Someone is up there.
It has to be someone. The noises are too heavy and sound like footsteps. Someone moving around and dragging furniture? I’m not sure. They’re movingsomething. I don’t go on the second floor much. That’s where my parents stayed when they stayed here. When they were alive, I correct myself. They aren’t away on a work trip.
They’re dead.
Granny’s room is on that floor too.
I think when I was a kid, I just thought it was them walking around at night. It was easier to explain it that way but I’ve been on my own in this house for years now and I still hear the sounds. Not as much as in the beginning when I was alone here. It’s quieted over time and tonight’s the loudest and the most I’ve heard from whatever it is in months.
I stand up from the couch and stare harder at the ceiling. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, smooth plaster with crown molding. It’s a normal ceiling except for whatever is on the other side of it.
“What could it be?” I whisper.
I hear the soft sound of Julian’s footsteps in the hallway. He’s almost back. Maybe he’ll go upstairs with me to look.
“What are you looking at?” Julian asks when he enters the room. He looks up at the ceiling and around the room like he thinks something is about to drop down and attack us.
“I’m wondering what’s up there. I thought–well, it’s been that way since I was a kid. I just stopped paying attention to it until you brought it up. It’s always been there in the background.”
Julian frowns at my words. He’s carrying the tray that granny used for breakfast in bed when she wanted to lounge in the mornings and enjoy a slow start to her day. He must have found it in one of the cupboards. I forgot it was in the kitchen. I haven’t touched it since granny died.
“Whatever it is, I’ll find it.” Julian sets the tray down on the floor in front of the fireplace.
“And then what will you do?”
“I’ll kill it,” he says simply and motions for me to join him in front of the fire. It takes me a second to wrap my brain around what he just said. I’ve killed, yes, but I’ve never thought of it so casually. Julian mentions death like it’s as normal as waking up which for him I guess it is, isn’t it?
I sink down on my knees beside him in front of the fire. He’s brought the dumplings and noodles along with a carafe of water and a bottle of wine. “I want wine,” I tell him as I reach for the tray of dumplings closest to me. It’s warm to the touch. Steam and the scent of sesame wafts up at me when I open it. Julian must have heated them back up before he brought them to me.
Julian pours me a glass of water. “Water first,” he says, putting the glass down in front of me. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re dehydrated. I’m a doctor.”
I giggle at the absurdity of his words. I have to put down the tray of dumplings when my giggle becomes a full on belly laugh and I double over laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
I swipe tears out of my eyes. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time, of course it would take something as unbelievable as this to make me laugh.
“You’re a doctor? That’s how you know? Not you’re a vampire or you can hear my heart beating or something like that?”
He cracks a smile and looks away from me to the fire. “When you say it like that it does sound absurd.”
“All of this sounds absurd,” I tell him and pick my dumplings back up. We don’t speak again as we eat. I watch him though. In all the legends there’s no talk of a vampire needing to eat. What happened to blood? He has fangs, I’ve seen them. I felt them on my inner thigh earlier. He said he fed on me. I thought he wasgoing to bite me, drink me dry while I orgasmed which honestly didn’t seem like such a bad way to go in the moment. If he has fangs then why is he eating?
It’s when I’ve downed half a glass of water and polished off my dumplings that I speak. “So you need food to live?” I ask, reaching for the bowl of noodles. I’m so hungry. Ravenous. I don’t normally eat this much but when was the last time I really ate? Dinner a few nights ago? I only ate half the burger Josie brought back from the diner today. There was too much work to do. Every bite that I take feels like strength returning to my body.
Fuck. I’ve really been treating myself like shit, haven’t I?
Julian flicks a chopstick at the half empty glass of water beside me. “Finish your water and I’ll answer.”
I’m pouting, I know I am. I haven’t pouted since I was a teenager. What the fuck is wrong with me? I grab the glass of water and down it while I glare at Julian. A glare feels more natural. It should when I’ve been doing that for years.
“Good. That’ll handle the headaches you have.”
I hate that he’s right. I do have constant headaches.
“I drank. Now answer me.”
“Demanding, demanding,” he chides and picks up the bottle of wine. “I like it, wife.”
