Moonlight Becomes You: a short story Read online

  Moonlight Becomes You

  a short story

  by

  Linda Winstead Jones

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  Please Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2011, 2012 by Linda Winstead Jones. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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  Thank You.

  Claire pressed her back to the wall and listened to the footsteps. When she was certain her prey was moving away from her, not toward her, she leaned forward to peek around the corner and watch him walk down the dimly lit hallway. Watching her neighbor walk away was not exactly a chore. Not in those jeans.

  Too bad he was a vampire.

  When he turned the corner and was out of sight, she stepped into the hallway proper and silently followed in his footsteps. It sounded crazy, she knew that, but there were too many coincidences to ignore. He never went out in the daytime. He was much too pale, as if he had never seen the sun. He always wore black. Even those jeans he seemed to favor were a faded shade of black. She never saw him bring home groceries of any kind. Yes, he was lean, but the man had to eat something. He was definitely mysterious, and the one time he’d caught her eye she’d been sure he was hypnotizing her, even though the glance had lasted only a few seconds. Or maybe one full second.

  Just last week she’d found an inexplicable dusting of dirt in the hallway outside his door. Dirt! This apartment building was surrounded on all sides by concrete, and the amount of dirt she’d seen had been small but more than what would’ve been brought in on someone’s shoe, anyway. Maybe it was some of the dirt that lined his coffin, or –gross—the remains of a dusted enemy vamp. When she’d gone back to check the dirt more closely to see if it looked more like potting soil or bone dust, it had been gone. Someone had disposed of the evidence. Not that vacuuming was a crime, but still…

  One night not so long ago she’d been awakened by an absolutely unearthly howl that had sent chills down her spine. She wasn’t sure if it had been a victim’s plea or a monster’s cry of victory, but the sound had been memorable and unnatural.

  There was yet another telling clue that all was not as it should be. Marlie James from the second floor had a new cat. The feline Houdini was tough to contain and very often ended up wandering throughout the building. As adventurous as he was, Fluffy wouldn’t come to the third floor. Marlie had walked up once with the cat in her arms, but before she’d reached her destination Fluffy had screeched and escaped her owner’s hold and run down the stairs. Animals knew. Animals sensed danger when humans did not, and Fluffy obviously sensed danger on the third floor.

  Claire’s apartment shared a common wall with the newest resident of the complex, here on the third floor of this less-than-magnificent but relatively trendy apartment building in downtown Atlanta. He played music often. Apparently he didn’t care for popular tunes, but was stuck in the forties. Claire recognized some of the songs he played as those her grandparents had favored. Obviously her neighbor had been turned into a vampire in the forties, and he was still drawn to the music of the era in which he’d been human. What other explanation made sense?

  Claire didn’t jump to conclusions without checking as many facts as possible. She’d done an extensive search on the Internet and found almost nothing about her neighbor. Simon Darrow, that was his name, had lived in four places in the past three years. Before that, nothing—that she could find, at least. That in itself was odd. The man hadn’t popped out of thin air! True, she wasn’t a detective and she didn’t have access to every useful Internet site, but still, she should’ve been able to find more.

  He wasn’t even on Facebook! Who wasn’t on Facebook?

  It didn’t help Darrow’s case that he’d moved into the building right before people from the neighborhood had started to disappear. Charlie on the first floor, who everyone knew hit his wife when he drank too much. The often-obscene panhandler who’d been a regular on the southeast corner for as long as Claire could remember. That punk who’d robbed old Mrs. Bernard and gotten off with a slap on the wrist. All of them gone in a mere six weeks. Just gone. The people who’d disappeared would not exactly be missed, but she couldn’t allow that detail to cloud her judgment.

  Add the insignificant detail that Claire had been reading quite a few vampire novels, and it all made perfect sense.

  The common belief was that vampires didn’t really exist, but Claire knew to the pit of her soul that there was more to the world than most people realized. Granny Eileen—her father’s eccentric mother—had spoken often of ghosts and were-beasts, of vampires and curses. There had been a time, a span of several years in fact, when Claire had chosen not to believe the tales her grandmother had spun so effortlessly, but in the past few years it seemed that her eyes and ears had been opened. Legends had to be based in fact, and it wasn’t her fault that people had to deny that fact in order to survive from one day to the next.

  It was obvious that something was going on with her neighbor, and like it or not vampire made sense. The dirt, the howl, Fluffy, the missing people… yes, it all made perfect sense. Sadly, no one would believe her if she didn’t collect proof.

  Claire walked down the hallway on quick tiptoes, barefoot in order to be as silent as possible, hoping that when she glanced around the next corner she’d catch a glimpse of her neighbor as he made his way to the stairwell. The elevator was out of order again—no surprise there—and to reach the stairs she and everyone else on her end of the floor had to walk two and a half short hallways. Down the hallway, right, and then right again before reaching the stairs.

  She wouldn’t follow her subject outside, she hadn’t entirely lost her mind, but she had decided to keep detailed records of his comings and goings as best she could. One never knew what small detail might turn out to be helpful.

  When she reached the corner she flattened her back to the wall as she had before, and she listened. She curled her toes in excitement and maybe a little fear. She heard nothing, but then her neighbor did have an easy step, even in those heavy black boots he usually wore. Another vampire trait, she supposed. The easy step, not the boots. Maybe he was floating an inch or so above the floor, since he didn’t know anyone was watching. She leaned slowly forward to take a glimpse down the hallway…

  And found herself nose to chest with her vampire neighbor.

  Claire caught and held her breath, as her heart threatened to break free of her chest. There was no way she could outrun him, whether he was a vampire or not. That meant she’d have to wing it. First, she had
to regain the ability to breathe. That sounded easy enough, but she couldn’t quite pull it off.

  “Are you stalking me?” he asked, a touch of humor in his deep voice.

  There it was. A breath of much needed air. “I… you… of course not.” Claire managed a tight smile. “I lost an earring. I thought maybe it fell out earlier this evening, when I was on my way in from work.”

  “Too bad. I was rather hoping I had a pretty stalker.”

  Yes, there was something unnaturally hypnotic about his eyes, which were such a dark brown they looked almost black. She could feel herself being sucked in by those eyes. That had to be a vampire trick.

  He thought she was pretty?

  The man, who looked taller up close than he had from a distance, offered his hand. “Simon Darrow. I live next door to you.”

  After a moment of paralyzing fear, she put her hand in his and shook. “Claire Murphy. I know.” His hand was oddly warm, for someone who was possibly undead.

  He released her hand and leaned casually against the wall, literally inches away. “So, what does this earring look like?”

  “What earring?”

  “The one you lost,” he said, that hint of good humor remaining in his hypnotic voice.

  “Oh, yes.” This was the perfect opportunity for her first real test. Since arriving at her suspicions about her neighbor she’d been wearing a small gold cross at all times. She slept in it, showered with it around her neck, wore it when she went to the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She grabbed the cross between her fingers and held it up so he could see. “It matches this. A tiny golden cross with a teeny diamond chip in the center.”

  Simon—quite an old fashioned name, eh?—didn’t touch the cross, but he didn’t recoil, either. She had to judge that test as inconclusive, since she wasn’t quite ready to leap forward and press the cross against his forehead to see if he began to smoke or howl in pain. He turned away from her and searched the dingy carpeting, his eyes scanning the faded fibers. Claire pretended to do the same, though her eyes often flitted to her neighbor. Oh, he really was studly, more so up close than from a distance. His dark hair was shaggy and a tad too long but was not completely neglected, and he had a very finely sculpted masculine jawline. The body, as she had already noted, was not bad at all. She took it all in, appreciatively and as surreptitiously as possible.

  Was he staring at her toes? Maybe just a little, but not long enough or intently enough to mark him as a weirdo. Thank goodness she’d recently had a pedicure. Her toenails were painted bright red and were unchipped, at the moment.

  “I don’t mean to hold you up,” she said, after watching Simon bend over to examine what turned out to be a piece of lint. “I imagine you have somewhere to be.”

  “I’m not working tonight.”

  “You work at night?”

  “Not much call for jazz musicians during the day. The club’s closed until the weekend. Some sort of plumbing issue.”

  Her head crept up slowly so she could once more check out his face, which was much more interesting than the old carpet. Simon Darrow wasn’t pretty—his features were too masculine to be called pretty—but his face was definitely fine. “You’re a musician?”

  “Piano. I have a small electric keyboard at my place, but I practice while you’re at work so I won’t disturb you.”

  A considerate vampire. “I’m sure I wouldn’t mind hearing you practice,” she said, determined to be no less considerate as she took a couple of unnecessary steps and her eyes scanned the floor for a nonexistent earring. She even ran her toes across a section of carpet, as if she were feeling out the fibers for a tiny piece of gold.

  This was an opportunity she could not let slip by. “So, if you’re not playing tonight, where are you headed?”

  “Just out to grab a bite,” he answered.

  Interesting choice of words. “Oh, really?”

  “I thought I’d check out the sandwich shop down the street.”

  “They close at seven so you’ve already missed them, and to be honest their food is better at lunch.”

  “I’ll find someplace else, then.”

  This was a golden opportunity that might never come again. She had her neighbor right where she wanted him, and he had no idea that she suspected his secret. “Maybe you can…” She swallowed hard and gathered her courage, “have dinner with me.”

  “I knew it,” he said in a lowered voice touched with gentle wit. “You are stalking me.”

  “I am not,” she protested. “You’re new to the building. I’m simply adhering to the Southern Women’s Code, Section One, Paragraph Three. Feed Thy Neighbor. I could make spaghetti,” she said before he could argue—again—that she was stalking him. “And garlic bread.”

  He didn’t sneer at the mention of garlic bread any more than he’d sneered at her cross. Hmm. Maybe she was wrong about him. Even though she was drawn to Simon Darrow in a way that had to be unnatural, and there were a number of unanswered questions about him and his life, and Claire knew to the pit of her soul that there was more to the night than what made the newspapers and evening news, her neighbor might be exactly what he appeared to be. A man with a mysterious past who’d had the misfortune to move into the building just when people in the general area started disappearing and someone spilled dirt in the hallway.

  “I love spaghetti,” he said, “but I’m meeting some people later so I really should get going.”

  Her heart sank a little. “Okay. Maybe another time. I don’t want to be in violation of the Southern Women’s Code.”

  “Heaven forbid.” He smiled, and it was very nice.

  Claire decided to take a chance, one more time. “How about tomorrow night? About seven?” Normally on Tuesdays she went to the gym after work, but it would really be no chore to skip a workout. Wouldn’t be the first time. She held her breath and waited for another refusal, another excuse.

  “Sure.” Simon glanced down at the carpet one last time. “I’m sorry to say I don’t think we’re going to find your earring.”

  “Yeah.” Claire sighed. “Me neither.”

  Back in her apartment, with the door locked and dead-bolted behind her, Claire heated up a frozen dinner and ate it standing at the kitchen counter. She tried to get interested in a show on television, but ended up flipping through the channels and just getting annoyed that nothing appealed to her. It was a pretty night, warm but not hot, so she took a cup of tea onto the balcony and sat in the folding chair there.

  The balconies, small as they were, were the reason she’d chosen this apartment. Sliding glass doors opened off the main room, but in the bedroom it was a pair of french doors that opened onto the balcony. Neither balcony was very large, and they weren’t at all private. She looked across at Simon’s balcony. She’d never seen him on it, and he didn’t even have a chair there, much less a grill or a collection of plants.

  Tonight there was just a piece of a moon and one unbroken streetlamp to light the night.

  If she were so inclined, she could probably leap from her balcony to his without much effort. She was almost paranoid about locking her sliding glass door and the french doors in the bedroom, and she wondered if Simon was as careful. After all, any determined burglar could find his way up a mere three stories.

  She wasn’t a burglar, but she was determined. For a moment Claire considered testing the distance between her balcony and Simon’s. It was a short moment. While she did have a few natural gifts she could rely on, grace was not one of them. Neither was strength. The last thing she needed was to end up splattered on the concrete below because she’d miscalculated or lost her balance. Her attributes ran more to spelling and baking and wrapping really awesome gifts. She’d make a lousy cat burglar.

  The city stretched before her, pulsing with life. By day the view was kind of depressing, but at night the bright lights sparkled like diamonds, and the darker, seedier parts of the city were lost in shadow. She wasn’t high enough up to be protected from the
noise, but in truth she liked the sounds. There was something soothing and almost musical about the sounds a city created, as if the city itself was a living thing and the hum of traffic was its life’s blood.

  The noise was downright comforting until a strange howl was added to the mix. It was too near for comfort, but not so near that it could be easily identified. Was it her imagination or did everything in the city stop for a split second as that unearthly howl echoed? The noise, the city’s heartbeat, paused. Was that a dog? Maybe, though it didn’t sound like any dog she’d ever heard before. A person? Again, maybe, but what would cause a human being to make a sound so pitiful and horrendous?

  Fangs, maybe.

  Claire headed back into the apartment after that, unable to feel at peace when the city was being attacked. She locked the door, then put a length of PVC pipe into the track as an extra precaution. Just a few minutes later she heard her neighbor return home. His door closed with a thud, and not long afterward the music began. Muted. Odd. A song from another generation.

  She thanked her lucky stars that she hadn’t worked up the nerve to go snooping and gotten caught on his balcony, but as a slow song played, the notes drifting to her through the thin walls, she wished for a peek into Simon’s home, into his life.

  Claire didn’t expect Simon for about an hour. Her homemade spaghetti sauce was simmering, and the garlic bread was ready to be popped into the oven. The pasta would go on at the last minute. After changing her clothes three times, she’d settled on an outfit that made her look at least three pounds lighter. The slightly snug black shirt showed off her boobs—the only advantage to carrying a few extra pounds—and the knee length skirt was flattering and comfortable. It was pretty without being an obvious date outfit. There were very cute open-toed high-heeled shoes that made her legs look better than they really were waiting close by, but she’d save those for the last minute. Like the pasta.

  Giving in to her curiosity, she opened the door to her apartment and slipped into the hallway, tiptoeing on bare feet to Simon Darrow’s door to press her ear to the wood.