“I'm not going to lie, today, January 10, I am smiling non-stop. I will meet the girl I like so much. Her blonde curls are golden vines from which I have no desire to escape...only to extract all her gold.”
That last line drew a grimace of confusion from Rose. The force with which she held the book gave way, and for a moment she sighed to continue reading another page.
“I think of all the nights of my existence, none will surpass this one. I flew over her. Her scent and elegance were irresistible. Valery could not contain her surprise, but soon calmed down in the face of my deadly kisses. Her Arabian features seemed to me more beautiful in her eternal sleep.”
Rose stopped reading at that moment. At first, she was attracted by the golden cover of the book and thought it was a collection of Victorian tales or Aesop's fables.
However, she later learned it was a diary. Such a book left her somewhat perplexed. She looked for the author or some foreword at first, but it was all blank. Yellowed pages with a musty smell.
All except the last page, which actually had a bloody thumbprint with scrawled letters that appeared to be Latin.
Rose lost interest immediately, and hurriedly put the enigmatic diary back on the shelf from which she had taken it. For the first time the old Castelar bookstore did not feel like home to Rose.
The force of her astonishment clouded her mind for a few moments, until, between the aisles of the bookstore, she heard the sound of heel-clicking approaching rapidly to where she was.
Rose began to run like mad, knocking over books and unintentionally kicking others that were lying on the floor. Her only interest was to be able to get out through the big bright door.
“What's the matter, Rose? What's the hurry?” asked Mr. Bird, the owner of the bookstore, when he saw the girl running away from Castelar.
Mr. Bird left the place, but there was no sign of Rose anywhere. This caused the septuagenarian to shrug his shoulders and return to his old armchair.
“Love, what did you buy today?” asked Rick, Rose's boyfriend, with a sweet smile as he saw her arrive at the Brimado fountain where he was waiting for her.
“Absolutely nothing. Let's move now,” Rose said haltingly.
“But today is your birthday. I gave you $200 to buy several books,” Rick replied.
“I think we'd better go get a pina colada,” Rose finally said without much encouragement pointing to a pub overlooking the ocean.
The drinks were slowly descending like the dusk of that traumatic birthday. No matter how many logical possibilities Rick offered, Rose always let a new "but" come out of her mouth as she thought about what she had experienced.
“Sometimes you don't age well over time,” Rick whispered staring at the horizon.
“I didn't throw my drink at you because it's worth more than your comment, you idiot,” Rose replied grinding her teeth.
“It's time to go home and relax a little. Pisllara isn't a quiet town anymore,” Rick suggested finishing his drink.
“I'm going to the bathroom and then we're going home,” Rose nodded.
It was past midnight, and Rose laid still restless from what had happened the day before. Rick, meanwhile, was snoring lightly, as if he was forming little clouds from his mouth.
She sought to calm herself a little by hugging her boyfriend, taking refuge in the warmth of his chest. This soon took effect and Rose slept soundly.
But it was perhaps two hours later that Rose woke up upset when she heard that some glass had broken.
She immediately wanted to tell Rick, but he was not in bed.
Rose then ran to turn on the bedroom light and shouted “Rick” desperately, but he never responded.
Still half asleep, Rose foolishly tripped over a pair of shoes and fell in a way that almost hurt her.
For a moment she leaned on her night table to get up, and right there, she noticed Castelar's golden diary.
Rose started screaming her head off as she stormed out of the room. Her desperation was so great that she didn't mind leaving the house barefoot and half naked.
Once outside, she saw no one on the street to ask for help and, in her disbelief, she turned to see the house again, specifically the second floor, where her room was, which, to her horror, had been invaded showing from the window a sinister figure, pointed in the face and winged, stalking her presence.
Such a situation almost caused Rose to have a heart attack, but her survival instinct was stronger and she began to flee as fast as she could.
Along the coast of Pisllara, the moon drew a diffuse silhouette in the sea that also seemed to escape from that terror of the night.
That thing that frightened Rose was not running, it was flying!
For a moment, Rose felt immersed in the pages of the cursed diary she had read in Castelar and her tears kept falling. For, she imagined a fatal end in an insurmountable loneliness.
In her last attempts to save herself, Rose went from alley to alley. This is, in its central part, Pisllara preserved a lot of Mediterranean urbanism and it was easy to get lost among so many little houses together, clothes hanging out and stores crammed with souvenirs.
“Rick, help me, where are you?” she repeated several times as she felt she had not much strength left to go on and was slowly falling.
Between steps in the center of Pisllara, Rose fell to her knees and could no longer move. In fact, she felt something land in front of her, and raising her gaze, she could see that what was chasing her was a vampire. The vampire of the golden diary.
This creature, so intimidating in the shadows, was slowly approaching Rose and with the moonlight, she was stunned to see that the biggest fright in her life was her own boyfriend, her love Rick.
“Rose, Rose, it's been almost 30 years since my last great love, since my last great feast,” the vampire vociferated before laughing unhingedly.
Rose never imagined that her requests for a teenage romance in previous years would end up putting her together with an immortal being about to devour her.
“I refuse to believe that you romanced me all these years to come to this,” Rose sobbed.
“Patience is bitter, but its fruits are sweet. Soon you will be in my diary collection, Rose,” the vampire said before baring his whitish fangs when opening his snake-like mouth.
Rose covered her face in tears, not wanting to see her life end. She thought her misfortune was great until she realized she was still not only alive, but she also heard a scream.
Rose removed her hands from her face and saw how the vampire was trembling with a large crucifix nailed to his chest. Mr. Bird, the owner of the bookstore, had made a surprise attack from behind on the vampire who, in agony, was beginning to fall to pieces along with his diary.
The last remnants of the vampire vanished as the first rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon.
“The legend of the vampire has been around Pisllara for centuries, but I never believed it until today,” Mr. Bird told Rose a few minutes later at the entrance to Castelar.
“I can't thank you enough, Mr. Bird,” a nervous Rose confessed.
“Thank goodness I realized your outing yesterday afternoon was not normal, and that I knew how to kill a vampire,” replied Castelar's owner amid laughter drowned out by a hacking cough.
By the middle of the morning, the authorities from Pisllara had arrived to get all the information on the case, as well as Rose's parents, who came to Castelar to thank Mr. Bird, and take their daughter far away from the Mediterranean forever.
