style="font-size:15px;"> Finally Caitlin sat up, realizing something was wrong. Ruth wouldn’t stop whining, louder and louder, then finally barking at her – she’d never known her to act this way.
“What is it, Ruth?” Caitlin asked.
Ruth barked again, then turned and ran from the room, towards the front door. Caitlin looked down and in the dim light made out a trail of muddy pawprints all over the carpet. Ruth must have been outside, Caitlin realized. The front door must be open.
Caitlin hurried to her feet, realizing that Ruth was trying to tell her something, to lead her somewhere.
Scarlet, she thought.
Ruth barked again, and Caitlin felt that was it. Ruth was trying to lead her to Scarlet.
Caitlin ran out the room, her heart pounding. She didn’t want to waste a second by running upstairs to get Caleb. She tore through the living room, through the parlor, and out the front door. Where could Ruth have possibly found Scarlet? she wondered. Was she safe? Was she alive?
Caitlin flooded with panic as she burst out the front door, already ajar from Ruth, who had somehow managed to get it open, and out onto the front porch. The world was filled with the sound of pouring rain. There was a soft, rumbling thunder, and a flash of lightning in the breaking dawn, and in the soft gray light, the torrential rain slammed down to earth.
Caitlin stopped at the top of the steps, as she saw where Ruth had went. She flooded with panic. Lightning filled the sky, and there, before her, was an image that traumatized her – one that lodged in her brain, one that she would never forget as long as she lived.
There, lying on the front lawn, curled up in a ball, unconscious, naked, was her daughter. Scarlet. Exposed to the rain.
Pacing over her, barking like crazy, Ruth looked back and forth between Caitlin and Scarlet.
Caitlin burst into action: she ran down the steps, tripping over them as she went, screaming out in terror as she ran for her daughter. Her mind raced with a million scenarios of what might have happened to her, where she might have went, how she might have returned. Whether she was healthy. Alive.
The worst possible scenarios all flashed through her mind at once, as Caitlin ran in the muddy grass, slipping and sliding.
“SCARLET!” Caitlin shrieked, and another clap of thunder met her cry.
It was the wail of a mother beside herself with grief, the wail of a mother who could not stop whaling as she ran to Scarlet, knelt beside her, scooped her up in her arms, and prayed to God with everything she had that her daughter was still alive.
Chapter Four
Caitlin sat beside Caleb in the stark-white hospital room, watching Scarlet sleep. The two of them sat in separate chairs, a few feet away from one another, each lost in their own world. They were both so emotionally drained, so panic-stricken, they hadn’t any energy left to even speak to each other. In all the other tough times in their marriage, they’d always found solace in each other; but this time was different. The incidents of the last day had been too dramatic, too terrifying. Caitlin was still in shock; so, she knew, was Caleb. They each needed to process it their own way.
They sat there in silence, watching Scarlet sleep, the only sound in the room the beeping of the various machines. Caitlin was afraid to take her eyes off her daughter, afraid that if she looked away, she might lose her again. The clock over Scarlet’s head read 8 AM, and Caitlin realized she’d been sitting there for the last three hours, ever since they’d admitted her, watching. Scarlet had not awakened since they’d brought her in.
The nurses had reassured them several times that all of Scarlet’s vitals were normal, that she was just in a deep sleep, and that there was nothing to worry about. On the one hand, Caitlin was greatly relieved; but on the other, she wouldn’t really believe it until she saw for herself, saw Scarlet awake, her eyes open, saw the same old Scarlet she had always known – happy and healthy.
Caitlin ran through in her mind, again and again, the events of the past 24 hours. But no matter how she dissected them, none of it made any sense – unless she returned to the same conclusion: that Aiden was right. Her journal was real. That her daughter was a vampire. That she, Caitlin, once had been one, too. That she had traveled back in time, had found the antidote, and had chosen to return here, to this time and place, to live out a normal life. The Scarlet was the last remaining vampire on earth.
The thought terrified Caitlin. She was so protective of Scarlet and determined that nothing bad should happen to her; yet, at the same time, she also felt a responsibility to humanity, felt that if all this were true, she could not allow Scarlet to spread it, to re-create the vampire race once again. She hardly knew what to do, and she didn’t know what to think, or to believe. Her own husband didn’t believe her, and she could hardly blame him. She hardly believed herself.
“Mom?”
Caitlin sat upright as she saw Scarlet’s eyes flutter open. She jumped up from her chair, and ran over to her bedside, as did Caleb. The two hovered over Scarlet as she slowly opened her big, beautiful eyes, lit up by the morning sun coming through the window.
“Scarlet? Honey?” Caitlin asked. “Are you okay?”
Scarlet yawned and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, then slowly rolled over onto her back, blinking, disoriented.
“Where am I?” she asked.
Caitlin was flooded with relief at the sound of her voice; she sounded, and looked, like the same old Scarlet. There was strength in her voice, strength in her movements, in her facial expressions. In fact, to Caitlin’s utter surprise, Scarlet looked completely normal, as if she’d just casually awakened from a long sleep.
“Scarlet, do you remember anything that happened?” Caitlin asked.
Scarlet turned and looked at her, then slowly propped herself up on one elbow, sitting up partially.
“Am I in a hospital?” she asked, surprised. She surveyed the room, realizing she was. “OMG. What am I doing here? Did I get really sick?”
Caitlin felt an even greater sense of relief at her words – and her motions. She was sitting up. She was alert. Her voice was completely normal. Her eyes were bright. It was hard to believe that anything abnormal had ever happened.
Caitlin thought about how to respond, how much to tell her. She didn’t want to scare her.
“Yes honey,” Caleb interjected. “You were sick. The nurse sent you home from school, and we took you to the hospital this morning. Do you remember any of it?”
“I remember being sent home from school… being in bed, in my room… then…” She furrowed her brow, as if trying to remember. “… that’s about it. What was it? A fever? Whatever. I feel fine now.”
Caleb and Caitlin both exchanged a confused look. Clearly, Scarlet seemed normal, and didn’t remember anything.
Should we tell her? Caitlin wondered.
She didn’t want to terrify her. But at the same time, she felt that she needed to know, needed to know some part of what happened to her. She could sense Caleb was thinking the same thing.
“Scarlet, honey,” Caitlin began softly, trying to think how to best phrase her words, “when you were sick, you jumped
