Chapter One from Help! I’m Falling for the Vampire Next Door

By Celine Chatillon

Liquid Silver Books http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com/books/helpimfallingetc.htm

“Ohmigosh! It’s a bat! A bat! Get out! Get out!”

Melynda Kerpanik grabbed the broom standing in the corner of the emptied warehouse floor and started swatting at the flying nuisance. She wasn’t scared of the thing. Well, not exactly. After all, the sinister black, rabies-infested, flying rat was one of God’s creatures, too. But the idea that she was going to be sharing her home with a bat for the next three months caused a shiver of ungodly cold to rocket up her spine, and at five-foot-nine, it was more like an avalanche than a shiver. She certainly didn’t need anymore stress in her life. This job was supposed to alleviate it—not aggravate it.

She took another good swing at the squeaking mammal, guiding it toward a slightly ajar window. “Why did I ever let you talk me into this insane idea, Shelby Schwartz? I’ll never be able to fix this dump up. I’ll never be able to pay you back. You have a lot of explaining to do when you get here.”

Mel sighed, lowering the broom as her unwelcome visitor beat a hasty retreat toward a corner. She knew it wasn’t all Shelby’s fault that she was looking forward to spending the summer in a dilapidated brown brick warehouse in St. Louis. After all, Mel was the one who found herself homeless--and jobless—after the finalization of her divorce. Her options were few and far between. Only a total idiot would pass up an offer of a place to live and a chance to prove her artistic talent.

“I’m so suggestible, so damn easily manipulated,” Mel muttered, feeling frustrated with herself. “No wonder that Vegas hypnotist could make me recite the Pledge of Allegiance backwards while balancing that larger than life, glow-in-the-dark dildo on my head.”

“Mel, my dear, darling cousin, I’m here.” Shelby’s voice resonated from the floor below a few moments later. “You’ll have to send the freight elevator back down. I can’t climb the stairs in these killer heels.”

“One... minute...Shel... I... have... to...” A quick jab of the handle end and the bat got the message. It squeaked through the window opening and out into the dying sunlight of freedom. She bent over to catch her breath before shuffling over to hit the down switch. “All right. The elevator’s coming.”

“What’s all the fuss up here?” Shelby stepped out of the old cage contraption, put down her briefcase and kicked off the matching Italian leather shoes. She looked oddly at the upside-down broom in her cousin’s hand. “I thought you were sweeping the floors—not the ceiling beams of cobwebs.”

“Actually, I did a little of both.” Mel parked the broom by the switch and rubbed her dusty palms on the back of her faded T-shirt and worn jeans. “Did you know this floor already had an occupant?”

Shelby’s big blue eyes bulged in her pale round face. “You mean squatters?”

Mel tossed her black waist-length ponytail over her shoulder and laughed. “Real estate tycoons! Is that all you ever think about? Not getting your month’s rent?”

Shelby shrugged. “It’s important.”

“What I meant is there was a bat living up here. I’ve shooed him out, though. Hopefully, he’s not a family man.”

“How could you tell it was a male?”

“Instinct.”

Mel spun around on her dusty pink Converse high-top sneakers and crossed over to the opened window to shut it. “There. I don’t want him flying back in here. I need my beauty rest.”

“You don’t have to sleep here tonight.” Shelby took Mel’s large hands in her smaller ones, patting them as if she was the older of the two cousins instead of being three months younger. “You’ve always got a bed at my and Graham’s place. Don’t you like the attic room in our townhome?”

Mel coughed—twice. Once to gain time and once to rid her lungs of the afternoon’s accumulation of dust particles. She gently slipped from her cousin’s grasp and began to pace the open warehouse floor.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate her cousin—she did. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like the little attic bedroom in Shelby’s newly renovated home in the Soulard district—she did. What she didn’t care for was not having a place of her own.

Damn it! She was thirty-one years old and newly divorced. She needed her own space, her own privacy, her own life. She needed to prove to that stupid ex of hers that she could make it on her own in the interior decorating business, that she didn’t have to teach kindergartners how to finger paint ever again. Most of all, Mel needed a home of her own to create in, to relax in, to be her normally messy self in.

Graham and Shelby were typical straight-laced business types suffering from an obsessive-compulsive cleanliness disorder. They threatened to keel over in a dead faint if she failed to put the toothpaste cap back on the tube. Mel couldn’t take that kind of stress anymore after living with them for two weeks. She had to get out.

“I adore your brownstone, Shel, but the deal was that I move into this old warehouse and help you turn it into glamorous apartment lofts for rich city dwellers. I can’t design and paint in my head—I need room to do that in, and I need inspiration, too. What better place is there for me to live than the building I’m helping to redecorate?”

“But it’s so...so desolate.”

Mel stopped her pacing. “Well, yes it is. But it won’t be for long. The carpenters are coming to drop a few walls tomorrow, right? I’ll have a proper front door then. And then the plumbers will get the bathroom and kitchen plumbed and the electricians can do the wiring while I’m painting by sunlight.”

“There aren’t any heat ducts installed yet,” Shelby protested.

“It’s summer in St. Louis. I won’t freeze. In fact, if I don’t open the windows I’ll die from the heat and humidity. I guess I’ll have to chance Mr. Bat flying back in here to hang in the rafters.”

“Then you’ll need some kind of window screens. I’ll talk to the contractor about getting those put in first thing.”

Mel wrapped her arms around her cousin in a bear hug. “Now, you’re talking, cuz.”

Shelby stiffened, then took a step backward and quickly brushed her navy suit jacket clean. “It’s not that I don’t love ya, Melynda, but you’re a filthy mess. Where are you going to bathe until the bathroom is completed?”

“Your place?”

“I guess so. Your only other alternative is to borrow your Mr. Drackle’s shower downstairs. And even though he’s an artist like yourself, I’m not sure he’d appreciate your intrusion.”

Mel’s eyes narrowed. “You saying he’s gay?”

Shelby bit her lip in thought. “No, I don’t think so. But he’s not a real sociable person. He barely said three words to me when I told him my cousin was going to fix up the top floors for me to sell. I guess he thought he’d have this entire warehouse to himself forever and ever.”

“He lives in the basement?” Mel couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live in the basement of a warehouse. When Shelby had informed her that the building already had an occupant—and that he lived in the basement—she had assumed the man must be an old codger missing a few loose screws. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“He told me living in a cellar helps with his photography. You know what I mean. He’s got a darkroom. He says sunlight ruins the film and all that. But I’ve rarely seen him outside any earlier than dusk, and he’s got a sign on his door that says ‘Do Not Disturb’ all day long.”

“A real night owl, you’d say?”

“Definitely. Like, he’s the most perfect specimen of manhood I’ve ever seen, but he’s a first-class hermit.” She gently elbowed Mel’s side and winked. “I guess artists, on the whole, are prone to depression and psychotic tendencies, right?”

Yes, but only slightly less than business types, Mel thought, remembering how green Graham’s face had turned when she stuck the peanut butter knife back into the jelly jar while making sandwiches. She winked and gave her cousin a patronizing nod. “Don’t worry. I’ll respect your first tenant’s privacy. I can understand a photographer wanting peace and quiet—and space—to be creative in.”

“You two should get along famously then.” Shelby dusted off the elbow of her jacket where it had touched Mel’s grimy shirt and then shook the dirt loose of her hands. “Well, I’d better be getting home and checking up on Graham. Don’t forget our garden hose is yours for the asking.”

“It’s just the shadow of a cloud passing over the moon,” Mel told herself for the hundredth time, pulling the covers over her chin. “There are absolutely no ghosts haunting this warehouse. There are no ghosts, bats, or other things that go bump in the night in this building...”

Settling down under the quilt, she said a quick prayer and screwed her eyes shut. She had to get used to living in this old place. She had to get used to the moan of the floorboards and the howl of the wind rushing against the old windowpanes. The construction workers couldn’t eliminate all of the noises of a hundred year old building stuck in the middle of a two hundred forty year old city. Besides, the creaks and squeaks gave the place “charm”, right?

Luckily for her, she had garnered most of the furniture she and Ken had accumulated in their five year mistake of a marriage. Their old mattress and box spring were a bit lumpy but tolerable. It was nice to retrieve her belongings out of storage where they’d been kept for the past few weeks while she decided how she wanted to live her life post-divorce. She knew she should be eternally grateful to have a good friend like her cousin Shelby, someone willing to go out on a limb and hire an untested, unemployed artist to renovate her latest real estate acquisition.

After all, the St. Louis Yellow Pages practically overflowed with interior decorators and architectural renovation firms. Shelby could have hired any number of people. Mel had to do a good job—not just to prove to herself and her ex that she was capable of making a living, but to prove to the world she possessed more than just a winsome smile and a cool white streak running down the center of her long, blue-black hair. She possessed true artistic talent.

The whine of the freight elevator’s motor interrupted her vain attempts at sleeping.

“What the...” Mel sat up and stared at her alarm clock sitting on an old crate beside the mattress. “It’s friggin’ three o’clock in the morning! What the hell is he taking photos of at three o’clock in the morning?”

Disgusted and fully awake, Mel rose and shuffled over to the front windows. One good thing she could say about old warehouses being turned into lofts was the fact that there were plenty of windows to allow natural light to stream in. Tonight’s full moon made this architectural bonus even more obvious.

Peering down from the second floor to the main entrance of the building, Mel caught sight of a tall, dark figure exiting. His slightly longer than shoulder-length dark hair was casually tied back like hers had been earlier, but there was no mistaking that this figure was a man. All man. Broad shoulders and a muscular backside were consummately displayed under a tight, white T-shirt and butt-hugging jeans. Hulking big black biker boots completed her neighbor’s ensemble. He sauntered across the parking lot, every stride full of power and grace... and something else that drew her eyes to his form. Animal magnetism perhaps?

A camera bag on one arm and a tripod tucked under the other only testified to the fact that he wasn’t a late night criminal looking for a car to steal or a home to break into. He really was a photographer shooting night pictures.

Her eyes followed his nice ass to a sporty black pick-up with a big Harley-Davidson logo painted on the tailgate parked a little way down the street. Sheesh! She’d thought she had left the good ol’ boys and their big pick-em-up trucks with gun racks back in Kansas. Her neighbor’s choice of transportation proved to be more than just a macho attempt to impress yokels, however. His tripod and camera bag fit neatly in the hold besides other boxes which probably held props and other camera gear.

Mel sighed. Too bad she hadn’t caught a good look at this dark Adonis’s face. His backside looked nice—real nice.

“Okay, now what. I’m awake and horny and it’s three a.m. What can I do?”

Since her vibrator was out of batteries she headed toward her meager stash of food and rummaged around in the boxes for a breakfast bar instead. Ripping the paper, she bit into the snack before she knew what flavor it was.

“Ugh!” She turned and spit the offensive morsel out into a grocery bag she was using as a trash receptacle. “Strawberry-banana. Ken’s favorite. I guess I packed up everything in the pantry without checking the labels. Oh, well. Maybe I can pass the box along to my neighbor downstairs?”

My neighbor. Suddenly Mel was overcome with curiosity. What kind of photographs did her neighbor take? Moonlit cityscapes? St. Louis’s famous Gateway Arch covered in gleaming sterling silver definitely made an interesting night subject.

Or was this Drackle-guy into something more nefarious? Photography of a different kind that people who lived in the light wouldn’t approve of... Was he a pornographer? Did he run a web site for pedophiles and other perverts? Was she living atop a known criminal wanted by the FBI for trafficking in illicit images of juveniles?

Perhaps he wasn’t a photographer at all, and his camera gear was just a front. He could be a trafficker in human souls, a gang-member, a modern-day slave runner kidnapping and selling girls into sexual slavery. She had read an article recently online on that very subject. The reporter had claimed that the crime was more widespread than the authorities thought. And Shel had said that Drackle acted extremely anti-social.

Mel’s mouth turned bone dry. She grabbed her water bottle and took a long gulp. She knew she was letting her sleep-deprived wits get the best of her, but she had to find out who was living next door to her. She had to know more about her neighbor.

She slipped into her cranberry-colored, silk bathrobe and matching flip-flops and headed toward the stairs, only pausing to retrieve a small screwdriver and a small flashlight from her trusty toolbox. She’d find exactly out who was living in the basement apartment. She’d put her fears at ease.

Reaching the first floor, she turned into a side passageway and maneuvered down an even narrower staircase until the came face-to-face with his door. The “Do Not Disturb” sign wasn’t present.

“I guess it’s okay for me to knock then—and try the handle a little.”

The door slowly drifted open. Mel’s heart skipped a beat.

“Dang... The guy doesn’t even lock his door. He’s either very trusting or an ax murderer.”

She slipped the screwdriver into her robe pocket and tip-toed into the room, shining the flashlight into the far corners. It appeared to be an ordinary living room—a bit on the cluttered, single-guy décor side, but an ordinary enough space. The black lacquered end tables and white leather sofa were nice touches.

“Okay, so he doesn’t have school girls chained to the walls. But I’ve got to check out the whole place just to be sure.”

She gulped hard and carefully made her way through piles of unfolded laundry and stacks of glossy art house-style magazines until she found the kitchen. Ordinary too. She opened the refrigerator and looked inside.

“Ew! A whole carcass of red meat and soup bones and beer, too. Definitely a bachelor. I guess he’s into the Adkins Diet or something.” She shut the fridge door and checked out the doors to the right and left of the kitchen.

The bathroom said “single guy” all over it. Towels congregated on the floor and toothpaste crusted on the sink. The mirror was completely obliterated under a layer soap scum. However did he part his hair? The other door’s sign announced “Darkroom: Knock First”. Mel gently pushed the door open and switched on the red gel-covered light.

Black and white photos hung drying from a line across the narrow room. Cityscapes and unusual angles of the Arch and a myriad of river shots. The Mississippi glowing like a river of gems in the moonlight as late night barges floated silently past. Lightning bolts streaking across the sky like some kind of twisted wire slicing the world in half.

“Looks like your typical darkroom. The guy has real talent.” Mel sighed. “Why did I think he was a pornographer?”

Because you haven’t found his bedroom yet, an inner voice warned her. Don’t make too rash a decision about a stranger until you’ve got all the facts. Remember how naïve you were when you were dating Ken? Get wise, girlfriend! Check his bedroom out.

She backed out of the small darkroom and switched off its light. Shining her flashlight down a small hallway she caught sight of the laundry area and two doors.

“Door number one or door number two?”

She chose the door on the right and boldly opened it. How anti-climatic. It was his home office—computer set-up, books galore, papers and news clippings and magazine articles strewn across a wide desk. All photography related materials as far as she could tell. Nothing scary here.

Mel turned around to check out the other door. To her great surprise, it was locked. Her pulse raced and her breathing grew shallow. Slowly, she retrieved the screwdriver from her pocket, stuck the flashlight under her chin and began to work on the lock.

“How strange. The front door he leaves off the latch, but he locks his bedroom door. Now, what could be behind this door that he doesn’t want people to get into—or get out of?”

“What indeed?” a deep voice answered as large hands captured her own. The screwdriver slipped from Mel’s fingers as the flashlight tumbled to the floor. “What indeed.”