Serum

-Two-

One of the nights we had made arrangements to meet, Conner never showed. Glumly, I realized that things came up sometimes and couldn’t be helped. Somewhat depressed, I walked the track a few times hoping he would show, before giving up and heading home slowly, dragging my feet the whole way. I kept expecting to feel his familiar light-as-a-feather touch brush across my arm, or hear his familiar laugh as I walked away. I even thought once I heard his voice whisper my name. I sat worrying about Conner until midnight, when I fell asleep completely exhausted, resolved to walk out to the track the next night to try to see Conner and make sure everything was all right. An annoying rapping started going on outside what felt like minutes after I sank into sleep. When I cracked my eyes open, I realized it was dawn. I groaned loudly, mumbling under my breath about stupid trailer park people, then rolled over and covered my head with my blanket. The rapping increased, and I suddenly sat up with a jerk. It was rattling my windows!

“What in this WORLD are you stupid people doing now!?” I shouted angrily and threw open my curtains. Conner was on the other side looking desperately like he needed help.

“Conner! What’s going on? Are you ok?” Things kept tumbling out of my mouth as I opened the window to his beckoning. I couldn’t even understand half of it, and I was the one speaking. “You know, it might be easier if you just went around to the doooooor…..” The last part of my sentence was squeezed out of me as Conner, quicker than lightning, reached inside and dragged me out the window.

“Just keep your voice low. I need you to leave your house and not come back today, you need to go hide somewhere where you usually don’t go, and just stay away until tomorrow.” Conner whispered urgently, as he slid the window shut.

“What?!” I shouted in a whisper. “I can’t just leave, I don’t have anywhere to go, and the only other family members that really care about me live two and a half hours away! What’s going on anyway that’s so upsettingly urgent?” The last two words I said through Conner’s hand which was clamped over my mouth.

“You’re sure you don’t have anywhere to go?” Conner asked.

“Mmhuhm-muhm.” I said through Conner’s palm, gently shaking my head so he removed his palm. I repeated “Huh-uh, nowhere” Conner’s face began to show signs of worry, and just as suddenly his expression cleared.

“Ok, then, I have to ask you, do you trust me?” Conner searched my face as I nodded my head, it was my turn to look worried. “Then follow me, keep down and keep quiet.”

Conner ducked his head and scuttled from trailer to trailer, making no discernible noise. I tried to do the same, but in my pajamas with no shoes, it was a bit hard. Especially since my feet seemed to find all the little bits and pieces of broken glass beer bottles that there were in the yards we crossed. Finally I stopped, to yank a particularly vicious piece out of my foot, and Conner looked around, puzzled. He turned and knelt beside me.

“What’s wrong?” He breathed. “You’re bleeding…”

“It’s just all this stupid glass.” I sighed quietly. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not wearing any shoes.”

“Would you mind if I carried you piggy-back?” He asked, concerned.

“You can’t do that!” I said shocked. “I’m much too heavy, and besides, you probably weigh less than I do and….” Conner clamped his hand across my mouth again.

“You said you’d trust me. Besides, you’re not that heavy, just trust me.” Conner replied quietly. “Now, will you let me give you some help here?” I nodded, and Conner hoisted me up onto his back, still leaning over. I was sure we would over-balance, but he was very steady as he snuck towards the end of the trailer court.

“Now hold on tight, I’m about to run!” Conner said through his teeth.

“But..!” I exclaimed, tightening my grip, as Conner straightened and bolted across the road from the trailer park. He ran incredibly swiftly, houses and roads passed us by quickly, as I clung to his back, feeling all the world like a sack of potatoes or a monkey clinging to a moving tree. While he dodged between houses and darted up and down roads, I quickly lost my sense of direction. Eventually he slowed, and then stopped, releasing me, and I gently slid to the ground. I couldn’t believe he had carried me so far or so fast. With a gentle plop, I landed on my rump.

“It’s just a bit from here, do you think you can walk?” Conner asked with concern.

“Well, that last piece of glass really got me, I’m afraid to look to see if it’s still bleeding.” I replied. Conner’s expression suddenly took on a haunted look, and he looked as if he could attack something.

“What is it? What now?” I asked urgently, worried about his expression and the way he had been behaving.

“Your blood! I didn’t even think of it! We’ve probably left a trail the whole way!” He exclaimed. I could tell he was getting really worked up, so I stood up as quickly as I could, but couldn’t hide my grimace.

“It’s ok, the cut’s pretty much stopped bleeding, I don’t think it’s dripped in a long while, so I think we’re all right. Besides, I don’t think anybody could follow the path you just took, especially not as quickly.” I soothed quietly, throwing in the last bit to try to get his good humor back. The truth of it was, he was scaring me out of my wits the way he was acting. I stumbled a bit as I took a test step to see how much pain my foot would endure. Conner easily righted me, then gently swooped me up into his arms and carried me the rest of the way down the street.

“We’re going to have to do something about that foot when we get inside.” Conner said somewhat weakly. He set me down outside a church, opening the door. “Ladies first,” he said with a small smile, and helped me inside.

The first thing that got to me was the smell. The church must have been abandoned for some time. Conner assisted me into a seat, and hastened out of the room. When Conner returned he had some bandage strips and iodine.

“This is going to hurt.” He said with a grimace as he knelt by my feet.

“I need to tell you something..” He started after making a swipe at the largest cut on my foot. I yowled in protest.

“Not good! Not good!” I screamed as the iodine burned into the wound, then yelped out a “What?”

“Would you believe me if I told you something REALLY important, that won’t really be believable, but is the reason I had to rush you away this morning, and is why I think that she’ll still find us even though you haven’t left behind much blood?” Conner said cryptically.

“Important? Unbelievable? She? My blood? I’m so confused.” I said as the burning from my feet increased as more cuts were attacked with iodine. It was hard to think when someone was attacking your wounds with a burning liquid.

“Just tell me, will you believe me?” Conner asked again.

“I’ll believe anything you want if you’ll stop with that iodine!” I yelped.

“Just a few more cuts and I’m through with the iodine, but I still need to bandage your feet.” Conner replied with a small grin.

“Ok, if it’s important, go ahead, I’ll try my best to believe you.”

“Well,” Conner began, stopping again, iodine paused in mid-air.

“Just OUT with it!” I exclaimed.

 “Well….” Conner paused, then rushed on. “I’m not exactly human, and neither is my sister and she’s after you because you’re my friend and you ARE human, and she thinks that humans are “below” our social class or something, and she’ll be able to follow your blood because we’re not human because, well, because, we’re VAMPIRES. And I know this sounds really crazy, but I can prove it honestly, and I’m so sorry I haven’t told you before and that all this happened, I just didn’t think she’d go crazy like this, and what’s wrong?” I had pulled my feet away from him, scooting down the pew to distance myself from him. Number one if he wasn’t crazy then he really was a vampire, and here my bloody feet were under his nose, and Number two if he really was crazy, then I really didn’t want anything to do with him at all.