Though the lamps in the coastal park
were deployed densely, they formed blurs in the thick tree crowns under which
nothing but the vague outlines of the dark trunks could be seen.
“Why should we leave the car?” –
Yana whispered while hurrying on the alley.
She knew that the creepy creatures
go out only at night and felt the cold sweat on her back just when thinking
what could happen if they smell her. She had met them not only once and those
meetings were not very pleasant. Moreover – they could be deadly to her though
she had escaped them so far.
“Calm down” – Gennady answered. –
“We haven’t noticed them so far, even you.”
“Quiet” – she strangled him but it
was clear that those creatures were not affected by noise, sounds, even a human
voice.
They were moved by another thing and
she knew very well what it was. The smell of blood. That impalpable and almost
mysterious smell that attracted the bloodthirsty scum that was her hell.
“It’s just your imagination that
makes you think you’ve been marked in any way.”
“My imagination?” – she raised her
voice but continued silently – “You want to tell me that what has happened to
me so many times is only in my imagination?”
Her eyes shone in the dark and the
boy felt her anger but only chuckled:
“No, but perhaps it has already been
blown over. Even if you had been marked, as you think, even if they had pointed
you out as their victim, maybe it’s over because of aging.”
“No way!” – she snapped at him. –
“It’s over! I wish it could be over like that.”
“And where do you know it from?
Here, I’ve been knowing you for two years but nothing happened to you” – the
boy insisted and spread his arms. – “Well, some of those vampires have appeared
but nobody attacked you in a way you describe it.”
“Fluke!” – she shook her head and
started walking even faster.
They turned on another alley and
heard the silent murmur of the brook that passed through the park and down,
through the bleak beach flowed into the sea.
“Well, yes. Probably when you age,
your blood isn’t as attractive to them as it used to be” – he tried to calm her
down.
“You want to tell me that I’m old,
don’t you?” – she looked at him.
“Oh... no!” – Gennady sighed and put
his arm around her shoulder. – “Why don’t you want to accept what is obvious?
They don’t chase you anymore. Probably, they have found another victims who…”
“Don’t explain it to me!” – the girl
interrupted. – “Instead of clattering, you had to take the car and not to make
us pass through such a wilderness. You know that such places are full of them.”
“Well, we both decided to walk some
to that bar on the beach and to shake a leg.” – the boy spread his arms. – “And
why didn’t you take…”
Noise spread above them. They raised
their heads but saw only the shadow of a little bat who flew in the darkness.
“You don’t know what it is” – Yana
sighed. – “You don’t know what it is to feel how they attack you, how you run
but they follow you, how they stuck into you, to feel your own blood running
down your skin, to feel suffocated to death, how you die but you can do nothing...”
“Well, well, I believe you” – the
boy felt almost physically the goosebumps on her body and decided not to
contradict her.
He only teased her in that way and
that did not make the situation better. He wished he could find a way to make
his girlfriend relax and calm down at least a little. “And there’s a chance she
doesn’t imagine it and what she tells me to be the truth?” – he thought while
walking by her. They crossed the little bridge almost running when suddenly she
froze.
“Here they are” – she whispered. –
“I can hear them. They’re coming.”
“I can hear nothing” – Gennady lowered
his voice.
“Of course you can’t. You’ve never
been like me” – she was looking around nervously. – “I’ve developed almost
supernatural senses for all those years.”
The boy tried to answer something
but Yana ran down the alley. He hardly reached her. She was running to the
lights of the roadway beyond the park.
“Not there!” – he yelled. –
“Probably the light attracts them.”
“No, it doesn’t” – Yana was out of
breath. – “The light has nothing to do with them. They follow me. They’re a
lot” – she looked around.
Gennady took a quick look back
instinctively but it was pointless. He knew that they were invisible. The girl
had already started running through the meadow.
“Don’t! There could be more of them
here” – he cried out after her but she did not pay any attention to him.
He was running over the meadow, his
ankles were caught by weeds here and there, he stepped on the roots shown above
the ground and managed to hold her when she tripped over. They kept running to
the roadway – the parking-lot was beyond it.
He shuddered when she crossed the
road without looking around. Fortunately, there were not any cars but after all
he took a look aside and then he saw them – enormous and scented blood. He
reached Yana, opened the car door, they slipped into the car and slammed the
doors.
“Awfully!” – she was breathing
heavily. – “Finally! And we had to go by car not to leave it at the
parking-lot, really.”
“Agree but you don’t forget your bag
next time” – the boy answered while she was going through it.
He leaned back and turned on the
player. They heard from speakers:
Fear of the dark, Fear of the
dark,
I have a constant fear of
something’s always near.
Fear of the dark, Fear of the
dark,
I have a phobia that someone’s
always there.[1]
“Take that song off. It’s nasty” –
Yana snapped, took out a flask, threw her bag on the backseat, opened the cork
and passed it to him.
“The song is nice” – Gennady
chuckled while she was squirting her skin hard. He looked at the little bottle
and sighed: – “Well, the allergy, however, isn’t.”
The label said: “Mosquito repellent”.
~~~~~~~~~Translated by: Vessislava Savova
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