Sleepy

I have been writing late at night again. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the whole morning thing.

It gets to be a nasty cycle. I write late, get up for work, work tired all day, go home, nap, write late...

You see how this works. Since I nap because I am tired I don't fall asleep as easily, which helps me write later, but then I don't get enough sleep at night. hoo-boy.

Either way I am approaching the end of this book. I am tracking what is left to write by the major events left to happen. Everything else is just fill to tie the events together.

Either way, I hope that you, the readers I have are enjoying this. And if you're reading this post, I'll let you onto my plans for the near future. Once I finish this book I will take some time to edit it, and then onto the next project. It is a sci-fi/horror, and I think that it will be better than torn.

we'll see, and more on the next project as I get a little closer to it.

So here is the next chapter.

Torn
37

Sleep came easy to the both of them that night.

Maureen dreamt of the things that Julius had told her about.

Julius just dreamt.

***

Morning brought the fresh smell that follows rain.

For the first time Maureen woke before Julius. Not yet ready for coffee she went out onto the patio, inhaling deep the cleansed air. She wanted to go and run in the wet grass, but her ankle was still sore. She would have to take it easy for the day.

She closed her eyes. She had always loved the outdoors just after a rain. The world was renewed, not yet soiled again by the likes of man.

“You always did like the rain.”

Maureen’s heart jumped. She hadn’t heard Julius approaching.

He walked up beside her. “I think that if your ankle wasn’t hurt you would be running through the grass. You always enjoyed life at its freshest.”

Maureen sighed and leaned against the vampire. He understood her in ways that Scott didn’t.

Scott! She remembered her husband with a start. She limped back into the house, intent on calling his parent’s house.

She picked up the phone before she realized what the time was.

Julius had followed her in and had pushed the receiver button down again before she even finished dialing. She looked at the vampire, a little annoyed.

“Kyra, the sun has barely finished clearing the horizon. You would only wake them up.”

She looked at the clock. He was right, but she didn’t want to forget. She at least had to try to call them.

Julius had removed his hand from the base as she was thinking. She started to dial again.

Julius pushed the button again. “I’ll remind you when the time is better.”

Maureen stared at him for a moment, then hung up the phone.

***

The coffee was ready. Maureen poured herself a cup and went back out to the patio, determined to enjoy as much of the weather as she could.

Julius followed, and sat in the chair opposite hers. He was silent as he tried to decide what to do that day.

“What happened afterward?”

Julius looked at her, “What do you mean?”

“After I… After Jack…” Maureen didn’t know how to ask. She finally just restated the original question. “What happened afterward?”

Julius nodded, understanding. “Rumor spread. As other communities found out about the attack more of the actual dynamics of it became clear.

There was suspicion that there had been more involved than those who participated in the attack. Another community found one of those people. He was executed.”

Maureen winced.

“Our community recovered. Jack had done one good thing for us. He had left none of the invading forces alive.

We think that he stayed in the area for a while after that, feeding off of the fear that surrounded us as we tried to decide on whether to leave or stay.

He left once the fear had mostly subsided. Hungry for more action, and generally bored with us.”

Maureen smiled, but in her eyes Julius could see sadness.

She looked away.

Finally, after a silence, “I meant with you.”

Silence.

After she could stand it no more she looked up. She could see the memory of it all in Julius’ eyes. She was about to rescind her question when he spoke.

“I did nothing for three days. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t even take water. All I thought about was you. I wanted Jack to have taken me as well, at least then we would have been together.

I don’t know what pulled me through that stage. I like to think that you were looking after me, giving me the strength I needed.

The fourth day after the attack I decided that I needed some time away from the community. I packed a satchel, and left. I said not a word to anyone, and I left when most were asleep.

I think that most of the community believed that I had left to die in peace.

Another three days I wandered. I revisited all of our favorite places, but found no solace there.

Finally I found myself at the entrance to the elven city.

I hadn’t meant to go in at first, but I reasoned that at the very least your great-great grandfather needed to know of your death.”

Julius paused. He took a sip of bloodroot juice.

“I was lucky. Three days in the wilderness had caused me to tan ever so slightly. As I entered the elven city I was mistaken for just a pale elf.

I had no idea where your grandfather lived, just that I was in the right city.

I think I scared the elf I asked nearly to death. I was so desperate to find him that I was alternating yelling and crying.

Your grandfather knew the instant that he opened the door. I think the grief was still so evident on my face that he knew it could be nothing else.

He treated me as if I had always been a member of the family.

You saw me there, but he saw me through. He showed me that I spared for a greater reason than Jack’s love of pain. He showed me the good that I could still do.

Slowly I recovered.

I had been there nearly a month when he asked me to continue training.

I didn’t know what to say. I had thought that the training would have ended with your death, that it would be too painful for him as well.

I knew what you would have wanted me to do.”

Julius bowed his head. Remembering with mixed emotions that time.

“I spent two years there. He taught me everything that he knew, and then some.

He had grown ill after your death. I had trained under him, and helped him through his last days. He had told me to leave a couple of days before his death, but I knew that you would want me to help him. He smiled at me just before he passed, and thanked me. In those moments I knew that you be happy.”

Maureen felt tears in her eyes.

“It was after his death that I finally returned to the vampires. I had been thought dead for so long that some screamed when I reentered the caverns. They thought that the sight of me meant ill tidings.

I was left alone for quite a while after my homecoming. Nobody was sure what to think of my reappearance. The only thing that they did know was that I had come back stronger and with a resolve that they had never seen in me before.

Everybody asked where I had been, but they never received an answer. Some still guess.”

Julius sat back in the chair, finished.

He looked across the grass, watching the dew evaporate in the heat of the rising sun.

“It’s late enough now. Call your mate.”