Page 161 of Hunters and Prey

Black Dreams

JC Andrijeski

What’s The Last Thing You Remember?

IFELT MYSELF IN THAT place again, in the world where the trees grew strangely, where the sea didn’t look right, where the air tasted different, where it filled my lungs differently, hit my brain differently, infused my body differently––almost like it had an extra kick of oxygen.

I was inside their house.

I heard voices.

Adult voices, a child maybe, or perhaps more than one.

They were talking, playing with someone––or perhaps something, maybe an animal, some kind of pet. I felt small fingers tug on mine, wanting me to go outdoors, wanting me to play with them. I heard a child laugh, right before the voices receded, growing quieter.

Their home was so quiet. I didn’t even hear a clock tick.

No electricity hummed in the walls, no compressors clicked on or off, no air conditioning kicked in when it got too warm, no coffeepot gurgled.

It was like a church.

Like the quietness itself, everything about it was off in large and small ways.

The wooden floors that may not have been wood.

The woven rugs with the odd, strangely aquatic patterns. The wall unit made of colorful round rocks, smooth to the touch. The long window that wrapped around the whole of the front room. The opening in the ceiling with a firepit in the center, like it was a Navajo hogan or some other traditional Native American home. The strange, clear water-piping that came from the ceiling and somehow defied gravity as it held water over an enormous, stone basin of a sink. The liquid, shape-changing monitor that clung silent and nearly invisible on one wall.

Looking away from all of that, I blinked, fighting to clear my mind.

A second later, I also cleared my throat.

“My uncle,” I explained, exhaling as I thought about my words. “He’s starting some kind of war. He’s using the humans to do it, mainly in the United States. He’s got them rioting at the borders. He’s got them afraid of vampires––”

“Vampires?”

The woman sitting across from me, a shockingly beautiful woman with long dark hair, high cheekbones, stunning eyes, lean arms and legs, sprawled on a long, sky-blue piece of furniture that was halfway between a bench and a couch. Blinking, she glanced at the male at her side, then looked back at me, her eyebrow arched.

“Did you say vampires, sister?”

The male said nothing.

He just sat there, watching me silently.

I nodded, returning my gaze to her.

“Yes,” I said with a sigh. “I know how insane that sounds. But yes, we have vampires on my world. Real ones.”

Again, the two of them exchanged looks.

Again, I felt far more than that pass between them.

“How close are they to the myths?” the woman said, her voice openly curious.

I looked at her, at those stunning, light-colored eyes.

“Pretty close,” I admitted. “I mean, we’re still figuring out a lot about them, biology-wise. Like how they reproduce. Their exact physical abilities. The effects their venom has on humans and seers. Especially seers,” I added grimly. “They seem to affect us a lot more than humans, unfortunately… our people have a tendency to turn into junkies on their venom. My own husband…”

I trailed, not wanting to finish that sentence.

---