Even Monsters Get Lonely

Shannon woke up feeling sore, groggy, and... very warm. It was such a strange feeling because her house was never warm due to them not having money for a huge electric bill.

Opening her eyes, she looked around at the blue walls of the bedroom she was in. She frowned thinking, where am I?

She tried to sit up then, but her sore ribs had her whimpering in pain as she grabbed at them. That was when she noticed the cast covering her arm. Now she really was confused as she thought to herself, how did I end up with a cast?

“Good evening Mademoiselle (Miss),” a male voice said from across the room.

Glancing over, she found the source of the voice, a man standing in front of the window watching her. The room was too dark for her to make out much more than his profile though.

Worry began to set in as she stared back at him, and her heartbeat picked up. What am I doing in a complete stranger’s home? Why can’t I remember anything about how I ended up here? Having no answers, only more questions, she asked, “Where am I, and who are you?”

The man stepped closer and turned the bedside lamp on.

After a moment, her eyes adjusted to see a very good-looking man standing there. He looked to be about six feet two inches, with dark brown hair, almost black, and hazel eyes. Although he was a bit pale, he had the looks of someone she would look twice at if she were to see him on the street.

“My apologies mademoiselle,” the man apologized softly as he sat down on the edge of the bed. He then said, “My name is André, and this is my home.”

She didn’t know him, yet somehow after hearing his name fall from those plump lips of his, she felt drawn to him. This confused her because it took a lot for a man to really attract her attention. That sexy accent of his had shivers running down her spine, and they were the good kind of shivers!

So, she sat quietly and continued to study his face as he studied hers.

“It would be most polite of you to tell me your name now,” he said as he cocked his head to the side slightly.

Shannon opened her mouth to speak, only she instead let out a croak. She felt her face heat as she looked down, embarrassed.

With a slight chuckle and a smile, he helped her sit up. He then handed her a glass of water from the bedside table. After she had drunk it all, he asked, “Better?”

Shannon nodded, and he helped her lay back down.

“My name is Shannon,” she finally told him. She then asked, “Why am I in your home though?”

“Maybe I should ask you exactly what you remember from last night,” Andre said instead of answering her question.

Shannon thought long and hard, but last night was hazy in the far reaches of her mind. This made her wonder if perhaps she had a slight concussion. Remembering small bits of it though, she said, “I remember working a double shift and coming in late. I thought my dad was in bed...?”

She stopped then, appalled. She’s almost blurted out what her dad had done to her, and him a stranger. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, she remembered everything from last night. This included the fact that she already had told him about her dad.

So, not wanting to repeat it, she skipped over that part and continued by saying, “Um... I remember getting lost in the woods and being cold. So, I hunkered down next to a downed tree. Everything after that is so... hazy, it seems more dreamlike than reality.”

André nodded, and asked, “So, you don’t remember me finding you in the woods?”

Shannon bit her lip and closed her eyes trying desperately to remember that part. Suddenly, she did remember, and her eyes flew open as her heartbeat took off like a rocket.

André gave a quiet chuckle, then commented, “Ah, I’m guessing by your battement de Coeur, err... heartbeat, you have remembered now that I am a vampire.”

Shannon’s hand came up, moving toward her neck, but she paused in her movement when she remembered more. She said, “I asked you to kill me, which you obviously didn’t do because I’m here. My question is why? Why let me live? For that matter, why bring me to your home?”

André shrugged and said, “You intrigued me, and I’ve not felt that way for a while. Maybe I just felt a need for entertainment. When one lives as long as I have, boredom sets in quickly.” He gave another shrug, then added, “Whatever it is, I did not wish to kill you, nor did I feel like leaving you there to be found by someone, or something, else. So, I brought you home, and called a doctor I know to fix you up.”

“So, what will you do with me now that I’m awake?” Shannon questioned nervously.

Worry began to fill her mind as he sat silent. If he sends me home now my dad will still be mad about my disappearance. He’ll also know I’ve been seen by a doctor because of the cast, and wonder if I’ve spoken to someone. The best thing for me to do would be to disappear, but I have no car, no money, or any clothes for that matter.

Once more he shrugged, a blank look on his face. He then reached out to run his fingertips through her hair as he murmured, “I don’t know mademoiselle, what do you want to happen? I am in no hurry for you to leave, for I find you very lovely to look at.”

Shannon swallowed hard, her heart pounding for another reason now. It pounded because of her strange attraction to him that seemed to be growing by the minute. She didn’t understand his logic though, so she questioned, “So... you would let me go, just like that? You aren’t worried about the fact that I know who, and what, you are?”

He laughed as he said, “You may know I’m a vampire and my name, but you don’t really know me or where I live for that matter. We are many, many miles from where I found you.”

“Oh,” was all she could say.

“I will make you a deal mademoiselle,” he said as he continued to play with a strand of her hair. “I will let you stay with me a bit until I grow bored with you, or until you wish to leave. At that time, I will take you anywhere you wish to go, and make you forget me.”

“You would do that? But... you... I... I don’t understand. I don’t know anything about you, but aren’t vampires considered predators? Not that I’m complaining because I’m not, but shouldn’t you want to kill me? Why ask me to stay?” She questioned, almost stuttering in her confusion.

André hummed at this, and then commented, “I haven’t killed for sport in a very long time. So, no, I don’t wish to kill you, drink from you? Oui, but not kill you.”

Shannon gave a relieved sigh. Then she gasps and asked, “Wait! Did you say drink from me?”

“Oui, mademoiselle, drink from you. The way I feel is like... think of your favorite food, how just the smell of it makes you hungry, and you will understand how the smell of votre sang affects me,” he told her.

“Um... votre sang? What is that?” She asked.

“It means “your blood” in French,” he told her.

“I thought you had a bit of an accent,” she murmured. Then she asked, “So, you’re French then?”

“Oui, or at least I was many, many years ago. Now I am whatever I wish to be, but I still love my native language,” he told her with a sad look on his face.

“You miss home?”

“Oui, I do,” he agreed.

Shannon smiled and said, “If I stay with you, will you teach me a few words?”

“It would be mon Plaisir petite or my pleasure little one,” he said. “Now you should eat something. Do you feel like getting up, or should I bring you something?”

“I’ll get up. I need to use your bathroom anyway,” Shannon said as she slowly sat up with his help.

“Bathroom is through there. When you finish, leave the room, turn left down the hall, down the stairs, turn right and straight on to the kitchen,” André told her as he pointed to the left side of the room. He then stood and left.

Shannon slowly headed for the bathroom. After using the toilet, she studied her face as she carefully washed her hand that wasn’t in a cast. She noticed how her almost waist length blonde hair was one big birds’ nest. She knew because of her curls, it would take forever to comb!

The cut above her eye was bruised and swollen, it also had stitches. Moving down from her face, she noticed what she was wearing. She now had on a big black t-shirt that hit her about mid-thigh, along with her under clothes. She had to wonder who’d stripped her.

Did the shirt belong to André or the doctor?

Embarrassed as she was about someone changing her and seeing her bruises, she was also glad she wasn’t still in her bloody, and dirt-encrusted, clothes! She was also thankful to still be wearing her underclothes.

With one last look in the mirror, she left the bathroom and slowly made her way to the kitchen using the directions André had given her. As she walked in, she smelled pizza and smiled.

“I’m guessing you like pizza?” He asked as he looked over the fridge door at her.

“Yeah. What about you?”

He pulled a jug of tea out and closed the fridge door as he said, “I do. It gives me no nutritional value, but I like the taste of it all the same.”

His words brought the whole “bloodsucking vampire” thing to her attention again, and her first reflex was to grab at her neck. Then, realizing how stupid she was being, and snorting internally, she dropped her hand and sat down. If he’d really wanted to bite her, there was no way puny little her was going to stop him!

André sat a glass of tea down in front of Shannon, and picking it up, she quickly drank it.

“Thirsty?”

Slightly embarrassed, she nodded and said, “Yeah, I feel like I haven’t had anything to drink in days.”

“Well, you actually haven’t had anything in two days. You fainted, and when I brought you here you didn’t awaken. I called the doctor, who is a friend of mine, and she cleaned you up and dressed you. Then she gave you something for the pain before fixing your arm and stitching up your forehead.”

“So, the doctor was a woman?” Shannon whispered with a relieved sigh.

André smirked obviously hearing the sigh. He then said, “Oui, she is. She said the best thing for you was rest since you had lost a lot of blood. She also mentioned old bruises and the fact that you are malnourished.”

Shannon bowed her head down to stare at the table. Softly, she said, “Sometimes my friend at work buys me something to eat, and I buy food if I get it before dad takes my check. Dad’s priorities don’t always include food.”

“So, you work, and give your dad your check?”

“Mostly,” she agreed. “Sometimes if I work the early shift, I cash it and buy things I want, or need, first.”

“How old are you Shannon?” He asked then.

“Twenty-three,” she answered.

“Why are you still at home then? Why not leave your father, and his abuse?”

“I can’t, he’s all the family I have left. I know how stupid it is to stay, yet I can’t seem to bring myself to abandon him, even though…!” Shannon stopped and sighed. She felt tears roll down her cheeks as she realized that was exactly what she had planned to do last night, abandon her dad, finally. She’s been ready to die, she’d even asked a vampire to kill her. Everything had just seemed so hopeless, and she was so tired, tired of the abuse and tired of making excuses for why she put up with it.

“Not that it’s really my business, but you realize you’re enabling him by staying,” André said as he pulled the pizza out of the oven and began cutting it. Then he placed some on a plate and put it in front of her before refilling her glass.

“I know,” Shannon whispered.

He sat down with his own plate and begin to eat.

She joined him, and they ate in silence for a few moments.

“Maybe staying here with me for a while will be a good thing. It might make your father realize how much he actually needs you now that you’re gone.”

“One can hope,” Shannon agreed. Then, tired of such a depressing subject, she changed the topic. “So, this female doctor, friend or girlfriend?”

He stopped eating and his eyes shot up to hers. “Friend, oui, girlfriend never. Although, she would like to be a girlfriend or more to my friend Rick.”

“He isn’t interested in her?”

“Rick is what you would call a... lady’s man I suppose. I don’t know that he sleeps with them all, but he likes variety,” he said with a shrug.

“I work with a girl like that,” Shannon told him, understanding completely. “She’ll go with one for a few days, but never lets them past first base. She just wants to have a good time with them. So, is Rick vampire like you?”

“Oui, and we’ve been friends for a very long time.”

Shannon nodded. “Family?”

“I came from a large famille. I had an older frère, brother, and four younger Soeurs, sisters. My frère was killed, but all my Soeurs married, and had children.”

Shannon played nervously with a small bit of pizza crust as she asked, “So um... are you the only vampire, or is it your whole family? I mean were you born one or something?”

He shook his head before saying, “Non, a vampire found me, and changed me when I was twenty-seven. I had been out to a gentleman’s club for a game of cards, was overtaken by thieves on my way home, and left for dead. The vampire found me, and I think he meant to drink me dry. Somehow though, I didn’t die and became one myself. I am still unsure of how he changed me, but I do remember he was injured. So, I think perhaps enough of his blood got into my own injuries for a blood exchange to happen.”

She was fascinated by his story, and his accent, which seemed to grow stronger with every word he spoke. So, Shannon hung on his every word as he explained how it had changed his life.

He told of how the hunger had almost driven him mad, and how he couldn’t go home to his family, although he watched them from a distance. He saw his sisters marry, and his nieces and nephews grow. He had watched them struggle as the textile business closed, and he worked to send them money. Then, when he could no longer hide the fact he didn’t age, he left France and traveled a bit making his fortune.

“So, now I have a business that I rarely must deal with people in, except online or over the phone,” he concluded. “So, most of my employee’s don’t even know what I look like.”

“Wow, that sounds very cool. I think it’s pretty awesome that your family started out in the textile business making silk, and you’re still kind of in that business yourself,” Shannon told him.

André nodded before standing up and stretching. He then said, “I think it’s about time for bed. You still need rest, and the sun will be rising soon.”

Shannon slowly stood, and felt exhaustion flood her body, causing her to yawn. So, she agreed, “It would seem you are right, so good night André.”

“Good night mademoiselle,” he said giving a slight bow.

Shannon made her way back to the guest room and was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.