Alone - Vampires and the Life of Erin Rose

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I picked up the license first. “Erin Rose.” The picture matched my reflection. “Height: 5-09.” “Date of birth: January 7, 1987.” Which made Erin… I didn’t know. I didn’t know what day it was or even what year. What was wrong with me? The laptop was powered on, so I opened it and sat down. The screen flickered to life, and the date in the lower right said September 14, 2007, so Erin was twenty. Or I was twenty. A few tabs were open in the web browser, with a map of Washington, D.C. in the active one. The second tab held a bank login screen. I replaced the driver’s license on the desk and located a red debit card on a piece of paper to its right. The card said, “Erin Rose,” and had my picture in the upper right corner. I entered the username and password from the paper on the website, and the account information loaded. The name on the account read, “Erin Rose,” and the balance was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Next to where the debit card had been on the desk were a white and blue credit card and a thin, beige health insurance card. The wallet contained five twenty dollar bills. A staple held together the bright white pages of a leasing agreement. Just like the map on the laptop showed, it was for an apartment in Northwest Washington, D.C. The lease explicitly listed one occupant: Erin Rose. All of the evidence pointed to that being my name and the apartment being mine. But I didn’t remember anything about myself, Erin Rose or otherwise. The last piece of paper had only one thing on it, in a very large font: Sanguan vampires hunt and kill humans. They may do so legally, outdoors, between four a.m. and six a.m. Don’t ever be outside between four and six. The word ‘vampires’ didn’t shock me. I knew they drank human blood to stay alive, but ‘Sanguan’ meant nothing to me. The encyclopedia entry on the next tab in the web browser supplied more detail right away. Vampires are immortal beings that sustain themselves by drinking either synthetic blood (Spectavi) or human blood (Sanguan).
I went to the bathroom mirror, pulled my hair back on the right, and leaned close. The two marks rose a little from the rest of my skin and weren’t perfectly round. The scars could definitely have been from a bite. For a moment, I waited, hoping my memory would be jogged and at least something would come back to me, but nothing did. I pored over every inch of my body, front and back—it felt like examining a stranger. I checked everywhere, and then checked again, and again. Seeds of relief were planted as I continued to find no signs of injury or abuse other than the scars. Eventually, I headed back to the desk. “Erin Rose,” the license still said. The collection of items in front of me gave the impression that whoever had set it all up didn’t expect some other memory to come rushing back to me. The thought was chilling and swept away most of my newly developed relief. I looked around the room. It wasn’t a dream, yet it seemed so unreal. Whatever set it up, not whoever. The notion grabbed my attention. The bite mark on my neck had to have something to do with what happened to me, and that meant a vampire. But why would a vampire have left me here like this? Some person must have. I couldn’t think of anyone else I knew in the whole world, but maybe someone saved me from a vampire. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. I went to the window, opened the curtains completely, and returned to read more. Vampires are only awake at night and have superhuman strength and speed. In most cases short of decapitation, physical injuries to vampires will heal. Exceptions include extended exposure to the sun and significant silver in their bloodstream, both of which can be lethal. For whatever reason, that information didn’t surprise me. The next bit about the different kinds of vampires, however, was completely new. Sanguan and Spectavi vampires have been at war since the Dark Ages, though the exact date is unknown. Sanguans do not respect human laws and feel that they should be allowed to do as they please with their abilities. The Spectavi fight them so that humans can be free of Sanguan oppression. I absorbed as much as possible while reading the rest of it, and then searched for other sources of information on my own. I discovered that Sanguans had always been ruthless killers.
Page 2 and 3: Copyright 2011 Steve Perlow Alone V
Page 4 and 5: Prologue Cold air hit my neck and f
Page 8 and 9: Over the centuries, they had ruled
Page 10 and 11: the club, I would have been careful
Page 12 and 13: The shots stopped, the block was ca
Page 14 and 15: I cringed at the gruesome sight. Th
Page 16 and 17: future. And I had new questions, bu
Page 18 and 19: I had told Kristi the story of that
Page 20 and 21: People told me I looked very seriou
Page 22 and 23: which actually didn’t mean much e
Page 24 and 25: “Have you ever seen the devil or
Page 26 and 27: I told him how I had stopped at the
Page 28 and 29: I didn’t find her downstairs in t
Page 30 and 31: 3 The rest of the walk home was str
Page 32 and 33: My boss ran the company until the c
Page 34 and 35: She stood in the lobby wearing a pu
Page 36 and 37: 4 That night, Kristi texted to say
Page 38 and 39: a place of business and should actu
Page 40 and 41: Behind him, the door flew open. Sta
Page 42 and 43: I nodded again and put my hand down
Page 44 and 45: them?” “Surely the police would
Page 46: “Sure.” I took another sip of w

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