after the long winters nap

[Licones]

"What day is it?" squinting at the faint glow of the bedside clock, she stretched and slowly sat up and reached for her phone. No signal as usual, but the calendar worked. So she'd slept for a week this time. The passage of time was hard to follow when one lived underground in solitude. She'd have to go somewhere above ground for her phone to work. Not that it mattered. Since feeding on too many drug addicts and zombies, she'd lapsed into a year-long coma and no one had called her since she woke.

The hunger pangs woke her, demanding that she go out to feed. She’d learned to control the desires just as she’d learned to hide in the darkness but tonight’s hunger would not be satisfied by a rat. Bottled blood just didn't have the same taste as taking it from the source, fueled by a beating heart and warmed. She would have to go outside. She glanced again at the calendar on her phone. February. That meant cold and likely snow. She yawned softly as she padded over to the closet, and pulled out appropriate winter attire. Black jeans, grey wool sweater with a black cotton turtleneck. thick socks with fur lined boots. She pulled her hair back into a loose braid, tucking the loose hairs as best she could. The lack of a reflection made fancy hair styles difficult. It used to bother her

Blending into society meant not standing out, so she tied the wool scarf around her neck and zipped the long leather coat. Why her sire had dragged her to this excuse for civilization in the frozen Canadian woods she'd never understood. She missed the warmth of summer evenings on Cape Cod, with winters in the Florida Keys. That was a lifetime ago, when her blood was warm and her heart beat a steady rhythm. That was when the mask she wore was that she was happy. Money might make for a comfortable lifestyle but didn't mean it was a happy one. Chad had promised her eternal life but hadn't gone into a lot of detail about the rest of the deal. Once the decision was made, it was done quickly and the next thing she knew, she was in Harper’s Rock. It had been a blur that she barely remembered. She didn't know where he'd gone, just that she didn't feel his presence when she woke.

The icy wind blasted her face as soon as she stepped outside the entrance to her underground quarters. "Damn, who pissed off mother nature?" she mumbled. A passing man must have overheard her because she could hear a deep voiced chuckle. Whoever said vampires were not affected by cold never came to Harpers Rock in February. Chalk that up to another myth. She'd found many in the myriad of vampire novels that filled her kindle. It gave her perverse pleasure to read the way humans spun details of vampiric life. None got it right but it was amusing to see what they thought.

Snow crunching under her boots as she kept a good pace along the street, her eyes alert for a potential food source, she was beginning to think it was futile. A nearby internet café was a welcome break. At least it would be warm.