It was as if time had stopped for the three of us, but even slower for Draven. I saw a mixture of anger, joy and confusion in her face and to retaliate to what she just saw, in her drunken stupor, she smashed the whiskey bottle against the side of the building and was standing with the newley created weapon in her hesitant hand.
"Who the SHIT are you?," she directed at Teal.
Her breath inflamed the air with the scent of hot whiskey. When had she picked up this habbit?
Teal looks at her and in his calm, slightly raspy voice, he commands Draven to put down the bottle.
"Honey, it's me, Dad. Put down the bottle Draven. Let me explain. You're not even here right now. You're wasted off your ass. Honey, I'm sure you're gunna piss out a brewery. Just put down the bottle."
I stood there feeling like I was watching a movie where the guy is convincing that death is not the answer.
This wasn't a movie.
Draven swung the broken glass at Teal and sliced his bicep.
"MOVE BACK FUCKER!"
At that moment, time sped up again and Teal's eyes widened.
"Why would you do that! HUH?"
He lunged at Draven knocking her down as he took the weapon meant for him and sliced her arm and started devouring his daughter's own blood.
Screaming, Draven tried to kick but Teal was too stong. With his eyes glazed over with black, he was blind sided by the crack of elbow against the back of his head.
I stood over Draven with my hand exteneded, and with a firm grip I helped her to her feet. Teal was right, Draven was a walking brewery. She could barely walk, so I carried her back to the apartment like a dad would carry his injured daughter. The blood from her arm seeped on my shirt and I could feel my skin turn hot and my mouth moisten.
Not now.
Not in her time of need. I couldn't let my alter ego escape. With the help of liquor, my Draven would have peace at least for a short span of time.
I left her for short second to go rescue Teal, but found that all that was in his place was a teal stone in a puddle of whiskey and a blood trail leading away from the apartment building off into the surrounding neighborhood. The drenched stone had a saying etched on the bottom.
I wiped off the mixture of blood and alchohol and read the inscription,
"Failure doesn't exist, just lack of persistance to fix them exists."
The stone took a residnece in my pocket.
I had to escape from the lingering scent of the sweet, rose smell of blood that was intoxicating the air around me.
The apartment was exactly how I left it, with Draven passed out on the couch and her arm stained with dried crimson rose blood. There was a medical kit that hid behind her lotions and shampoos in our bathroom that I retrieved to patch up her wound.
Softly, I wiped away her stains and cleansed the deep gash in her arm. Her arm was taken care of.
She was taken care of.
I brushed her hair away from her face and felt myself wanting this cure more than ever so I could spend a normal life with her and always be here to take care of her. Right here.
I laid a blanket over her and a trashcan beside her in case she wanted to get rid of excess brew.
It felt relieving to just relax and pretend like I was a normal human again.
To think, six months ago, I was a normal pizza man, substitute teacher, husband, human, and one day a future father.
All that, gone in a blink of an eye and replaced by something so unimaginable that it only makes sense to Bram Stoker.
For right now, I want to pretend I am human again and that I live a normal American, male life. So I do what males do, search the kitchen for something spicey and a beer. Lucky for me, Draven loved cooking Mexican food, so there was a pot of chili with every spice imaginable in it. Ranging from jalepenos to hot peppers.
Yeah, I was planning to burn my taste buds out and love every second that I'm not crying. Of course Draven had beer handy. It wasn't beer, but she was Teal's girl, she had bottles upon bottles of whiskey and Malibu. Me dying must've struck her hard enough to crank out the liquor.
I'm sorry Draven.
With my bubbling chili and my glass of whiskey, I sink into the lazy boy that still held my cheek impressions and propped up my feet and unbuttoned my pants for pre lift off before my food settled. The remote was at hands reach, of course. And I did what any man would do at that point, turn it straight to cartoons. It was around the time that Robot Chicken, my favorite Adult Swim comedy, was on. It takes me back to where my human plants were rooted. As the stop motion Batman crawls through the sewers making fun of The Shawshank Redemption and says,"Wow smells like Batman Forever down here," I lose it and for the first time in six months...I laugh. It sounds like someone had just been coughing and then a full laugh explodes. It feels like I'm me again. I feel like I'm back.
But I'm not. I can't escape reality. Robot Chicken, extremely hot chili and alcholic beverages only vail over the truth.
Things are changing.
Draven wakes up from my laugh.
"I love this show," she says in a quiet voice. I'm sure she is feeling the hangover now like running into a parked car.
"Yeah, it never gets old does it?"
"I had the weirdest dream Kingsly. I saw my father and he was trying to...bite me."
I set my drink on the table and held her.
"Let's get you some asprin ok."
She followed me to the bedroom...hand interlocked with my fingers.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Teal
I couldn't beleieve that I was staring into the eyes of Draven's deceased father.
"Draven told me you were..."
He followed up with the word,"murdered."
My grip loosened and I dropped the whiskey bottle. The shattered glass echoed in the night and I leaned up against the wall and asked the question that we bith knew was coming.
"How are you here if you were murdered?" I asked confused and disoriented at the possibel thoughts as to what teh answer would be.
Teal looked at me with his cold eyes and his smirked. a sharp edge was sticking from his gums.
"I'm sure Draven has told you about the antidote I was trying to come up with, a cure for vampirism. My research started when my lab partner and I were researching a cure for ALS, When testing my subject, I noticed that his blood was extremely thin and his heart looked dry. It was if something had drained the life out if him and left him an empty black hole. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. My lab partner, who was my best friend, took a deeper look and traced the reason of this discoloration of the heart back to a transfer of disease way back in the 1600's... vampirism. We both stood in awe over this historic corpse. Vampires were fictional..until that day we both stood and stared fiction in the face," he took out a cigarello that smelled like mint and puffed the sweet smoke like he had just an unforgetable one night stand," So, after our findings, i had to call Draven and confide in her, to tell her what has been discovered. While I was outside, my lab assistant was left alone in the room with the "dead" creature. He loved to just get closer and closer until he couldn't find anymore to squeeze out of our finding. He had been way to close...and the creature came to and transferred the disease to my best friend. I heard an ear piercing scream that was followed by loud crash, a growl, and shot. I rushed into the lab and saw a bullet hole through the once dead body's head and a blood trail that led right to the product of the vampire...my assisants neck."
Teal took another puff of his minty cigarello while I hung on every word of his story. I felt like i was around the camp fire of Are You Afraid of the Dark.
"I tried to bandage him up and stop the bleeding, but he had lost so much already that I was trying to win a losing battle. I pulled the monster's tooth from my assistant's neck and put it in a plastic bag to examine. He was scared. he kept asking me what's happening to him and that he felt cold and his mouth was dry. I told him to resist any tempation to drink. He just looked at me and his eyes dialated and his gums began to bleed. I've never forgotten the sound he made when his fangs potruded from his gums. It was like pushing a knife through sheet metal. I held my friend until he was done screaming. That day, I vowed to find a cure for him."
The minty air flowed through my lungs as I took a deep breath.
" What was your friend's name?"
Teal shot me a look, and a tear fell onto the broken glass of the whiskey bottle as he told me the name in a raspy voice.
"Luther Gaza."
My heart shriveled and cringed. The hairs on my skin felt prickly and I squinted my eyes at the sound of his name.
"Luther was your lab assistant and best friend? He turned me into the fucking beast that I am today! He stoel my life from me! And you're saying he's your best friend!"
Teal replied, "Was my best friend. You see, after that incadent, we both vowed to find a cure for him. I told Draven about it and I asked for her help. She was studying to become a microbiologist like myself, so she knew what to look for and what was at stake. For five years Luther, Draven and I tried to create an antidote but funds were running low due to teh lack of support from the government and the company I worked for. They both said the exact same thing. Like they emailed eachother what to say, 'Vampires don't exist. Are you trying to steal our money or our serioulsy that crazy?' I had little support, but Draven always seemeed to pull through for me. One day, I told her to go down in the lab basement to retrieve what I believed was teh last ingredient for the cure, while Luther and I mixed the last of the concoction. Luther hadn't been doing so well those past few years. He looked pale and he looked extremely weak. He fed on birds most of the for his quick fix. He would become violent, irratable, and nonreachable. The vampire within him was taking over. And I was there when he finally succumbed. I rememebr asking him if was ready to be cured and his words were, 'I am cured. I've never felt so alive. If only you could feel what I feel. We could turn everyone.' I looked at is dark stare and those were the last eyes I stared into before I knew what was about to happen. Luther lunged at me, mouth agape and he tore a chunk of my neck out. I collapsed on the floor leaving a puddle of blood at my feet. He bends down and says, 'Join me. You eventually will,' and escapes out the window, but not before buring all my books to the ground. He knows the recipe, but it takes way to long to make, but in my knowledge of what Luther was becoming, I put the remaining ingredients ina safe and gave the code to three different people. Two other assistants and Draven."
One last puff on the cigarello and Teal stomped out the ashes.
"He knows that one way will create a antidote and another way will create a serum to turn genes into vampire genes. But, what he doesn't have is the code for the lock o the safe or where the safe even is."
I sort the information that's just bouncing in my cranium walls and put the pieces together.
"How long do you have before you start following in the steps of Luther?," I ask not only for him but for me too.
Teal begins to answer when a figure steps into the shadow given off by the moon hitting him. There stood Draven with a bottle of whiskey in her hand. Like father like daughter.
TO BE CONTINUED.......
"Draven told me you were..."
He followed up with the word,"murdered."
My grip loosened and I dropped the whiskey bottle. The shattered glass echoed in the night and I leaned up against the wall and asked the question that we bith knew was coming.
"How are you here if you were murdered?" I asked confused and disoriented at the possibel thoughts as to what teh answer would be.
Teal looked at me with his cold eyes and his smirked. a sharp edge was sticking from his gums.
"I'm sure Draven has told you about the antidote I was trying to come up with, a cure for vampirism. My research started when my lab partner and I were researching a cure for ALS, When testing my subject, I noticed that his blood was extremely thin and his heart looked dry. It was if something had drained the life out if him and left him an empty black hole. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. My lab partner, who was my best friend, took a deeper look and traced the reason of this discoloration of the heart back to a transfer of disease way back in the 1600's... vampirism. We both stood in awe over this historic corpse. Vampires were fictional..until that day we both stood and stared fiction in the face," he took out a cigarello that smelled like mint and puffed the sweet smoke like he had just an unforgetable one night stand," So, after our findings, i had to call Draven and confide in her, to tell her what has been discovered. While I was outside, my lab assistant was left alone in the room with the "dead" creature. He loved to just get closer and closer until he couldn't find anymore to squeeze out of our finding. He had been way to close...and the creature came to and transferred the disease to my best friend. I heard an ear piercing scream that was followed by loud crash, a growl, and shot. I rushed into the lab and saw a bullet hole through the once dead body's head and a blood trail that led right to the product of the vampire...my assisants neck."
Teal took another puff of his minty cigarello while I hung on every word of his story. I felt like i was around the camp fire of Are You Afraid of the Dark.
"I tried to bandage him up and stop the bleeding, but he had lost so much already that I was trying to win a losing battle. I pulled the monster's tooth from my assistant's neck and put it in a plastic bag to examine. He was scared. he kept asking me what's happening to him and that he felt cold and his mouth was dry. I told him to resist any tempation to drink. He just looked at me and his eyes dialated and his gums began to bleed. I've never forgotten the sound he made when his fangs potruded from his gums. It was like pushing a knife through sheet metal. I held my friend until he was done screaming. That day, I vowed to find a cure for him."
The minty air flowed through my lungs as I took a deep breath.
" What was your friend's name?"
Teal shot me a look, and a tear fell onto the broken glass of the whiskey bottle as he told me the name in a raspy voice.
"Luther Gaza."
My heart shriveled and cringed. The hairs on my skin felt prickly and I squinted my eyes at the sound of his name.
"Luther was your lab assistant and best friend? He turned me into the fucking beast that I am today! He stoel my life from me! And you're saying he's your best friend!"
Teal replied, "Was my best friend. You see, after that incadent, we both vowed to find a cure for him. I told Draven about it and I asked for her help. She was studying to become a microbiologist like myself, so she knew what to look for and what was at stake. For five years Luther, Draven and I tried to create an antidote but funds were running low due to teh lack of support from the government and the company I worked for. They both said the exact same thing. Like they emailed eachother what to say, 'Vampires don't exist. Are you trying to steal our money or our serioulsy that crazy?' I had little support, but Draven always seemeed to pull through for me. One day, I told her to go down in the lab basement to retrieve what I believed was teh last ingredient for the cure, while Luther and I mixed the last of the concoction. Luther hadn't been doing so well those past few years. He looked pale and he looked extremely weak. He fed on birds most of the for his quick fix. He would become violent, irratable, and nonreachable. The vampire within him was taking over. And I was there when he finally succumbed. I rememebr asking him if was ready to be cured and his words were, 'I am cured. I've never felt so alive. If only you could feel what I feel. We could turn everyone.' I looked at is dark stare and those were the last eyes I stared into before I knew what was about to happen. Luther lunged at me, mouth agape and he tore a chunk of my neck out. I collapsed on the floor leaving a puddle of blood at my feet. He bends down and says, 'Join me. You eventually will,' and escapes out the window, but not before buring all my books to the ground. He knows the recipe, but it takes way to long to make, but in my knowledge of what Luther was becoming, I put the remaining ingredients ina safe and gave the code to three different people. Two other assistants and Draven."
One last puff on the cigarello and Teal stomped out the ashes.
"He knows that one way will create a antidote and another way will create a serum to turn genes into vampire genes. But, what he doesn't have is the code for the lock o the safe or where the safe even is."
I sort the information that's just bouncing in my cranium walls and put the pieces together.
"How long do you have before you start following in the steps of Luther?," I ask not only for him but for me too.
Teal begins to answer when a figure steps into the shadow given off by the moon hitting him. There stood Draven with a bottle of whiskey in her hand. Like father like daughter.
TO BE CONTINUED.......
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