Dawn Unleashed

She was nervous about leaving home for the first time on her own. Her apartment was stripped bare of all the tidbits of this and that that were hers. Empty for a new tenant. She'd be home to visit as often as she could. She'd have visitors from time to time in the city. She longed to unpack the boxes and stay put here in the familiarity of her past. She pressed on into the uncertainty of the future with Cole at her side.

Her mom cried big alligator tears and made her promise to call every day. Her dad, in his sullen nature, broke down and squeezed her as tightly as she could take in a big, burly bear hug. Cole insisted in driving her to the city. She reminded him that she had a car and could drive herself. He stubbornly shook his head and loaded up her things, reminding her that on campus she wouldn't need the car and it would be more of an eyesore than a mode of transportation. Maggie couldn't argue that. Secretly, she was glad for the company.

The miles ticked by in a companionable silence. Cole didn't push the speed limit too far. He didn't pass other cars on the interstate. He took his time, savoring every minute he could steal away with Maggie before he had to leave her and return to the loneliness of his woods. He'd spoken with Marcus and had entrusted Maggie to his care. She was as safe in the city as he could get her. The Guardians and Marcus would see after her. Bianca and Marcus had given him their word. He'd even managed to get David and Nora on board with the plan.

He wanted to pull the truck onto the shoulder of the interstate and beg her to stay. She could keep her tiny, shoebox apartment and take online classes. He'd be her study partner. They'd make it work. He didn't ask though. He kept the truck on the road. The miles passing too damned fast, headed east into the city. She needed this chance to explore life. He needed for her to do it on her own. Discover all that she could and live the experiences that he'd so willingly given up. She was human and to be human meant to change and to grow. He had to give her this chance.

Maggie knew the exit to take to get to the college. When the truck broke from the flow of traffic and slowed onto an off ramp bound for the suburbs, she asked, "Where are we going?"

Cole adjusted the dark lenses and stared straight ahead. He braked at the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp and turned right. "To see an old friend. There's someone I want you to meet." He drove the familiar streets of his old corner of the universe. Marveling at how much that tiny piece of his former life had expanded into something much, much larger than he'd ever dreamed. He was struck by the realization that humans weren't the only ones who grew and evolved. He had transformed like a chrysalis into a butterfly, into a new person. These streets and all they held for him were remnants of another life.

He drove through the center of the business section of the suburbs with its little shops, neon signs, and dingy windows and headed out of tow past the rows of cookie cutter tract houses and neighborhoods into a quieter part of town. The dead had no need for a Subway or two-hour photo shops. The wrought iron fence stretched out along the side of the road bordered by a colorful wash of tall maples and oaks, all decked out in their fall finery.

Maggie rolled down her window to capture her last breath of truly clean, crisp air before the smog of the city fogged her senses. She'd miss this the most. The scent of fall ripe on the breeze and the quiet splendor of a warm, sunny afternoon. The graves stretched out in neat rows of granite and marble. Angels and crosses, memorials to the dead from the living rose up here and there, towering over the lesser, but not less important markers. The narrow drive of gravel bleached dazzling white by the sun wound through the graves. Cole drove, idling along and then finally pulled to the side of the lane

Maggie opened her door and hopped down out of the truck. Grateful for the chance to stretch her legs and back after such a long ride. The day was resplendent. One of the last truly beautiful days before the cold and rains of fall settled in. Today was one of the first days of Indian summer. That fragile time after summer and true fall began. She slid her hand into Cole's and walked through the crunch of grass, singed brown by the last wave of August's relentless heat. Mature oaks and maples lifted their orange and yellow tinged heads to the sky in tribute to the changing seasons. Clumps of pines clustered here and there, tinting the air with their pungent fragrance.

Cole squeezed Maggie's hand and guided her through the knee-high rows of headstones. Someone else might think he was crazy at this introduction. She would not. She understood how important this meeting was to him. A cool breeze rattled through the dry leaves overhead. They fluttered from their branches in a shower of orange, gold, and russet red. Flowers decorated the top of the grave he sought. Brilliantly colored petals and silky bows bobbed and danced on the currents of air. No one forgot her. No one forgot Rachael.

He brushed away the fallen leaves and spread his jacket out over the ground. The grass was dry and dusty, ravaged by the harsh heat of summer. Gently, he pulled Maggie down to sit beside him at the base of the headstone. His voice was reverent, a respectful whisper as he spoke the introduction, "Rachael, this is Maggie, my girlfriend, my best friend, and maybe, someday, if she'll have me, my mate."

Maggie was stunned beyond words. Her eyes followed the trail of Cole's fingers, lovingly tracing over the etched letters of the headstone. His proposal left her shocked and she stammered out a greeting. "Hello Rachael." Cole didn't present her with a ring. Nothing was more treasured to her than the glimpse he'd given her into his heart.

They sat at the headstone chatting with Rachael. Perhaps, to somebody else the day might have seemed like a waste. But, to them it did not. Rachael couldn't answer. To some, there were doubts that from her heavenly perch she heard a word they'd said. But, to them, she was real, as real as if she'd been sitting on the ground beside them. Present in the whispering winds, her voice a chatter of birdcalls, and all around them in the quiet majesty of this place of remembering.

The sun sank lazily into the western sky, dipping below the tree rows and the air had grown cool with the promise of darkness before they stood to leave. Cole shook his jacket free of the dried leaves that stuck to the thick denim cloth. Maggie brushed stray bits of dried grass from the hem of her jeans. They kissed, deeply, with Rachael as their only witness, and whispered the confessions of their hearts to one another.

Maggie slipped free from Cole's grip and motioned for him to leave her alone with Rachael and her thoughts for a minute. He didn't question. He walked over to the truck and cranked the engine to give her some privacy. She crouched at the grave unsure of what to say. Rachael had saved Cole in ways that Maggie could not imagine. In the giving of her heart and her life, she'd pulled Cole back from the edge of an inevitable spiral from which he might have never returned. If not for Rachael, Maggie would have never met Cole at all. She never would have found her love. She would have known a different destiny and a different future than the one that waited for her now. She owed this girl she never met and who Cole loved with such devotion a great deal. "Thank you Rachael, thank you for saving him. I promise you, I'll take care of him and I'll love him with all that I am. Forever."

Maggie climbed into the truck and Cole drove into the bright lights that glittered like thousands of tiny stars in the distance. Today was the first day of a new adventure. Today was the first day of the rest of her life. Her future didn't rest in the academia of college. Her life wouldn't be discovered in some textbook. College was just a temporary stop along the way. The city was a place she hung her hat but would never call home. Her future would always be with Cole and the little town, no more than a pit stop to most, she called home.

Epilogue

Winter had set its harshness on the land. Crushing it with an iron fist encapsulated in ice and snow and an endless wind that howled relentlessly. Hunger and the insanity that followed tore at the shreds left of Carter's mind. Yessette was nothing but a shell of her former beauty crouched at his feet, begging him for a scrap, the tiniest morsel of food. She was gone. Her body and her mind lost to the raging hunger that knew no loyalty or friend. She suffered and he suffered along side her. He was ready for death to take him and to take them both.

"Please Carter," Yessette begged in every language she knew. "I can't take this any longer." Months had passed, countless days of bitter agony and tears since she'd last tasted anything but the most meager of life forms. The deer. The rabbit. Even a mouse unlucky enough to creep through their barren homestead had met its demise at her eager hand.

She needed human blood. Her mind blinked in and out. Sometimes she was clear and alert. Sometimes, days or weeks at a time, she was not. She knew nothing but the incessant hunger and the bleak despair of the encroaching insanity. Weakness left her wraithlike and frail. Her clothes were nothing but tattered rags and her hair hung in limp clumps along her shoulders. How she longed to be restored to her former glory. Carter intended for them to die in this hellish place. Alone. "Please!"

Today was one of Yessette's clear days. They were becoming more and more rare. She didn't have long left. Neither did he, a matter of weeks, possibly a month. For Yessette, she was down to days before the insanity took her for good and her body, her once glorious body that he worshiped as a goddess, failed. He promised her she wouldn't suffer. He'd been a coward long enough. Far too long he'd stood to the side and waited for nature to do the deed for him. He should have ended her before now. Perhaps, when she slipped back into the shadowy world of crazed insanity, he would.

No, to end her in the throws of insanity wouldn't be fair. She was a piteous creature before the thought ever entered his mind. He should have taken her life long before when he originally intended to. He'd been a coward then and he had wronged her in that failure. He would look her in the eye while she was sane, in this brief tender moment of clarity, and deliver her mercifully into the hands of death.