To catch up:
Chapter 1
FORGOTTEN HOPE: TWO
She sighs as she puts her thoughts away and gets on up out of bed. Perhaps it was her dream that caused her to flashback to a part of her life where she actually had a partner in crime, or so to speak. Whatever it was or is, Zoe misses those days where she had a companion.
A thousand years may be distant for someone with a short life-span as a human, but Zoe has never been human. In fact, she still doesn't know what she is. What she does know is three thousand years only seems like maybe ten years had passed since she last saw Anthony.
Anthony, has been long gone since those days. She knows this because she's kept an eye on him, his family, his legacy, even though they are unaware of it. She even knows that one of his descendants are residing where she is in Florida, which is also why she's here; to protect them from any possible monsters trying to get revenge for those she and Anthony killed along the way.
Monsters are monsters, she thinks to herself. For all she knows, all monsters are bad. Every innocent killing she has ever found along the years were all done by monsters, and they were all evil.
We did what was right, she justifies her actions even though she really doesn't need to. Zoe is saving humanity even if these humans don't realize this at all. She shrugs it off and heads towards the bathroom.
Looking at her own reflection, she wonders if she's a monster herself. A monster that hunts monsters. After all, what kind of an immortal--apparently--hunts after monsters? If memories of her past haven't come flooding by now after a thousand years, she seriously doubts her memories will come back at all. She stares deeper at herself, wondering how her olive complexion has grown pallid.
Is this the beginning of her ageing process? Will she finally be able to die one day? She knows nothing seems to kill her. Not even when she's on a hunt and sometimes the monsters torture her, leaving her to die. They only think she's dead, but somehow, she has the ability of self-healing.
She's watched vampires die because her blood smells sweet to them. What her blood really is--is something that poisons and kills them. And, as far as she knows, her blood can heal the wounds of innocents. She has a sneaking feeling her blood can heal monsters who feed on her blood as well, but she has yet to test that theory, and she's not exactly in a mood to aide in healing evil. Maybe dying is out of the question.
Maybe she's like the alien she sees on television where they regenerate at some point. But that is preposterous because while the universe is a very spacious atmosphere, why would any alien life form want to visit earth at all? And besides, she can only imagine regenerating will just lead to her younger self again.
Zoe just laughs at these thoughts, and decides to put on some makeup to hide her paleness. She heads out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to turn on the T.V. to see if there is any news that might seem like a job for her. After hearing nothing on the television, and reading nothing in the newspapers, she decides to listen in on her police scanner to see if anything unusual is being called in.
Out of nowhere, she gets a weird humming noise coming from the scanner. She tries to tune it in and finds someone is calling up about some wild dogs out on the beach. She wonders how she picked up information on the beach, considering where she's at is inland, and the beach is about a good forty minutes from where she's at. She shrugs it off, and decides to check it out.
The drive will be good for her. It will clear her mind from this morning's thoughts. After all, this is supposed to be a new beginning for her. And she also figures that by the time she arrives there, the police will probably already be gone--that is--if they had already shown up, which she really doubts.
It's not that the police won't show, it's more of a case they will send animal control out for. They will most likely cruise on by and see if there is any strange activity going on. By the time she arrives, everyone is gone. In fact, there is a storm heading towards the beach.
The wind is blowing, and the clouds are menacing. She decides to turn and go home when she hears some whimpering. She looks over to see something gray buried in the sand, by the shore. She bends down to dig the sand away and discovers a baby wild dog of some sort. It looks like a baby coyote to her.
"Ma'am," she hears in the distance. She looks up to see someone calling out to her. It's a man, with weapons in his hand. She knows from his look that he's obviously a hunter. The giveaway is the fact he's wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt out in this Florida heat. The breeze in the summertime just before the storm is not a cool breeze like most people would think. It's a hot breeze with lots of humidity.
"Yes," Zoe finally answers the man. "How can I help you?"
She gets up to meet his gaze, and he stares in her eyes like he's staring into her soul. She notices he has very light blue eyes.
Crap, she thinks to herself.
The man doesn't notice Zoe's reaction. He stares at her and says, "Go home. There was a storm coming and you had decided to leave the beach. You didn't see anything else."
She stares at him for a moment, blinking, followed by a smile, and a loud laugh. The man stares at her in shock.
"You're a vampire!" She exclaims, but not so loudly for people around to hear, pending if they were around. "Vampires don't hunt."
"What are you?" He asks.
Her smile disappears. "Don't you mean to ask, 'Who am I?'"
"Um," he swallows. "Yes Ma'am. Sorry."
"I know it's customary to call me Ma'am, seeing as how we is in the south and all," she says in a southern accent. She tends to do that from time to time. She clears her throat and speaks in a normal, all-American accent. "But I would appreciate it if you didn't. I mean, I know I'm old, but I don't need a reminder."
"You're not old," he says. "Or at least, you don't look it."
"My name is Zoe."
"Nice to meet you," he extends a free hand. "My name is Charles." He pauses for a moment. Zoe can tell he wants to ask her something. A few moments pass, and he speaks. "How do you know about what I am, or what this pup is?"
She gives a small smile at him. "I am a hunter," she replies.
"You don't seem like a traditional hunter," he says.
"In most cases," she begins. "I don't need to carry weapons of any sort."
"Why is that?" He looks at her, confused.
"Isn't it obvious?"
He gives her an even more confusing look. "I'm not following."
"Don't you smell anything different?"
He gives it a thought for a moment and then says, "No."
"That is strange," she speaks.
"Vampires are attracted to my scent. They crave my blood even though my blood is toxic to them. Although," she starts tailing off to speak more to herself. "Maybe it only works on evil vampires. Then again, a thousand years or longer, and I've yet to meet a good vampire until today."
Charles, being the vampire that he is, hears every small word she's speaking. He clears his throat to speak.
"No offense, Ma--," she gives him a look on what he's about to say. "Um, Miss," he quickly corrects himself. "But how do you know I'm not evil?"
How does she know? She sometimes wonders these things sometimes herself. Every so often she seems to learn something new about herself. "I can just feel it, and besides," she takes a breath. "Aren't you a hunter? The last I checked, vampires don't need weapons to hunt humans. They have super-human strength and teeth so they can feed."
"This is true," he replies.
"So what do you eat to survive?" She asks bluntly.
"Blood bags," he replies.
"Huh," she is a bit surprised by his answer. "Good to know. So tell me," she begins a new subject. "Why did you want me to leave."
He looks down at the injured pup. "That's a shifter."
She looks down as well. "Yes, I am well aware of that."
"Shifters are evil," he continues.
"And so are vampires," she concludes. "But you don't seem to be evil now, do you?"
"I was born a hunter," he answers. "I was turned into a vampire."
"And I've known many hunters back in my day who were turned," she pauses. "And gave into their blood-lust side, and ultimately, I had to kill them." She can tell he's thinking about what she is telling him. "Tell me, where and when were you born?"
"I was born down here, roughly about five-hundred years ago."
"Were your parents not from here?" She has a questioning tone. She only asks this because of his light blue eyes and his dark blonde hair. He looks like he has a dark complexion under his pallid face.
"My mother was from England, and my father was from Spain. Time was really irrelevant back in those days."
"Tell me about it," she finds herself saying. After realizing what she said, Zoe quickly gets back on topic. "So they decided to come to America?"
He nods. "Yes. My mother didn't know she was pregnant with me."
She knew this statement was true back in those days. There was no need for him to go further.
Zoe starts hearing some noises and says, "It looks like we're not alone." She makes some suggestions that there are people nearby. Charles listens in, and hears them as well.
"Idiots," he says under his breath.
"I take it you've had run ins with these people before?"
"Every time the weather gets bad," he answers in a slow tone. "They think they're going to catch some waves, but I've told them a million times they need to be on the Atlantic side, not the Gulf."
"Ah, say no more," she says. She has been around long enough to know that each generation has it easier than the last. Everything is so simplistic now.
"Why don't we take the pup and head back to my place. It's right over there." He points to a house that is quite a walking distance.
"That's about two miles," she says.
"You can see that good?" Charles asks in wonder.
She shrugs, "I guess so." She never really gave it much thought until he asked her.
"If your house is close by," she begins. "Why weren't you here sooner?"
"I was here," Charles answers. "I was chasing a gang of shifters all the way to the beach here because they robbed a store, and killed four innocents in the process. I heard that one got shot, but I had no idea these shifters would have been so careless as to let their baby take a bullet."
Zoe closes her eyes. She is trying to sense why they would just abandon a baby here on the beach. "This baby wasn't theirs to begin with," she says in a robotic kind of tone.
"How do you know this?"
"I can hear them," she answers. "She, the baby, wound up with them by accident."
"Where are her parents?"
"I," she pauses and opens her eyes. "I don't know."
The noises get closer. She can tell those teenagers are nearby even though they should be in school. "Let's get going," she says as she picks up the pup. "Lead the way."
Charles doesn't say anything as they head to his house, walking in a very fast manner, but not fast enough for him to hear one of the kids call his name out. He chooses to ignore them.
"They sound friendly," Zoe says.
"Yeah," he answers. The truth is those kids aren't so bad, they just need some guidance."
They start walking very fast to his house. When they get inside, she asks, "Were you really going to hurt this pup?"
"No," he admits. "It's just a baby. They can't help how they're being raised."
"What were you going to do with him or her?"
He shrugs. "It is only a baby or a young child. They are still innocent after all. I was going to fix him or her up and set it loose."
"She's just a baby. You can't set her loose."
"What do you suppose I do?"
She shrugs. "We need to do some research on her."
She looks at Charles and can tell that he doesn't know what to do with a baby.
"You know what?" She begins. "I can take her home and find out her information, and you can go out and do whatever hunting it is that you do."
He says nothing. Zoe takes the silence as an agreement. She takes the baby and heads out.
"Wait," Charles says. Zoe stops dead in her tracks. She turns around to look at him.
"Yes."
He doesn't want to tell Zoe not to leave. But for some reason, he's afraid he'll never see her again. He doesn't know why, but he feels a strong connection to her. Of course, he doesn't want her to know this. He thinks of something to say.
"I'll help you find whatever information you're looking for. I'm pretty good on a computer."
"I'm pretty good as well," Zoe finds herself saying.
"Please let me help."
"Help?"
"Yes," he responds. "You know. Having a partner in crime or so to speak. When was the last time you had someone to help you out?"
It was about a thousand years ago with Anthony, Zoe thought. She doesn't want to let Charles know this. She doesn't even really know if she can truly trust a hunter who happens to be a vampire. She inspires breath and finally replies, "It's been a long time."
"Well, now you can have a new partner. Think of it as a new beginning for you."
New beginnings, she thought. That's what she was thinking to herself earlier today. Well, she can't argue with the very thing she told herself she would do today.
"To new beginnings," she says.
Written by ©Diana Jillian 2015
Forgotten Hope, Chapter Two
