THE LIFE: CHAPTER THREE

                                                                    WHAT?



                    Grace wasn't joking about the double shift. My work day started at 3 p.m. and was suppose to end at 11 p.m.  Delores and I worked from 8 p.m. to 12 p.m. the next day. The morning crew came in at 4 a.m., which gave us two extra pair of hands. If you ask me, they should have been called in last night, as well. But, no one asked me, so I digress. The sun was at full blast, when Delores and I walked out of the morgue into the parking lot. I was dead on my feet, and she was all but passed out. The accident last night was terrible. ten people dead, two in critical condition. people should appreciate life more because it can be gone in an instant.

"Well, Delores, I guess I'll see you tonight. Go home and get some rest." I stated, as I sat on my motorcycle, put on my helmet and started the engine.

"You too." And with that, Delores gave me a wave, started her car and left.

                    I was half way home, when the accident occurred. A car barreled through the intersection, ran a red light and plowed into me. As, my bike drifted from under me, my body was thrown at least fifty feet, and I passed out from the pain of the impact. The driver of the car did not stop, but another car did. It was Delores. She was driving behind me, which was odd, since she left the parking lot before I did. She should have been home by now. Her apartment block was two blocks before mine. Instead, she had a front row seat of an accident scene I'm sure was linked to a block buster hit. She rushed out of her car and over to me.

"Astrid! Astrid! can you hear me?!?" She shouted over and over. The truth was I could hear her. I just couldn't open my eyes. I feel her as she checks for a pulse. I could feel her surprise, when she found one. She began screaming for help, but no one would come. The street had been essentially closed off for the Mardi Gras parades. There were only a few blocks one could travel before your luck ran out. So, instead of making detour after detour, people just decided in their own mind that it was closed off completely. This worked for me. Without traffic, I could get home in no time from work. My choice had been ideal until today. Despite the deserted street, Delores insisted on screaming for help. She soon realized her screams were not being heard. Or, maybe heard and just not cared about. Gotta love this city. I could feel her shuffling for something, and realized it was her cell phone. I could hear her dialing 9-.......

"Don't." I managed to whisper, as I lightly touched her arm. Delores looked at me, as I opened the only usable eye I had.

"Oh my God!! Astrid! Sweetie, I have to call for help. You were just hit by a car moving very, very fast. I have to call for help or you will die. Do you understand that?" I could hear her dial - 1.....

"Delores, don't." I gurgled as I began to choke on the blood  filling up in my lungs.  "Do not ....call for help." I whispered.

Delores looked at me with wild eyes, as she noticed the gash on my forehead beginning to close. I knew she wanted to scream, but at the moment she could not remember how. I laid there staring into her eyes, my body in pain, as my bones shifted back into place. The pain was almost unbearable.  I wanted to scream, but I had to suppress my agony for her sake. I didn't want to frighten her more than she was beginning to be. Her gaze was fixated on me, and I could not break eye contact with her. I knew I had to keep looking into her eyes to assure her what she was seeing was real.

"Astrid", her voice trembling as she whispered,  "what the hell is.......

I grabbed her hand as tight as I could without breaking it.  "Delores, get me out of here."

"But........


"Delores, now!" I said through clenched teeth and pain so severe no person should ever experience. Responding to me as quickly as she could, Delores picked me up off of the ground and with wobbling legs, she managed me with her small frame.  Once we were both in the car, she tried to put it in gear but was having some trouble figuring out how.  "Drive, Delores!"

"Where?" she asked nervously, not understanding why or how she had just been thrown into the twilight zone.

"My apartment." I grunted through the pain. I lay my head against the cold window. Without another word, Delores put the car in gear and drove the next four blocks in silence, intently staring ahead. Once we were at my apartment building, she parked and turned off the engine.

"Now what?" she asked with good reason. She stole glances of me, as I adjusted my body into a better position to open the car door.

"Now", I winced, "help me upstairs.....into my apartment."

Once we were inside, I limped over to my white Italian leather sofa and carefully sat down. Delores stood with her back against the front door staring at me.

"Astrid, I don't know what just happened, but.......

"But,nothing. It was nothing, Delores." I finished for her.

"But, I saw you.......

"No, you did not." I stood up from my sofa and noticed the blood stains. That's going to be a bitch to clean.

"What?"  Her voice was trembling with fear. I thought she would start crying, but she held herself together better than I could have imagined.

"Delores, you can't ever, I mean never speak of what happened today, to anyone."

"What?" Delores was slowly walking toward me now, but still remained at a distance she considered safe. She was in shock. I get that.

"You heard what I said."  I walked into the kitchen and retrieved a bag of AB+ blood. When Delores saw the bag of blood in my hand, she stopped dead in her tracks. Her body was rigid, her face, frozen in shock, her eyes as wide as the Grand Canyon.  I emptied the contents into a glass and began to drink.

"How'd you do that...back there...in the alley? Are you some kind of bionic woman the government created in a lab?.....six million dollar .... whatever? Wonder Woman....Freaking Alice from Resident Evil? Astrid, are you some kind of........

"Vampire." I relented. That could have gone on for hours, seeing that my refreshing beverage didn't give her the slightest notion that not one of those characters she just rambled off ever drank blood.

"What?"  She took a few steps backwards. I watched her reaction before I spoke again. The color had drained from her face. She stood in the foyer of my apartment staring at me, waiting for me to make the next move, hoping that I would tell her she wasn't crazy. But in her heart, she already knew she wasn't. Her heart rate was out of control, and I knew I had to do something to calm her or a heart attack was in her near future.

"Delores, I need you to calm down. I need you to take deep breaths to calm your breathing. And, I need you to know that you can never speak on any of this again. To anyone."  I stared directly into her eyes.

"Calm.....Take deep....What?"

"Do you understand what I am telling you? This...what happened today, can never go any farther than this room."

"What?"

"Delores, if you say 'what' one more time, I swear to god........

"OK, I'm sorry! This is a hell of a lot to take in at the moment.  I've been up for the past sixteen hours, I...I see you riding a motorcycle and get hit by a speeding car. An accident that should have killed you, I might add, but here you are.....

"Limped." I corrected.

"Wh.........

I gave her a sharp glance before she could finish.

"Technically I didn't walk away. I limped away" I went upstairs into my bedroom to shed what was left of my clothes. The blood I drank refreshed my body enough for me to function without any help from Delores. I don't think she is in any state of mind to play Clara Barton anyway. I undressed, threw my blood soaked clothes in the trash, made a mental note to burn them later. Delores slowly followed me, as I walked toward the bathroom to run the shower. She continued to stare at me, as if she was looking at a ghost. I guess, in a way, she was.

"Delores, listen to me. Are you listening?" I asked, as I tested the temperature of the water from the shower.

"Yes. Believe me. You have my undivided attention." She raised a finger to the middle portion of her glasses to adjust them on her face.

"Good to know. You are not dreaming. You are not crazy. What you saw was real. What I am telling you is real.  I am a vampire.  No one in this city or world for that matter, knows I exist as a vampire, with the exception of you. Oh, and Adam."

"So, you're telling me that vampires are real? You're telling me that every horror movie about vampires that I watched as a kid is actually real? That every nightmare I've ever had in my entire life about vampires is real"? And, who is Adam"? She was in full hyper mode. From the looks of her body language and the pounding of her heart, I thought she would faint.

"Delores, I have no idea what your nightmares were about, or how I compare to any horror movie you watched, when you were four."

"Fourteen, actually." She corrected.

"Come again".

 "I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies until I was old enough to start applying to college."   I shook my head as if to say, 'Poor thing'.   "Astrid, how can this be true? How can anyone be a vampire? They're not real."

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man........"

"Astrid, this is not funny!" her raised voice startled me. I'd never heard that tone come from her before. She paced back and forth until she got dizzy. She stopped and leaned against the mahogany bed post, trying to regain the support and comfort of a world she had left behind only moments ago.

I walked to the bathroom to shower away the double shift and blood still clinging to me. Before closing the door, I turned to her again.  "Delores, can I trust you to stay in that spot until I get out of the shower?" I asked, making a circling motion directed at her feet. She didn't respond, but I knew she wouldn't leave. Delores has an inquiring mind. I was a little shocked at how well she was  absorbing the information that had just closed the door on everything she ever believed in. But, I knew the reality of it was not quite at the surface.
                    After I showered, I returned to my bedroom to see Delores sitting on the bed, staring at the floor, still wearing her wool coat she apparently hadn't planned on discarding any time soon.
"You can take that off now." I said pointing to her coat. She looked at me, her eyes filled with questions. Questions I knew I would have to answer sooner than later.

"Astrid, how?"

"How what?" I asked, pretending not to understand the question.

"How are you a vampire? I thought vampires were just a myth. I mean, how?"

"First of all", I started as I walked over to the walk-in closet to retrieve a pair of leggings and t-shirt. She cautiously followed behind me, as I returned to the sitting room,  "Vampires are not myths. Case in point," I made a wave motion toward myself. She followed behind and sat when I sat, never taking her eyes off of me.

"What about sunlight?"

"What about  it?" I got into a comfortable position on my white Italian leather chase lounge chair.

"Don't vampires burn up in sunlight?"

"Mostly"

"Mostly?"

"Some do. Some don't."   I picked up an Ebony magazine from the coffee table and began flipping through it. "The sun is too hot for some of us, but it's not always a death warrant'.

"Too hot? Wh...How do you mean?"

"Have you ever heard of sunburn, Delores?" I asked without looking up from my magazine.

"Yeah, when a person stays in the sun too long."

"OK, same with some vampires, except we tend to burn faster than normal people do. Vampires do not have and cannot obtain Vitamin D as humans can. Our bodies do not produce it, and the sun is our natural enemy because we cannot naturally take in the substance. Simply put, we are actually dead. Most of us.  Because of this, when vampires do not get the proper Vitamin D from Vitamin D rich blood, we lack the iron we need to survive. Too much sun takes away the little life energy vampires do gain from drinking blood. If we lose that energy, we have to feed again to regain it. And, sometimes that feeding can cost a person his/her life."

"So, this is why you keep blood in your fridge?"

"I keep blood in my fridge for the same reason you keep eggs in yours. I have to eat to stay alive."

"But, I've seen you eat food. I mean, regular food. Vampires don't eat food.  But, you do. I don't understand. So, when you came home today and drank that blood......

"It wasn't because I was hungry. It was because I needed to heal."

"Oh." Was all she said.  "But how can you be alive? You just said vampires are technically dead."

"Some are, Delores. But, dead or not, I still have to eat to live, Sweetie."

"But, your body is warm. You're not cold to the touch. I felt you, when you were laying on the ground. If you are a vampire, shouldn't you be cold? And, you have a bed. Don't vampires sleep in coffins?"

"Too much television, Delores."  I continued to flip through the magazine.   "I keep a bed for the sake of maintaining my humanity. It's just for show. I sleep in a freezer upstairs."

"What's that like?"

"Cold, Delores." I stated, as I discarded the magazine and rubbed my temples. I could feel her relaxing a little more, but she was still tense. I could understand why. I knew she was in deep thought. Far be it for me to interrupt that process.

"Astrid, if you are in deed a real honest to god vampire, that means that technically you are dead. Right?"

"Delores, what did we agree on about stupid questions?" I asked, as if she were a child about to be placed in time out.

"I know right....I'm sorry....It's just that, when you were laying in the alley, I felt a pulse. Dead people don't have those."

"Correct."

"But, you had one."

"It wasn't my pulse you were feeling." I stated, closing my eyes, laying my head on the head rest of my chaise lounge chair.

"Wh........

"Dammit, Delores.....

"OK, I'm sorry, but you have to understand that I don't understand any of this shit you are talking about! OK!"

I knew I needed to explain for her sake and mine.  "I'm sorry Delores. You deserve a better explanation than what I am giving you. You didn't deserve to see what you saw today. You didn't deserve to have your innocence taken away from you like this. For that I am so, so sorry. But, I have to be honest. I never thought I would make the mistake again of ever showing another human who I really am. I thought I was being careful. Truth is, I guess I let my guard down too far. I should have seen that car. I should have heard it coming from miles away. But, I didn't. I don't know why, but I didn't."
I sat there for a moment trying to understand why my senses had failed me. Nothing came to mind. I couldn't dwell on it now. I had a responsibility to Delores. She needed answers and some form of reassurance. Right now we both needed the same thing.  "The pulse you were feeling was yours."  I began to explain the answer to her question.  "Technically vampires don't have a pulse because we do not have a life force. When we are alone, we don't  breathe."

"But, you're breathing now." She observed.

"Yes, because you're here. My energy comes from the living I am attached to.The energy from a human life force varies. Some are very weak; therefore, they do not have enough energy for us to obtain. They barely have enough for themselves. They essentially have nothing to offer. Your life force, on the other hand is very strong. Right now you are the source of my energy. . You are the reason I breathe. This is why you felt a pulse after the accident. Right now you and I are breathing in sync. My heartbeat matches yours because it belongs to you."

"So, you're saying that I could end up being a meal for a vampire?" Her face went pale.

"Calm down, Delores. Your life force is strong because you are healthy. Those who have a weak life force are either sick or near death. And no, you won't end up as a meal for a vampire. I'll make sure of that." I teased.

"Wow! That's comforting. Good to know I have a body guard." She laughed nervously at the concept.
I could feel her staring at me, watching, trying to understand the new reality that has just been placed in front of her. But, Rome wasn't built in a day, so........"Astrid, how do you plan on keeping this a secret?  People are bound to figure it out. Don't you think?"

"Delores, I've kept this secret for over 200 years. You are right, people are bound, but they won't figure it out."

"Wow! Last night, when you said you had years of practice, you weren't kidding." Delores, slumped backwards in the over sized chair she was sitting in and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, my breathing became slower, more relaxed but labored, and I knew she was asleep. I went into the bedroom and retrieved a blanket. After covering her, I turned off the lights, and I went upstairs to the loft to get some sleep as well. This was the day I had feared. A day, when a human saw me for who I really am. Number one on my list.