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“There is no light!”

Sergio looked terrified. “You mean the Pope was wrong?”

That got him a firm slap on the cheek. “Don't blaspheme. ”

“I'm not!”

“Look! There was no light! Professor Sumner killed me and buried me in the forest! I woke up three days later and. . . and. . . ”

“Your professor killed you?” Sergio looked ready to fall over. “What do you mean he killed you?”

“This is the part where she tells us what happened, then disappears,” their grandmother said confidently.

“He killed me! He. . . . ” she made slicing motions across her throat. “-killed me! And buried me! But I woke up in the grave, crawled out and. . . and. . . it all went to hell-sorry, Grandmama-it went to hell from there. ”

Sergio took a long swig from his coke. “I don't believe it. ”

Amaliya hesitated, then darted across the room, and grabbed his coke from his hand before he could set it down. The world had strangely stood still as she had willed herself to move faster than her family could see. By their sudden look of terror, she had moved to fast for them to track. Both Sergio and her grandmother jumped to their feet.

Setting down the coke, Amaliya tucked her hair back from her face and looked at them sorrowfully.

They stared at her for a moment, and then they both ran out of the kitchen down the long hall to the living room.

“Oh, crap. ”

***

Amaliya tentatively crept down the hallway to the living room, past photos of her two aunts and her mother as children, of all the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren. As she stepped into the living room, she found her grandmother and cousin standing in the middle of the room, Sergio clutching an enormous crucifix from off the mantel over the fireplace.

Wincing, as she felt smacked by invisible white fire, she stepped back into the shadows of the hall. Her voice quivered when she said, “I'm not going to hurt you. ”

“Well, you kinda scared us shitless,” Sergio answered, and that was followed by the sound of their grandmother smacking him.

“I was just trying to show you that I'm not what I was,” Amaliya snapped. “You think I'm dead. Well, I am. I'm not a ghost. I'm something else and it’s not any fun! I hate it!” She burst into tears and her sobs filled the narrow hallway. The pictures of her family, the living and the dead, bore her no comfort. “I hate it! Okay! I hate it! And I. . . I. . . ”

“Put the cross away,” her grandmother's voice said softly. “She's family. ”

“What if. . . we can't trust her,” Sergio said in a stricken voice from the living room.

“Just put it away,” Grandmama repeated. “If she wanted to hurt us, she would have killed you when she had you alone and already offed me when she got here. ”

Sliding down the wall, Amaliya covered her face with her hands and felt her body quivering. Her heart was sluggish and she would have to leave soon. The great need would come and she would have to feed.

“I don't want to kill anyone! All I wanted to do was say goodbye,” she wailed softly. “To say I'm sorry for not being a better granddaughter. ”

Tender, gnarled hands patted her hair gently. “You've been a good girl, Amal. You have. I'm so sorry you are. . . what you are. ”

“What is she?” Sergio whispered, and got smacked again.

Amaliya slowly raised her head to look up at them. Her pale face was streaked with blood tears. “I think I'm a vampire. ”

Sergio and Grandmama both took a step back, gripping each others hands. The fear in their eyes made Amaliya miserable and she sighed.

“I won't hurt you. I promise. I was a little fucked up, sorry, Grandmama, the last two nights, but tonight I'm much better,” she said, trying to calm them.

Sergio raised one finger. “Define a little fucked up. ” He oofed as he got nailed in the stomach with an elbow.

“Remember Pete?”