Uh, is anyone reading? Hello?

Chapter 4: Coincidence?

Dib sat in his first period class, waiting for Auri to come in. He wanted to ask her for her phone number, or Instant Message name. Again the teacher was not there yet. Dib rested his head on his desk.

"Did you hear about that girl who died out by McDonalds?" He heard from behind him. He tilted his head and continued to listen.

"Car crash?" said a different person.

"Nope. She was on the sidewalk."

"What happened?"

"One of the employees found her, just lying there."

"Hit and run." Said someone.

"No injuries. She was just laying there, pail as snow. The only mark was a small bite in her wrist. Like from a dog or something."

"So, how'd she die?"

"Loss of blood. Whatever bit her opened the artery. Weird, though, there was no blood around her. She hadn't bled to death. More liked she was drained."

"Great," said a female voice, "Now there's some psycho on the loose draining blood from people."

Auri entered and sat in her seat behind Dib.

Dib spun in his seat, temporarily forgetting the conversation he had overheard. "Auri?" she looked up, "I wanted to ask-"

"Look, Dib is hitting on the new girl!" One of the kids said. The class laughed. Dib blushed and faced front again. He heard them continuing to laugh behind him, but they suddenly stopped. Dib looked to the doorway, thinking that the teacher had finally entered, but there was no one there.

Still, the room had gotten eerily quiet.

---

Dib and Auri had a table to themselves again at lunch. Auri was being quiet today, deep in thought. Dib wanted to try starting a conversation, desperate to get that dream out of his mind.

"You're new, right?" He asked, feeling stupid.

"Emm-hmm."

"Where you from?"

"LA."

"Really?"

"Emm-hmmm." She repeated.

"Ever been to Hollywood?"

"Once or twice." She smiled, still looking off to the side, as if reliving a good memory.

Dib gave up, she just wasn't paying attention. Well, if she wasn't going to give any information, he'll just have to google her. "What's your last name?"

---

Dib typed in "Auri Sanguinarius" into the search bar. Many things came up, but nothing in English. They looked Latin. He logged off of AOL and rolled away from his computer. He got out of his chair and searched the bookcase.

"Ah-ha!" He had found his Latin to English dictionary. He flipped the pages until coming on the word "Sanguinārius". The entry read "adj Bloodthirsty." Dib wondered about a coincidence, but what had he learned from his paranormal studies?

Bloodthirsty. The word vampire came to mind.

And there was that girl by McDonalds.

Coincidence? Not even in his vocabulary.

---