Chapter 7

My laughing stopped immediately after I realized what I was doing. I was having a good time with the enemy. Unforgiveable. When I grounded myself back into reality, I noticed that he was staring at me with a calculating look. Hell must have been frozen over, that was the first time I had ever seen him think so hard. “Don’t hurt yourself,” escaped my lips. “Why are you always mean to me?” He asked. He couldn’t be this stupid. It was just too insulting. The only conclusion that I could come to was that he was trying to piss me off even more.

 

            When he realized that I wasn’t going to answer him, he cleared his throat and handed me my cell phone. After the familiar piece of technology was in my hand, he said he forgot to bring my jacket. I couldn’t believe that he said what he said next. “It will give me an excuse to see you again.” Call me whatever you want, but for a moment I actually started having little fantasies, and he was my boyfriend. Even though he already had two girlfriends.

“You’re staring at me.”

D****t.

“No I’m not. You’re imagining things.”

That was when he lifted himself from the yoga position, and got close to me- too close for comfort. What he did next- well I didn’t even see coming. He kissed me. A tingly emotion burst up and down my spine. I had never felt such a wonderful kiss- well any kiss for that matter- before him. I was just about to wrap my arms around his neck when I realized that this wasn’t right. Even if we had a chance to be together, it would just be wrong. It would end badly. I forced myself to make a split decision- either take my chances and truly kiss back or nip this problem in the butt and go on with my life. Shoving whatever emotion I had down, I kicked him in the shin and said that the next time would be his groin. I had too much crap going on to worry about a relationship of any kind. I sighed and then looked at him, “I need a ride. I hope that your leg still works.” I walked past him and got into the passenger side of the car and then reached over and swung his door open. “Get in.”

“Where are we going?”

“You will find out when we get there.”

 

            The rose and note were resting in my lap when we pulled up to the all too familiar castle, which was now a crime scene. “Why are we here Stephanie?” asked Elric. I looked from the note to him and then sighed, “We are here to investigate.”

“Investigate what?”

“The crime scene of course.”

 

            “This is not a good idea Steph,” Elric said for the umpteenth time.

“I told you that one of my cop friends asked me to stop by and pick something up for him, and don’t ever call me Steph again.” Of course what I just told him was a complete lie. I knew no cops nor was I ever invited to the crime scene, but hey a girl’s got to do what girl’s got to do. “You know,” he kept rattling on. “I didn’t have to drive you here. I haven’t forgotten your little threat and the damage that you have done to my precious leg. I have to carry our team to state with these legs and they’re the only pair I got.” I rolled my eyes- sometimes he was just so full of himself. We had already passed through the corridor of mousetraps and the hall of cobwebs, and we were coming up on the room of despair. The little living space within the mansion that I was first devastated with the knowledge of Lilly being infected. As we got closer, I got testier.

“I still don’t think that we should be in here Steph, I mean the yellow tape did say ‘crime scene keep out’. Also I am pretty sure that you don’t have a cop friend and stuff and-”

“Would you just shut up for TEN freaking seconds!” He looked at me like I was the queen of all b’s, and to be honest- I didn’t have any random excuse to sputter out to defend myself against that look. I was too preoccupied with the thought of me going back to the beginning where everything basically ended. I kept on ignoring Elric’s sad attempt at a death glare and counted the doors as we passed them. The Door was three rooms down on the right from the last painting on the hall.

One. Two. Three.

I stopped to reach for the handle and Elric ran right into me, not paying attention. I glared at him and then opened the door. It was just how I had remembered it. A bed in the corner with a racecar bedspread, a nightstand right next to it with a musty old lamp on it, a desk up against the wall near the door with nothing on it but a key, and a rocking chair in the farthest corner of the room.

“Hey what does that key go to, Steph?”

“I don’t know, and don’t call me Steph!” Elric pushed through me and went farther into the room, while all I could do was just stand there. The memories of what went down in this room drowned me. All of a sudden Lilly was sitting in the rocking chair, rocking back and forth rhythmically, I was sitting at the desk with my laptop hooked into the rotting outlet that still surprisingly worked, we had a bunch of books strewn all over the bed, and we were having a blast. It was our secret hideout because the room had been forgotten about for years, no one in town remembered the one room that was actually sanitary in the old Cursed Castle. She was laughing at a joke that I had just made and then got really serious. She asked me what I was working on, and I lied and said that it was for a research paper, when it was really for a case that I was working on. The thing about Lilly was that she was really smart and when she thought that you were lying, she would call you out on it. “I don’t believe you. What are you working on, really?”

I turned around in the chair to look at her, blonde hair blue eyes and all, and sighed. “I am doing a favor for Winston. He is writing some lame-a*s paper about monsters, and I am helping him out by doing some of the research.” Truth be told, though, I was researching Keres for a completely different reason. A Ker is a nasty female death spirit with grinding teeth and unbelievably sharp talons, and she always thirsts for blood- preferably human. And one was plaguing the streets of our city, waiting for peoples’ most vulnerable moments. I was doing research on a Ker’s weakness so I could get rid of the sexist b***h. For some reason she was only after the men. Lilly didn’t know that though, but she smiled anyway and said, “Alright. Now was that so hard?” I smiled back at her and said no, that it wasn’t. It wasn’t hard for me to lie to her- it was painful. As I turned back toward my computer to do more research, out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn that I saw her drool. The only conclusion that I could muster up was that my eyes were playing tricks on me. I didn’t give it a second thought after that. Time passed by, I had finally finished my research and we were gossiping. Lilly asked me, “Hey are you hungry?” “No,” I laughed. “We just ate dinner!”

“Huh, I thought that was like three hours ago.” I looked at her then.

“Are you feeling alright, Lilly?” She looked like she was sweating. I reached to feel for her forehead, but she wacked my hand away. That was all the confirmation that I needed- her hand was so boiling hot that it was obvious she was running an extremely high fever.

“Lilly, you are really hot, I seriously think that we should get you to a doctor.” “And I think that you should get me a snack!” She raged. That was when it dawned on me. Her hair had become stringy, her eyes were red reamed and blood-shot, her mouth drooling, she was running a high fever, and her skin was starting to flake off little by little. She had been infected. Water started to rim my eyes and I choked out, “Lilly, what did this to you? Where is it now?” But I was too late; the infection had spread too quickly. She was too far-gone to respond to me. So I did the only thing that I could do; I ran out the door, leaving my shoes, backpack, laptop, and best friend behind- hoping that I could avoid killing her.

My name was echoing through my mind. I felt like I was in a fun house at a circus. Nothing made sense. My name was called again, making another scene of unwanted flashes of clown heads and unicorns. I wanted to scream. Scream so loud to the point where my eardrums might burst. At least that would give me a distraction from the chaos of my mind. Now my whole world was shaking. As if an earthquake had just struck. What was going on?

“Stephanie, WAKE UP! STOP SCREAMING!”

My eyes opened. There were no more terrifying clown heads or random unicorns. Oh I felt sick. I could hear myself moaning but could feel nothing. I was numb. I could feel myself breath in and out way too quickly. Water was interfering with my eyesight. My nose was plugged.

“What is wrong with you?” I could hear Elric ask me. I could not find my mouth, nor my hands, or my legs. I was paralyzed. I was, I realized, breaking down. I managed to force out, “It was a mistake to come here. Lets go.”

“No.” I could hear myself begging. I would do anything to get out of there.

“No. Why would I go when you are the one who dragged me here in the first place?”

“Please!” I kept begging, but I couldn’t wait for him to reply- I just turned around and ran. Crying. It was just too much for me to bare. There was no point in avoiding the inevitable confrontation that I was about to get from Elric. He was faster than me, but I could sure as hell try to outrun him while I still had the chance. That was until that window was shut. Tightly. He already had his hand on the back of my shirt, with a firm grip, holding me back. Of course, I was fighting to get away from him. To me there was only one thing worse than crying and that was crying in front of a potential boyfriend. “Let me go!” I screamed. Emotions were controlling me, which meant I had no way of controlling my emotions. I was a complete wreck.

 

            “Do you want to talk about it?” Winston asked me as I walked in through his apartment door. “Don’t start with me, Old Man, you kicked me out of your apartment this morning, tried to send me to school, and yelled at me. I have had a wretched month and a hellish day. I am not in the mood for this mood swing of yours that is bound to be coming”, I replied. I walked over to his bed in the corner where all of the sheets and pillows were strewn all over of the place, leftover from this morning. Instead of picking everything up, I gathered everything into a huge pile and fell into the improvised bed, trying my damndest to fall asleep and forget all about what had happened back at the castle.

 

The hallways were so dark that I couldn’t see my own two feet and the floors felt like any cleaning service’s worst nightmare. Twist and turn and zig and zag- the hallways were never-ending. Why did this all seem familiar? I was running from something. Lilly! I was running from Lilly! Confusion filled me, why wasn’t I feeling any pain from stepping on the mousetraps? In a flash I was back at the baren wood marker that signifies the end of my only friendship. Something gleaming caught my eye as I was preparing to decapitate my poor best friend. Wait…

 

 I burst up from the pillow and sheet burrow on the floor covered in a fresh coat of sweat. I knew that I had just seen something very important, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. How did the object even gleam when there was no light in the room? I could have sworn that it was pitch black- I think. “Morning sleepy head,” rang the most comforting accent. I looked up to see Winston from across the room reading up on something. “You had quite a nasty dream.”

Reviews

[matrixmark]

Even though I havent read this piece ofr a couple days. I really like how easy it was to drop into it again and how well it flowed, making it an easier read for me to look at.
'I hope your leg still works' - I aughed at seeing this bit of dialogue being put in after the guy had been kicked in the shin - It was such a comedy moment for me. The descriptions of the room were really good and the way in which your put them in order was the way in which I would have done it. Everybody notices the bed first then other things around it, which is just a natural thing to do.
Then along comes 'Lilly' and here where it started to to take a turn. The way in which you immediately jump Steph into dialogue mode and then into a few details about Lilly's condition was really well executed.
Good imaginative use of the 'fun house' expression of showing that nothing made sense anymore, and more to the point it really worked well.

WOW! - You nailed it with that ending, I am not going to say anyhing here becuase I don't want ot spoil it for others.

It flowed.

Mark.

[YoshiPiccollo]

Thank you!!!

[matrixmark]

You are most welcome.

Please say you are going to do more.

Mark.