Chapter Eight - The Hope

Bill Compton leaned his strong, muscular body back under the large shower head and smiled as he felt the warm water cascading down his back. The warm water felt so wonderful. Until Bill was able to obtain the services of an electrical contractor, he was stuck with using a gasoline powered generator as his only source for powering his new hot water heater. It was an annoyance, that was true. But so worth it. As he stood there lathering shampoo into his thick, dark hair, he finally made up his mind. Yes, tonight. Although dinner would be only a warm bottle of synthetic blood, Bill decided that he had put it off long enough. Tonight he would go out for dinner. Bill had grown somewhat weary of the never-ending home renovations he was involved with and his lonliness had finally gotten the better of him. He needed to hear the sound of another's voice, the sight of another's face. Anyway, there wasn't a whole lot he could do tonight as he was running low on materials needed to complete the latest project. But now he felt the need for more company than the lumber section of Home Depot could supply.
Bill already knew where he would go. After weeks of hiding in the shadows of darkness and watching the pretty young woman who lived just across the cemetery return from work night after night, Bill could stand his lonliness and curiousity no longer. Thanks to his greatly enhanced eyesight, he knew she worked at Merlotte's Bar and Grill, the eating place he remembered driving past when he first returned to Bon Temps. The place built on the site of his wife's former home, the Holliday farm. As he finished dressing, Bill could feel the excitement begin to build somewhere deep inside. Perhaps it was only his great lonliness, but there was something about this young woman that had intrigued Bill to such an extent that he found he thought of little else except how it would feel to finally look at her face, gaze into her eyes and hear the sound of her voice.
He stared at his reflection in the large lighted mirror as he dried his hair. He couldn't help but give a little laugh. He thought about how surprised humans would be to realize that vampires actually did have a reflection. This was but one of the myths started by vampires in the guise of self-preservation. Bill felt nervous and tense as he poured a splash of Polo Black into his hands and wiped them across his face. What if this young woman looked at him the way most humans did when they realized what he was? Bill thought he would not be able to bear it. Once Bill had gotten past the heartache of knowing he would never be with his family, the hardest thing for him to accept was the revulsion and fear he saw in the eyes of humans. It caused his grief then and it still did. As Bill walked to the front door he thought briefly about grabbing the keys to his BMW, then decided he would rather walk. Bill Compton had worked hard all of his human life. He had walked beside his father in the fields, up and down dusty roads with his childhood friend Tolliver Humphries, and had walked many, many tired miles as a soldier in the Confederate Army. Feeling the warm rays of the sun shining down on his face as he walked was something he had greatly enjoyed and he had never stopped missing it.
As Bill walked along the dark road, he could hear the music long before he arrived. Judging from the number of cars, it looked to be a popular place. He stood in the shadows and watched for a few minutes, still unsure of his decision.. As he stood there, he heard a small, noisy red car with even noisier occupants come careening around him into the parking lot. As the occupants got out, he turned to give them a look. The woman was dressed much like many of the street walkers he had seen in the larger towns. The man resembled a bald weasel. As they walked across the parking lot, he heard the woman curse in a loud, crass voice. Bill found himself hoping that those two weren't indicative of the other clientele.
Bill hesitated in front of a large window and looked inside. Yes, there she was. He watched her as she walked over to the couple from the parking lot. Bill could sense that for some reason those two made her anxious, almost vexed. He also noticed there was an empty booth right next to them. Before he could change his mind, he opened the door and walked inside. With instinct born from many years of self-preservation, he immediately began to scan the room. He could see her standing at the bar, with her back to him, talking with...........a shape-shifter. The shape-shifter appeared to be the owner of this establishment. This surprised Bill. There was no love lost between vampires and shape-shifters, but more than anything Bill was surprised at finding a shape-shifter in the little town he had grown up in. As he slowly walked to the booth, he could feel her turn and with a puzzled look, almost as if she felt something in the atmosphere , she watched him sit down. To Bill, it almost felt like a dream.
Bill slid into the empty booth and turned to watch as she picked up her order pad and walked over to him. As he looked up into her brown eyes and watched a smile spread across her face, Bill felt something inside his chest slowly grind to a halt. She asked him a question and for a brief moment the only thing he could think about was how much he would love to kiss those adorable pink lips and feel his tongue slide over and between that absolutely enchanting gap between her front teeth. Then his eyes were drawn to her hair. It was pulled back into a ponytail, and it began to bounce and swing as she smiled and began to talk. It all but drove Bill insane. He finally found his voice and heard himself ask for a bottle of synthetic blood. With a pounding in his heart, he carefully watched her reaction to this request. To his utter amazement, she appeared to be absolutely delighted to realize that he was a vampire. This was not a reaction Bill was accustomed to getting, and for a few moments he was at a loss for words. Bill was disappointed to discover the bar did not have the synthetic blood, and ignoring the hostile stares of the shape-shifter and the other young woman at the bar, Bill ordered a glass of wine.
Oh, what a stupid, stupid fool he had been! How did he not see what they were? Bill had ignored the most basic, fundamental rule of a vampire. He had dropped his guard, made himself vulnerable. What was she trying to tell him? The young woman had been trying to warn Bill. How had she known? But now, it didn't matter. Bill was going to die. Here he was, on the ground with silver chains holding him down, making him as helpless as a sacrifical lamb. Oh, the great irony of it all! After more than a century of walking this earth as a sad and tortured being, and at times longing for it all to end, he had finally found a small spark of hope. Only now it seems God decided to show up and demand his soul.
As Bill lay there feeling the terrible pain beginning to course through his body from the draining, he looked up at the brillant scattering of stars against the dark sky, for perhaps the final time. He began to wonder if it was really true that his soul would join those he had loved in his human life. He hoped so. He had missed them for so long. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw her. Like a pint sized Isis she walked up, carrying a chain that had to weigh at least half as much as she did. Bill watched her fearlessly swing that chain and then watched in disbelief as that chain wrapped itself around the throat of Mack Rattray. He couldn't take his eyes off of her as she quickly reached down and retrieved the knife that had fallen from the man's hand. And with more courage than most men possess, Bill watched again as she wasted no time dispatching Denise Rattray and her low-life husband. Bill had never seen anything quite like her.
She quickly, but with tenderness and care, began to pull the silver chains from his wrists and neck. Bill carefully watched her face, looking for a sign that she was repulsed at what she saw. But all he saw was a deep caring. A deep caring about another being's suffering and misfortune. And when she knelt down and placed her soft, warm hands on his face and looked deep into his eyes, Bill didn't know what to think. It had been a very long time since any human had touched him with such tenderness. Her warm, infectious laugh when the shifter ran to her and licked her face made Bill very happy he was still walking the earth. He had never met a human who had no fear or misgivings about him. Her spitfire spunk at him when he ungallantly spoke of the groin artery made him all the more infatuated with her. My, my. She was really something. Even her name caused him to smile. Sookie. Such an unusual name for such an unusual girl.
Bill stood and watched as she walked away. He watched her until she disappeared from sight. As he poured his drained blood into the river and found his jacket, Bill found himself doing something he had not done in a very, very long time. He began to whistle. On this walk home under those same brillant stars, under that same dark sky that he thought he had seen for the final time, Bill felt himself begin to smile. Oh, he just couldn't wait to see her again.