"I wonder if he's lying about that," Elizabeth said. "I wonder if there's some other way off the island that he isn't telling us about."
"No, I think he's being serious. I saw one of the others from a distance, moving like a blur, and grabbing hold of a rabbit. I assume the rabbit was a meal. It looked like a female vampire. And she was as a wild as a cave woman. She wore furs, leather, and moccasins. I don't know if any of them would actually try to hurt us, but Aaron claims vampires sometimes kill each other just for sport."
"I think I'll just stay in." Elizabeth replied dismally.
Elizabeth stepped back inside the doorway and perused the bookcase. There were shelves of books. Most of the books were on outdoor subjects: camping, fishing, horseback riding, guns, first aid, etc. There were several books in some other language, it looked Middle Eastern, but she couldn't read those or gauge what they were about. But as she browsed some more, she came to a disturbing realization. She noticed that she already owned some of the books on the shelf. In fact, she recognized almost all of the books as ones that she had packed for the trip. She looked around the room. Her divan, her chaise lounge (even the pillows on it were hers), the table she had eaten on....also hers. Everything in this cabin was hers. She felt suddenly weak. She went to the chaise lounge, laid down, and took a nap.
She woke to the smell of cookies. She sat up on the lounge and saw Arthur in the kitchen. He saw her rise and smiled.
"Good evening, Elizabeth. Aaron will be back in a few hours. Until then, I thought you might like a snack before dinner. The cookies are almost done."
Soon, Arthur made her a plate of cookies and a cup of tea. Elizabeth ate them slowly and sipped on her tea as she browsed a news magazine. As the clock on the wall got closer to 8:00pm, she became more and more antsy. She paced as she munched on cookies, the magazine forgotten. By 7:30, she was nearly frozen with fear. She sat on the chaise lounge with her best war face. Though she felt like a coward on the inside, she wanted her outward appearance to be that of an ice queen. Her desire was to intimidate him in retaliation for his intimidation of her from the other night.
The clock struck 8:00 and a moment later Aaron entered the room. Elizabeth was perturbed by his punctuality. No one is that punctual, she thought to herself. Before she could get even a word out, he turned to her and said, “Honey, I’m home." There was something deeply disturbing about Aaron addressing her like she was a housewife from a 1950s sitcom. She had an image of them in a black and white TV show. He comes home with, "Honey, I'm home!" and she rushes to greet him with, "Dinner will be ready in a moment!" A kiss and hug would ensue. Then he would rip his fangs into her, she would fight him, lose the battle, and he would have his way with her. Can I throw up now, she thought.
They sat down to dinner. Arthur served it. It was a meager meal. They had vegetable soup and leftover salad from lunch.
"I'll go back to my room now," Arthur said. "Unless there's anything else you two want?" He looked directly at Elizabeth for a moment.
"We're fine," Aaron said. "Leave us. You can come back and check on Elizabeth tomorrow morning."
"Arthur doesn't live here?" Elizabeth asked. She was crushed.
"No," Aaron responded. "He has his own guest house not far off."
Arthur hesitated a moment. He looked at Elizabeth a little protectively. Elizabeth wondered if he knew what Aaron had done to her last night. She hadn't told him. She could barely admit to herself what she had gone through. She assumed Arthur either knew or strongly suspected what would happen once he left this cabin. But he hadn't asked her about it once, and she was happy to not discuss it with him or anyone else. Arthur's body seemed to shrink a little, his face sad, and then he departed.
Aaron had a funky look today when compared to what she was already used to seeing him in. He looked like a badass all dressed up in black the other day. But today he was more casual. He still had on the army boots, but the rest of him looked unimposing. He wore a faded pair of navy blue work pants and a brown and yellow flannel shirt. Not exactly dinner attire, but she didn't look much better. She had purposely dressed in the least sexiest clothing she had. This wasn't difficult, because she spent a lot of time outdoors and her clothes were built for movement and not sex appeal. She had on a loose, tan, button down shirt and even looser gray cargo pants. She wasn't wearing any shoes. She could kick him quicker without her heavy sneakers or hiking boots on. She'd rather save those to use as weapons to hit him with. Not that it would actually stop him. Still, she vowed she would fight him until the day she either escaped or he killed her.