"Okay, Trent, what did you want to show me?"
Trent admitted to himself that the picnic setting was cheesy, but it was also romantic, in a way. He pulled out a ring.
The girl before him blushed beet red. "Trent, don't you think we should finish college before considering marriage?"
"Of course. This is just a promise ring." He slipped it on the girl's finger. "This way, we agree to always stay faithful to each other and, when the moment is right, then I'll replace it with a wedding ring."
The girl smiled. "I love it."
"Thank you."
The girl jumped on Trent and kissed him. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead.
"I love you, Trent."
"I love you, too, Gwen."
Trent woke up. He sighed. It was more than a dream. It was a mere four months ago when he "proposed" to Gwen. He'd looked forward to spending a long life with her.
He glanced at his clock. 8:48am. He practically leapt from his bed and grabbed a turtleneck and jeans.
Trent could barely pay attention to the professor's lecture. He glanced a few rows above him. Courtney wasn't in her usual seat. His mind was ablaze with possibilities, even though he came back to one of them again and again: she had been attacked by Duncan.
Trent glanced idly at the sole of his shoe. A small smear of blood.
Police tape cordoned off the area around Packard Hall. Trent tracked the path that led from the building. He glanced along the edge where he tripped. Dried blood on a blade of grass.
Most students spent the breaks between classes eating or goofing around. Given the severe look on Trent's face, neither were on his agenda.
He looked Courtney up on the school's database. There were two dormitories for girls on campus: Hayden and Levine. Courtney was in the latter.
Trent glanced up at Levine Hall. He spent most of his Political Science class thinking about this. He'd hoped that someone would've helped him.
He bumped into a bubbly blonde who was on her way out.
"Oh, I'm sorry." The blonde smiled nervously.
"That's okay. Maybe, you can help me."
"How?"
"I'm looking for Courtney. Brown hair, freckles, really smart?"
The blonde gasped.
"What's wrong?"
"That's my roommate. She never came home last night. I kept telling her that she needs to go out and have some fun, but that's no reason not to call and let someone know where she is."
"I saw her last night. She told me about her boyfriend."
"Yeah, Duncan. That he was a 'vampire'. I think she's been watching too many movies."
"I hope you're right."
"I'm Lindsay, by the way."
"Trent."
Lindsay frowned. "I hope she's okay."
"I hope so, too."
Trent took a seat on his bed and cracked open a book on vampire lore. He felt that there was never enough to know about vampires.
Geoff stepped out of the bathroom, ready to party. "Hey, T."
"Yes?"
"Some of the guys and me are going to this hot club downtown. It's called 'The Cave'. Really underground."
"I don't know. I really need to study." Trent hefted the book for effect.
"Bro, you can't spend all your time studying."
"That's what college is for: getting a degree to get a good job."
"Yeah, but do you really want to look back on your four years here and say 'all I did was study'?"
Trent just flipped the page.
"Whatever. Maybe, I'll bring you a matchbook." Geoff disappeared behind the door.
Trent rolled his eyes. 'All I do is study.' With a frustrated grunt, he packed his book and stormed out.
The library always seemed cavernous, but never more so at night, when most everyone was in their dorm rooms or having lives.
Trent sat at a table, buried in his book.
"Vampires?"
Trent turned toward the voice. "Noah." Trent had never shared a moment of class time with Noah, but they would see each other from time to time in the library.
"None other. What's with the book?"
"Just an interest in the undead."
Noah nodded before rolling his eyes. "Ah. I'm reading up on zombies, myself."
"Seriously?"
"Of course not. I was doing research for my criminal justice class. There have been disappearances over the last few months. Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, and get this: the people that have gone missing were last seen around some place called 'The Cave'."
Trent's eyes goggled. "The Cave?"
"Yeah."
Trent gathered the book and hurried off.
"Where are you going?"
"I think I need to have some fun."
The music was pounding. The lights were bright. The crowd was growing. Simply put, The Cave was the place to be.
The bouncer at the door peered at the gathering crowd from behind dark glasses.
Only a few spaces from the front of the line was Geoff. Two others waited alongside him. One was a geeky, gangly kind of guy with glasses. The other looked younger than his years. When he smiled, a slight gap could be seen.
"I'd heard about this place from people talking in the quad. I hope it's worth it."
"Yeah. It'd be really cool to meet some hot babes."
"I guess." Geoff's level of enthusiasm wasn't quite as high as those of his compatriots. He loved to party, no doubt and he needed a distraction from the fact that his girlfriend had disappeared some time ago.
Smoke came from behind the door as it opened. The line of people proceeded inside.
The door led through a tunnel painted bright red. A little distracting and not very pleasing to the eye, but it did help the ambience. At the end of the tunnel was a hallway with elevators on either side.
The patrons filed onto the elevators. So far, they were unimpressed. This was the hot, happening club they'd heard about?
The elevators went down four floors. As the elevator settled, Geoff glanced around, ready to speak what everyone in the car was surely thinking: "They weren't kidding when they said this was underground."
"Welcome, my children!"
The crowd turned toward a vision: a woman of pale skin and long, dark hair, wrapped in a dark dress.
"My children of the night."
The crowd followed the enigmatic woman toward the main ballroom.
Trent trailed behind the crowd. He glanced around, studying the layout of the property.
A bank of monitors which covered nearly every inch of the property. If one was to invest in a locale, one needed to be safe.
A shadowy figure studied, in particular, the lower-left monitor that showed the crowd heading for the main ballroom.
The crowd didn't intrigue him so much as the straggler that seemed to be checking out the place. He thought to himself, 'why the hell is he wearing a turtleneck?'.
"…and that's why music stopped being great before they invented auto-tuning, not when." At the table, a weird-looking gentleman in a suit and tuque sat across from a stunning woman in a blue dress. "People forgot to write a good hook. They let the technology do the work for them."
The girl looked repulsed at the gentleman.
"Is something wrong?"
"You have a bug in your teeth."
The young gentleman picked up a spoon and glanced at his smile. Indeed, there was a fly squirming in-between his teeth. He fished a toothpick from his pocket and plucked the fly out. He glanced at the bug…and swallowed it.
"So, where were we? Oh, yeah, you were into me."
"No!" The woman rushed away from him. The gentleman felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Lady troubles, Ezekiel?"
Ezekiel glanced up. With his winning smile and swarthy look, it could only be one person.
"Master, I appreciate the eternal life, but why can I only have the lives of bugs? Can't I have humans, like you?"
"We've been over this and over this, Ezekiel…no."
As quickly as he appeared, the "Master" disappeared. Ezekiel slumped in his seat.
Trent shuffled through the dancing crowd, unconcerned with the people around him.
Little did he know that two pairs of eyes were staring at him from the wall. They belonged to two dark-haired young women in slinky dresses. One of them was skinny, while the other was attractively full-figured. If not for the differences in skin color and weight, one could've easily mistaken them for twins.
Geoff and his cohorts sat at the bar, staring at their glasses of red liquid.
The younger one sniffed the contents of his glass. "Maybe, it's just me, but does this wine smell a little…off?"
The other two picked up their glasses. "Yeah, I know what you mean." Geoff set his glass down and pushed it away.
"Now, boys, don't knock it until you try it." The young men turned around. The dark-haired woman who greeted them stood behind them, a warm smile on her face. "You just need to get a taste for it." She took the younger one by the hand.
"Um…"
Geoff pushed him toward the woman. "Go for it, Cody."
The woman smiled at the remaining men. "Don't go away, boys. I'll have time for you, too."
Cody and the woman disappeared into the crowd.
Geoff turned back to the bar. "Can you believe that, Harold?"
Harold sighed. "I was hoping to be first."
In the bathroom, Trent stood at the sink, washing his hands. So far, the color scheme aside, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He glanced into the mirror. All he could see were the stalls behind him.
He reached over to the paper towel dispenser and grabbed a few sheets. He dried his hands off and threw the paper towels away.
Trent glanced into the mirror and only the reflection of the stalls greeted him. If he'd turned around, he'd have seen the not-twins leering at him.
Trent headed for the exit. He stopped and turned around. There was nothing there. He left the bathroom, shuddering a little.
The girls stepped from out of the stalls. Both offered a moan, almost as if it came from one mouth.
Cody eagerly slammed the glass of liquid down on the bar. However, it was now empty. "Man, that was incredible!"
Geoff and Harold each slammed down their empty glasses. "You said it!"
"Awesome!"
The bartender - a well-built young woman with the makings of a unibrow - stared the young men down. "Another drink?"
"Yes!", they replied in unison.
Trent turned back to the elevators. This place was a little strange, but not really worth looking into. He pushed the 'up' button and waited patiently for the car to arrive. He felt someone brush by him, but thought nothing of it.
He stepped onto the elevator. As the doors started to close behind him, he heard it.
"The party didn't start without me, did it?"
Trent perked up. He knew that voice. The doors closed, though he got enough of a glimpse.
"Gwen."
The look on her face was unlike any he'd seen on her. It was almost…predatory.
Trent tried to push the buttons on the elevator panel, but none of them would respond, as if they were beyond his control.
The elevator stopped at the top floor. Trent stepped out of the elevator. The doors closed behind him.
Trent was somewhat unnerved by what just happened. He peered around and made his way for the exit.
Whatever was going on at this place, he was going to find out. Not tonight, but very soon.