1: The Dream

He stood there, in the darkness of the night. Moonlight shone through the window. She

lay there, asleep in the bed. The man, difficult to see in the darkness, hunched over the woman.

She began to stir, restless in her sleep, but he did not move from his position over her. He stood

there, for several minutes, his eyes scanning her beautiful face. Finally her eyes opened in a

flutter of blinks. She did not scream, he did not move. Finally the woman spoke.

"John, what are you doing?" She asked him. He did not answer, but she did not ask again.

She reached up and caressed his cheek. "John, your ice cold! What are you doing? What's

wrong?" He still didn't say a word. She stared into John's eyes, seeing how cold and black they

were. Finally, after a long and uncomfortable silence, she said: "What's going on?". He

straightened out and pulled a long knife from the back of his belt, and stared at her. A tear rolled

from her eye, then John stabbed the knife into her chest. Multiple times he stabbed her, then he

finally stopped, cleaning the blood off of the knife.

From outside the window he could hear sirens blaring. He turned to walk out the door,

but a shadow on the wall caught his eye. In one motion he pulled the knife out from the back of

his belt, where he had put it after he finished cleaning it, and turned swiftly.

Blood dripped to the floor from her stab wounds as she stood there, eyes open in a deep

glare. The knife dropped to the floor and John stumbled backwards toward the door, fear

showing in his eyes. He turned, but she was in front of him now. She blocked his way to the

door. He backed away and began turning for the window, but again she was in front of him.

John stood in utter silence as she glared at him. He was frozen in his place, almost unable

to breathe. She stopped glaring at him and looked innocently at him. She said with a burst of

attitude in her voice, "Johnny. Now why would you go and do a thing like that," she brought her

hands down to the gaping holes in her chest, "You ought to know better than to murder. But you

cant really call it "murder" can you? Especially when the victim is already dead." She grinned

showing all of her teeth, two of which were long fangs.

"No, you cant be! You don't exist! Vampires don't-"

"-Exist? Of course we do. Let me demonstrate." She grabbed his neck, pulling him closer

to her. She opened her mouth wide, and was leaning her neck down to bite him, but before she

could, he kneed her in the gut, putting as much strength into it as he could. She let go of him to

gasp for air, the exact reaction John was hoping for. He turned, hoping that she would not appear

in front of him and grab him furiously, and ran as fast as he could for the door.

She was not in the path and he ran into the door, busting through it into the hallway. The

hallway itself was dominated by shadow, lined with doors, and with one exit: the stairs at the end

of the hallway. He ran as fast as he could, cutting through the shadows to the light being given to

the stairs by the moon. He was almost five feet from the stairs when he looked back through the

hall,, past the door, and into the room. She was gone, nowhere to be found. He turned his head to

the rest of the hall in front of him.

There she was directly in front of John. He gasped. She looked furious and disgruntled.

She grabbed him by the neck, bringing him off of his feet and closer to her. She said something

to him, but he could not understand it. She bent his head tot he side and leaned down to bite.

John McArlen let out a scream as he jumped from his bed. Cold sweat was pouring from

his body. It was just a dream. Just a dream, John. It was just a dream, wasn't it? John thought.