Dark Season: The Complete Box Set Read Online Free PDF Page B

body right now. I nearly go and join them, but something holds me back. Looking at Shelley's hand, stretched out to me, I realize I have somewhere else to be tonight. So I give her my best 'sorry' smile, and she withdraws the hand and turns her attention back to Mr. Vampire, and I leave the room, leave the party, and eventually leave the whole damn town as I set off on my walk home.
    In fact, I end up walking the long way home. The very long way, out through the scrublands. So long, in fact, that a walk that should take me ten minutes ends up taking more than two hours. And it's all because I decide to head down to the edge of the forest again, where I was earlier. That's right: barely a day after getting nearly killed, I'm out on my own again, but I'm not scared. I'm on a mission.
    I'm looking for Patrick. Even if he's a fantasy, he's a fantasy I want to see again. We all need fantasies, right? Even if I walk around the scrubland every night for the rest of my life and never see him again, I won't stop believing he's real. All I need is a good fantasy and a house full of cats and I can be perfectly happy. And hey, you never know, there's always a chance he'll be here one night. Damn it, it's almost as if I'm starting to believe that he might be a real vampire...
    After nearly an hour of this, going backwards and forwards from belief to disbelief over and over, I realize it's useless. There's nothing here, and it's starting to rain. If the tunnel entrance really is here, then somehow I'm completely missing it, and if it isn't, then I'm wasting my time. With the rain getting heavier and heavier, I decide to call it a night. For a minute, I think about heading back to the party and getting into bed with Shelley and Mr. Vampire, and seeing how that goes. What's the worst that could happen? At least it'd be warm. But they're probably asleep by now, or he's reading her some poetry. Naked bodies are warm, but poetry would ruin the mood. Besides, I'm definitely a little drunk, and I'd just regret it in the morning.
    So I decide to go home alone. Again. And as I head back into town, I manage to slip in the mud and land face first. Although I'm not hurt, I stay on the ground for a moment, listening to the rain all around me, feeling the cold mud soak its way slowly through my clothes. Eventually, when it gets too cold and I feel too ridiculous, I haul myself to my feet and decide to get home as soon as possible.
    As I walk, I realize how stupid this whole thing is. There's no such thing as vampires. They're complete fiction, a horror story invented hundreds of years ago to scare children. The only people who believe in vampires these days are lonely hormonal teenage girls and pretentious, mascara-wearing guys. After all, if vampires existed, there'd be proof. They'd have been captured, studied, dissected and understood. Patrick and Vincent, that whole night... it wasn't real. Somehow, improbably, I happened to survive a mugging and then I ended up being rescued by a pair of fantasists. Vampires aren't real, and they never have been.
    When I get home, I realize my mother is still awake. I can hear her in the front room, beer cans clanking together. Really, mother?
    I creep to my room. I'm not remotely tired. In fact, I think I'm more awake than I've ever been. I look in the mirror, and staring back at me is the face of a girl who believed for a few hours that she had found something magical, but who now realizes she was deluded and stupid. So I think about other things. Should I dye my hair black? Start wearing more make-up? Get a tattoo, or a piercing? Plastic surgery? Fake breasts? New nose? Something has to change. But whatever I do, I'll need to earn some money first, because change isn't cheap. And there are no jobs around this town. So I'm stuck with what I've got, which isn't particularly great.
    What's the cheapest, easiest way to completely become someone else?
    After staring at my own face for a few minutes, in a completely