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NEAR DARK



Caleb Colton is a young man in a small Oklahoma town who flirts one night with Mae, an attractive young drifter. Shortly before sunrise, while kissing, she bites him on the neck, then runs off. Caleb discovers that the rising sun causes his flesh to burn. As he suffers in the sunlight, Mae and her 'family' of itinerant vampires pick up Caleb and sweep him away from his family's home. Severen and Diamondback are inclined to kill him then and there, but Mae, who has developed a romantic interest in Caleb, points out that she has 'turned him' — made him a vampire. Reluctantly, Jesse Hooker, the leader of the gang, declares that Caleb will remain with them for a week, to see if he can learn to hunt efficiently and be trusted as one of the group. Caleb quickly learns that the vampires are doubly bloodthirsty: not only do they feed on humans, but they hide the evidence of their nature by acts of wanton destruction, particularly arson, lest the mortal population seek them out and destroy them.

Caleb is of two minds about how to proceed. On one hand, he is infatuated with Mae, and relishes the idea of spending eternity with her, free of responsibilities other than simple survival. On the other hand, Caleb is appalled at the brutal reality of a vampire's existence: the constant need to kill innocent people for food, and the gang's evident lack of remorse for this state of affairs...