The hollow autumn moon lingered low on the watery horizon as beautiful, white crested waves crashed against the sandy shoreline in reckless abandon; the chilled evening air was heavily permeated with a stringent salty stench that easily carried far inland on the brisk breezes. Stray seaweed strands were strode about the beach in random disarray. Aged driftwood debris floated lazily in the steadily swelling surf. A thin, vapory mist saturated the already winter like winds, adding a damp ambiance to the night as the rising ocean roared and hissed a classic melody while, far in the distance, seagulls called out to one another in a disastrous and hopelessly off key attempt at a serenade.
There was a tranquil feel to the night, a cool calm that whispered gentle accolades as bright moonbeams danced over the dark ocean like mischievous pixies; sights and sounds came effortlessly together to seamlessly fashion a most perfect panorama. Nature at its best. Pure. Tender. Inviting. The warm, ashen glow illuminated the night with an almost serene radiance, a subdued brilliance that was far less invasive than the blazing sunlight…the sweet moon kiss gave a timed soul the opportunity to escape into lingering shadows, should critical and prying eyes venture too close. Become too obtrusive. Too curious, or linger, just a moment too long…it was rare that she allowed anyone close enough to see her very clearly, but when it did happen, she tended to bolt as fast and as far as she could, reminding me of a skittish colt who had far too often tasted the repeated stroke of a cruel whip against tender flesh…she was, for all the world, so similar to a creature who had encounter a cold force determined to break her will, her spirit, and at times, it seemed as if that horrible force had indeed managed to shatter her essence, leaving her broken and afraid, certain it was now her lot in life to avoid the actual act of living.
For months I had watched her from a distance, never alerting her to my presence in her life, but always close to her, as often as I could be; from the moment the sun set until it rose again, I found myself unable to break away, to leave her…she drew me to her as no one else ever had in all my nearly seven hundred years and I knew early on I was obsessed.
In telling this story, I suppose the first thing I should do is explain who and what I am; my name is Jacob Coleman and I am a nearly seven hundred year old vampire…I am not the eldest of my kind, but I have lived a long existence, mostly a solitary one and I have been happy with that. Even as a human, I had never felt closely connected to anyone. I never needed another. Never loved anyone with such desperation I felt as if my mind might leave me, if I did not have them in my world…yet in less than a moment, my desire for a continued quite and solitary existence faded and I knew every second I had lived, up until that moment, was leading me to this girl…this beautiful but frightened woman I saw as an almost angelic vision.
The first time I saw her, she was walking on the beach, clearly lost deep in her thoughts as she stared out at the ocean, her cascading chocolate curls swaying in the gentle breeze. She exuded elegance. Beauty. I was certain she was perfection in the flesh…the moonlight made her seem surreal with her ivory flesh framing a delicately featured face dominated by sensual lips and wide, darkly lashed lilac eyes.
At the time, as I enjoyed my own stroll along the shoreline, I was in my usual indiscernible form, which allowed me to watch her without alerting her to my presence…I simply stood and drank in the sight she made as cutoff shorts revealed long legs while her plain cotton shirt hugged her full breast, cropped just enough to offer a peak at her flat but feminine belly. The little sapphire ring, that graced her belly button. I smiled to myself. I smiled at my reaction to her, I smiled because I knew I would not rest until I knew her…until I knew her name, knew where she had come from…I was certain, after all, that I had never seen her before, so I suspected that she was new to the island.
As she moved closer, allowing me a better view, I became even more enthralled, more aroused…I wanted to take her into my arms in that moment, to feel her full breast crushed against my chest as I lowered us both to the ground; I was consumed with the need to take her, to taste her lips…I had to resist that urge with every ounce of strength I possessed as she finally paused about five feet from me.
She had the most wonderful scent, a faint vanilla aroma that made me ache inside…an ache that thundered into a dull pain as I full sensed the deep hurt radiating from her in the instant before she brushed a cloud of curls behind her left ear, allowing me to see, for the first time, a thin but ridged pink scar that ran a decided course from the tip of her temple to the bottom of her jaw line, just below her full lips.
Silently, I moved closer to her, overcome with more emotions than I had the ability to fully process as I looked at her…felt her…I sensed her pain so very strongly it seemed to pull me under, pull me into the suffering she struggled hard to hide from the world. From herself. I wanted to take that suffering from her, to make it right…I wanted to heal her inner wounds more than I had ever wanted anything, but for the first time in my existence, I felt utterly powerless and I very quickly discovered that was a feeling I hated with a passion, even as I realized I had to learn what I could, by fair means or what some would consider foul.
One of the powers that I possess, but seldom use, is the power to tap into the mind of a mortal, allowing myself the opportunity to shift through memories and thoughts…it was an invasion I tended to avoid, but in that moment, I was just desperate enough to cast my usual hesitations aside; I was driven by desire to understand this girl who had managed to arouse feelings inside me I hadn’t know I had the means to feel, until she appeared so beautifully in my path and as I stood there with her, as she stared at the ocean with tears shimmering in her eyes, her mental guarded lowered, I found it easy to slip deeply into her mind in my quest for information.
I discovered first that her name was Danica Dawson and she was twenty six, seven years younger than I had been, at the time I left the mortal life behind for something more…she had come to the island from New York, to rent one of the older house further down the shore, having chosen the location for the very secure privacy and solitude it offered. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be cut off from the rest of the world, the one she had once known as well as the one that took place all around her, on the island…I understood that need, the need to be left alone, but it was the reasons behind her need I found most heart wrenching as I slipped a little deeper into thoughts, wishing I could wrap my arms around her and hold her against me as she allowed her tears to finally flow freely in an effort to excavate the pain once and for all.
Before I even learned every fact regarding her life, I knew I would do any and everything for her; I felt instantly connected to this girl and as much as it surprised me, I didn’t mind…wanting her as I did felt somehow right as I slowly shifted through her memories for information that informed me she had no real family. Her mother and father were dead. A car accident had killed both in an instant, when Danica was only seventeen and shortly after, she graduated high school and moved from her small hometown in New Mexico to New York where she worked as a waitress part time while focusing most of her energy on fulfilling her dream to become a model.
It seemed, she found the success she wanted, she became popular in the field and for four years, she was at the top…she held endless memories and thoughts centering around the countless assignments she had landed, the fame she had discovered; for a time, she had all she had ever wanted, leading up to her encounter with a man named Chet Lewis, a photographer who developed an unhealthy obsession with her.
He began with calling her at all hours, asking her to go out with him, but when she refused, he took to following her…she got a court order meant to try and keep him at bay, but he had no fear, regarding trouble with the law, a fact he coldly taunted her with when he trapped her in the parking garage next to the building that housed her apartment.
The minute she saw Lewis, she panicked, she tried to tell him to leave her alone…he screamed back at her before slapping her hard across the face, so hard she fell to the ground just as a knife flashed through the air…her last clear thought was crying out for help. For mercy. There was pain, followed by a cold darkness that pulled her deeply under.
When she awoke, she was in the hospital, lost in a drug induced haze that lingered for nearly a week, before her agent set at her bedside and told her what had happened; he filled in the blanks her memory had created, and Danica could only cry in disbelief as he told her that she had been stabbed twice in the stomach, once in the chest, and as a final act of violence, Chet had slashed her across the face with his knife before stabbing himself in the chest, right in the heart.
Chet had died, on the scene, just as Danica nearly had. It was a miracle that she lived…that was the good news…she would recover completely, from most of her wounds…yet his eyes had told her that was not the case and when she pushed, he finally admitted to her that the doctors said surgery could be done, on her face, but they saw little hope that all the damage could be really, completely reversed. She would have a scar. It couldn’t be helped. It was sad and unfair and harsh, but it was a reality she had to accept, just as she had to find the means to accept that the life she had known had ended…I could feel her pain and horror and the loneliness that consumed her following what her agent explained to her, feeling awkward himself, as he had not been certain what to say to comfort her.
His inability to offer her compassion was a condition shared by most of her so called friends in the weeks and months that followed; she was alone most of the time, so much so she came to like the solitude as her body very slowly healed itself…she underwent surgery to repair the damage to her face, but as she had been warned, the improvement wasn’t total and from there, both her mental and emotional state went downhill.
She cut herself off from her friends, which came as a relief to them, and after a time, she decided to leave the city completely, deciding a few months on an island recommended by a friend was just what she needed…she was, I knew, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself, looking for a place to hide, and as selfish as it might I seemed, I was glad she had chosen to do as much, for it had placed her in my path.
