afterlife

People don't seem to care too much that that librarian is dead. I didn't even know her name, but for some reason, I can feel her absence. There's that feeling that someone I might have seen on the street and nodded at is gone forever and I never even knew her. I saw her photo in the paper today. She was surrounded by cats. Fat cats that obviously loved her just as much as she loved them. And she looked happy.

I joined the crowd watching them bring her body out of the burnt library, the library that I never visited. I told Alex not to look and I thought to myself don't look don't look, but I looked. We both looked. I held Alex's hand because she let me and we watched the last bits of smoke rise from the library and into the sky.

armageddon

I was out for a walk when the end of the world began. I'd always feared this. I even had an emergency backpack filled with supplies in my closet back home. I hadn't had a place for it in my dorm room and I haven't been home since I moved here. For once, I honestly didn't think I'd need it. But it's always the moment when you really need something that you don't have it. It's a cosmic rule.

It seemed like flames erupted from the ground all round me. I was trapped in a circle of fire. I fell to my knees on the concrete and covered my head. People ran around me. Peeking out from behind my fingers, I saw the prostitutes from the antique shop across the street feeding the flames, their cheap, faux silk bathrobes fluttering in the breeze. Their faces frozen and stained like snarling African masks.

I moaned. A body lay a short distance away from me. I didn't know if he was alive or not. It didn't look like he was breathing. But I told myself that that was just the shimmering heat of the fire that made it hard to tell. It was just the ashes in the air that made my eyes water.

Someone was pulling me up by my underarms. "Come on!" Alex screamed in my ear. It was just the the sound of breaking glass that made her voice sound so far away. She hoisted me up and slung my arm over her shoulders. I told her she was strong, but I don't think she heard me because she didn't say anything, just hauled me away one step at a time.

"I told you it was coming!" a man streaked by screaming. He looked right at me. "Didn't I tell you?" I nodded, but I had no idea who he was or what he'd told me, if he'd told me anything at all. Something wet and warm was dripping down my neck. I could feel it slipping down into the collar of my shirt.

"Come on," Alex said again and I tried to help her help me.

And then suddenly, we were in the middle of a street - some street that no longer resembled a street - and every one was moving by so fast except for three people standing facing each other. In the light from the burning piece of wood one of them held, I could see their faces. Mr. Day held the torch. He was screaming words and thrusting at Ethan with the fire. Ethan stood in front of him, flinching a little each time the flame came closer to his skin. Beside Ethan, standing like she was all alone in the world, was that repair woman Ethan had told me not to trust, Edna. She looked up at me and then at Ethan. Her lips moved, but I couldn't hear her.

Maybe I'd gone deaf. Maybe that was blood leaking from my busted eardrums. Maybe I couldn't read lips as well as I thought I could. Maybe she didn't say, "vampire."

burning

Ethan easily unlocked the roof: he ripped the knob right out of the door. He shook his head and squeezed the hunk of cheap metal in his hand until it no longer resembled a doorknob, but a twisted piece of wreckage. It fell to the gravel with a chink. Ethan laughed out loud. "Come get me," he said. He walked to the edge and sat down. His bare feet scraped the brick.

Mercutio poked his head out of Ethan's pocket. His nose twitched. His whiskers gleamed in a flash of lightning. A fat drop of rain plopped on his furry head, right between his ears, and the mouse ducked back down into the safety of Ethan's pocket. Ethan laughed again.

"I know who you are," Edna said quietly from the doorway.

Ethan didn't flinch. He knew she'd been there all along. "I know."

"I know what you are." She took a step out onto the roof. Ethan heard her hand tightening on the door. She didn't want to let go but was compelled closer.

"I know," he said again.

Somewhere below, a fire was burning. Ethan could smell the smoke, feel the heat on his sensitive skin, the embers brushing against his face. A piece of paper floated up and landed on the ledge next to his hand. - boy could make out nothing of his face now, and something about the still figure there distracted him. He started to say something again but - That was all the little bit of paper said. Ethan snatched it up before the wind could carry it away again. The paper crumbled to dust in his fingers. "Come here," he said to Edna.

She came. Slowly, her feet leaving heavy impressions in the rocks. And then she was beside him. Smoke stained her skin and made it greasy. The bruise on her eye shone. He didn't say anything, but she sat down beside him, her legs dangling like his, her heels against the building and her feet against the air.

"You are not afraid," Ethan said. Edna shook her head. "No," she affirmed in a whisper.

"Burn it to the ground," he said.

Her head turned to look at him. He didn't know what she saw, but her face became closed off, far away. It wasn't fear. It wasn't amazement. There was nothing there. The fire below reflected in her eyes. "Burn it to the ground," she repeated.

Ethan smiled. Really smiled. Did she see the fangs? Did she finally feel afraid? He held his hand out to her and she took it.

"I trust you," she murmured.

Ethan laughed. "You shouldn't."