Chronicles Of Hot Chocolate Meetings After Cold Winter Nightmares And A Blood Stained Wilderness. A Reporter Is Out Of Her League With An Unlikely Hero And The Story Of Her Life Time If She Can Survive To Write It.

Sun dipped behind the trees, giving way to the frigid night air. As the sun disappeared, darkness enveloped the land, only bright dots in the sky shining on earth from lightyears away. As the icy, night air washed across the land, sending even the deer, the squirrels, and the rabbit in from the cold, a peaceful calm followed. The world was as quiet as a mortuary with nothing but the occasional rustling of leaves beaten by the gusts washing over the trees. Occasionally, a wolf would howl at the stars, reminding those that were still aware, the top of the food chain was still out there, somewhere.

As the night drew on, and the scattered people miles apart from each other went to sleep, a smokestack started to burp out gray streams and plumes of a sweet burning odor. It was an old wood burner, in a cabin occupied by a drifter. The locals in the small village of Ocala, population seventeen-hundred, knew the drifter by the name David. He was a loner, quiet, and respectful by all accounts, and always had money to pay for supplies during his weekly trip into the stores. David was an old soul, much more mature than the age he appeared to be for his age. Otherwise, they knew very little other than that he was staying at the old Smits Cabin and tending to the land.

David, there nine months and counting, founding himself hoping there was no rush to leave the area. He found the quiet suited him well after years, and years of moving around the country, and living around the world. David would make the trips to town to grab any essentials that he needed at the cabin. Occasionally, he would even visit the hardware store and find tools and supplies for projects around the old cabin. To keep himself busy, and acclimated to the area, he built a new fence around the property. This way, if anyone came out to the cabin they would be more likely to drive up to the cabin if they were in a vehicle.

Sitting alone in the cabin, just his thoughts to keep him company, David spent a lot of time reading and listening to music. As things got colder outside, he started a fire and picked a book to read. David had a fondness for the classics but enjoyed whatever he could find at the local supermarket or book store. The Ocala store ordered anything he wanted and had it shipped in for him. As he sat back in his favorite recliner, a tasty snack on the coffee table, and a copy of The President Is Missing, David felt right at home.

Little did David know, his much-loved peace and quiet soon would come to an end.

Julie Bennett had been working around Ocala for the past several months as she worked on a story for the Vancouver Herald. The richest person in Ocala wielded power that was daunting as he intimidated his employees and contractors into illegally dumping thousands of gallons of waste into the waterways. She never imagined herself taking on a largely corrupt corporation, especially one that had a trail of damages behind it, and anyone that tried testifying against them in court seemed to disappear.

She was in way over her head now. Breaking into the Ocala Chemical Plant wasn't hard. She found the proof she needed and snapped pictures of the loaders as they changed the labels on drums of waste. Getting away with it all had proven to be the toughest part of her mission. The security at the plant looked like it was easy to get past, but there were far more eyes on her than Julie realized. She managed to evade capture but they were still on her tail and she was running out of ideas.

After losing control of her rental car Julie went off the road and into a ditch. She could see headlights coming not far from where she stood. It was the same headlights she was trying to run from after breaching the chemical plant and running from the security team. Hurt, bleeding, and alone in the middle of the wintery wilderness, Julie decided to make her way across the country, hoping that the men chasing her would leave her alone if they thought she might have gotten killed in the crash.

To Julie, it was like something out of a suspense novel. She took the extra can of gas out of her trunk, soaked the inside of the car, and tossed the can inside. With the photos in her camera, she tossed a match into the car and as it started to burn, took off into the woods.

Julie walked for miles, her nose running in the cold, her body shaking, starting to think that she was going to die if she didn't get warmed up. After a ten-mile hike through the coldest terrain she could imagine, with frost and ice forming on her jacket, she finally found light in the sky. There was a green light to the north. It floated around in the sky above her, guiding her out of the thick of the wilderness. Finally, she thought she might be in the clear. It was an echoing sound behind her that startled her, bringing her heart rate back up as she realized what the sound was coming from.

"Dogs, they brought dogs," she said, looking up at the sky as if talking to some greater power. "Can't I catch a break tonight?"

Moving as fast as her tired one-hundred-ten pound frame would allow, Julie kept going in the direction of the green light in the sky above. She had never seen the Aurora Borealis before, but as a life-long Florida girl, she wouldn't. Now, the famed northern lights, and their glowing green light keeping the skies from being as dark, were the only thing she could focus on to get her out of the mess her night had become. With the dogs now closing in on Julie she ran harder, and faster than she ever dreamed of running through the snow.

The Vancouver reporter ran until she saw the end of the forest, breathing a sigh of relief. There had to be someone living out here, she thought as she pushed herself. They could give her a ride into town, help her get out of Ocala and back to Vancouver. Julie's editor would pay a fortune to protect the photos and the story she was carrying with her, even if she was expendable at the end of the day.

Splash

She had run past the treeline and out onto a frozen pond in the middle of the woods. Her sixth or seventh step was all it took to break through the ice and be submerged into the water. Julie's luck had not been with her as she found a massive spot that had begun to thaw during a mid-winter heatwave that struck the north. As she struggled to find a grip on the ice, her entire body aching from the cold she was in, Julie began to fear the worst again and started to scream, knowing that her pursuers may be close enough to hear her frantic pleas.

"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!"

She kept screaming, for what seemed like an eternity, as she watched the majestic northern lights flickering around above her icy predicament. Then the men that were chasing her came through the woods, clearing the treeline with their dogs in tow. They had caught her, and they were the only ones that were there to keep her from drowning, then dying, and sinking beneath the ice only to hope someone would discover her body after a long thaw.

As the men began to taunt her, one of them getting close enough she could almost reach his pant leg, the leader of the Jackyll like pack put his boot on her head. He didn't even ask her for the photos, and it was never mentioned. The man simply was pushing her to an icy grave.

A thundering sound, then the man was gone. A whirlwind occurred in front of her as a rush of speedily delved-out violence happened before her eyes. Just as Julie felt her body go limp, and the lights begin to dim, she felt a cold, strong hand as she was pulled up out of the water and thrown over the strong-built shoulders of a man. As he carried her away, Julie, losing consciousness, saw the last thing she would lay eyes on that night. She saw the men that chased her from Ocala dead, their heads ripped from their bodies, as the snow and ice-covered water were stained by their blood.

The next morning when Julie finally opened her eyes again, she slowly looked around the room. She was in a strange place, but worse, she was in a strange bed and didn't have on a single piece of clothing. Julie gasped at the revelation, turning her head to see David sitting there on the window ledge, watching her. She pulled the sheet up to her shoulders, covering her bosom, as she bit her lower lip. If it were any other circumstance, she would be fine with this situation. She found David quite attractive and the smoldering eyes that stared at her were starting to be quite arousing.

"Hello," David said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Where are my clothes?"

David smiled, "You were freezing when I got you back here. I took them off to dry them while you slept."

David returned with her clothing and a cup of hot chocolate telling her that he didn't keep much around for warm drinks. He left her there in his bed to get dressed in private, telling her that he would be in the front of the cabin. It was all quite chivalrous to Julie, as she struggled to remember the night before.

Julie walked into the front of the cabin, admiring the place. She found it to be quite homey and yet, there was very little of David in the old cabin. She looked at pictures of the owners, wondering who they were. Perhaps, she thought, his parents.

Then, it struck her, like a flashback but playing quicker in her memories. She remembered being in the water, seeing David lunge at the man that was pushing her under, then the rampage of death that followed. He had killed all six men and done it so effectively that she wondered who the man that saved her really was, a hero or something else. Julie walked over to the chair across from Davids'.

"Thank you for saving me," she said, a curious look etched on her face. "I've never seen anyone capable of fighting like that."

"Your welcome," said David, taking her hand in his.

Julie jerked her hand back.

"What are you?"

David feared and welcomed this point in his life. After many lifetimes of loneliness, she was the first person he spent any time with since the war. The demons in his head kept him from trusting himself around people again and he wanted to avoid things like last night at all costs. He looked at Julie, her soft, sympathetic eyes staring into his dark, almost black as coal eyes.

"I was born in the year 1921, and unlike you and the men that chased you, I can't be killed."

"You're immortal..." Julie let the words slip from her mouth.

"Sort of," said David, "I'm what humans call, a vampire."

Julie sat, her mouth agape, as the reality of what he said began to set in, and she realized now she had an entirely different story to tell.