay. The meds usually are capable of suppressing them, at least the worst ones such as my panic attacks but I was convinced they would hold down all of my quirks!
I grit my teeth in frustration. That was not how I wanted to present myself in front of Sophie and I failed miserably. She would always remember me as the timid girl who had no friends because of her stupid, illogical mental problems.
Sensing that something in the atmosphere had changed, Sophie clears her throat and changes the subject (for my benefit?): "Sunlight's not the only thing that can kill us," she drawls. "Silver is also lethal; it has the same burning effect as the sun. Hunters use silver bullets on us quite often but it doesn't completely destroy us. If you can't use the sun as a weapon, you have to stab our hearts. That will immobilize us completely but not kill us. After doing that, you have to cut off our heads. With that done, we won't be able to heal and we stay dead."
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask, relieved that my feeling of shame is diminishing and a bubble of curiosity is replacing it.
Sophie shrugs. "You asked me and I'm giving you the answers. Oh, and that myth about vampires having to get permission to enter a person's home is true. But that hasn't stopped us that much; there are welcome signs on places most vampires frequent pretty much everywhere nowadays."
"Have you entered a person's home and. . .you know," I ask but I don't want to finish that question because I'm afraid of her answer. Images of Sophie creeping around inside a little kid's bedroom flash before my mind, of her looming above the child's sleeping frame and sinking her teeth into its neck. But fortunately, Sophie shakes her head and the gruesome images pop out of my mind like an deflating balloon.
"Nah, it's too much of a hazzle. Too many houses are guarded with security systems nowadays and I don't wanna get caught. My guardian taught me about that."
This is it, I realize. We've entered the forbidden zone; the questions are centering around her now. They are the ones I'm most interested in. I want to know what happened to my only friend; I want to know how she became the undead beast that she is now. But will she tell me? We're getting closer and I know I'm dying to know about this guardian she mentioned but I get the feeling that I should wait. I'm biting my lower lip and I gather all my courage within me, what little that I have at least and ask my desired question:
"How did you become a vampire?"
„Ding! Ding! Ding!" Sophie sing-songed, swinging her hand like she is swinging a bell. „You've reached the million dollar question! Finally! I've been waiting, like, forever for you to ask me that!"
She sits down on the pile with her legs crossed. She beckons me to do the same but there's no way in hell I'm sitting down on filthy, blood-soaked clothes! I remain rooted to the spot but listen intently as she begins to tell me how she became a member of the undead.
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That's it for chapter 3!
I hope you guys will like the interaction between Sophie and Leia.
I'm sorry that it's not an action-packed chapter but the next chapter will have some action in it, so stay tuned! If you liked this chapter, please vote and comment! As always, I would really appreciate any kind of feedback.