I risk a glance over at Lisa. She’s listening raptly, no judgment or fear on her heart-shaped face. “It was really dark that night, when we walked into the desert.” The night comes back to me, crystal clear, the memory chilling my slow-beating heart. “We stopped to relieve ourselves, each of us wandering into the darkness twenty feet or so from the humvee.” God, what idiots we were. Thinking we were safe so close to base camp. “I was jumped from behind. It happened really fast. I thought for a second it was one of my buddies—piling on as a joke.”
Lisa’s warm hand rests on mine, her hesitant touch more kindness than I expected. I stare at her soft, pale skin, basking in her warmth. “When I woke I had no idea how much time had passed. Some god-awful stench of body odor and rotting meat surrounded me.” The young mother’s hand tightens on my own, encouraging me to keep going. “Worse than mine and my buddies stench, if you can believe that. There was pressure on my chest. At first I thought maybe I’d been mistaken for dead and was under another corpse, awaiting transit.”
I quickly meet Lisa’s eyes and glance away, shamed by my fear of that night. “But then the body moved. It took me a moment to realize something warm was trickling down my neck… then I heard a gurgling sound and the shadows came together and I knew. Something was at my throat… feeding on me.
“I screamed and screamed, my arms flailing at whatever was on top of me. It pulled off my neck and stared into my eyes… and everything went dark again.”
“Oh God. How awful.” Lisa swallows and tugs my hand away from my lap to hold it in both of hers. “What happened next?”
I shake my head. “I’m not really sure. It wasn’t until later I learned how a vampire was made. You must be drained to the point of death, with your heart about to give out, then fed blood straight from a vampire for the ‘change’ to occur. Later that night I woke again, this time alone, miles from camp. I had all my gear with me and my chest was covered in dried blood. I checked and had no injuries, even the wound on my neck I thought I had was gone. I used my equipment to stagger in the correct direction toward camp.
“Eventually, a couple of soldiers on watch found me and took me to the infirmary. I was quickly stripped of my clothes while they checked for any wounds. They questioned me and I couldn’t think of anything to say that made sense—who would believe me? It happened to me and I wasn’t even sure what the hell really happened. I was given a bed and told not to leave, they wanted to observe me until my memory came back.”
Lisa’s thumb rubs over the back of my hand, soothing my jangled nerves. Has any woman cared enough to touch me in comfort since my aunt?
I want to rush through the rest, and gloss over the details, unwilling to share the agonizing moments when I almost fed from my comrades. That twist of a sickening hunger in my gut for something so disturbing—I wanted to die. If I hadn’t left when I did, who knows what would have happened. No, I won’t share those parts.
I stand, pulling my hand from hers and run the warmed skin over my shaven head. “Once I realized what I was, I left. I didn’t want to kill anyone or risk accidentally turning them into a soulless creature of the night.”
The reaper cocks her head at me. “You’re being hard on yourself. My husband died in a car accident almost two years ago, which unfortunately left me alone, almost penniless, with our three kids. I don’t know specifically what you’ve experienced, but I understand the pain and confusion of loss. And you’re not so soulless from what I witnessed. Doesn’t that count for something?”
A new peace fills me at her observation. The same sense of purpose that filled me when I joined the Army almost a decade ago creeps across my awareness. “Yeah, maybe it does.”
Before we have a chance to say anything else, my phone rings. I dig it out from my pocket and see it’s Vivian.
“I have to take this,” I say to Lisa. “Why don’t you get settled in?”
She nods, her big blue eyes so filled with emotion I have to turn away before I give in to the urge to wrap my arms around her again.
I step into the hall, closing the door behind me, and click answer on the tiny screen. “Yes?”
“How’s it going so far?” The calm cool voice of Vivian reaches me. “Has she reaped any ghosts?” A note of disbelief colors her question.
“Oh, yeah. Turns out we do have souls and we’re a little more hard to ‘reap’ than an average human.”
“Really?” she sounds excited and slightly doubting. “That’s absolutely fascinating. Are you sure? Did you actually see her reaping a vampire soul?”