EBOOK UNDEAD

It was on the fourth night of his vigil outside her apartment that she returned home with a companion.

Clearly not quite able to believe his good fortune, the young boy whom she had chosen for the night chatted animatedly and at length, his arm slung casually across her slender shoulders as they made their way towards her apartment block. She entertained the boy’s humour and enthusiasm with well mannered grace and humility, smiling occasionally and even laughing when one of his stories reached it’s tiresomely predictable conclusion. He watched them, laughing and stroking one another unashamedly and a cold possessive streak of jealous ignited within the furnace of his heart.

Drawing his collars up against the icy wind, Dominic leaned against the street light and withdrew a cigarette from his pocket. He snapped a flame to life with a silver lighter in his left hand before re-pocketing it and checking his watch. It read 11.22pm. The girl had been gone for a little over an hour, hardly enough time for her to have gained an accurate impression of the boy she had chosen as a potential suitor. He took a drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke out, watching as it twirled and spiralled to frolic with the rushing winds that carried it upwards through the night light of the street lamp above him. He took in the sight of the full moon for a moment as his gaze drifted, noting it’s stark white brilliance against the dead of night, aware that his thoughts, like his focus, also desired to free roam.

Where had the girl headed to this night? Had the intention of offering herself to the first attractive stranger been her driving force? He grimaced inwardly, her character and everything he had placed upon her threatening to be destroyed in that instant. Could the girl he had watched and lusted after night after night, so beautiful, elegant and carefree, truthfully be so brazen? So foolhardy? So whorish? This was the last thing he had expected, so undeserving of the revelation was he that the reality of it didn’t quite seem real. He’d planned well, of that there was no doubt. From the moment he’d laid eyes on the girl supping with friends at a late night coffee house, he’d conspired to never let her leave his sight again, at least until the time was right. She was mesmerising, her youthful exuberant beauty startling in a conventional way he found noticeably lacking in others of similar ilk. In addition, she possessed a grace and nobility that he’d thought he’d seen the last of in New Orleans, yet here it was once more, the sensual presence and regal charm of those so comfortably at ease with their own sexuality immaculately embodied within this young girl. He’d wanted her immediately. She would be his and he would brook no refusal. However, time, if nothing else, had taught him self preservation and so he had decided to wait before indulging his lustful wanton fantasies. Despite the logic of the decision, it had been almost unbearable to endure, patience not listed among many of his virtues and now it seemed he had missed his opportunity entirely. For three nights, he’d stood underneath the window to where he’d ascertained her bedroom lay and fancied that he could hear her breathing, comforted in the fact that she lay dreaming less than only a few feet above him. The notion that someone, the boy who even now was nuzzling her neck as she attempted to insert her key into the door, would lay with her tonight in that very bed in that very room was threatening to overwhelm him. It could not happen. It would not happen.

The door to her apartment closed and lights flickered into existence. He dragged on the cigarette again and hunched his shoulders against the cold, eyes narrowing into thin steely slits. From his vantage point across the street, he could see her in the kitchen, her back to the small shuttered window, her jacket being drawn clear of her shoulders. From the way they were heaving, she appeared to be laughing. The boy, as if aware of scrutiny, remained hidden from view, preferring to stand shrouded in the darkness of the adjacent hallway whilst continuing their exchange. Their communication was lively and punctuated with smiles and laughter. A punch of bitter and resentful bile rose in the back of his throat as he watched this flirtatious behaviour. It was making him progressively more uncomfortable by the second to observe how freely they conversed with one another so soon after their initial meeting…

…and then it happened. As if for his benefit alone, the boy stepped out of the darkness towards her, his expression one of pure unrestrained longing and placed his hands upon her waist, leaning her back against the work counter in full view of the window. They stood there, framed in the harsh fluorescent light, and came together suddenly, their mouths opening to one another hungrily. That sick familiar feeling of frustration and rage, coupled with the hunger she always invoked in him, began to boil in Dominic’s stomach and angrily, he inhaled the remainder of the cigarette and threw it to the ground, crushing it under heel. The boy’s actions were frenzied and clumsy and he pawed at the girl like she was a slab of meat. In contrast, her administrations were precise and articulate, her hands slow and steady to his uneducated fumbling. For much of the younger generation, ambition and appetite always outweighed skill and experience and at once, Dominic felt a seething and sudden rush of hatred for the young whelp. This downright disgusting display was offensive to every moral he held dear. This was not how this girl was to be treated! Had he not a shred of decency or respect? Back in his day, there was only way to deal with ruffians of such calibre. It was this thought and the answer that it inevitably brought that made him straighten from the lamp post and start to stride his way towards the apartment, his eyes never once leaving the framed lovers.

He was halfway across the street when the girls’ first scream shattered the calm dead of night.

The boy had her bent over the counter, her hair falling into the sink in bloodied ringlets as he lowered his mouth inevitably, teasingly to her neck. Blood lined his fingertips as they insistently pressed into the soft meat of her forearms, forcing her arms downwards. Her thin frame thrashed beneath his weight as he pressed down upon her, trapping her against the counter. His eyes blazed like wildfire, his teeth lengthening now at an alarming rate, the brightness of his pupils challenging the light thrown by the kitchen’s bulb, his fangs defying the hovering midnight moon to match their bone white neutrality.

His mouth, widening with every second, was less than centimetres from the girl’s freshly exposed jugular when a glass suddenly exploded over his head.

The boy spun to face Dominic’s rage fuelled offensive as the girl slipped from his grasp and ran screaming into the hallway. He attempted chase and was met halfway by a roaring Dominic who threw all of his body weight into a squarely aimed punch that connected solidly with the bridge of his nose, shattering it instantly. Howling with pain and anger, the boy charged a second time, barely giving Dominic a chance to withdraw his fist and the two combatants crashed to the cold linoleum floor in a tussling heap, the boy taking instant advantage to mount.

Hissing and screeching with hell bent fury, fangs bared and yellow eyes blazing, the boy clawed ferociously at Dominic’s fending arms, leaving deep ragged tears in the worn leather, furious he was unable to drive home a successful strike. It was as the boy reared back once more, howling like a world weary wolf, ready to unleash an assault of savagery not yet attempted, that Dominic wrestled the boy around the midsection and hauled him up off his knees. He staggered under the boy’s counterbalancing weight and drove his head further down to one side to avoid the blows that the boy was unleashing before taking the strain.

With a tremendous burst of strength borne of desperation, Dominic barrelled forwards and launched the boy headfirst against the metal shuttered kitchen window. The portion of glass spider-webbed instantly, the thin metal shutters buckling under the combined weight. The boy realised the intention all too late and tried to wrest himself free of Dominic’s grip but the bigger man was simply too strong. Backing up a second time, Dominic charged again and succeeded in pitching his attacker straight through the third storey window. The window exploded on contact, glass and metal shutters shattering and folding like plastic and paper and the boy sailed free of his grip, hurtling over the edge and out. With an intake of breath, Dominic watched as the boy’s body crunched into the asphalt with bone juddering force, his limps splaying outwards like a rag doll robbed of it’s strings. The momentum rocked the body a few times before stillness pervaded and the blood started to pool.

Heaving with exertion, Dominic turned and sagged against the counter, his knees trembling beneath him. He slid down the counter till he half sat on the glass covered linoleum, his breath tearing from him in strained gasps. The girl could still be heard sobbing in her bedroom from down the hall, a strangled desperation half borne of a mind rocked upon it’s very hinges. The sound of her sobs came distantly, along with the noise of movement from outside the window. Dominic stood warily and looked over the window sill in time to see the boy get to his feet and start to run down the street, one leg kicking outwards haphazardly and a loosely jointed arm swinging at his side. The sound of the girl’s cries getting louder finally drew him away.

She sat huddled upon the bed, her duvet drawn tightly around her trembling form. He stood motionless by the doorway, unable to prevent himself from taking in the sight of her bedroom like a blind man granted sight, unable to resist appraising her fragile and vulnerable beauty as tears wracked their way through her. Whether she was aware of his presence, Dominic could not say, but he held no intentions of intruding until she was ready. He did not wish, after all this time, to unsettle her. So he stood and watched her cry for what seemed like an eternity. Despite his eagerness to touch her, to be with her, her loneliness at this moment seemed insurmountable and he wasn’t sure if his presence would hinder or help. She looked up at him suddenly, her eyes red raw with tears, her face wet and flushed, her hair falling about her face in sodden strands and smiled. It was a smile of gratitude and it was meant purely for him. He inhaled deeply, basking in the warmth of it’s presence and nodded his acceptance.

It was only at this juncture was he aware that her full length mirror which hung adorning her wardrobe door was half ajar and facing him. From her vantage point on the bed, his lack of reflection would go unnoticed.

‘We’re not all like that.’

He whispered, loud enough that the tone of his voice seemed to reverberate throughout the small interior of her apartment.

Amanda could have sworn she’d glimpsed silver at the corners of the stranger’s mouth in the moment before he vanished, could have sworn she’d caught light dancing in those green eyes…

…the thought evaporated almost instantly as her own eyes alighted upon the blood that had smeared itself upon the back of her hand as it sat trembling upon her bare knee, trembling and shaking as if some unforeseen force had taken hold…