That Friday night in Cameron, West Virginia before my seventeenth birthday was outrageous. I can’t remember much, except I woke up in a field when the sun was starting to come up. Not too sure who’s field it was. At first when I saw the sun, it was beautiful, but then my skin started to burn. When I ran home to get out of the sun, I was lightening speed. I retreated right up to my bedroom and closed my dark purple curtains and sat on my bed and tried to calm myself. No one was home because mom and dad were out of town for work, thank the heavens above. They felt bad about not being here for my birthday but I assured them it was fine. I heard a knock on the patio door. I crept downstairs to the door and pulled the curtain back slightly, it was Justin, my boyfriend. I let him in.
“Close the curtain, hurry.” I said. He did.
“What’s wrong?” he asked and came over to me. When he came closer I felt an attraction, not love, I don’t know what it was but it made my mouth water. There was a smell, a good smell. It was coming from Justin, he smelled . . . delicious.
“Don’t come any closer.”
“Natalie, are you okay?” he asked.
“Just stay over there where you are,” I said and backed up. He pulled out a little red box from his back pocket.“It’s for you, Happy Birthday, baby.” At that moment I forgot about everything I was feeling. I walked over and he handed me the box.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t give it to you yesterday, but your mom said you were with your friends out at Ricky Bowman’s place.” So that’s where I was, I thought. Ricky Bowman was one of my really good friends; he lived on a farm, I bet that was his field I woke up in. When I opened the box, I saw a silver chain with a locket. The locket had a picture of us two kissing last summer at the Greene County Fair. I hugged Justin and when my chin rested on his right shoulder I smelled that delicious scent again. My fingers found the vein pulsing in his neck, but when my lips reached the it, I pushed him back.
“Leave! You have to leave!” I cried.
“What? Why?”
“Just go!” I pushed him back out onto the patio, slammed the door and locked it.
I don’t know how many times he called me over the weekend, but I just couldn’t answer.

On Monday while I was at my locker, Justin came up to me and asked, “What happened last week in your room? I tried calling you, but you never answered.”
I sighed, “Nothing happened. I was busy.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” I closed my locker and started walking to my third period class, Justin followed.
“Was it the locket, didn’t you like it?” He asked.
“Justin, I said nothing happened. I love the necklace. Why would you think I wouldn’t like it? That day at the carnival was a great day.” I kept walking but he stepped in front of me. “Then why did you push me out the door like you were mad at me?”
“Justin you wouldn’t understand.” I said. He started rubbing my arm. “Natalie, I’ll always understand, I’m here for you.” Since he was never going to let this go . . . I told him. I told him everything. When I finished, he just stared at me.
“Justin?” I said.
“I have to get to class,” he said, “I’m late.” Then he walked off.

When lunchtime came, I grabbed my bag and I found where Justin was sitting in the lunchroom, at the round table. When I sat down, he didn’t look up; he just kept stirring his mashed potatoes.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked him.
“I’m not hungry.” He stirred his potatoes a little more.
“Then why did you get a lunch?” I opened my pop.
“I don’t know.” He put his spoon down and looked at me. “Come to my house tonight, I have to talk to you.” With that he took his lunch, threw it in the trash, and went up the steps.

Later that night I walked over to Justin’s. He was waiting outside for me. As I got closer he tensed, but he tried to hide it. I stood in front of him and he said, “Follow me.” He walked into the woods behind his house. He kept walking and I kept following. We were rather far into the woods when he stopped.
“So, why are we here” I asked Justin.
“You say you’re a vampire.” He said, more like a statement, I would’ve expected it to be a question..
“Yes, Justin what does that have to do with this?” I motioned to the woods.
“Do you know who turned you?”
“No, I don’t remember much of that night.”
“Try to remember anything, anything at all.” He pushed me to remember. I thought , then I thought some more, I thought long and hard.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” he asked. Then he slowly touched my cheek and things came rushing back, so fast. A memory: I was walking through a hay field, Ricky Bowman’s hay field, just looking up at the stars. There was a rustle in the woods behind me. When I looked back I saw nothing but darkness, so I ignored it. Then the rustling came again, this time when I looked back something jumped out so fast that it was just a blur; It jumped on top of me; that’s when I realized, it wasn’t something, but someone: Justin. I felt an excruciating pain in my neck. Then I passed out.
I woke up in Justin’s arms, sweaty and blinking the blur out of my eyes.
“Are you okay? You fainted.” Justin said.
“Yes, I’m okay.” Then I stood up on my feet.
“So what all did you see?” He asked.
“I saw you, then passed out.” I said. Then he sighed and looked down.
“You don’t know how hard this is for me.” He said and turned around so that his back was facing me.
“What’s hard for you? Justin, what’s going on?” I starting to get scared. He turned back around and flashed big white fangs in my face. I fell backward. He kept walking towards me and I edged backwards, too stunned to get back on my feet.
“Natalie.” He said.
“Stay back!” I shouted and finally stood up with a small branch in my hand that I snatched up from the ground, just in case I needed it. Then it all came to me. “You turned me, didn’t you?” I asked, then he stopped walking, he didn’t answer. I yelled this time, “Didn’t you!”
“Yes.”
A tear ran down my cheek. “Why?” I whispered.
“You were supposed to be my first kill.” He started to explain.
“What?” More tears came,
“But I couldn’t kill you. I drank your blood to where you started to die then I realized what I had done. So I turned you. I injected my venom into your blood.” he paused, “because I couldn’t live with myself if I killed you, if I let you die, because I love you, Natalie.”
I don’t know what it was, the shame in his voice, or the fear on his face. Whatever it was it made me drop the branch in my hand and walk over to him. I hugged him and he started to cry.
“I didn’t even remember that I turned you until you said something. I’m sorry I did this to you,” he said. That’s when I heard a shear high pitch noise in my head and felt a knot in my stomach. I screamed from the pain. I started to fall, but Justin caught me and brought me down to the ground.
He said, “Natalie, didn’t you feed?!” I shook my head no, because that was all I could do.
“Natalie you need blood to survive!” He screamed. My eyes started to cross and my eyelids were closing. “Natalie. no!” My eyes closed and his voice faded away.


* * * *

A couple of days later I was hiding behind a tree with Justin, studying a human a few feet away looking at a map in the middle of the woods. He looked lost. That day when I almost died from not feeding on human blood, Justin gave me his blood to keep me alive. Then he ran and got a blood bag from the hospital and made me drink it. The taste was horrid at first, but as I drank more and it became addicting.

* * * *
“Be quiet now.” Justin said as I watched the human. “You’ll have to sneak up on him.” It was getting dark. My mouth was watering. Then I ran lightening speed to his side. He jumped.
“Where did you come from?”
I ignored his question. “Hi, are you lost?”
“Um, yes...would you mind showing me which way the lake is?”
“Sure, come with me.” He followed. I turned around to face him. “I’m sorry, you won’t be going to the lake today, as a matter of fact, you won’t be going to the lake ever.”
“What do you mean?” He asked. I grabbed his neck and sank my fangs into his vein and the taste of his blood was indescribable and I couldn’t stop. I kept going until there was no more left. He dropped to the ground and I walked back over to Justin. I wiped my mouth and said, “Let’s do that again.” He smiled and we ran off to find our next snack.