Nightingale

NIGHTINGALE
         I loved that apartment.  I worked hard for it.  I deserved it.  I decorated its white walls exactly as I had in my dreams.  Everything was organized and familiar and just as I had wanted it.  Everything was as I had wanted it.  My life was as I wanted it. 
         I stood outside its door, unable to open it quite yet.  A cool breeze blew from under the door.  The main window of the apartment must have been opened.  Only, I had most certainly not opened it before I left for work today.  A slew of thoughts crowded my already packed and tired mind. Burglars? Broken window? The fact I still had the heat on, and the possibly of that window being open the entire day was going to cost me more than an arm and a leg?  No, that wasn’t it.
         “Vampires,” I said, and I opened the door.  The apartment was dark and cold.  The window was open, the dark blue curtains swayed under the cool autumn breeze.  It was an extraordinarily cold autumn.  I slammed the window shut.
         A faint light was coming from the bedroom.  I closed the front door to the apartment and walked towards the faint light.  I passed the morning paper folded open on the coffee table and grabbed the paper for the Hell of it.  I would read the damn thing eventually today.
         Now, I heard faint noises coming from the bedroom.  I stood in front of the closed bedroom door, unable to open it quite yet.  Light from the bedroom leaked under the door and danced on my black shoes.  I heard the screams and grunts of Ultimate Fighter blasting from the bedroom TV. I opened the door, and there they were, black clothing and green eyes, on the bed.
         “You could have closed the window,” I said.
         “This place is too stuffy. How can you live like this?” asked Cat, the taller of the two brunettes.
         “Because he is in denial, even still,” answered Night, the other.  I was in the presence of Night and her Cat, Cat and her Night.  It had been years since we last spoke or saw each other. They were, of course, the same as always. Still together, still feeding, still rulers of their own small world.
         “What do you want?” I asked.
         “World power,” answered Cat.
         “Robert Pattinson,” answered Night.  I grunted in annoyance. Them being here meant trouble and headaches for me, it always did.  I sighed and plopped on the bed with them.
         “Poor Gale,” said Cat, rubbing her fingers in my hair.  “You’re trying to hard to be one of them.”
         “How’s it going, Gale?” asked Night. 
         “Fucking marvelous.  Thanks for asking, Night.”
         “Gale,” said Cat, fingers still in my hair.  “Why keep doing this?”  It was a fair question. Pity, I could only think of one reason to keep acting out this lie: the apartment. 
         “It is a nice apartment, Gale,” said Night.
         “Isn’t it? This place costs a fortune, not like you guys would truly appreciate it.”
         “Gale, we’re insulted,” said Night, clearly hurt by my remark.  I didn’t mean to sound so vicious towards her.  Cat, yes.  Night, no.
         “After all we’ve have done for you? You still resent us?” asked Cat.  Why did I despise them so much? God knows I would be dead right now if it weren’t for the two women.  Perhaps I was still in denial.  Denial about what I was and where I was going with this life of mine. 
After it happened, I told myself I was going to live my life like nothing had happened.  I finished medical school, became licensed, and had been a fully employed member of society for the past twenty years.  I had moved from unordinary place to unexceptional place every time a gray hair spurted from a coworker’s head.  It had been five years since my last move, and despite my best efforts, I had become attached to the place. 
“I’ve changed…”  I buried my face in the pillow and waved the rolled up newspaper above my head.  One of them tore it from my hand.
“We’ve made front page above the fold,” said Night.
“Is this why you don’t want to talk to us, Gale?” whispered Cat in my ear.
“You absolutely butchered those kids,” I said.  I had changed.  I didn’t feed like that anymore. Believe it or not, we didn’t need to feed like that to survive.  One shot of human blood per month would suppress the urge to feed and kill like an animal.  I rubbed the bruise forming on the inside of my elbow.  I was good for the month.
“Won’t happen again. At least, it won’t happen again on that campus,” said Night.
“And there’s no way we’re doing that,” said Cat, touching the inside of my elbow.
         “So unnat—”
         “You two can’t stay here, then.”  I had changed.  They hadn’t.  If they stayed, I feared all my hard work to be human would…die.
         “Don’t be stupid, Gale,” said Night.
         “You can’t make us leave, Gale,” said Cat. 
         “But we’re going out now, right Cat?” asked Night.
         “Yes, we’re leaving you now, Gale. But we’ll be back in the morning,” whispered Cat.  She kissed the side of my neck, and they left.  They were going to feed.  Perhaps it was better if they stayed on the campus.  At least then, they would pace themselves and actually hunt instead of massacring the young public.
         I shoved any thought of the two from my mind and forced myself to sleep.  Yes, we could sleep. We could eat normal food, drink normal drinks, but we still needed blood.  Some needed it more than others.  I was blessed with a small appetite.  Cat and Night, though, they needed blood at such an extreme level.  Without blood for say, a week’s time, they would go crazy.  I saw it happen once.  It still haunted me.  I would never become that.  I intended to keep that promise to myself.
I woke up to the sun shining through my bedroom window.  Night and Cat had been kind enough to make sure the curtains were pulled back so I could awake to the warm rays of the sun.  That’s right.  We could sleep, eat, drink, and even love sunlight.  Our kind lived in the night for easier hunting and feeding.  People do not realize how much light there was during the night.  The moon, the stars, the bright lights of the city, and the pale lights of the campus rivaled the sun’s light.
         I rolled myself away from the rays of light and curled back in my bed.  The sun may have been beautiful, but I was not ready for its full beauty yet. 
         Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  The cell phone’s voicemail.  I grabbed the shiny device from the top of the nightstand and listened to the message from a long lost love. 
         “Look…I’m sorry about how we acted last night. Lately…lately, it’s been hard on us.  We didn’t mean for things to get out of control at the college.  It’s just been hard for us live like this…to live like you.  We can’t live without feeding, Gale.  We’ve been around too long for a change like that. 
“We’re really going to try this time, Gale.  We’re leaving this place, put some real distance between us and here.  I wanted to ask you last night, but you were so tired and seemed so upset about us being there.  I’m asking you now.  I want you to come with us, Gale.  Cat does too, she does really miss you.  Come back to us, Gale.  It’s been fun playing this game, hasn’t it?  But now it is time to stop pretending and start living.  You know I’m right.  I’ve let you run off for twenty years, that’s long enough, isn’t it?”
How funny it was.  Twenty years were nothing, felt more than five years at the most.  Was Night right?  Was I living a fantasy?  My stomach growled.  I had taken a liking to normal food and consuming normal food made me feel normal again. 
“But I am not normal,” I said.  The words hurt, burned my tongue, shook my core.  Twenty years of avoiding the pain of those words.  I was no longer human.  I was something hidden inside the shell of a human.  I had helped people, passed myself off as one of them for long enough.  I glanced at the nightstand again.  A white envelope awaited me.  No, I wasn’t ready to know what was in it, not yet.  I pulled myself out of my bed, resisting the temptation to fall back into the warm sheets, forget the message, and naively enjoy my day off from the hospital.
I left the apartment to clear my head.  I walked the city and campus till my head was clear and my mind was made up.  I had to find them.  I had to find her.  I returned to the apartment for the last time as the sun clocked out.  I pulled the one way train ticket out of the envelope from atop the nightstand and left the apartment for good.  I abandoned Gale, the ordinary doctor with no life and reunited with Gale, the unknown.  It felt good, it felt familiar.   
The train station was cold, lonesome, and smelled of better days.  I gripped the ticket in my pocket and hid in the shadows until I saw them, also hiding in the shadows.  It was the last train for the night and the few humans at the station immediately boarded as the train came rolling in.  We waited.  Night was the first to move.  She walked over to me and kissed my chin.  I had missed her.  How selfish I had been.  We kissed each other’s lips and embraced each other once again.  I was reunited with my love, my creator, my life. 
We arrived at our new home, together, like it should have been so many years ago.  I gripped Night’s hand, hoping for strength against whatever I was to face out there. 
“You’re different, Gale,” she whispered in my ear.
“But you’re still one of us,” said Cat.
“I know,” I said as the train stopped and my new life began.