She had a knack for finding the perfect hiding spot, usually close to the front door. It was better that way. Most people tended to come in the door, look around for the greatest concentration of people, and then join them almost immediately. Which meant she remained blissfully alone with whatever book she had brought. It also meant that her sister had a harder time ditching her at the end of the night when she was ready to leave.
Truly she hated these parties, hated being made to feel like a burden when she was content enough to keep to herself and bother no one. Becka never let her forget that she hated towing her big sister around on their mother’s orders, and for her part, Fiona would just as soon have stayed home and not inconvenienced anyone by her presence.
So she tried to stay out of Becka’s way and avoid embarrassing her sister too much if she could help it. She mostly blended into the window alcove like a pale gargoyle, wearing clothes that did nothing to relieve or enhance her pale coloring. Fiona didn‘t come to these parties looking to make friends. She liked being plain to the point of invisibility. So far as she’d seen, no good ever came of being noticed.
At home, she wore dark clothes, usually black, and tried to ignore her family’s insinuation that she was, god forbid, Goth. As if it were some horrible epitaph to be worn with shame. No, she wasn’t Goth, but she didn’t see anything wrong with being one. Some of their music was pretty good. She didn’t see anything wrong with just being who you were, whether it was Goth, Gangsta, Hippy, or Right-wing Conservative. She didn’t judge; she wished other people would do her the same courtesy.
She just liked black, though when her mother forced her out to these tedious parties her sister liked, she wore pale colors designed to help her blend into her surroundings. After all, the most prevalent “decorative” color in most homes was some derivative of white, despite the best efforts of HGTV. Her mother complained incessantly about her dark clothes and was therefore grudgingly obliged to accept her “party gear,” despite the fact that it turned her into a bigger wallflower than her customary black jeans and t-shirt would have
Fiona’s current hiding place made her wish she’d worn her darker colors. Sumptuous dark velvet drapes framed the alcove in creased burgundy decadence with sheer white curtains behind them. She’d sneakily released both layers from their loops so that they hung straight down, mostly hiding her from view. It was too dark outside for anyone to notice her sitting in the window, and once inside, they were immediately distracted by the music and fraternizing in the living room. If anyone was nosey enough to look in her direction however, they’d have seen her legs sticking out into the room where they were highly conspicuous in white denim against the dark drapery. It couldn’t be helped. She had to have enough light to read by and watch for her sister’s drunken egress.
“Hello?” came a male voice from beyond her curtained hidey hole. She could just see his legs through the gauzy sheers and rolled her eyes. Glancing down at her own legs, hidden under their thick layer of bleached canvas, she assumed that he must be speaking to someone she couldn‘t see through the thick drapes. There was no way anyone could look at her legs and think, ah, girl legs… I must speak with the owner of these forthwith.
She blinked as the curtains were pulled aside a few inches so the man could look in to see who he was addressing. “Hello,” she responded calmly, dispassionately. Just because she wasn’t interested, didn’t mean she would go out of her way to be rude. Maybe he had a legitimate reason for interrupting her solitude?
“Thought it’d be you in there.” Er, what? “I’ve seen you around, and you’re always hiding.” Peering at the thick book in her hands curiously, he ask, “What are you reading?”
Ugh, she’d been noticed. Whenever people told her that they’d noticed her, it always gave her a vaguely stalkerish feeling, since she worked so hard to be overlooked. Fiona didn’t recognize the guy, but she never really paid much attention to the people at these parties. She closed the book around her hand, rather than putting the bookmark in, so that he wouldn’t think she was preparing to have a conversation. That is simply not the case, sir, she politely informed him in her head. “It is a collection of Scottish fairylore and superstition from a gentleman named John Gregorson Campbell.” When forced to attend these parties, she always snatched up the biggest and most academically tedious (to the common man) title that she had on hand.
“Oh, Campbell. He’s written a lot of books on mythology, hasn‘t he?” he asked, trying to seem knowledgeable. He had a nice voice with some vague accent she couldn’t place.
“No, you’re thinking of Joseph Campbell. John Campbell died at the end of the nineteenth century,” she replied patiently, hoping he’d get bored with the topic and wander off to easier pickings.
“Kind of odd to come to a party just to read,” he suggested, attempting no doubt to change the topic.
“I’m here under duress.”
“Oh?”
“If my sister gets out of hand, I’m to beat her into submission with this book before dragging her home.” He laughed, which surprised her. Most people told her that her deadpan delivery made it difficult to know when she was joking. In this case, she was half serious. If Becka was drunk, Fiona would need to knock her down and steal the car keys if she wanted to make it home alive.
“Which one is she?” he asked, turning to look into the next room where most of the people were gathered in groups or sitting on the couch with the prerequisite red plastic cups of beer in their hands. A sudden roar indicated someone had won at whatever videogame they were currently playing. If both she and Becka had not been out of college, she’d have thought they’d somehow crashed a kegger. Of course, there was a distinct possibility that they had. Becka was not the kind to turn down free booze. Fiona looked forward to convincing their mother that an intervention was necessary in a few years.
She glanced at the back of his head, then into the next room, but didn’t immediately see Becka. She was almost sure her sister hadn’t sneaked past her. It was much too early for Becka to leave any party. Probably just out of view. Still, if he decided her drunk sister was more attainable, he’d probably allow her to get back to her reading.
“She’s got hair like mine,” Fiona explained, absently tugging on a loose white-blond strand though he wasn‘t looking, “but poofier. And she’s a snazzier dresser. If you see her, you’ll know it.”
“Oh, that one.” He didn’t sound too impressed by what he’d seen, which was bad news for Fiona. “Didn’t realize you two were related.” Turning back, he cocked his head to the side like a quizzical dog, his dark eyes considering. Fiona didn’t like that. Go look for my sister, she thought at him, willing him to lose interest. “You want something to drink?” he asked instead.
“No… thank you. I’m good,” she responded with a forced smile, absently caressing the cover of her book with her free hand before awkwardly tucking the hand behind her, realizing it had been a potentially rude gesture. She hated people who were needlessly impolite. Fiona didn’t want to be thought of as one of those people.
“I’m Jack, by the way.”
“I’m Fiona,” she replied primly, hoping he would sense her awkwardness and wander off.
“So, you like folklore? Fairies, werewolves, vampires?” he asked after a moment, trying to drag a conversation out of her whether she liked it or not.
No Twilight, no twilight, no twilight….
“What do you think of those Twilight movies?”
Arggggggh!
“Or did you prefer the books. Most books are better than the movies.”
“Did you read them?” she asked.
“Well, no…” he trailed off in embarrassment. He probably hadn’t seen the movies either. She only wished she hadn’t been dragged to the theater in her sister’s wake.
“Trust me, the movies are certainly no worse than the books.” Fiona replied in disgust.
“Oh,” he said with a grin. “It’s like that, is it?”
“Beyond her invention of the dreaded sparkly vamp, the books were not particularly well written. At the very least, Meyer could have used a thesaurus once in a while. But that’s besides the point, I don’t read a lot of fiction unless the author has something interesting to say. I prefer facts to fantasy.” She thumped her book with a knuckle of her free hand before tucking it behind her once more.
“Hmmm, folklore is fact now?” he inquired teasingly.
“Well… in so far as they were the attempts of primitive man to make sense of their world. From a sociological point of view, folklore and mythology are an important launch board for philosophy and theology as well as being a window into the past for anthropological students. Since we’re not able to talk to people from these preliterate eras, all we have left to study them by are their remains and their stories.”
“But you don’t believe in vampires,” he pressed.
“What kind?” she responded, slowly warming to the subject despite herself. It hadn’t escaped her notice that the conversation was rather one sided. She might not want to talk, but if he wasn’t going to go away, it was time to see if he could contribute more than leading questions.
The query seemed to surprise him, and he regarded her silently for a moment, his large dark eyes gone thoughtful and unreadable. “Well,” he replied after a moment, “what about Nosferatu?”
“The movie you mean?” She picked up her bookmark, inserting it into her book and setting it aside. Her hand had been getting sweaty any way. “The word Nosferatu was an adjective describing the pestilential quality of the vampiric plague in medieval Eastern Europe and did not actually relate to any specific Slavic vampire. It just means ‘unclean.’ Or are you one of those Vampire LARPers?” she inquired, raising an eyebrow.
“Ha! No!” He seemed to think her question was the funniest thing he’d heard in ages, as it took him several minutes to get himself under control. “Not many people know that, though. I mean,” he hastily added as if covering his tracks, “there are the vampire games and novels, which basically use the Stoker template, and then Hollywood which insists vampires are highly flammable. At least the Twilight vampires could walk around in the daylight, even if they were shiny.”
“That’s true…” she agreed slowly, suddenly unsure. How should he know that most vampires in folklore were not photosensitive? Most people didn’t even care that Hollywood and writers always got that part wrong. Heck, she didn’t even care. It was just something she’d read once. Unlike her sister who was gaga over vampire literature, especially the oversexed kind, Fiona was about as interested in vampires as she was in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or UFOs. She figured if they were real, they were about as interested in her personally as she was in them, which was to say, not at all. Live and let live.
“Hey, you sure you’re not thirsty?” he asked suddenly. “I’m going to go get something to drink. Be right back.” Without waiting for her response, he disappeared into the other room. Hopefully this was his less than graceful way of dodging a conversation gone awry. If she was lucky, he was in the next room already looking for some other girl to chat up and trying to forget the strange discussion from which he’d just won free. But no, a minute later he was back with two cups in his hands. He politely offered one to her, which she accepted, taking the tiniest sip before setting it on the seat beside her. She was surprised that it was water though. That was kind of nice.
It wasn’t that she disliked talking to people or that the discussion didn’t have potential, but inevitably, this Jack guy would decide that she was either into him or irrevocably weird. Not that it wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but she hoped for the latter. By this late stage, her whopping twenty-six years of life, she was used to people deciding she was too strange to warrant human interaction. It couldn’t even be said that she had anyone to call a friend. Aside from the people she worked with, who were barely acquaintances, her closest ‘friends’ consisted of people who read her sporadic blog on a regular basis and commented. She didn’t even know half their real names, and she hoped none of them knew hers. Fiona took great pains to keep herself to herself.
The former was more likely simply because this was a party and people came to parties to hook up. He would be sorely disappointed if he wanted anything more than conversation. There was a reason her parents despaired of her ever leaving the family nest.
“So what’s the deal with your sister anyway?”
Fiona felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “I have no idea what you mean by that.” Had Becka turned him down? Was he just making time with her so he could get the scoop on her sister? It was moments like this that she really loathed people.
“Sorry, that didn’t come out right. I just meant it seems like you two aren’t really… close. You come to parties where she immediately ditches you, while you find some place to hide out until she’s ready to go.”
“Just… how long have you been watching us?” Nausea skewered her stomach and turned her hands to ice. Stalker alert!
“What? I- oh, no! I’m not…” She had to give him credit. He looked completely mortified. Could still be an act though, stalker man, she thought through narrowed eyes. “I swear I haven’t been watching anyone. It‘s kind of hard not to notice though. Every party I’ve seen you at, you’re hiding out with a book.”
“I don’t think I’m comfortable talking to you any more,” she announced slowly, picking her book back up and clutching it in her lap like a talisman. Whether he was a stalker or not, it seemed like a good enough excuse to end the conversation. After all, it wasn’t like anything was going to come of continuing and then he’d be all kinds of disappointed. All that time wasted on someone who was only outwardly girly.
“Aw come on,” he said, seating himself on the floor in front of her. Now instead of him looming over her, she was looking down on him. Less intimidating, surely, but how aware of his own body language was he? It was her experience that people seldom knew the secret language they were speaking, simply by the arrangement of their bodies. If he had not done it to put her at ease, he’d sat simply because his legs or feet hurt. “Look, I swear I’m not stalking you. I’ve just seen you at various parties and wondered why you come out just to avoid talking to people.” He laughed at the absurdity as he announced, “I swear, I’m not stalking you!”
“’Fraid you’re out of luck,” Becka suddenly slurred. Spotting her sister actually interacting with the opposite sex, she leaned into the room from the arm of a man who was obviously on steroids of some kind. Either that, or he’d decapitated Arnold Schwarzenegger and had his head stapled onto the body. “My sister’s got ice in her vagina,” she announced with a sly smile before giggling into her new boy toy’s arm and going back to the business of getting mind numbingly drunk.
“Becka!” Fiona shrieked in horror, shooting her sister a hurt look. She drew her legs up and let the curtains close, hiding her from view. Her sister always knew just what to say to completely embarrass her, especially in public. It made little difference that Becka probably wouldn’t even remember the specifics tomorrow. From inside her dark little asylum, she heard Becka cackle and snort. She hoped she choked on her own filthy tongue.
Well, if Jack wasn’t going to leave by her request, maybe Becka’s disgusting little joke would scare him off. According their father, men only wanted one thing anyway, and he should know. Between all his affairs, girlfriends, and ex-wives, he’d had relations with the adult female population of a small town. It was no wonder she was man-shy as her grandmother used to put it.
She squeaked and flinched a little as Jack lifted the drapes and tucked them into their rings. He sat back down and stared at her as if to say, I’m not going anywhere. When she seemed disinclined to do more than stare back incredulously, he raised is hand and placed the other over his heart. “I solemnly swear that I have absolutely no interest in your vagina,” he announced.
What do you even say to something like that?! Fiona gaped at him as if he’d suddenly turned green and furry.
“Seriously, nothing against you and your anatomy. But, interesting conversations are hard to come by when the people around you are lowering their collective IQs in leaps and bounds,” he explained with an ironic grin.
“But then, why do you come to parties? I come because my family makes me,” she groaned.
“Are you supposed to be your sister’s chaperone or something?”
“No… they just…it’s complicated,” she finished lamely, not really wanting to give all the details of her life to a complete stranger. “If anything, she’s supposed to be mine.”
“Ouch.” He made a face, then shrugged. “I don’t know why I come out. I mean the only place to have a real discussion any more is on the internet. Otherwise, you have to deal with all the self-absorbed narcissists,” he waved a hand towards the other room, “in order to find a decent conversation.”
“That is so true,” she chuckled, slowly uncurling from her fetal position. “And even then you have to know where to look, otherwise it’s all pop culture references and who’s watching what on TV.”
“It’s just not enough to talk with people online though, you know? A satisfying conversation online doesn’t equate to a lasting friendship. It’s very easy to sit in front of your computer waiting for someone who left a great comment on a message board to come back and feel let down when they don’t. At least if you meet someone in the flesh, there’s more of a lasting impression.”
“Mmm,” Fiona made a noncommittal noise. She might or might not be guilty of lying in wait for scintillating internet conversationalists, but meeting people in the flesh made her immediately suspicious about their intentions if they showed any interest in her. “It’s just… safer to talk to people online. If their attention becomes… unwanted, you can stop going to those boards, block any personal messages they send. So long as you haven’t given out any personal information, they can’t find you in real life. People you meet offline already know what you look like and approximately where you might live. I‘d just as soon stay home and read, where I can interact with my books and imagine the conversations.”
“Paranoid much?”
She frowned self consciously, looking away. “I’m just… shy.”
“If you say so… but I think you’ve seen one too many network specials about cyber stalkers. Sounds like you avoid connecting with people. That‘s not shyness. What you describe, that‘s almost pathological.”
“What are you, my therapist?” she demanded in outrage.
He blinked, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever,” she grumbled, leaning against the window frame and drawing her legs back up. “My family agrees with you. So, you know, you must be right, and I just suck at being a human being.”
“Actually, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re a totally great human being. You’re very real, and you don’t put on airs just to make people like you.”
“I don’t want people to like me,” she protested.
“I don’t think that’s true. You don’t seem completely misanthropic. You‘ve even laughed a few times,” he declared with a smirk. “Of course, I don’t know what else you do in your spare time aside from read. You don’t live in an opera house, do you?”
“I don’t think it’s fair to compare me to the Phantom of the Opera. Eric wasn’t misanthropic; he was alienated. People abused him for his physical deformities, but he was still lonely and looking for companionship. I think Christine Daye was a terrible gold digger who played on his need to achieve her own goals. He totally deserved better. Of course, if you’re references just about any of the films, they definitely didn‘t give Gaston Leroux‘s novel a fair interpretation.”
Jack snorted, and when she gave him a somewhat reproachful look, he shrugged apologetically. “This is why it was worth talking to you. I’ve never heard anyone express sympathy for the Phantom, let alone refer to him by name.”
“I don’t think a lot of people have read the novel,” she announced uncertain of whether he was mocking her or complimenting. “So there’s no reason they’d know anything about the original character. Just like Frankenstein’s monster isn’t some shambling corpse that converses in grunts and fears fire. I’ve only seen one movie that was halfway true to Shelly’s creation.”
“And you don’t read ‘fiction.’” he quoted, laughing at her.
“Well, they were written before fiction stopped saying anything worth reading,” she replied pretentiously, which only made him laugh harder.
“So what do you read?” she challenged.
“Oh, I like the classics,” he replied, elaborating when she raised an eyebrow. “Shelly and Leroux, definitely. But also R E Howard, Blackwood, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H P Lovecraft.” She made an incredulous face, and he stuck his tongue. “Oh, now I know you’re a book snob.”
“Burroughs isn’t bad,” she offered, “Though after the third Tarzan book, it gets a bit repetitious. The same for the Mars books. He was quite prolific, but he didn’t seem to vary too much in how he wrote. It ended up being all adventure, same plots, just different characters and settings.”
“Aw, my heart is broken. How could you say such awful things?” he demanded. “At least you can’t say H P Lovecraft was unoriginal.”
“I- really haven’t read him.”
Jack let his mouth drop open as he stared at her in mock horror. “Horrific alien entities masquerading as gods and interbreeding with primitive man? Ancient malign things oozing down from the stars when the earth was still a seething cinder newly spat out by the sun? I need to convert you to the ways of Cthulhu,” he announced purposefully.
“What happens if I become a Cthulhu-ite?”
“Cultist,” he corrected. Leaning forward, he crooked a finger for her to follow suit. Swinging her legs down from the ledge again, she leaned forward till he was close enough to whisper in her ear. “You’re eaten first, so you know, no waiting and worrying about the inevitable.”
“Oh my gawd!” screeched Becka, stumbling into the room on the arm of a new guy with the glazed eyes of someone thoroughly pickled. “Maybe there’sh hope for you yet, Feeb!”
Fiona turned red, but bit her tongue as several of the people in the other room turned to see what was going on. The worse part was, their mother would never believe anything Fiona told her about how Becka acted at these parties. She would just assume that Fiona was trying to get out of going.
Jack turned to look at Becka with a look of loathing on his face, a look she was oblivious to. “You look like a nice guy,” Becka declared, hanging on her knew guy’s arm so she could lean in speak more intimately without falling over but keeping her voice pitched so loud that everyone in the place could hear her. “You wanna take out my sishter, she’s high maintenensh ‘n’ don’t even try to get in her pantsh. Feeb’s ashex- ashes- eshecksule… represshed.”
Fiona covered her face with her hands. This was bad, so very bad. If there was a reason she was ‘repressed,’ it was Becka’s fault. It was like she went out of her way to be an exhibitionist. While Jack and Becka were preoccupied, she stood and edged towards the door.
“Wassa matter Feeb?” Becka demanded, catching sight of Fiona out of the corner of her eye. “You were practically kishing. S’about time. Mom worriesh she’s gonna be shtuck with you for the d’resht of her life. You don’t wanna know what dad saysh.”
Actually, Fionna had a pretty good idea what their father said. He was probably the other reason she avoided people. With two extroverted, exhibitionist nymphos in the family, was it any wonder she sprinted like a marathon runner in the opposite direction. Clutching her book to her chest, she turned the knob of the front door and stepped out into the cool night. The last thing she saw was Jack’s face, all pity and disgust. Whether one or both were directed at her, and how could he not be disgusted after Becka’s performance, she wanted no part in sympathy kindness. It was just a good thing that they hadn’t exchanged any more information than their names. He’d have no way of looking her up online or finding out where she lived, no way of being kind out of pity.
The car was parked about a block from the house, not that the house was situated on anything resembling a block. They were out in the sticks with a field across the road and forest on the other and behind the building. The nearest neighbor could just be seen as a twinkling light further down. Despite the chilly autumn air, Fiona had left her side of the car open just in case she’d had a need to escape from the party. She superstitiously scanned the seats to make sure there were no serial killers lying in wait, then slipped inside, scrunching down and pressing the lock button. When Becka came out, Fiona would get the keys one way or another, and then drive them home. There was no way Becka was fit to drive anywhere.
Burying her face in her hands, she started cry, at the same time berating herself for doing so. Twenty-six years old and she was bawling her eyes out, waiting for her lush of a sister to get done embarrassing her in front of the first guy to act as if he was more interested in her brain than her body. Whether or not it was true, well it probably wasn’t, but whether or not it was true, she’d actually enjoyed their conversation at least as much as any discussion she’d ever joined online. Burrowing into the seat, she curled up, feeling sorry for herself and sick of being everyone’s burden.
They all wanted to change her, but never took the time to even get to know her. They just assumed that their way of living was better than hers. Maybe she didn’t want to have sex with random people simply for the sake of having sex or finding a husband. She could probably walk into any bar across the country and say, hey guys, virgin, right here, and find out what sex was like. But she didn’t. She wasn’t interested in sex at all. Wasn’t even turned on by ‘hawt’ guys… or girls. Her sister had gone almost a year insisting Fiona was gay, but she wasn’t. She simply had no sex drive at all, and she wished, fervently, that her family would just accept that and move on. There was nothing wrong with being asexual.
Fiona woke with a start as someone pounded on the roof of the car. Her cheek was cold from being pressed against the glass, and her hair was wet with condensation. She sat up and looked around in a daze. How long had she been asleep?
“Becka!” a man’s voice yelled as he pounded on the roof of the car again. Their mother was going to be pissed about the dents. It was her car, which she insisted they take because of the dual airbags. “Get out here you whore!” he growled, rocking the car a bit as he pushed on it.
Rubbing the fog from the windows, Fiona could see it was the same muscle bound Schwarzenegger wannabe that Becka had been hanging off of earlier. She glanced at the house, but it seemed so very far away now. No one was going to come out to investigate all the shouting, not with the music pounding hard enough to make the rearview mirror vibrate slightly in time to the base.
“Becka!” he shouted again, this time snatching up a huge tree limb from under the trees and storming back to the car.
“Hey, hey!” she shouted, rolling down the window slightly. “I’m Fi-o-na!” She enunciated each syllable of her name. “Becka’s not here.”
“Damn it Becka! Come out right now or I’m going to bust your car to hell and pull you out.”
She slid across the seat to the other side of the car, not wanting to get out anywhere near him. Poking her head up over the roof of the car, she prepared to reiterate that she was Fiona, not Becka, but he threw the branch at her. He was faster than he looked and grabbed her before she could recover from ducking.
Screaming as he dragged her towards the woods by her hair, she kicked and fought to regain her feet but managed only to keep them long enough to lose them again as she was pulled along. Far too soon, they were in the woods where he threw her into the nearest tree, face first. Rebounding, she landed on her butt in the pine needles and leaf loam. Dazedly she supposed that she looked enough like Becka in his drunken rage for him to not know the difference. Smacking her upside the head with one of his meaty fists, she collided with the earth and stayed there.
Fiona came to with her pants around her knees and her shirt and arms over her head. She panicked for a moment before realizing she was alone, and more importantly, her underwear was still firmly in place. There were sounds coming from nearby, but as she forced her shirt down and pulled her pants up, she heard what sounded like the snap of a branch and then nothing. Struggling to her feet, she staggered as pain and dizziness overwhelmed her. Someone caught her by the arm and she shrieked in shock and terror.
“Fiona! Fee! It’s me, Jack.” He supported her as he led her from the dark trees and into the moonlight, and she sniffled as she recognized him.
“My sister…” she murmured, looking around.
“She left about a half hour ago with that drummer,” he replied, supporting her as she slipped in the dewed grass.
“But she has the keys,” Fiona muttered.
“You are not driving. Besides, you probably have a concussion,” he announced, leading her to a small, beat up car. She couldn’t tell what kind, but it was definitely old, like VW Microbus old. She giggled, thinking of Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, and Jack gave her a worried look.
A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Were you watching the whole time?” she squealed suddenly, trying to work her way free of his grasp.
“Wha-? Don’t be ridiculous. I was coming out to leave and heard you scream.” He propped her against the side of the car as he opened the door, then helped her sit. Fiona leaned back and stared at the upholstery which was coming away from the roof of the car in a big, saggy bubble of fabric and giggled again as he checked to make sure she was all tucked in before closing the door like a gentleman. “Besides,” he announced definitively, sitting down in front of the wheel and pulling his own door shut, “If I had been watching, I absolutely would have been there sooner. Bastard never would have got you into the trees.”
Fiona stared out the window as he drove down the dirt road. The stars were periodically eclipsed by the treeline. The rocking of the car and the twinkling of the stars had a hypnotic affect. Jack would occasionally say something or jog her arm a bit to make sure she was still awake, and she really did try to stay conscious. She knew that sleep was a big no-no when you had a concussion.
The next thing she was aware of, Jack had stopped the car and was helping her out onto the sidewalk. She expected a hospital, but it wasn’t bright enough. Staggering across the concrete, she leaned against Jack as he struggled to fit his keys into the door. He dragged her into the room and helped her sit on a lumpy sofa. She whimpered as he turned on the light and threw an arm over her eyes. Her head hurt so much.
“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered as she heard him riffling through a drawer. She mewled as he gently pulled her arm down. “I need to check your eyes, Fee.”
Though the light made her want to throw up, she blinked at him, wincing as he shown a small flashlight into her eyes. “…. hospital?” she muttered, and even she wasn’t sure what mush came out of her mouth before the final word.
“My place was closer,” he assured her. He put the flashlight down with a nod. “You might have a concussion, but both your pupils react to light, so I think you’ll be okay.”
He got up and came back with a bottle of Tylenol and a cup of water. “Fee?”
“Don’t call me that,” she muttered.
“Fee? Isn’t that what your sister called you at the party?”
“No, she called me Feeb. It’s her little pet word for me,” she replied sourly.
“Oh, how about Fay? You are a bit pixie-like.”
“Um, okay, I guess,” she mumbled, struggling to open the bottle until he took it from her and then poked through the foil seal.
“Fay?” It took her a moment to realize Jack was trying to get her attention. Had she nodded off? And why couldn’t he just call her Fiona. Fiona wasn’t a bad name. It had taken her years to like her name He took her by the chin and tilted her head this way and that, looking at the huge purple bruise that was developing over her right eye. She realized blood was all over her shirt too. Stupid jocks and their stupid ‘roid rage, she thought resentfully. It had been a perfectly nice shirt. Now it had a great big red stain on the shoulder where it had been over her head and droplets all over her sleeve and belly.
“Do you want to get cleaned up?” he queried, bring her back from her distraction. He helped her up and led her to a bathroom. “There are towels in the cabinet there. I’ll get you some clean clothes. Just… toss your clothes out into the hall, and I‘ll see if I can get the stains out.” He paused, then added, “I’m going to check on you every few minutes. I don’t want you to pass out and drown or anything.”
Fiona stepped into the bathroom and immediately flinched away from her reflection in the mirror. No wonder her head hurt so much. The bruise on her forehead was the size of her fist with a deep, jagged cut at its center. A brush burn trailed from the base of the wound all the way to her right eyebrow, and it scared her to think how close she’d probably come to losing one of her eyes. Of course, she’d probably come even closer to being raped and killed, so she supposed she was just all around lucky, lucky tonight.
True to his word, Jack was back a few minutes later. He knocked on the door and told her there was a clean shirt in the hall. Every few minutes after, he knocked and she would call out, “I’m okay.” It got to the point that she was repeating, I’m okay, I’m okay, to herself between his checkups like an internal litany, willing it to be so.
She didn’t feel okay though. Fiona sat in the tub and let the shower run over her. She didn’t feel like standing. It wasn’t that she was feeling weak or that her head was getting worse, but she felt confused and conflicted. Something was off about Jack and she couldn’t figure it out. That alone was frustrating, but coupled with everything else that had happened made her feel like she was dreaming. She was in his house taking a shower when she should be in a hospital. At the very least, they should have called the cops from the party. The cops didn’t like it when you left the scene of a crime. She opened the shower door and dragged her pants to her, but her phone must have fallen out in the woods. Wracking her brain, she couldn’t recall a moment when he might have slipped it out of pocket, but then, she kept losing small bits and pieces of time.
Ugh, her mother was going to have kittens when she saw her head, and the car. She really needed to call the cops and give a description of the meat-head before the guy woke up and wandered off. She blinked, remembering the weird snap she’d heard just after regaining consciousness. Maybe Jack had hit the guy with a tree branch? Served him right if he had.
She realized Jack hadn’t checked on her in a while and puzzled over it numbly before carefully climbing out of the shower to kneel on the floor. Fiona scrubbed at her body with a towel, but dabbed carefully at her head. She didn’t want to mess up his nice, clean towels. He’d left a huge, bulky sweatshirt for her and pajama bottoms. That was a bit of a relief. If the humungous purple blot on her forehead didn’t make her unattractive enough to dispel her serial killer fears, then surely the “comfort” clothes would do the trick.
Fiona was half way down the hall before she realized she’d left the water running and the towels all over the floor. Though it made her feel like a slob, she figured Jack would understand that she was not in her right mind. Besides, she should have a look around while she was unescorted, just to make sure everything was on the up and up. Or look for a phone so she could call the cops if needs be.
The Tylenol was definitely kicking in, or maybe her wounds weren’t as bad as they looked. Her head still felt fuzzy, but the pain was receding and she congratulated herself on thinking more clearly. Look around, good. Look for a phone, gooder, er, double good. The house was modest in size, half a double maybe? The furnishings had definitely seen better days though. Much of it looked decades old with only a few “new“ items here and there. She wished she’d been more observant as he brought her in. Having no clear idea of where she was, how could she call the cops and tell them where to find her if she had to?
Finding her way back to the living room, she saw a computer set up in a corner and recalled their conversation about the internet and stalkers. How ironic was that after she was nearly killed by her sister‘s stalker wannabe? Another doorway led to a dark kitchen, and a door beyond that she assumed was to the basement or laundry room was lit. She shuffled towards the light but stopped in the kitchen to gape at Jack as he leaned against a washer, his face buried in her bloody shirt. He appeared to be sucking on it, his eyes shut in some kind of ecstatic moment.
She must have made some inarticulate noise because he looked up like a startled animal, his mouth and cheeks smeared with her blood. Unfortunately, she was in no condition to run. As soon as she turned to bolt for the door which was only a few feet away, her feet got tangled up and she fell on the floor like a drowning fish. I am every bad horror movie stereotype! She cried out in mental annoyance as she struggled to get to her feet and away from the ghoul apparently getting the stains out of her shirt through suction.
“Hey! Calm down. Really. I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing,” he muttered as he scooped her up, no longer making any pretense at having any trouble carrying her about. He did it quite effortlessly. Just her luck to be done in by a fussy serial killer. How embarrassing, indeed. As he deposited her on the lumpy couch, she scurried to the far side and sat trembling against the armrest. She felt as if she was going to be sick, but whether that was from her head injury or the fact that her good Samaritan had turned out to be some kind of sick freak, she couldn’t say. His face was still covered in her blood, and she could only stare at him in horror.
“Just… relax. I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” He waved his hands at her in a gesture that was probably meant to be comforting, if not for the vague hint of pink on his cuticles and deep red under some of his nails. When she didn’t respond, he glanced at his hands and realizing how he must appear, turned away, furiously rubbing at his face with the back of his sleeve.
“You killed that guy, didn’t you?” Fiona blurted suddenly. Of course he had. Of course. That’s why he hadn’t taken her to the hospital or called the cops.
Jack gave a slightly embarrassed cough as he turned back. “Well, yeah.” He seemed more self-conscious about the whole situation than anything else, and that struck her as so very wrong. Weren’t killers supposed to be angry or defiant or… crazy? There was still blood caked in the corners of his mouth and near his nose, but she supposed he’d gotten most of it. She was very careful to avoid looking at his sleeve.
“Look, I’m sure this looks very bad to you, but I only brought you here so we could square our stories for the cops in case they came asking questions about that guy. I, um, didn’t exactly plan on mauling your shirt like that. I wasn’t planning on keeping you here or hurting you in any way. I’m not that kind of guy! I don’t go around attacking polite young girls. It’s been decades since I… well…” He stopped abruptly.
“W-wait, decades?”
“Look, I’m just saying you’re safe. No matter what. It’s… going to be dawn soon though, so I can’t take you home. I’m going to ask you, as a favor for the fact that I saved your life, that you stay here today while I’m… resting, and I’ll take you home as soon as I’m up. Okay?”
“So you’re a vampire…”
“Yes.”
“Really a vampire.”
“Yes.”
“Wait. Didn’t we have this conversation a couple hours ago about vampires and sunlight?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Different vampires, different rules. Once moroi become strigoi, our internal clocks are set forever. So I wake up about 12 hours after I died, every day. Sometimes I’m up a little bit before that, and I can stay up a couple hours later than I probably should, but the sun is a real pain in the ass, even with sunglasses, so I’m not driving anywhere until this afternoon. I’m not going to burst into flame if I’m exposed to sunlight though, alright?”
When she didn’t reply, he stood up and stretched. “So… okay. I’m going to trust you, and I hope you trust me now, but I’m going to lock my door, no offense. Just make yourself comfortable. There’s food in the fridge and cupboards. Just don’t touch the containers at the back of the fridge. They’re marked with a B, so… you know.”
Fiona watched him start down the hall and got up herself. When he raised an eyebrow at her, she announced apologetically, “I- um, forgot to turn off the water, and I left the towels all over the floor.”
“Got it. Um,” he paused, apparently remembering her concussion, “are you okay to stay up on your own. I don’t have cable, but there are some… DVDs.” He seemed embarrassed by his movie collection, and she could only imagine what she’d find once she looked through it. “I’ll bring you some pillows and a blanket. Sorry about the couch. I should probably replace that one of these days.”
She wandered back down the hall and sat on the sofa before sliding off to kneel in front of the TV and Jack’s movie collection… his monster movie collection. It was really all too much to take in, from beginning to end. Fiona began to giggle and snort until tears collected in the corners of her eyes. It made her head throb again, but she couldn’t stop laughing.
“Oh come on! It’s not that bad!” he cried, depositing the bedding on the couch and coming over to inspect her choices.
“No, no! Oh my god. This is the weirdest day I’ve ever had,” Fiona declared between choked off laughter. “Aswang?” She held up a vampire DVD about a type of island vampire.
“Eh, I don’t recommend that one. I mean it’s pretty well done, but almost too true to life, so kind of gross, I always thought,” he replied conversationally.
“Wait, aswangs are real?”
“Yeah,” he said, almost apologetically. “You know how people say ‘it takes all kinds?’ Well, it really does. I never met an aswang personally, but we all have our unfortunate dietary needs, right?”
“Iggg,” she responded, slipping the DVD back into place. “You’re a vampire, and you collect monster movies. You have weird interests.”
You may want to use a knife to get rid of any harder bits that have been overcooked by their time in the oven, but I find just squeezing the flesh under the skin is sufficient to pull it away from the pumpkin flesh, which is another good reason to let the pumpkin cool before starting. Once you have the cleaned pumpkin flesh set aside, put it in a food processor or blender. Depending upon how much pumpkin you’ve gotten at this point, you may want to do this in batches. One cup of puree will be sufficient for one pie according to my recipe, but you may have your own way of doing things. When I finished cooking and cleaning my long neck pumpkin, I had approximately five cups of pureed pumpkin flesh. I made four pies, and I may still make a pumpkin roll.