They did not. She stood on the beach until there was no light in the village, until the cold was so deep that she could feel it in her bones. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks and they felt warm on her icy skin.
Kirsty realised that she couldn’t stay on the beach all night. If she did she would get sick. If she fell asleep there she might not wake up and when the water rose above her head she would drown.
She seriously considered swimming. She was a good swimmer but it was a long way to the nearest boat and she was tired from a long day and what felt like most of a night being scared. If she tried to swim she figured she stood a good chance of drowning.
There really was only one option, she would have to go in land and take shelter in the forest until morning. If she had realised the danger she was in she might have called for help but she didn’t. The surface part of her was convinced that the danger was all in her head and it seemed like a worse fate to get wet or create a fuss by shouting for help than it did to put up with being scared for a few hours. Besides, Margaret would never let her forget it if she didn’t.
With more than a little reluctance Kirsty turned around. Her feet had sunk into the muddy bank and she had to pull them out of the ground with a slurping squelch. She looked at the hill and without giving herself time to change her mind she started to climb it.
The long grass moved in the wind and scratched against her legs. She couldn’t see more than twenty metres ahead with any clarity, the cluster of trees that she knew to be in the distance were just a vague shape in the darkness. Still she looked around as if she might see something, a friend or an enemy, but there was no one there.
Once she had made her decision and climbed to the top of the hill she walked on quickly, keen to get out of the cold. The forest wouldn’t offer much protection but it seemed like her only option and if she pressed herself against one of the large trees it would, at worst, protect her from the wind.
She hurried across the field and did her best to ignore the irregular throbbing of her heart. Her mouth was dry and her skin moist.
There were noises that she hadn’t accounted for. Away from the steady sound of water lapping against boats she could hear owls hooting and night insects chirruping. She tuned them out as best she could but they were still there, grating against her frail nerves.
Alone on the vast field she almost broke into a run but managed to keep herself under control. She was aware that if she lost it now she might never get it back and she didn’t want to spend the entire night jumping at every falling leaf and cracking twig.
When Kirsty finally reached the forest she was soaked through with panic. Her breathing was as rapid as if she had just run a marathon and she couldn’t hear anything except the pounding of blood in her ears. She found a tree in the centre of the cluster and collapsed against it. The rough bark scratched her back as she slid down to the floor.
Kirsty felt like crying but the tears wouldn’t come. She was scared and alone and she just wanted to go home. Maybe it would be better to swim for it. She wrapped her arms around herself and knew that she wouldn’t dare do that, the idea of jumping in the icy cold water was enough to scare her.
Sleep took her unaware. She opened her eyes and the quality of he night had changed enough for her to realise time had passed. The dark was somehow deeper, it had a weight to it that it hadn’t had before. The wind had stopped and the cold had gotten into the ground beneath her. She wasn’t sure what (a noise perhaps) but something had woken her.
She wiped the moisture from her face and listened. Her anxiety about what might be out there
(vamps)
was tempered by the hope that it might be her friends come back for her. As quietly as she could manage she climbed to her feet. Her legs were stiff and sore. She looked around the tree but she couldn’t see anything. It must have been a bird or a rabbit or something else, she decided, nothing to get excited or worried about.
Then she saw something move
(creep)
in the moon shadows beyond the trees. Hunched over like an animal the black shape moved across the field. Kirsty held her breath and prayed for it to go away but when it disappeared from view she did not feel any better.
She swallowed dry air and it stuck in her throat. She squeezed her fists together and tried not to cough, her nails dug into her palms. It was out there: a vamp.
Kirsty had never actually seen a vampire before. Her mum had told her all about them, of course, and how people had lived before they came along. What her mum hadn’t told her she had picked up from friends and at school. She understood about vampires in theory: if you got bitten you either died or turned into one of them; vampires were strong and fast; the only way to kill a vampire was by piercing their heart with wood; blah, blah, blah.
Understanding was one thing but it hadn’t prepared her for how it would feel to encounter one. The feeling of dread that had turned her legs to jelly, the disgust and abhorrence of beholding the unnatural perversion. She could feel the bile rising in her throat and forced it down. She tried to make herself to relax a little so she could listen and try to work out where it had gone.
All she could hear was the wind whipping through the tree branches above her and through the grass in the field. She discovered then that she really was scared of vamps and thought that when
(if)
she got home she would proudly admit to being scared of them, regardless of what Margaret Coley thought.
She heard a crunch behind her and froze. She didn’t dare turn around. She told herself that it was just a branch, that it had probably fallen out of a tree or an animal had stood on it.
Then she felt a cold hand on her arm. An icy chill seemed to radiate from it.
The air had suddenly gone from her lungs and she couldn’t even scream. She felt warm urine soaking through her knickers and tears streaming down her face.
She could hear it breathing and smelled rotten flesh. She choked down the rancid air and from nowhere she found the strength to move.
Kirsty ran. She pushed past the branches that hung across the path, felt them making tiny cuts on her face but ignored them. She could see the edge of the field beyond the forest now and made for that. The muscles in her legs burned and it felt as if she was swallowing poison air. She kept running.
She couldn’t hear the vamp behind her but she knew it would be there. A part of her knew that she wasn’t going to get away from it, that even on her best day she couldn’t hope to outrun it and today was far from her best day. But she kept running because she knew something else about vamps; they couldn’t go through water. If she just made it to the river then she would be okay. She might end up with a cold or worse but nothing could really be worse than getting caught by a vamp.
Kirsty Louise Lorimer made it almost half-way from the forest to the river before the vampire got her. She felt as much as heard it leap through the air towards her. Her breath caught in her throat and her entire body became rigid. Its nails tore deep gashes, through her shirt and down her back. It stung as the cold air made contact with the fresh wounds. She thought it would hurt even more when she made it to the water.
She didn’t make it to the water.
Now on her back the vamp pulled her to the ground. Its body seemed both lighter than air and as heavy as a boat. She lay on her face and tore at the damp grass trying to pull herself away but it made no difference.
She could feel the cold breath of the vamp on her neck, then its teeth. She remained fully conscious and aware as two needle-like fangs pressed against the tender flesh of her neck and then popped through.
Kirsty screamed as she felt, actually felt, the blood being drawn through the veins in her neck and out of the two puncture holes. It came at an unnatural pace. Within seconds she felt as if she was suffering from a bad case of the flu; her entire body felt weak and she could no longer even move her arms to flap at the ground. She lay still.