Blackwater (13 page)

Like a traitor, I can't force the images of my dying family over the memory of his lips trailing along my throat.

I feel my breath leaving my mouth, it's hot and sweet. I can still feel the bourbon from the drinks I had, searing its way inside of me.

I shake my head. His effects on me seem unnatural.

His breath is heavy suddenly, "Let me in. I want to take care of you. I want you to be like me. Then we can be together forever. Every night can be Nina Simone and Cuban cigars and a different party to attend. I want to show you my world. It's a world you can't even imagine."

His deep voice bypasses my ears and speaks directly to my soul.

Think of the blood. Think of Emily.

Emily.

She was sixteen. She liked books and show tunes. She liked that boy Greg. He was at the party. His face flashes in my mind. Alone in the dark secret room, orphaned and afraid, I still smile seeing his face. He looked like a turtle. He was bashful in the way I believe a turtle would be.

Emily was gonna be a schoolteacher, even though momma swore neither of us would work.

Her sweet face distracts me.

"You're going to die in there if you don't come out now. There is no safety from the sun in there. You need me. I need you." He sounds defeated.

I make no moves.

His tone changes slightly, "Lorelei, I will always find you. You know you can't run from me." It ain't a threat, it’s a promise.

It's silent for a few moments and then he speaks again, but not to me, "I have to go back and make sure everything is cleaned up. We have a lot of mess to clean up. You guys handled this really badly. My father is going to be devastated. The witch is gone. Just get her out. Don't hurt her, bring her back to the other house." I hear footsteps. He is talking to the other ones.

Someone else responds, "You let her drink from you? Her blood is tainted."

"She was never part of the deal." Whit sounds angry. "What deal?" I whisper softly to myself. I press my ears against the wall to hear better.

The other man speaks defensively, "Your father is going to be angry with you too."

Whit sighs, "Then I guess we better clean this shit up and you better make sure not a hair is scratched on her head. If she is hurt or escapes, then I will tell him everything. I'll be at the mansion."

I hear footsteps again. He is leaving me here with them. How can he leave me?

There are no sounds for a minute. Did they all leave?

The silence of the dark is more frightening than the possibility of leaving the small room. Not hearing them is driving me more insane than the banging on the wall was.

Cold starts to permeate through my sweat and fear. I turn slowly and peer out the tiny window daddy had put in. It's from his boat. It's a round porthole. I see a shadow crossing the wheat field. I think it's him. I know his gait. I see the field light up, as the moon comes out from behind the thick clouds. He turns and looks up at the window. His dark eyes glisten in the light of the moon.

The banging starts again, but I can't tear myself from the beauty of the man crossing the field.

I don’t turn around when I hear them more clearly. They speak fast but I don’t listen for their words. I don’t fight them as I feel something sharp scratch at my back. I put a hand up to the window and press my palm against the sight of him. I close my eyes and Nina sings what we both know to be the truest form of attraction and satisfaction.

I let my memory of him be the truth of his existence, as their hands pull me away from the window. They drag me through the hole in the wall they've made. The jagged wood scratches me on the way out. I scream from the pain and come alive. I grab at the wooden shards from the splintered hole. I remember the stories.

I feel the fight come alive in me, when I see the black soulless eyes again. They do not belong to him. Their mouths don’t smile when they open wide with huge fangs. Fear takes over for me and I don’t know the moves I use or the way I fight to get away. Light flashes as if lightning is being shot around the room and screams fill the air. The blood dripping from my fingers is not my own. I scramble away from the dead things on the ground.

Jumping up and bolting, I'm out the door and fighting the feeling of falling down the stairs while taking them three at a time.

I burst through the back door, breaking the screened storm door and soaring from the back stairs. I push myself in my strides across the field. The tickle of the wheat is lost in the journey. I hear screaming and shouting coming from the farmhouse. I have no back-up plan; I have nowhere to go. I see the light on the horizon as I round the top of a small hill.

I remember the stories Grandmamma told us and push my legs harder.

They will catch me. I know this. They are faster than I am. They are chasing me but the sun can save me.

My dark-green cocktail dress has saved my life. My legs are free to run, which I'm good at. I'm so glad I didn’t wear the pencil skirt momma had picked out for me. I smile, this must be a lucky dress. I bought it because Jackie Kennedy had worn one like it last summer. The summer before John, her husband, had been shot. John died but Jackie lived. I will live too.

I don’t think about John and Jackie. I don’t think about Emily. I don’t think at all.

I chant the song Feeling Good.

And I run.

My lungs want to explode but I refuse to let them. My back is hot and sticky where blood is ruining my favorite Jackie Kennedy dress. My head is pounding from lack of oxygen. But I run. I run for the light. I run from the dark.

I don’t even know where I'm running to, but I jump logs and leap creeks and race through low hanging woods, toward the sun.

His breath is hot on my neck. Scotch is filling the air I breathe and I know he's close, but I run.

I see the McKenzies’ field in front of me and I almost quit. I almost let him catch me. Their field is on a huge hill. They don’t grow very good vegetables because of the steep incline. I race as hard as I can up it.

I crest the hill but my legs can't take another step, they collapse. The hay comes fast at my face. Something hits my stomach and the ground turns over and over and over. It rotates between ground and a bright light. I think I'm spiraling to heaven, until I land at the bottom of the McKenzies’ field with a loud thud. I can't breathe. My wind has been knocked out of me.

I fight for air. My eyes take a second to focus on my surroundings.

I see his face. I gasp for it, but can't seem to get the air in.

He smiles his lazy grin but his dark eyes look sad, "I won't hurt you. Just let me explain."

I sob and shake my head back and forth. I want to block him from my vision.

He tilts his head to the side and takes a step back.

I didn’t realize how close he was to me. "Your mother, she called my family. She wanted us to come and get you and take your blood."

My hands leap to my ears as a scream rips from my throat.

Tears stream down my cheeks and he takes another step away from me. I can see his lips moving but I don’t hear his poisonous words.

He looks heartbroken and stops speaking. I lower my hands and watch him.

"Enjoy the last sunrise, my love. Enjoy it," he says.

His eyes shine. I can see the glisten in them as he takes another step back.

I shake the fog from my brain. I look down at the shadow I'm casting on the grass. My knees are bleeding and grass stained. My dress is torn and my hands and arms are dirty and bloody. Black blood stains my fingers.

A flash of memories fills my mind. I see it clearly now. The thing he wanted to show me back at the party.

I had slipped from the crowd to the dark house. I wanted him to touch me again. In the shadows of the house I hid; I waited excited. He stepped from a shadow across the foyer. His hand slid up into my long hair and pulled my head back. He pressed his lips into mine, like he'd been thinking about doing it all night long. He pulled away abruptly and smiled.

He bit into his wrist and whispered, "You need this now."

It smelled like the sweet cigar smoke mixed with the scotch on his breath. The dark liquid that dripped from him had me mesmerized. He dragged his finger through it, like it was black finger paint and then put his finger into my mouth. It slipped on my lips like grease. In my mouth it tasted the way it smelled, seductive. It made a longing inside of me. He pressed his wrist to my lips. It was a sexual act.

Unbeknownst to me, my family had seen me slip away from the party. They walked into the house to see me drinking from his wrist. He pulled away from me. He stopped the taste and the feelings from filling me. He made a noise, a noise like a cat. I saw his hands come down on them. I saw the blood spray. There were others like him. They were just as Grandmamma said they would be. They fought and ate and I ran.

It was all just as she said it would be.

I look up from the stains and the blood on my hands to his beautiful face. How can it be? How can he be a creature of the night?

He takes a step back. The line of the rising sun is pushing us apart. I hate him but want him still and I can't fight it. The memory of their death ain't stronger than my want for him.

"I'll see you tonight." His words are the knife that finishes me off. I have drunk his black blood. His blood is filled with the death that will come and claim me when the sun goes down. That’s how it was in the stories.

I glance back at the sunrise; it gives me a chill. I look back at him. He waves his hand and takes a step back.

I want to run to him. I stand on my wobbly legs, but I stay where I am.

He takes a step back. He is on the hill. The sun is coming fast.

His lazy smile creeps along his face, sending a shiver over my body. "Come with me, Lorelei. I came here to be with you. You aren’t alone in this world. You will never be alone. I will always come for you." He whispers and somehow it's so loud it's like he's right next to me.

When I don't move my feet, he turns his back and runs up the hill and over it. He is gone.

I watch the line of the sun creep up the hill, chasing him.

I turn my back on the hill and start to walk. I need as much distance as I can get between him and me before sunset. I have only one day to make my escape. I wonder where I will go.

"Paris." I hear Emily whisper to me across the wheat field. I smile and think about the things I will have to do, for the both of us.

Her face fills my mind and stops me from thinking about how long it will be before he catches me, and what he will do to me when he does.

2012-Present day

Revelstoke, Canada

"
Go home."

I look around. I'm alone but the icy whispers are back. The first ones always make me feel bat-shit crazy, but then I realize it's them and not me. Then I'm grateful to have someone, even if it's death calling for me. I just wish the call wasn't coming all the way from Louisiana.

"
Go home, Lorelei."
They chant the whisper over and over.

Home. The prospect of home is a frightening one. There is nothing there for me. Not that there ever was. No, that’s not true, there was always Emily. Emily and Angie and Ramón. But I killed them with my love.

I glance out the window at the small town and smile. Smoke rises from the chimneys of the houses. It's quaint and I feel a love for it I can't explain. It's the first place I've felt safe in a long time. Canadians are amongst some of my favorite people.

A knock at the door makes me jump. The word home is stirring emotions and fears. Fears I will always have when I think about that place. Fears that make me jumpy.

I step into a shadow and wait. I can hide in the shadows. I'm part of the darkness the rest of the world doesn’t see.

A guy's voice joins in on the knocking, "Lee, you home?" It's Andy, my nineteen-year-old boyfriend. I'm old enough to be his grandmamma. He doesn’t know that.

"
Go home
." the voices whisper.

Home.

"Lee, you in there?" Andy's voice makes me feel things I haven't felt in this quiet town before, a need.

It's time for me to leave. I'm falling for him and I need to leave before I hurt him. I have liked being Lee. She is a small-town kind of girl. The kind I think I woulda liked being, if I had ever had a choice in the matter.

Home.

The icy whispers fill the small shadow, "
Home, she needs you at home. She still needs you."

Who needs me? Not like I can ask them, the icy whispers have their own agenda. They don't answer, they just talk shit. They could talk the hair off a hound with all that cold air.

I stay in the shadow and wait for Andy to leave. He's a sweet guy, sweeter than most. My mouth waters thinking about him.

Once my mouth wants something it's time to move on. I know I'm no longer able to stay, no matter if I want to leave or not. I'll leave everything. I always do. I have done it for almost fifty years. I've managed to stay here longer than most places. I don’t think he likes the cold, Whit that is. I never sense him in cold places.