You raise a flag like that and you just know that something has to happen. I kept thinking about all the possibilities. They will come and watch me, make sure that I lead them to Suzanne, or that the Suzanne comes to me. I thought, maybe Julian was lying so I’ll just wait for Isabelle to show up and tell me differently, or Lucy to show up and say that Julian was wrong, that she isn’t just playing me.

I couldn’t take it. It was like the fourth of July was setting fire inside my skull. I was about to explode with tension. The windows of my apartment face another building, I didn’t even have the release of watching shit blow up, and I didn’t want to leave my place in case someone decided to make a move. I was about ready to start punching my neighbors for release when I did the one thing that calms me down, or at least puts me in a place that is easier to deal with. I listened to my record collection.

Lucy and I had been going through my collection finding ones she had never heard of. We hadn’t gotten to The Jesus and Mary Chain yet. This is the song that was playing when the first knock on my door happened:

Suzanne. She just knocks on my door, no big deal, visiting a friend or what not. It was just before sunrise on Sunday morning. She was leaning on my door frame and at first I thought she was hurt, or drunk, but turns out she was neither.

“Howdy” She said.

“This is probably not safe.” I said and she waved it off as she came into my loft.

“Nice digs”.

Suzanne confused me. She had saved my life, three times, every time out of the blue. She had let me stay at her home when resting, and treated me like I was her kid, but she tried to speak in this combination of terms that always threw me off. Digs, Howdy, Cat’s Meow. Like she was some kinda country hipster from the 1920’s. She wasn’t old enough, as far as I could tell. She was just barely old enough to be my mother if my mother was a teenager at my birth. Barely hitting sixty if a day.

She leaned against the table with one hand, holding herself up. I shut the door. “want some water?”

“No, I’ve had enough water.” She said, her voice seeming a bit weak, so I walked around to stand in front of her. Tears were at the corners of her eyes, about to burst from her. This I had never seen before. Suzanne was always happy, always wanting to help. I have no idea how to handle people who are crying in front of me. My instinct says to hug them, but I just can’t move no matter what is happening. I just stood there and looked at her.

“Don’t die.” She finally said.

“what?”

“Don’t die. Don’t let them get you.”

“I can’t really stop them if they want to kill me, you know that.”

“You don’t know anything Jon Snow”. she thought this was hilarious and started to laugh, that horrible laugh of someone who is also crying, then she let herself fall to the floor.

“I’m done, stick a fork in me.”

“I’ll get you to bed, you can sleep in mine.”

“No” she said firmly and looked up at me. Looking at every inch of my face, like she was memorizing it. “I failed them.”

If you can’t beat them join them is what my mother used to say. So I sat down next to her. She smiled and looked past me at the large windows at the other end of my loft.

“The sun is rising. I let them know I was here. Most of them will hide from the sun. It’s what they do. They won’t risk it now that the sun is coming. The new ones, the ones with the stolen thoughts, they will show up, I’m going to let them.” She reached into the back pocket of her old blue jeans and handed me a key. “It’s yours now. Burn it if you don’t want it.”

“what is it?”

“Knowledge, don’t let them have it.”

“They’ll track me there, you know that. Fuck, are you going to kill yourself?”

“I already have. I failed, and now they are using you. I can’t do this any longer. I was never meant to do this, I’m just a secretary.” She started crying, huge massive sobs and leaned on me. She smelled of fresh dirt and roses.

There was the sound of keys in the lock of the door. I looked at the window. The sun was up. “Keep writing. Write everything, write everything you find out, even if it helps them get to you. The more you write the more they are stuck.” She sat up, “just remember if you don’t want them to see you, they can’t.”

“What does that mean?”

Then Lucy stood over us. My heart skipped a beat. She was thin, the worse I’d ever seen here and the sun was just now coming up. She hadn’t fed. She didn’t look shocked at seeing Suzanne there. She bent over and pulled me by my arm off the floor, “thanks” she said to Suzanne, then to me, “We have to go”.

“I can’t” I said pointing to Suzanne.

“She’s the reason we have to go. Isabelle is coming to claim her and you are of no use to her now.”

Fucking Julian was right? When have vampires ever been straight forward. It was like I was in the twilight zone for multiple reasons.

Suzanne smiled. “She’s alright.”

I was about to say “I’m not leaving” when Isabelle appeared like she was always there. Suzanne started to stand but was extremely weak and had to use the table to get up. “Hello friend”. She said.

Isabelle slowly surveyed the scene. She walked over closer to Suzanne and looked at her. Suzanne kept smiling, as if Isabelle really was an old friend. “You are dieing.” It was a statement not a question.

“Any minute now, did you have anything you wanted to say to me before I go?”

“merde” Isabelle swore but her frozen demeanor gave no other indication of her frustration. “Where is he?”

“Dead, didn’t you kill him?” When Isabelle didn’t answer she continued. “I thought you killed all of them.”

Isabelle didn’t move. A statue of potential death hanging over us taking it’s time to contemplate our fate.

“Lucy, kill Alex.” Isabelle said. Lucy didn’t move. Isabelle moved her head slightly and looked at us out the corner of her eye.

The next few seconds were a blur. Less than a blur actually since I didn’t even get to see a fucking blur. I can’t describe it. I was in the room but I didn’t see it happened. One minute she was hanging over Suzanne looking creepy and thin, the next minute Lucy and I were thrown against the windows so hard that the glass burst out of one pane. We fell down on the floor in a rain of glass shards, but I didn’t notice the wounds at the time.

Suzanne was on the floor but in a different location than where she was. Blood dripping from her hand. Not her blood. Isabelle was opposite of us, in the entry way crumpled like a thrown away baby doll, her arm bent in an unnatural way, bone coming out multiple places and bleeding. I could see it knitting itself back together already.

Suzanne looked up at me. It was like everything she had was gone with no hope of ever coming back. She struggled to smile. Behind her Isabelle started to rise, her bones snapping back into place with a popping sound. Her skin was drawn in close to them and I could see her fangs. For the first time a vampire reminded me of a movie style monster.

Lucy crept around me as if to protect me. “She can’t go out in the sun like that. She’s too weak. We have to go outside, now.” She said to me.

I stood up. Lucy stood up. Holding each other for support and balance on the broken glass.

Isabelle walked up behind Suzanne, kicked her over on her side, and then stepped on her head until it smashed. The whole time looking at Lucy and I. Pure horror set into me. Every emotion I could think of flooded in at the same time. Then Isabelle slowly inched closer.

Lucy slumped against me. She was standing but she was tired. Isabelle blocked our path to the exit. I realized the only thing keeping her from getting to us was the patch of sunlight that was coming in the window. Either that or she was debating if we were better dead or alive. I’m not sure, I do know that this Isabelle, this hungry and humiliated one, wasn’t dealing with the same logic as she normally would. After all why the hell did she do that to Suzanne. I’m pretty sure she was going to decide to offer up a similar fate to me.

I only had one option, and it was suicide. I didn’t have time to think of another way. In a moment I decided it was better to die that way than by this monster in front me. I summoned all my strength, wrapped my arms around Lucy and sent us both tumbling out the window. Into the light, into the safety of the sun. Plummeting to our deaths.