All alone:

Under the brilliant night sky, Dust sat upon a rock outcropping. He gently stroked the shivering, furry animal in his hands before he released it. The creature was the last of the small rodents that he had encouraged to approach him.

He had been careful not to kill any of them. At first, he hadn’t been sure what to do about the changes inside his body. All he could think about when his teeth lengthened like a vampire’s straight out of a movie or a book was that his sudden hunger for blood meant he must have somehow died during his battle with Daciana and turned into the undead.

There were two inconsistencies with that thought. First, he didn’t remember dying. He was pretty sure he would have recalled something as important as that. Second, except for a few minor changes to his body—he still felt alive and pretty much the same as before.

Shaking his head, he laid back on the rock. He shivered and then shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he stared up at the stars and wondered what would happen when the sun came up. Would he dissolve into a pile of ash?

“If I do, I’ll know that all the writers of vampire stories were right. Dang, but I didn’t know vampires could be cold. For once, I wish I had Josie’s powers.” His quiet, slightly humorous words drifted on the light breeze.

He listened, but except for the wind and a few animals in the distance, there was nothing nearby. A frown creased his brow when he felt something hard and tubular against his fingers. Tracing the shape, he released an exasperated sigh. He pulled his hand out of his jacket’s outer pocket and removed the cigarette lighter from the small pocket on the inside. He’d forgotten he picked it up along his journey.

Sitting up, he shook his head. “Well, it isn’t as cool as Josie, but it will work,” he dryly chuckled before he flicked the wheel.

Twenty minutes later, he had collected a stack of dried wood and a large pile of dead brush. He placed some of the wood in a ring of rocks near the outcropping of boulders that he was using as a wind break.

It didn’t take long for the dried wood to catch fire. He sat down and held his hands out to the warmth. Soon, exhaustion took over and he laid down on his side with his back to the rocks. He knew he probably shouldn’t stare into the flames. Such an action ruined his night vision, but there was something mesmerizing about watching the multi-colored flames dance across the wood.

His mind drifted, and once again he thought of his parents. They, along with everyone else in the tiny town he grew up in, had perished. How had he survived? He decided he might never understand. Perhaps it was the way the house had collapsed around him, sheltering him. One thing he was sure of—whatever had been in the strange cloud was what caused him to change.

“Whatever happens, I won’t forget who I am,” he murmured.

That was the last thing he remembered his dad talking about—never forget who you are. They had been working on his grandfather’s old truck, rebuilding the six-cylinder engine the day the comet struck. The 1948 Ford F-series pickup truck was supposed to be finished by his sixteenth birthday which was now in a couple of weeks.

Dust’s lips curved upward when he thought of that morning nearly two years before. His mom had gone to town to get her hair done while he and his dad had gotten up early to work on the truck. His grandfather had bought the truck new in 1948 and used it on the small farm where Dust grew up. His dad had told him that Dust’s grandfather gave him the truck when he turned sixteen. His father had driven it around the farm for another twenty years. He had parked the truck in the back of the barn and covered it with an old tarp. In time, his dad had forgotten about the truck until Dust discovered it when he was four. The vehicle had been in the barn for nearly thirty years by then, and he had played in it for as long as he could remember.

He had been sitting in it one day three years ago, mad at his dad because his father had refused to let him go hang with some of the boys in town. That day had been a pivotal moment in his life. He hadn’t realized it until much later.

* * *

Three years before:

Dust’s dad didn’t say anything at first when he opened the passenger door to the truck and slid onto the seat. They sat there in silence, staring out of the dirty windshield across the barn—an angry boy and a quiet, introspective man.

“You really want to go with those boys?” his dad finally asked, folding his stained, scarred hands in his lap.

He sat in the driver’s seat, his fingers wrapped around the narrow, worn steering wheel. The anger slowly faded as he thought about his dad’s quiet question. He shrugged, not wanting to answer. His dad remained silent, waiting for him to say something. Dust knew if he didn’t answer that they would sit there waiting all day.

“Not really,” he grudgingly replied.

“Why not?” his dad asked.

Dust sat back in the seat and shrugged again. “I don’t really like them, I guess,” he admitted.

“Why not?” his dad pressed.

Dust shifted in his seat and looked at his father. He thought for a moment before he released a long sigh, his thoughts going to the boy who had invited him.

“I don’t know. They act like they are some big deal because they play on the football team,” he confessed, looking down at his hands.

“Then why do you want to go hang out with them?” his father gently asked.

He absently rubbed at a dirty smudge between his thumb and index finger. Eric, the boy who had invited him, was the son of the local pharmacist and one of the cool boys at school. Dust was not. He was the son of a farmer. Eric and three of the guys from the football team were going out to the reservoir to meet up with a bunch of other kids from school. He had been shocked when Eric stopped him yesterday as he was walking out of science class and asked him if he wanted to go.

“I guess I thought if I hung out with them, some other kids would think I was cool, too,” he murmured.

“If that is what you want, then I won’t tell you no,” his father finally replied.

Dust frowned. “Why? I thought you didn’t want me to go,” he said.

His father scratched the whiskers on his chin. Dust followed the movement with his eyes, and he looked at his dad with a puzzled expression. He suddenly noticed details that he had never really thought about before.

His dad’s hands were stained from years of hard work. It didn’t matter how much his father washed his hands; they remained that way. Scars from accidents while working on the equipment or out in the field marked them like lines on a map.

Dark whiskers were mixed with a healthy dose of gray. His dad’s dark brown hair was streaked with the same gray. The years of being out in the sun had darkened and creased his skin, making him look older than he was.

“You can become anything you want to be, son,” his father began, pausing as he looked down at his hands. “A man is only as good as his word. If those boys are who you want to be like, then you have to make a decision. Whatever you decide, your mom and I will support you the best we can.”

* * *

In the end, he decided not to go. That decision turned out to be a good one. He later discovered that the jocks had invited some other less popular boys from school as well, just so that they could razz and bully them in front of the other kids.

It had not boded well for the jocks. The incident had caused a major uproar in the school’s administration, and the four boys were kicked off the football team. Three had transferred to another school in a neighboring town so they could continue to play football while the fourth was sent off to boarding school someplace in California.

* * *

Present day:

Dust blinked away the burning in his eyes as he remembered his mom’s teasing smile, his dad’s patience, and how lucky he had been to have them as parents. He morosely contemplated the fact that he hadn’t really understood or appreciated how much his folks had done for him. He wiped a hand across his face with a sniff.

“I wonder if vampires cry,” he murmured, feeling the dampness on his cheeks.

With a tired sigh, he focused and his body faded. This little trick had come as a surprise when he first woke up after the comet’s destruction. His ability to control the atoms in his body had saved his life more than once and allowed him to move around undetected when necessary. At rest, he didn’t use much energy. Awake and moving, the ability took a toll on him, and he needed to eat to keep up his strength.

He relaxed back against the ground and waited for morning. He had no intention of hiding from the possibly ash-inducing sun—not that there currently was any place for him to go. Whatever happened, he would deal with it tomorrow—tonight he was just too exhausted.

He pulled the image of Sammy’s smiling face into his mind to help push the suffocating feelings of loneliness away. His melancholy faded as he slowly yielded to his exhaustion. In the chilly darkness, he clung to the memory of the kiss he had shared with the beautiful girl who didn’t see him as a monster. He could only hope that he wasn’t turning into one.