Beautiful Monster 2(15)

 
“Sarah,” I said, suddenly noticing the top of her head. We have known each other for years, but I had never seen her hair undyed. Against her dusty white skin, Sarah’s jet black hair stood out, but as I noticed the top of her head, I realized her natural color wasn’t even close. “If I shaved you bald, what color would your hair grow back in?”
 
She giggled. “You’d never know, because I’d kill you before then. But your ghost might learn that it’s a fire engine red. Horrible color. You know the kids at school used to tell me that gingers had no soul? Are ghosts real?”
 
I choked, ignoring her question. “Your hair is red?”
 
“Sure. Why? You hate gingers too?”
 
“No.” I examined her roots. “The Shields had red hair. I remember at Porsche’s funeral, all of them standing together, it was creepy.”
 
“So…” She scrunched up her face, trying to come to the same conclusion I did. “It’s not some long lost ancestor that only appeared once.”
 
“No.” I sat up, looking at the time. “Hey, I have to go.”
 
“Noooo,” she howled, grabbing onto my wrist.
 
It made me grin. I didn’t really want to go, but I had booked time in the library to work with some of the original plays Liam had stocked in the archives. I wasn’t sure what my graduate thesis was going to be yet, but it had something to do with those old plays, written on parchment that had drawn me in with their smells, the crinkles of the paper, the running ink. But I was also so glad to have her here: to finally have a best friend beside me.
 
“I’ll come back later. Liam and I are going to have an early dinner and then you and I can do whatever.”
 
“Is that weird?” she asked, rolling over and making several papers fall off the bed.
 
“What?”
 
“Never being able to spend the evening with him? Or the night for that matter? I mean, don’t you want to?”
 
I pulled on my shoes as we talked, tying the laces.
 
“Of course I want to. But what exactly can I do about it?”
 
“Well.” She thought, as she scraped her hair into a tiny ponytail. “Can’t Shields make a vampire human?”
 
I snorted. “Sure. Porsche could have if she hung onto Liam. But what were we supposed to do, ask her to hang on and close her eyes while we got hot and heavy?”
 
“Can he catch…” she trailed off, and I knew she was referring to my disease; the bane of my existence. Well managed, but looming; one day the HIV would turn to AIDS and I’d have a whole different set of problems on my hands.
 
“No, which I guess is the only good thing about this.” I laughed, despite myself. “To have a normal relationship, I have to be sleeping with a vampire.”
 
Her face turned sympathetic. “Amy, I didn’t mean…”
 
“No, I know. It’s fine. It’s just… I don’t know, something to think about. Any idea what you’re going to do your senior project on?”
 
“Probably alternative theater. We can use any resources the school has, right?”
 
“Sure. It’s a new program, so we pretty much have free reign.”
 
“Hmm,” she said, and then laughed. “So… it would be in extremely bad taste to do a mimed emo version of Dracula?”
 
That made me laugh as well as I headed out the door. “I don’t know. Liam could always mime you a zero as your grade then.”
 
My mood lightened from earlier, I shut the door behind me, shoved my hands in my pockets and headed towards the library.
 
The library had its own building, isolated from the rest of the campus. It was the oldest building on campus, and the tunnel connecting it was only recently built. Taking my ID badge out, I swiped it at the doors to get through.
 
Since school was just starting, the tunnel was empty, no one wanting to start their studying before they had to.
 
I moved quickly, wanting to make my scheduled time, my footsteps echoing through the concrete. One of the lights was flickering and I was making a mental note to tell Liam to get it fixed when I realized that there was another set of footsteps, echoing mine.
 
I turned around, a smile on my face to greet whoever was making the trek to the library with me. But there was no one there.
 
I stopped moving and the sound of footsteps stopped. Shaking my head, I started to walk again, telling myself I was going crazy.
 
But the footsteps were now coming from behind me. They clearly were not mine, out of sync and heavier. I could see no shadows and yet I knew someone was there.