Vampire U (2 page)

In the dream, I'm leaning from the window again, but this time the night sky is shrouded in fog that pulses with a deep purple light.  The walls of my new dorm room are papered in glistening scarlet, the color of fresh blood and fraternity invitations.  I wear only a nightgown of gossamer lace, but the sweltering heat of late summer in the Delta dapples my skin with sweat.  On the sidewalk below, old-fashioned cobblestones have replaced the unremarkable poured concrete I remember.  In the way of dreams, this makes sense.

The young man with the handsome face and sandy hair stands below, watching me with eyes as black as water in an underground cavern.  I want to slip into that water, to swim in a secret place of unknowable wisdom.

"Come," he says, and although we're far apart, his voice is close and clear as a lover whispering in my ear.  There is no Morgan to stop me this time, and I lean out farther, stretching my body until I spill out into the night.  I don't fall, but glide, silent and swift as an owl, into his waiting arms.  He dips me like a ballroom dancer, and I lay against his hand, my curls almost touching the sidewalk.  His eyes bore into mine as he brings his head down, and darkness envelopes me as his lips find my neck.  I feel a piercing stab of pain, but before I can scream, it becomes something far sweeter, and I struggle to find my breath.

The alarm clock erupted with its terrible claxon, and I shot up, my sweat-damp skin hot and flushed.  My heart hammered as though I'd just run a mile.  Brushing my hair out of my eyes, I twisted to put my feet on the floor.  When my thighs touched, I felt a hot dampness between my legs, not sweat, but arousal.  The vague traces of dream came back to me, flashes of vision and sensation that made me blush with shame.  But dreams fade quickly, and I had other things on my mind.

It was the first day of classes, and I'd resolved to get an early start.  I needed to get an edge if I wanted a spot on the school paper, so I forced myself out of bed and hurried to get ready, taking care to iron my nicest pair of slacks and a white cotton blouse.  Soft curses escaped my lips as I tried to tame my hair in the relentless humidity, but my roommate hardly noticed.  Morgan was still snoring softly with a pillow over her head when I slipped out of the dorm room.

Clutching a paper map in one hand and my portfolio in the other, I set out for the journalism building across campus just as the sun broke the horizon.  The campus seemed preternaturally still in the golden morning light.  Silver dew glistened on the freshly cut grass, undisturbed by any footprint but mine.  In the buildings I passed, dark windows reminded me of sunken eye sockets in giant skulls of ornate masonry.  It felt as though I was the lone survivor in a world devoid of humanity, where only empty buildings like stone tombs stood testimony to the passing of some great civilization.  Even as the day warmed, I felt a chill rush up my spine, and I quickened my pace.

By the time I crossed campus, a few cars had begun to trickle in, mostly beat-up Volvos and Subarus that disgorged glum-looking professors and teaching assistants with the misfortune of teaching an early class to a crowd of disinterested, hung-over students.  They ignored me, but after my solitary trek, I felt oddly comforted by their presence

The squat, ugly building that housed the School of Mass Communications sat in the far southwest corner of campus.  With its nearly windowless facade of unrelieved beige brick, it reminded me of an empty box too big to stuff in the trashcan.  I stood outside for a moment, trying not to let my disappointment overwhelm me.  Compared to the gothic stonework that adorned other buildings on campus, the journalism school seemed like an afterthought.  And this was where I'd chosen to spend the next four years?

The heavy metal door groaned when I pushed it open, revealing a dingy narrow hall that ran the length of the building, dimly lit by overhead fluorescents that flickered with age.  The hall was empty this early in the morning, but a sharp clatter punctuated by angry muttering echoed from somewhere deeper inside.  I checked my schedule and went to room 116.  The faded stenciling on the door's frosted glass window read 
ROMANUS SCRYER
.  The noise I'd heard came from inside.  I knocked softly, then pushed open the door.

A slight young man in jeans and an old flannel shirt stood hunched over a printer that had probably been pumping out black and white documents during the Clinton administration.  He hadn't noticed my arrival.  "Oh that's just perfect, that's exactly what I wanted, you piece of shit," he growled, then ran an ink-blackened hand through his tussled mop of hair.

I knocked on the doorframe, louder this time.  "Uh, hello?"

He spun and adjusted a pair of wireframe glasses to examine me.  His sharp eyes flickered down my body, then returned to my face.  "Yeah?"

"I'm Danielle Archer.  I'm here for my interview?"

He blinked at me for a moment as though thinking.  "Interview?"

My heart sank.  "I scheduled it with Sheila back in June.  I want to work on the school paper," I said.

"Paper?"  He rolled his eyes.  "You must be a freshman."

I nodded my head.

He shrugged. "Typical.  Sheila quit last month.  She didn't bother to tell me she had meetings scheduled.  Anyway, we stopped printing a paper last year.  No more funding.  We just have a website now."

Now my big binder full of printed articles felt not just juvenile, but archaic too.  Still, I proffered it to him.  "I'd still like to work on it.  I'm a journalism major, and I wrote for my high school paper."

He looked at the binder as though I'd brought him a dead possum.  "Upperclassmen do the writing," he said.

The disappointment must have been plain on my face, so he hastily added, "Still, I could use a hand.  You can review the want ads for publication.  It doesn't pay, but you'll get course credit, and we need someone to make sure there aren't any hookers soliciting in the personals section."  He shook himself as though reliving a bad memory.  "We had a bit of a PR nightmare two years ago.  The University would have shut us down, but then we wouldn't qualify as a journalism school anymore, and they'd lose the federal funding.  Not that this department sees ten percent of that funding anyway."  He peered at me over the rims of his glasses.  "You interested?"

My heart sank a bit, but any job on the paper was better than none.  "Sure," I said.

He nodded.  "Good.  That's more time I can spend fixing all the broken shit around here.  You'd think we could get some IT support, but this place is frozen in the twentieth century."  His hand shot out.  "I'm Jacob Crabtree, by the way.  Editor and all-around handyman for the illustrious 
Romanus Scryer
.  Now and then I squeeze in a few hours of classes.  Maybe I'll even finish my Master's degree someday."

I took his hand, and we shook.  "Danielle Archer," I reminded him.

"Nice to meet you.  Listen, I know you want to write, but there's a pecking order.  First, you pay your dues - working the want ads and selling advertising.  That's the stuff that actually makes us money, by the way, so don't think it's just grunt work.  If you prove yourself, you can publish some articles in another semester or two if you haven't switched to accounting or pre-med or something sensible."

I must have looked crestfallen again, because Jacob patted me on the shoulder.  "Don't worry, Danielle.  Writing for the Scryer's an exercise in frustration anyway.  All our articles are reviewed by the faculty board before publication, and those fascist bastards reject almost anything interesting enough to read.  It's almost like they don't want anybody to notice there's a student publication here."

"That's not very reassuring," I told him.

"If you want reassuring, go to nursing school," he said.  "They get jobs when they graduate."  He squatted in front of the printer and started jiggling the paper tray.

I knew better than to tell him about my dreams of being a writer; plenty of freshman had grandiose dreams, and Jacob seemed like he'd been around long enough to develop an unhealthy cynicism.  I looked around at the cluttered office with its old computers, lit by old fluorescent bulbs that drained the color and life out of everything in the room.  Four years seemed like a long time to work in such a place, but I told myself it would eventually be worth it.  "So, no interview or anything?" I asked.  "My first class isn't for another two hours."

Jacob turned back to me as though surprised to see me.  "Huh?  No, showing up this early in the morning tells me you've got more ambition than most.  Besides, I don't think anyone else will want to do the want ads.  You're hired."

I tried to look excited.  "Anything I can do to get a head start?"

He pursed his lips and gestured to one of the old computers with its ancient CRT monitor.  "You can sit there if you want.  There's a manual on our publishing software around here somewhere.  Why so eager?"

I rolled my eyes.  "I want to get ahead so I have spare time on Friday.  My roommate wants to go to this stupid party this weekend at some frat house."

"Huh," Jacob said.  "Which one?"

"Beta," I said, settling into a flimsy office chair to power up the old computer.

The printer tray clattered to the tile floor, and I let out a surprised yelp as I spun to glare at Jacob.

"You got invited to a 
Beta
 party?" he said, his face wide-eyed with astonishment.

I frowned.  "Yeah, what's the big deal?  It's just a frat party."

"They never invite newspaper geeks," he said.  "Never.  And you're not the first..." He cleared his throat and looked away.  "... the first pretty girl to work here either.  It's like they've got a rule.  No journalism majors."

"That's ridiculous," I said.  Why do a bunch of frat boys care what someone majors in?  They just want to get girls drunk and...  you know."

It wasn't exactly a big secret that frat guys liked to bang drunk girls, but Jacob looked away, embarrassed by my bluntness.  I had to remember I wasn't in Chicago anymore.  Men in the South preferred women be more circumspect about sex.  "I don't know why," he said.  "But maybe you can find out."

"I don't even know if I'm going," I said.

Jacob looked alarmed.  "What?  Of course you are," he said.

"No, really, I don't like big parties," I said.  The thought of mingling with a bunch of strangers daunted me.  Besides, the last thing I wanted was some drunk ape with a popped collar groping my tits like he was doing me a favor.

"Danielle, please," he said.  "This could be the story of the year - 
Scryer
 reporter gets a first-hand account of the hedonistic debauchery at Beta House!"

I arched an eyebrow.  "You'd let me publish a story?"

Jacob snorted.  "I'd let you try.  The faculty probably won't let us publish it - they hate airing dirty laundry."  A wicked grin spread across his face.  "But that doesn't mean it can't leak out online.  Maybe a draft gets published on someone's blog... who knows?"

"I'll think about it," I said.  I liked the idea of someone reading my stuff, but Jacob's brand of guerilla journalism could damage my credibility in the long run.

"Don't think," he said.  "Just go.  This paper never gets a good story.  It's all football games and ads for beer specials with the occasional op-ed by some idiotic sociology major."  To my surprise, Jacob threw himself on his knees and clasped his hands.  "Please, Danielle, we need you!"

Melodrama aside, his earnest enthusiasm was infectious.  My reservations melted away, and in that moment, I didn't think I could deny him anything.  I laughed.  "I said I'll think about it."

***

When I left the 
Scryer
 office an hour later, the journalism building had lost its sense of abandonment.  Young men and women hurried up and down the long, dim hallway on their way to classes.  Hoping I didn't look like a naive kid straight out of high school, I tried to affect an aura of confidence, looking straight ahead with my chin up.  As my eyes roamed over my fellow students, I felt a strange sense that something was a bit off.  At the tail end of summer just minutes from the Gulf of Mexico, many women had healthy tans and bleached hair, but others seemed too pale and scrawny, with dark circles below their eyes and an ashen complexion, as though they'd spent their summer in a basement instead of on a beach towel and skipped one too many meals.  At first, I thought it was only the light, but most of the men looked normal, with sun-darkened skin.

I slowed my pace and frowned as I watched the river of people move past.  So many girls looked utterly exhausted, as though even the simple act of putting on makeup had been too much of a chore.  Their dull, unfocused eyes stared blankly ahead as they walked to their classes like zombies.  No one else seemed concerned, though.  Was I just trying to project my own insecurities on others to make me feel better?  I had spent far more time than usual on my makeup that morning.

My mind drifted as I hurried to make my first class.  I didn't see the man until I bumped into his chest.  "Oh god, I'm so sorry," I said, backing up a few steps.  His expensive black suit made me wince. 
Great, I've collided with the dean - wonderful first impression, Danielle.
  But I looked up at a familiar face - the face of the young man I'd seen below my window last night.  His dark eyes seized mine, and the hallway around us seemed to grow distant and quiet, as though we stood in a world of our own.  This close, the intensity in his deep-set eyes smoldered like molten bronze.

"Hello, Danielle," he said.  "I'm Mander Deslauriers."

His matter-of-fact introduction left me speechless for a moment.  How did he know my name?  Why had he been standing outside my window last night?  Did I already have a stalker?  If so, he was a good-looking one, but I'd never had anyone take such an active interest in me.  "Are you following me?" I blurted, immediately feeling foolish.  I hadn't had much experience flirting.  In fact, I hadn't had any.

Mander shrugged, and one side of his mouth pulled up in a lopsided grin.  "It's a small campus.  Could we speak for a moment?"