Falling for the Vampire

Jonathan sighed and absentmindedly continued to trace circles on the countertop. Another quiet, boring, late shift at Ghouls ‘n Brews stretched out in front of him, like the shift before this one and the shift before that one.

Ghouls ‘n Brews stayed open late into the evening year-round, even in the summer when the college crowd was out of town. Jonathan was separated from them by a graduation ceremony and a failed application to Van Gannison’s Master’s program.

He felt a pang of something akin to embarrassment to identify himself apart from them. Jonathan felt briefly as if he could see the years of small moments like that stretching in front of him, forever remembering he’d never be that young again.

Jonathan checked his phone, confirming that it had only been a minute since he last checked the time. Still four hours left until he could close the café, and he hadn’t served a single customer in the last half hour.

As he often did, Jonathan took some time to reflect. His peers had all moved on from Van Gannison, and were all in different parts of the country, starting careers. But he had chosen to stay, and sometimes he couldn’t even explain why that was.

Of course, it somehow always came back to the Master’s program. He had spent all four years of his undergraduate studies planning to apply to the program, building relationships with his professors and laying the groundwork for his thesis proposal, only to be rejected.

He was told by his advisor that, while interesting, his thesis wouldn't get him into Van Gannison. Jonathan found out later that, in all actuality, his advisor had already approved another student’s thesis, and his was the one they were least interested in.

It had stung, stung like nothing before in Jonathan’s life. Very rarely had he been rejected, and never for something he cared about so personally. Jonathan had passed through the end of the semester almost in a daze until one of his friends asked him about his plans after college and where he would go.

At that exact moment, Jonathan decided what he would do. He would stay in San Luis, continue his lease at the cheap apartment he was staying at, pick up more shifts to pay his rent, and spend his free time crafting his thesis independently. Who says he needed a thesis advisor to write? To study? He wouldn’t have access to Van Gannison’s full library, but surely, he could find sources online.

His parents were a little confused, but when he promised he’d be able to cover his rent and bills, they agreed to drop it, for now, under the pretense that he’d be applying to the Master’s program again the following year. Privately, Jonathan wasn’t sure he would, but to go down that rabbit hole, he would need to get published somehow, and maybe he could find a professor more aligned with his subject.

Jonathan sighed once again. He hadn’t been prepared for two things. The first was how much time he needed to work to support himself. The first month had been closer than he liked to remember, and his credit card was still closer to its limit than he enjoyed. Things were better now, but that meant less time for studying.

The second was motivation. More times than he liked to admit, he had sat down in front of his computer or collected a stack of books at the San Luis Public Library and simply stared at the content without comprehension. Summer was almost over. Students would return soon, and he had only managed to struggle to the five-page mark.

This, combined with only having limited time to spend working on the thesis, kept Jonathan second-guessing what he was trying to accomplish. Maybe the professor was right. Maybe his chosen subject, while interesting, wouldn’t bear fruit on closer inspection.

But then, what would he do? He had banked on getting into the Master’s program and publishing his thesis, and from there, perhaps going further into academia or starting a career in another field. Without getting into the program,

Jonathan felt like any other option was out of reach.

He sighed again and checked his phone. Two minutes had passed.

Jonathan looked up, drumming his fingers on the countertop as he scanned the room. Low-hung, orange-shaded lights cast a mellow mood somewhat at odds with the low-volume grunge music the owner insisted on. Old movie posters were hung up on the walls of horror flicks he’d never heard of and could have been made up for all he knew.

As Jonathan’s eyes wandered over the tables, starting from the ones by the door and sweeping towards a nearby wall, he almost jumped out of his skin as he realized someone had come in and was seated at a table far to his right.

‘When the hell did he get here?’ he thought, ‘And how did he sit down without me noticing?’ Jonathan shook the disbelief off. He must have been more zoned out than he thought. Did this guy come in from the back?

In any case, the customer was already seated. “W-Welcome!” Jonathan weakly called out to the customer.

The man merely raised a pale hand and let it drop in a strangely graceful, fluid movement. He was dressed all in black, wearing a long black jacket of some kind, black pants and black shoes. A bold choice for summer in California, but something told Jonathan this was more of a choice in style rather than any attempt at practicality.

Jonathan stared at the customer directly, unable to look away now that he had seen him. There was something about the figure seated at that far table that he couldn’t place. He had a slight frame, but he looked from behind to almost be folding himself in; it was something in the angle of his shoulders. It almost resembled someone much taller sitting in a chair too small.

The man made no move to come to the counter to order, but Jonathan blinked and found himself going through the motions of making a cappuccino. He felt a sudden surge of disorientation, groaned, and almost dropped the mug he held. He set the cup down and put his hands to the side of his head, a sudden headache pounding between his ears.

The pain surged from the back of his head through his eyes, and he gasped in its sudden absence as he jerked his head up. Before he knew it, he was staring into dark, pitch-black pupils. Jonathan was falling deeper and deeper into a pale, gaunt face. That’s when the darkness building at the edges of his vision threatened to take him over…