Nano day 1
ETA: Left this unfiltered by accident, but then gojiro saw it and wanted to be added, so I'll leave it unfiltered as a teaser of sorts, but I'll try to remember to filter the rest.
Children moved along the sidewalks, dressed in colorful costumes. Among them was a little girl of about five, golden hair curled to perfection, dressed in a pink princess costume. She was with her mother, but surely that would change; surely the mother’s attention would slip away for just a split second.
The chance came after the girl had skipped up to a house, when the mother met up with someone she apparently knew. She stopped to chat, and her attention was turned away from the little girl as she made her way back from the house with her candy prize safe in her bucket. The mother glanced back to see her pretty little princess disappear into a clump of bushes. “Katelyn? Katelyn, come back out this instant!” she called, then stormed into the bushes after her. But it was too late, and the child was gone; only a pointed pink hat remained on the ground.
Hannah opened her eyes and sat up, gasping. She had to find her, save her… She sighed in relief as she looked around the room. Just a dream, that was all.
Mark opened his eyes a crack and reached a hand up to her shoulder. “Lie down, hon, you’re letting the cold air in.” She lay back down, spooning her back into his chest, pulled the covers back up over both of them, and had drifted halfway back into sleep when he said, “What time is it?”
She looked over at the clock. “Only seven.”
“Seven? Oh, man, I’ve got to get up!” Suddenly the warm mass next to her was gone.
“I thought you didn’t have to work today.”
“Yeah, but I can’t screw up my sleep schedule, you know?”
“Mark, sweetie, you’re a surgeon. You don’t have a sleep schedule.”
“Sure I do. I’m supposed to be up at four, every day.”
There was no point in arguing with him that four o’clock in the morning was an absolutely ridiculous hour for anyone to be out of bed, and he should absolutely allow himself to sleep in until whenever he wanted on the rare weekends he was off, so Hannah didn’t even try. She thought about going back to sleep herself - she normally got up at seven, so she hadn’t had her usual Saturday extra sleep yet - but Mark had a day off so very rarely. So, with Herculean effort, she threw off the blankets and exposed herself to the chilly air.
“You’re getting up too?” Mark said, surprised.
“I thought, since we have the spectacularly rare occasion of you having a weekend day off, that we could spend some time together.”
Mark seemed oddly discomfited. “What did you want to do?”
Hannah shrugged. “Whatever you want. Why don’t I make us some breakfast?” Mark is agreeable to that, so first she pulls on pajamas, then a robe and slippers - the heating system is just as old as the apartment building, and heats the place to about sixty degrees - and heads to the kitchen to make breakfast.
There wasn’t much in the way of breakfast food; Hannah usually just grabbed a bowl of cereal, and Mark just had coffee. But they did have some somewhat suspicious eggs, and bread, and syrup buried in the back of the cupboard, so Hannah got to work making some French toast.
In the living room, Mark turned on the news. “Election election election,” yammered the talking heads. Hannah was so glad that the election would be over after Tuesday. In addition to the news, she probably had three or four political voice mails on her cell phone, and it was all anyone seemed to want to talk about.
Then from the living room she heard the female newscaster say, “For the tenth year in a row, a local girl has disappeared during Trick or Treat. Five year old Katelyn Burgess was out gathering candy with her mother last night when she vanished.” Hannah put the bowl of eggs down on the counter and hurried out to the living room to see a picture of a little blond girl in a pink princess costume with perfect ringlet curls - the child from her dream, exactly. “Police believe Katelyn’s disappearance may be the latest strike of a serial killer who strikes on Halloween,” the announcer continued, “although none of the other missing girls have ever been found. Anyone who has any information about Katelyn’s disappearance, or information on the whereabouts of the other missing girls, is urged to come forward.” The station began to flash pictures and names of the other little girls, most of whom had been photographed in their Halloween costumes before they had gone out. Hannah sat down heavily on the edge of the couch.
“You all right, hon?” Mark asked.
“I dreamed about her,” Hannah said. “He was watching her. He wanted her.” She closed her eyes. “And now he has her.”
***
Hannah paced for a while and tried to think of something, anything, that she could do. But the answer, the only answer that she came to again and again, was nothing. She’d dreamed of the little girl, but she hadn’t dreamed up the face of her abductor, or the name, or anything to give the police to go on. All she’d felt of him was his malevolence, his desire for the child.
“If you go to the police, you’ll just look like a crackpot,” Mark confirmed. “I had the TV in the bedroom on sleep last night; they probably just played that story on the late news, after you were asleep, and it got into your head.”
“Sure,” Hannah said softly, somehow not believing it. She was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that a child goes missing here on Halloween every year?”
Mark chuckled. “Hannah, I’m sure there are a lot of details I left out. Would you really have refused to move here with me just because we have a once a year serial killer?”
She shook her head - of course not. She’d met Mark four years ago, about a year after he’d moved to Ohio to do his residency in general surgery, and they’d fallen in love hard. When he’d told her he was moving back here to Long Island for a fellowship in pediatric surgery, there’d been no question that she would come with him. Her own job teaching first grade was portable enough, and while she did still have family back in Ohio, it was no problem to hop on a plane a couple of times a year to visit them.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. They ended up heading out to a diner for breakfast, since Hannah no longer felt up to cooking. Then they headed back home and spent most of the day catching up on cleaning the house. Later on they headed out for dinner and a movie. By then, of course, it was after Mark’s bedtime, since he had to be at work at five the next day, so he went to bed while Hannah read a book.
She went to bed herself a few hours later, and thought she would have trouble getting to sleep. But she dropped off right away, and instantly dropped into a dream.
A little girl sat quivering in a cage suspended from the ceiling - Katelyn, still in her pink princess costume, looking terrified.
A man came toward the cage. His skin was alabaster white, and his features seemed like they’d been chiseled out of marble; he was impossibly handsome. He was dressed impeccably in a tuxedo. He opened the cage, and the little girl shrank back, but he reached her easily; he grabbed her by her pink dress and lifted her out, throwing her over his shoulder. He carried her over to something that looked rather like an altar and strapped her down with straps at her wrists, ankles, waist, and forehead. She struggled, kicking and screaming, but he subdued her easily.
Then he knelt down beside her and bit into her neck, and Hannah gasped aloud. She could see the vampire swallowing - for he could only have been a vampire - as the little girl’s blood went down his throat, and the girl slowly grew more and more pale. Her eyes fell closed, and then, finally, she stopped breathing.
The vampire released the girl’s neck, then stood, turned, and locked eyes with Hannah, who was suddenly frozen with fear.
Hannah opened her eyes and saw the dark walls of her bedroom, but she could also still see those black, black eyes, seeing into the depths of her soul. Paying no attention to Mark’s sleeping form beside her, she got up, got dressed, and went outside; she had to wait for him.
He arrived fifteen minutes later, by which time she had become chilled; she had forgotten her coat, but hadn’t dared to go back inside to get it. He was driving a black Lexus; when he pulled up at the curb, she promptly got up and got into the car. She buckled her seatbelt and closed her eyes. Then suddenly she realized what she was doing, and on the inside she began to scream, but she was unable to move.
She had come out here and just gotten into the car with him! She should have been calling the police, or at least waking Mark to get the gun, as soon as she’d realized he was on the way over, and instead she’d gotten into his car just like a lamb going docilely to the slaughter.
Which was exactly, precisely what it was going to turn out to be, she realized. He was a vampire, and he’d killed that little girl, and now he was going to kill her too. She’d made no effort to escape him, and it seemed like she couldn’t. Even now, though her mind was in full revolt against him, her body wouldn’t obey her; she couldn’t even open her eyes.
The car stopped, but she still couldn’t move as she heard the vampire get out on his side. He came to her side and opened the door, and she found herself suddenly moving, but not of her own volition. She unbuckled her seatbelt, took his hand, and stepped out of the car. She found herself in the driveway of what looked like a huge house, but she still couldn’t control her body and couldn’t look around properly. Even though inside she was screaming at the top of her lungs and fighting him at every step, to an outside observer it would appear that she accompanied him inside the house with perfect calm.
She expected him to take her downstairs to the basement, down to where she knew the little girl’s body was, but instead he led her upstairs through beautifully decorated hallways, into a bedroom decorated all in red. There was a mirror all along one wall, and Hannah realized from seeing the way the light hit it that it was the kind of mirror that someone on the other side could see right through. Without another word, the vampire left her there.
Finding that she could move again, Hannah tried the door, but of course it was locked. “Hello? Is anyone there? Please let me out!” She knew her calls would be futile, but she couldn’t help herself. She shook the doorknob, crying now, but it didn’t budge.
Perhaps she could climb out a window. She ran across the room and pulled the curtains aside, only to find that the windows underneath had been bricked over. Right. Vampire. Her tears came harder, perhaps mixed in with a bit of hysterical laughter.
She had to calm down, so that she could think. She took in a few deep breaths and tried to get control of herself. There had to be a way out of here.
The mirror. She turned and saw herself reflected in it, brown eyes rimmed with red, frizzy brown hair going everywhere, nothing like the beautiful women of the Dracula stories. But then, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, hadn’t chosen her because of her beauty; she was here only because she’d seen him, had somehow become aware of him in dreams. And he wasn’t going to lust after her, slowly turning her into a vampire like him over weeks or months; no, he was just going to kill her. He was probably getting ready to do it right now.
There was a small table here with a chair; she picked up the chair and swung it into the mirror with all her strength. The mirror shuddered a little, but didn’t break, not even a crack. She hit it again, and again, and again, but was still no closer to breaking out. Finally, exhausted, she dropped the chair, fell to a heap on the carpet, and let herself cry.
***
The vampire unstrapped the child’s body from the altar and carried it into another room, where there was a furnace with a shelf extending from it; Hannah recognized it as a crematorium. He lay the child’s body on the shelf and pushed it into the furnace, then turned a few knobs; a fire sprang into life. He then left the room, leaving the fire burning, apparently trusting it to burn itself out.
He made his way up a flight of stairs into a home office, all leather and mahogany, and sat down at a computer. The incongruity of a vampire using a computer struck Hannah, and she might have laughed if she hadn’t still been horrified about this whole situation.
The vampire looked up, again looked straight into her eyes, but this time instead of freezing in fear, she felt herself growing sleepy. The office faded as blackness claimed her.
Hannah opened her eyes, frowned, and sat up and stretched; she’d fallen asleep curled up in an awkward position on the floor. She looked around, trying to figure out what time it was, but there were no clocks, and of course the false windows offered no clue.
But something in the room had changed. The chair she had used to batter at the mirror had been placed upright and set at the table, and on top of the table was a cooler. She frowned, not wanting to touch anything that creature brought her, but her stomach growled. She might as well at least see what it was, she supposed.
Inside, she found a loaf of bread, a package of roast beef and another of Swiss cheese, a jar of mayonnaise, a bag of apples, a bucket of potato salad from the local grocery, and a jug of cranberry juice. Sitting beside the cooler on the table were a plate, cup, butter knife, and fork, all made of plastic, and a stack of napkins. Well, it didn’t look like she was going to be dining on fine cuisine while she was a guest of the vampire, but at least he was feeding her. And the contents of the cooler did cover all the major food groups.
She picked out an apple and had just sunk her teeth in when it occurred to her that maybe he was poisoning her. But that was rather silly; if he wanted her dead, he was a fucking vampire, and he could manage it without poison. She bit a chunk out of the apple, chewed, and swallowed.
He’d just made a meal of that poor little girl; probably he was full. Probably he wouldn’t need to eat again until tonight, or maybe even longer, and he was just saving Hannah until he got hungry again. The food was just to keep her healthy - and hydrated - so that he would have the best possible meal. By that logic, she should refuse to eat or drink anything so that she wouldn’t taste good.
Even as she thought this, though, she kept right on eating the apple. Was he making her eat it, somehow? She took it out of her mouth and studied it. It was a good apple - apples were in season right now, after all. And she was hungry; she’d probably slept past her usual breakfast time. She’d always thought better while noshing on a little something, which explained the extra twenty pounds she’d been carrying around since college. No, this wasn’t the vampire, this was just her being her usual self.
But why shouldn’t she eat? The vampire was going to kill her anyway, because she knew too much; he wasn’t likely to delay it because she wasn’t eating. And maybe she wouldn’t taste quite as good, but he would probably still enjoy killing her. Why should she starve herself and be miserable for what was, really, no good reason? She picked up the apple and finished it off.
When the apple was gone, she looked around and saw a trashcan near the table, and threw away the core. Then she really looked around her prison for the first time, actually looking at the room instead of just looking for a way out. In addition to the table and chair, there was a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, a vanity, and a large four-poster bed; they all looked like antiques, and part of a set. Hannah rubbed her sore neck, wishing she’d slept in the bed last night instead of on the floor. There were also several bookshelves filled with books, and a comfortable-looking armchair with an ottoman.
She went over to the dresser, just in case there were clothes in there in her size. She’d pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater last night, with no bra or underwear, in that strange trance state the vampire had put her in, and she was feeling rather uncomfortable. But the drawers contained clothing she wasn’t quite familiar with - corsets and garter belts and thigh-high stockings. In the bottom drawer, she did find some nightgowns, the thick flannel kind that her grandmother used to wear; that was an option, at least.
She went to the wardrobe and opened it to find dresses, in a multitude of colors and fabrics. They were beautiful, but again, she would have no idea how to put them on. Even the shoes looked difficult - boots with what looked like hundreds of tiny buttons.
Hannah sighed and dug a nightgown out of the bottom drawer, since it seemed like that was her only option. Then she headed for the bathroom that opened just off the main door to the room. It was, like the bedroom, gorgeous, with fancy tile and lots of mirrors and both a shower and a huge tub. Clearly, the vampire had money.
The mirror seemed to be just a regular mirror, so Hannah stripped off her jeans and sweater, used the toilet, and then got into the shower. The plumbing, at least, was modern - steamy hot water coming out of a high pressure showerhead. And the toiletries, like the bathroom, spared no expense; she washed herself with Bath & Body Works body wash, then washed her hair with Pantene shampoo and conditioner, the kind of stuff she usually didn’t spend the money for.
After her shower, she dried off with a towel (which was of course huge and thick), then put the nightgown on. She headed back out to the bedroom and made herself a sandwich, washed down with cranberry juice. She thought about reading a book then, but she was feeling oddly tired, even though it must have been midmorning. Well, if the vampire was a creature of the night as the stories all claimed, he would be sleeping now, too, so hopefully she wouldn’t dream about his activities. She climbed into the huge - and, of course, incredibly comfortable - bed, and soon fell asleep.
***
Children moved along the sidewalks, dressed in colorful costumes. Among them was a little girl of about five, golden hair curled to perfection, dressed in a pink princess costume. She was with her mother, but surely that would change; surely the mother’s attention would slip away for just a split second.
The chance came after the girl had skipped up to a house, when the mother met up with someone she apparently knew. She stopped to chat, and her attention was turned away from the little girl as she made her way back from the house with her candy prize safe in her bucket. The mother glanced back to see her pretty little princess disappear into a clump of bushes. “Katelyn? Katelyn, come back out this instant!” she called, then stormed into the bushes after her. But it was too late, and the child was gone; only a pointed pink hat remained on the ground.
Hannah opened her eyes and sat up, gasping. She had to find her, save her… She sighed in relief as she looked around the room. Just a dream, that was all.
Mark opened his eyes a crack and reached a hand up to her shoulder. “Lie down, hon, you’re letting the cold air in.” She lay back down, spooning her back into his chest, pulled the covers back up over both of them, and had drifted halfway back into sleep when he said, “What time is it?”
She looked over at the clock. “Only seven.”
“Seven? Oh, man, I’ve got to get up!” Suddenly the warm mass next to her was gone.
“I thought you didn’t have to work today.”
“Yeah, but I can’t screw up my sleep schedule, you know?”
“Mark, sweetie, you’re a surgeon. You don’t have a sleep schedule.”
“Sure I do. I’m supposed to be up at four, every day.”
There was no point in arguing with him that four o’clock in the morning was an absolutely ridiculous hour for anyone to be out of bed, and he should absolutely allow himself to sleep in until whenever he wanted on the rare weekends he was off, so Hannah didn’t even try. She thought about going back to sleep herself - she normally got up at seven, so she hadn’t had her usual Saturday extra sleep yet - but Mark had a day off so very rarely. So, with Herculean effort, she threw off the blankets and exposed herself to the chilly air.
“You’re getting up too?” Mark said, surprised.
“I thought, since we have the spectacularly rare occasion of you having a weekend day off, that we could spend some time together.”
Mark seemed oddly discomfited. “What did you want to do?”
Hannah shrugged. “Whatever you want. Why don’t I make us some breakfast?” Mark is agreeable to that, so first she pulls on pajamas, then a robe and slippers - the heating system is just as old as the apartment building, and heats the place to about sixty degrees - and heads to the kitchen to make breakfast.
There wasn’t much in the way of breakfast food; Hannah usually just grabbed a bowl of cereal, and Mark just had coffee. But they did have some somewhat suspicious eggs, and bread, and syrup buried in the back of the cupboard, so Hannah got to work making some French toast.
In the living room, Mark turned on the news. “Election election election,” yammered the talking heads. Hannah was so glad that the election would be over after Tuesday. In addition to the news, she probably had three or four political voice mails on her cell phone, and it was all anyone seemed to want to talk about.
Then from the living room she heard the female newscaster say, “For the tenth year in a row, a local girl has disappeared during Trick or Treat. Five year old Katelyn Burgess was out gathering candy with her mother last night when she vanished.” Hannah put the bowl of eggs down on the counter and hurried out to the living room to see a picture of a little blond girl in a pink princess costume with perfect ringlet curls - the child from her dream, exactly. “Police believe Katelyn’s disappearance may be the latest strike of a serial killer who strikes on Halloween,” the announcer continued, “although none of the other missing girls have ever been found. Anyone who has any information about Katelyn’s disappearance, or information on the whereabouts of the other missing girls, is urged to come forward.” The station began to flash pictures and names of the other little girls, most of whom had been photographed in their Halloween costumes before they had gone out. Hannah sat down heavily on the edge of the couch.
“You all right, hon?” Mark asked.
“I dreamed about her,” Hannah said. “He was watching her. He wanted her.” She closed her eyes. “And now he has her.”
***
Hannah paced for a while and tried to think of something, anything, that she could do. But the answer, the only answer that she came to again and again, was nothing. She’d dreamed of the little girl, but she hadn’t dreamed up the face of her abductor, or the name, or anything to give the police to go on. All she’d felt of him was his malevolence, his desire for the child.
“If you go to the police, you’ll just look like a crackpot,” Mark confirmed. “I had the TV in the bedroom on sleep last night; they probably just played that story on the late news, after you were asleep, and it got into your head.”
“Sure,” Hannah said softly, somehow not believing it. She was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that a child goes missing here on Halloween every year?”
Mark chuckled. “Hannah, I’m sure there are a lot of details I left out. Would you really have refused to move here with me just because we have a once a year serial killer?”
She shook her head - of course not. She’d met Mark four years ago, about a year after he’d moved to Ohio to do his residency in general surgery, and they’d fallen in love hard. When he’d told her he was moving back here to Long Island for a fellowship in pediatric surgery, there’d been no question that she would come with him. Her own job teaching first grade was portable enough, and while she did still have family back in Ohio, it was no problem to hop on a plane a couple of times a year to visit them.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. They ended up heading out to a diner for breakfast, since Hannah no longer felt up to cooking. Then they headed back home and spent most of the day catching up on cleaning the house. Later on they headed out for dinner and a movie. By then, of course, it was after Mark’s bedtime, since he had to be at work at five the next day, so he went to bed while Hannah read a book.
She went to bed herself a few hours later, and thought she would have trouble getting to sleep. But she dropped off right away, and instantly dropped into a dream.
A little girl sat quivering in a cage suspended from the ceiling - Katelyn, still in her pink princess costume, looking terrified.
A man came toward the cage. His skin was alabaster white, and his features seemed like they’d been chiseled out of marble; he was impossibly handsome. He was dressed impeccably in a tuxedo. He opened the cage, and the little girl shrank back, but he reached her easily; he grabbed her by her pink dress and lifted her out, throwing her over his shoulder. He carried her over to something that looked rather like an altar and strapped her down with straps at her wrists, ankles, waist, and forehead. She struggled, kicking and screaming, but he subdued her easily.
Then he knelt down beside her and bit into her neck, and Hannah gasped aloud. She could see the vampire swallowing - for he could only have been a vampire - as the little girl’s blood went down his throat, and the girl slowly grew more and more pale. Her eyes fell closed, and then, finally, she stopped breathing.
The vampire released the girl’s neck, then stood, turned, and locked eyes with Hannah, who was suddenly frozen with fear.
Hannah opened her eyes and saw the dark walls of her bedroom, but she could also still see those black, black eyes, seeing into the depths of her soul. Paying no attention to Mark’s sleeping form beside her, she got up, got dressed, and went outside; she had to wait for him.
He arrived fifteen minutes later, by which time she had become chilled; she had forgotten her coat, but hadn’t dared to go back inside to get it. He was driving a black Lexus; when he pulled up at the curb, she promptly got up and got into the car. She buckled her seatbelt and closed her eyes. Then suddenly she realized what she was doing, and on the inside she began to scream, but she was unable to move.
She had come out here and just gotten into the car with him! She should have been calling the police, or at least waking Mark to get the gun, as soon as she’d realized he was on the way over, and instead she’d gotten into his car just like a lamb going docilely to the slaughter.
Which was exactly, precisely what it was going to turn out to be, she realized. He was a vampire, and he’d killed that little girl, and now he was going to kill her too. She’d made no effort to escape him, and it seemed like she couldn’t. Even now, though her mind was in full revolt against him, her body wouldn’t obey her; she couldn’t even open her eyes.
The car stopped, but she still couldn’t move as she heard the vampire get out on his side. He came to her side and opened the door, and she found herself suddenly moving, but not of her own volition. She unbuckled her seatbelt, took his hand, and stepped out of the car. She found herself in the driveway of what looked like a huge house, but she still couldn’t control her body and couldn’t look around properly. Even though inside she was screaming at the top of her lungs and fighting him at every step, to an outside observer it would appear that she accompanied him inside the house with perfect calm.
She expected him to take her downstairs to the basement, down to where she knew the little girl’s body was, but instead he led her upstairs through beautifully decorated hallways, into a bedroom decorated all in red. There was a mirror all along one wall, and Hannah realized from seeing the way the light hit it that it was the kind of mirror that someone on the other side could see right through. Without another word, the vampire left her there.
Finding that she could move again, Hannah tried the door, but of course it was locked. “Hello? Is anyone there? Please let me out!” She knew her calls would be futile, but she couldn’t help herself. She shook the doorknob, crying now, but it didn’t budge.
Perhaps she could climb out a window. She ran across the room and pulled the curtains aside, only to find that the windows underneath had been bricked over. Right. Vampire. Her tears came harder, perhaps mixed in with a bit of hysterical laughter.
She had to calm down, so that she could think. She took in a few deep breaths and tried to get control of herself. There had to be a way out of here.
The mirror. She turned and saw herself reflected in it, brown eyes rimmed with red, frizzy brown hair going everywhere, nothing like the beautiful women of the Dracula stories. But then, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, hadn’t chosen her because of her beauty; she was here only because she’d seen him, had somehow become aware of him in dreams. And he wasn’t going to lust after her, slowly turning her into a vampire like him over weeks or months; no, he was just going to kill her. He was probably getting ready to do it right now.
There was a small table here with a chair; she picked up the chair and swung it into the mirror with all her strength. The mirror shuddered a little, but didn’t break, not even a crack. She hit it again, and again, and again, but was still no closer to breaking out. Finally, exhausted, she dropped the chair, fell to a heap on the carpet, and let herself cry.
***
The vampire unstrapped the child’s body from the altar and carried it into another room, where there was a furnace with a shelf extending from it; Hannah recognized it as a crematorium. He lay the child’s body on the shelf and pushed it into the furnace, then turned a few knobs; a fire sprang into life. He then left the room, leaving the fire burning, apparently trusting it to burn itself out.
He made his way up a flight of stairs into a home office, all leather and mahogany, and sat down at a computer. The incongruity of a vampire using a computer struck Hannah, and she might have laughed if she hadn’t still been horrified about this whole situation.
The vampire looked up, again looked straight into her eyes, but this time instead of freezing in fear, she felt herself growing sleepy. The office faded as blackness claimed her.
Hannah opened her eyes, frowned, and sat up and stretched; she’d fallen asleep curled up in an awkward position on the floor. She looked around, trying to figure out what time it was, but there were no clocks, and of course the false windows offered no clue.
But something in the room had changed. The chair she had used to batter at the mirror had been placed upright and set at the table, and on top of the table was a cooler. She frowned, not wanting to touch anything that creature brought her, but her stomach growled. She might as well at least see what it was, she supposed.
Inside, she found a loaf of bread, a package of roast beef and another of Swiss cheese, a jar of mayonnaise, a bag of apples, a bucket of potato salad from the local grocery, and a jug of cranberry juice. Sitting beside the cooler on the table were a plate, cup, butter knife, and fork, all made of plastic, and a stack of napkins. Well, it didn’t look like she was going to be dining on fine cuisine while she was a guest of the vampire, but at least he was feeding her. And the contents of the cooler did cover all the major food groups.
She picked out an apple and had just sunk her teeth in when it occurred to her that maybe he was poisoning her. But that was rather silly; if he wanted her dead, he was a fucking vampire, and he could manage it without poison. She bit a chunk out of the apple, chewed, and swallowed.
He’d just made a meal of that poor little girl; probably he was full. Probably he wouldn’t need to eat again until tonight, or maybe even longer, and he was just saving Hannah until he got hungry again. The food was just to keep her healthy - and hydrated - so that he would have the best possible meal. By that logic, she should refuse to eat or drink anything so that she wouldn’t taste good.
Even as she thought this, though, she kept right on eating the apple. Was he making her eat it, somehow? She took it out of her mouth and studied it. It was a good apple - apples were in season right now, after all. And she was hungry; she’d probably slept past her usual breakfast time. She’d always thought better while noshing on a little something, which explained the extra twenty pounds she’d been carrying around since college. No, this wasn’t the vampire, this was just her being her usual self.
But why shouldn’t she eat? The vampire was going to kill her anyway, because she knew too much; he wasn’t likely to delay it because she wasn’t eating. And maybe she wouldn’t taste quite as good, but he would probably still enjoy killing her. Why should she starve herself and be miserable for what was, really, no good reason? She picked up the apple and finished it off.
When the apple was gone, she looked around and saw a trashcan near the table, and threw away the core. Then she really looked around her prison for the first time, actually looking at the room instead of just looking for a way out. In addition to the table and chair, there was a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, a vanity, and a large four-poster bed; they all looked like antiques, and part of a set. Hannah rubbed her sore neck, wishing she’d slept in the bed last night instead of on the floor. There were also several bookshelves filled with books, and a comfortable-looking armchair with an ottoman.
She went over to the dresser, just in case there were clothes in there in her size. She’d pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater last night, with no bra or underwear, in that strange trance state the vampire had put her in, and she was feeling rather uncomfortable. But the drawers contained clothing she wasn’t quite familiar with - corsets and garter belts and thigh-high stockings. In the bottom drawer, she did find some nightgowns, the thick flannel kind that her grandmother used to wear; that was an option, at least.
She went to the wardrobe and opened it to find dresses, in a multitude of colors and fabrics. They were beautiful, but again, she would have no idea how to put them on. Even the shoes looked difficult - boots with what looked like hundreds of tiny buttons.
Hannah sighed and dug a nightgown out of the bottom drawer, since it seemed like that was her only option. Then she headed for the bathroom that opened just off the main door to the room. It was, like the bedroom, gorgeous, with fancy tile and lots of mirrors and both a shower and a huge tub. Clearly, the vampire had money.
The mirror seemed to be just a regular mirror, so Hannah stripped off her jeans and sweater, used the toilet, and then got into the shower. The plumbing, at least, was modern - steamy hot water coming out of a high pressure showerhead. And the toiletries, like the bathroom, spared no expense; she washed herself with Bath & Body Works body wash, then washed her hair with Pantene shampoo and conditioner, the kind of stuff she usually didn’t spend the money for.
After her shower, she dried off with a towel (which was of course huge and thick), then put the nightgown on. She headed back out to the bedroom and made herself a sandwich, washed down with cranberry juice. She thought about reading a book then, but she was feeling oddly tired, even though it must have been midmorning. Well, if the vampire was a creature of the night as the stories all claimed, he would be sleeping now, too, so hopefully she wouldn’t dream about his activities. She climbed into the huge - and, of course, incredibly comfortable - bed, and soon fell asleep.
***