Tamatha Robertson

It was night, the perfect time to wake up and get out of bed…for a vampire, that is. So that was what Derek did. Derek was starving. No one had come to his castle for years, and he was hungry for blood, fresh blood, not the old, stale blood he had been forced to survive on for years on end. Pushing open the old, cracked wooden lid of his coffin, he surveyed his bedroom, which was located at the top of one of the two turrets of his castle. Red-backed spiders crept silently along their webs; stalking their prey, insects which had come to the misfortune of getting stuck in the spider’s sticky domain. A metal door in the corner, rusted, tightly bolted shut with a padlock. Beyond this door lay a mystery to outsiders, until the vampire struck, for this was where Derek kept his victims’ bodies, once he had finished with them. Derek sensed that it was a good night for hunting and walked over to the window, his long, black cape flowing out behind him. Looking out he saw that it was raining. He was about to move when something outside caught his eye, it was far away, still visible, but only just. It was a bright beam of a headlight, a car’s headlight. Derek grinned, narrowing his bloodshot eyes to slits. It was indeed a good night for hunting.

Tamatha sat at her desk, tapping her pencil. It was a beautiful, warm summer morning and she longed to go outside. But she couldn’t. Her two thousand word essay on old-fashioned castles was due on Monday and the only thing that she had written was the title and "By Tami Robertson". She should have started the essay sooner. Tami needed to do research, but it was Saturday and the only way to do research was to go to the library. She hated going to the library, but there was no way to avoid it. Sighing, Tami picked up her books and shoved them in her backpack, which she swang onto her back casually. Her parents were at her aunt and uncle’s house for a visit, so she scrawled a note saying that she was going to the library to do research and should be back in time for lunch, dinner at the latest. Leaving it on the table, she grabbed her car keys and locked the door on her way out. As she was starting her car, and reversing down the driveway she thought of her best friend, Akari, who went to the same university as Tami. Akari was a transfer student from Japan, and was very interested in Australian things and places, but had never been in an Australian library. Thinking that she might want to come along, Tami stopped off at Akari’s house first. Tami had never been to Akari’s house before, and therefore got lost a couple of times in the process. Then she and Akari went on their way to the library, but got lost. Trying to get to the library from Akari’s house is like trying to find your way out of a labyrinth, Tami thought. And it was true, too. Akari didn’t know much English but Tami knew quite a bit of Japanese, so she tried to ask Akari which way to go, but Akari didn’t seem to know where they were either. It started to get dark and after a while it started to rain. Gently at first, but then it got a lot faster.