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A Vampire's Elegy: (1) Unwanted Deliverance |
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(This is a vampire story I have started writing. If anyone actually reads this and sees some mistakes, will you comment and let me know? I hope you enjoy it.)
A Vampire’s Elegy: Unwanted Deliverance
The two dark figures embraced at the top of the brown hill. A soft hand on her neck awoke Jess from her deep thoughts. She opened her eyes to a familiar sight. Smiling, she stared into the eyes of who she had forever wanted. As perfect as the moment was, she wanted to know something. “Jaxon, is there anywhere else you’d rather be right now?” she looked away trying not to meet his eyes at the awkward question. After a short time of awkward silence, she glanced at Jaxon. He returned the gaze, but when he opened his mouth, it wasn’t words that came out. Instead it was the most annoying sound she had ever heard.
Jess lifted her frizzy-haired head from her pillow at the blaring sound of her sister’s ring tone. It was set to the Beethoven symphony five song. You know, the music they play in movies whenever the villain makes his main entrance?
The disturbance made her wonder why she ever wanted that miserable noise reaching her ears. Her hand scrambled against the floor searching for the source of the annoyance. Her hand rested on the cold piece of metal and she flipped it open and lifted it slowly to her ear. “Hay…” she said, still half asleep and angry she had been torn from her dream. She was too tired to be surprised by the fact that her sister had woken up before her.
“Hey, I’m coming back from Kayla’s. Do you want anything to eat?” Hailee asked, sounding slightly muffled on the other end of the phone.
Jess’ eyes remained glued shut. “No thanks…” Jess made no attempt to hide that her sister had woken her up. It was summer, she didn’t have to wake up an hour earlier than every one else anymore.
“Okay, well, I’ll be there in a minute. See ya,” without waiting for another response, Hailee hung up. With that, Jess flipped the phone shut and let it drop back to the floor next to her scattered clothes. There was no way she was going to be able to get back to sleep now. Her noisy sister was coming, most likely with one of her equally loud friends.
After a few minutes that passed like seconds, she kicked off the light pink comforter and threw her feet to the floor. It nearly made her sick to have to wake to the pink baby-like surrounding every morning. Her room design had remained the same for as long as she could remember. If it weren’t for the dragon decorations cluttering her room, she would have gone mad by now. She pushed herself from her bed and dragged her feet past the white dresser and the wooden bookshelves her dad had constructed for her a long time ago.
Jess passed the thermostat in the hallway, just realizing how hot it was upstairs. Her dad always did stuff like that; turned the air off because he thought the heat didn’t affect Jess while she slept. But she was still sweating despite having her fan speeding above her and having her covers pulled halfway off while she slept. She retraced her steps until she was back in front of the thermostat. She turned it until it was a notch below 80 degrees and the air began flowing through the dim upstairs level. She breathed deeply trying to cool down as she traveled to the top of the stairs. The creaking echoed through the empty house as Jess staggered down the stairs. She passed the hallway to the kitchen and entered the office room. Actually, it was more of a TV room. The only thing “office” about it was the desk and the bookshelf. Despite that, her family continued to call it the office since they already had another TV room.
She rested a knee on the couch and leaned over to the window behind it. When she opened the blinds, a brighter light than she had expected flooded the room. Jess instantly shut her eyes and buried her face in the back of the couch. Normally, she would have just wandered in the dark, but she didn’t feel like bumping her toes into the desk this morning. She knew this house like the back of her hand, but still being half asleep made that fact null. Yawning, she turned away from the light and ran a hand through her mess of long light brown hair, tangling her fingers in the process. At this point, she wondered what people who have a life are doing right now. Probably on dates… hanging out with friends…Or some other cool things. Sure, she had friends to hang out with, but she wasn’t about to give up her morning. It was the only part of the day she had to herself. She was just about to collapse on the couch when she heard a barking come from her dogs’ room. She fell to the gray mass of the couch anyway. The dogs could be in their room for a little while longer. They probably had a chance to come out while her sister was there. She searched around for the main remote desperately hoping it was nearby. But, of course, it was sitting on the desk at the other side of the room. Feeling she wouldn’t be able to get back up for a while, the just laid on the couch and stared at the ceiling.
Before she even got her chance to relax, the high pitched ring of the doorbell echoed through the house. Moaning she stood and dragged herself to the door. Surely, it would be her sister. But why was she back so soon?
Upon opening the door, she found it wasn’t Hailee. Instead, a tall figure towered before her. She had to crane her neck- which she didn’t have to do too often- to see his graying shoulder length hair and…. yellow eyes? His features made him look almost inhuman.
“Jess Lock?” The man was holding a small brown package in his left hand.
Jess nodded slowly. “That’s me.” She didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t so often that people actually came to her door. They lived on the top of the biggest hill in the neighborhood.
The man held the box towards her along with a clipboard with a paper and pen pinned to it. “Sign here, please,” he said, no trace of emotion on his face.
His robot-like face made her even more concerned about her visitor. But then she figured he was just doing his job and he probably wasn’t happy about working on a week-end. Taking the clipboard and the pen, she signed her name and handed it back to him, exchanging the clipboard for the package.
Without a word, he turned and padded down the stairs to his car. Something about the whole experience was disturbing. He didn’t even look like a worker for the local delivery service. No uniform, no truck with the company name, not even the friendly “hello” or “have a nice day”. It made her think twice about what she had just signed. Her gaze drifted back down to the box resting in her hand as the car squealed down the steep road. Jess stepped back and closed both the glass and the wood door, locking the wooden one. She turned to lean her back on the door and looked back at the package. A piece of paper was stapled to it with her address and name on it.
Just as she started to tug on the wrapping, she heard the distinct ring tone of her best friend coming from her abandoned phone upstairs. Jess jumped to the stairs and dashed up them, taking them two at a time. She got to her phone just in time and clicked it open. “Hey,” she said a little breathlessly.
Then came an exaggerated, happy “heeeeeey” on the other line. Definitely Radka’s key trait.
“What’s up?” It was routine to go through these lines. Jess already knew what response she was about to get and mimicked Radka’s words.
“The ceiling.”
They both broke into small giggles. “Of course,” Jess said through her laughing.
“So watcha been up to?”
“Waking up,” Jess doubted she still sounded tired though. “Oh, and something weird just happened.”
“What?”
“Some weird guy just came by my house and gave me a package.”
“What was in it?” Radka sounded a little distracted so Jess waited a second before responding.
“I was about to open it when you called.” Jess glanced down at the box still gripped in her hand.
“Oh...weird." There came a pause. Clearly, Radka wasn't that interested. "Hey, do you wanna meet me at Barnes and Noble?” Radka asked, Barnes and Noble was the place to be when they had nothing else to do. Apparently it was one of those days.
“Sure, I’ll just need to get ready and everything and call my dad to ask. My sister'll be here in a little while so I can ask her for a ride.
“Ok, well, just call me whenever you get everything planned.”
“I will. See you later,” Jess said and slapped the phone closed after exchanging “byes”.
Jess sat on the counter in front of her dad’s room’s mirror. She was applying a layer of charcoal black eyeliner under each eye. Halfway through her second eye she remembered the package she still hadn’t opened. After applying the finishing touches, she jumped off the counter and walked to her room where the package was. She dropped to her knees in front of it and picked it up at level with her shoulders. Turning it over, she began picking at the piece of tape holding the wrapping in place. She dug her nail under it and ripped off the tape. A black box awaited her as she peeled away the brown paper. She turned it over examining it and pulled away the top of the box. Inside was nothing but a loop of glistening string.
Upon lifting it out of the box, she scanned the cross dangling from a silver chain. The whole necklace looked like it was a hundred years old. The chain, decayed and rusted, Jess could already picture is shattering to pieces at any moment. The cross looked no better. It seemed to be solid gold, probably plastic, she thought, but it looked like it had been run over by a car and left in a ditch for years. Who would send me something like this? The only people who ever sent her anything by mail were her grandparents. But they usually included some sort of letter or note. She had gotten worked up over nothing. Dropping it back in its container, she stuffed the box into her satchel just in case she wanted to show it to Radka.
 Collide_With_Darkness · Tue Oct 02, 2007 @ 02:28am · 2 Comments |
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