Sweet Torture- Chapter 5

I didn't like this chapter that much when I first wrote it, but now I kind of like it.. ha I am so weird.. anyways, enjoy! =)

CHAPTER 5

“Every once in a while, he’ll come into town and people’ll start disappearing. Everyone is too scared to do anything about it anymore; he has killed a few of us in broad daylight to prove his power, so we stay scared of him.” I blinked slowly, feeling as if I had just come out of a dream. I had been living with Valentine during this time and never even knew what had transpired. I remember now there was a time when he had been gone at night more than usual, but it never crossed my mind that he had found a lover; besides he was usually more into boys than girls; the proof in his blood room. What an interesting story that bartender had just told me, and I told him so. “Why don’t you guys just… I don’t know, gang up on him? Go to his place during the day and kill him? Chop off his head or something?” I saw the scared look in the bartender’s eyes at the very thought of this town standing up for themselves.

             “We have no idea how powerful this monster is, and we are a simple town and we don’t want any more problems than we already have. We might as well let him do his thing. What he did to Elianore… he could turn any one of us into one of his monsters and no one wants that. Valentine doesn’t seem to be picky, so everyone tries to stay out of his notice so he will leave them alone and hopefully just go for the bums. I know that sounds harsh, but if you were us, wouldn’t you think the same thing??” I shrugged then shook my head as I stood up; I couldn’t believe these people were so scared of him. I knew how powerful he was, however, so what they did was smart so they could stay alive. “Well thanks for the story my friend. At least now I know what I’m up against.” I finished the last of my beer and walked out of the bar. As I left, I heard the bartender tell the guy next to him, “That guy is crazy. We’ll probably never see him alive again. He is going to his death and he doesn’t even believe us.”

I heard the disappointment in his voice, but once again I pretended not to hear. The story kept running through my mind and I didn’t think I needed to hear anything from anyone else. My hotel was my destination now, wanting to get used to my surroundings. This wasn’t the best place, but it was a place I would stay for a while, as long as the people got used to me and didn’t notice that I only came out at night. I got to my room, and instead of coming with a plan, immediately fell asleep. Apparently being on the run is a tiring life.

            I woke up with fear in my mind, my dream of Valentine burning the bar down and killing everyone inside still haunting me. A shudder ran through me as I woke up, the burning smell not quite leaving my nose. I stretched and got out of bed, figured that I could go to the bar again and see if anyone else had any stories. I looked out my window and saw that the sun was setting, so it would be safe for me to leave the room. As soon as I stepped outside, the burning smell became ever more intense. It was like someone had shoved my face directly into a fire. I started choking on the smell, stumbling out of the doorway of the hotel. I saw a huge fireball coming from the bar I had been at the past two nights in a row. I started to run towards the bar, hoping that the people had at least been spared, that the dream wasn’t completely true. When I got there, I could still hear screaming from inside the fireball. I saw that the door had been barricaded and I could see the bartender’s hand trying to get free. His hand was scratching the wood even as his fleshed burned off and dripped to the ground. The scratching was driving nails into my brain but finally, as all the flesh dripped off and it was just the skeleton, the scratching stopped. The hand dropped the bartended finally dead. He had burned as he tried to escape, his hand the only thing that felt freedom. As I stood there, stunned, not sure what I could do, the screaming slowly got quieter and quieter, and then finally stopped. Everyone was dead. The smell of burning flesh engulfed me and as I began backing away from the smell, I heard his laughter in my head.

            “This is just the beginning, Drake…”  I felt Valentine in my head like a huge weight pressing down on my. My head felt like it was going to split in two. I was too weak to even think of fighting him and Elianore slipped my mind, his pressure not letting me think of anything else. I couldn’t stand him, I couldn’t stand what had just happened. All I wanted to do was get away and all I could think of to do was run; run away from Tamrack, into the trees, get as far away from there as possible so more people wouldn’t die because of me.

Sweet Torture- Chapter 4

I like this chapter because you learn a little more about Valentine and he is my favorite character.. ha

CHAPTER 4

            The sun on my face jerked me awake from my dreamless sleep. I can normally stay in the sun for about an hour, but when it was at its peak like this, that hour was cut in half. I got up and  stood in the ray of sunshine that fell through the window in my room, almost immediately feeling the pins and needles. What normal people feel when their limbs “fall asleep”, I feel every time I am in the sun, the main reason creatures like me can’t stay in the sun for very long. That feeling intensifies the longer we stay in the sun and eventually it becomes painful and we are rendered useless. Then, because we are helpless to the heat, our skin starts to boil, the boils eventually bursting, the skin melting off the bones, leaving us just a worthless skeleton. Then the skeleton turns to ash and blows away. I saw Valentine torture a fellow “monster” this way and it was not a pretty sight. I already knew my limit when it came to the sun, so I decided to stay indoors until it went down. I also wanted to find out as much as I could about Valentine, assuming the people here knew anything more about him, other then the fact he was a “monster”. Anything I could use against him I wanted to make sure I knew, just in case we ran into each other. Unfortunately, that running in was going to happen a lot sooner than I thought.

            When the sun had finally set, I ventured into town to find out what I wanted to find out. I had no idea where to start, but I thought the bar I had been at the night before would be the best place, since the bartender had been the one warning me against the “monster”. I figured he would have more of a story to tell then anyone else. And I was right. It was pretty easy to get him to talk too. One would think he had been dying to tell this story for years, and now finally someone was here to listen to it. All it took was one simple question; “So, this “monster” of yours… do you know anything else about it?” And the floodgates opened.

Well we think it is this creature by the name of Valentine. Every time he came to town, there seemed to be a lot of people dying, they looked to be either butchered or sucked dry. This big story was, that years ago, this Valentine character started coming here and around that same time, people started disappearing. We all thought it was the strangest thing because he never came during the day, only at night. Eventually, we noticed he started visiting one person in particular, Elianore. She was always a bizarre person, only wearing white, moping around town never talking to anyone. Never went farther than a few blocks away from her house and never went shopping anywhere. Her father was very protective, and his protectiveness seemed to turn Elianore into a waif of some sort. People eventually started whispering that she was a witch because late at night, her room light would be on and people could hear chanting come from her room. Some people even said they would see her, standing by her window, just staring out, her lips moving but no sound coming out. She wouldn’t even acknowledge people if they walked by her window and said “Hi”.

            Of course, this is all just hearsay, and it could have been a prayer she was chanting but who knows. As I said, she was a strange one. Anyways, Valentine took a liking to her and started going over to her place a night. For a while, people stopped disappearing, it was just animals that were disappearing, and everyone was OK with that. Animals are not as important as people, so we eventually forgot about Valentine and his nightly visits to Elianore. Then, people started whispering about Elianore again, saying how pale she was getting, how she never left her house anymore. She was listless and lethargic and didn’t want to do anything. People only saw her at night and they said she looked scary and a little more crazy that usual. The rumor came again that she was some sort of witch and that her and Valentine were sacrificing small animals to keep their youth. So this one night, Bill Jacobs, her neighbor, was walking home from work when he heard a noise, he said it sounded like dogs eating, in the alley running besides her house. He peered into the alley, thinking he should go home but curiosity got the best of him. He took a few steps, straining to see what it was that was going on. He let out a gasp because he had just seen what looked like two eyes, peering back at him. “Hello? Is someone there?” He heard a growl and thought that perhaps it was a dog, so he thought he should just leave. As he was getting ready to turn around, he saw a flash of a white garment. He thought that maybe this dog had attacked a child, so Bill walked deeper into the alley, thinking he could help. As he got closer, though he realized it was two people in the alley, with one person crouched over the other. “Hello? Do you guys need help?” The one on top looked up and Bill gasped again, this time in recognition; it was Elianore’s eyes staring back at him, a huge grin on her face and covered in blood. “Elianore?! What’s going on here?” Bill froze, not knowing if he should try and stop her, but afraid her hunger would turn on him. Elianore growled at Bill, leaping over Bill’s hand to land behind him and ran off leaving Bill in a daze. He walked slowly over to the other body, felt for a pulse and found none. He stared at the blood on his hand. “Poor John Stunf. He was only 17 and he was infatuated with that girl.” Still staring at his hand, Bill started walking towards the bar, unsure of what else to do or where else to go. He knew he had to tell someone and the first place he thought of was the bar.

            We didn’t believe him, at first. Elianore? Kill someone? There was no way. But we searched high and low for her and finally found her at her house, covered in blood and we could only assume it was John’s… who else’s would it be? She didn’t deny it when we accused her, which was consent in our eyes. Her parents resisted us, saying she was fine that nothing needed to be done; that she was just going through a phase. But we knew her parent’s were wrong, that something did need to be done to stop her. We couldn’t stand by while Elianore killed more people. We knocked her parents out and locked them in one of the rooms then when for Elianore. She didn’t even resist us when we grabbed her and tied her up; it was like she wanted us to kill her. We argued a bit over what should be done to her, but since everyone agreed she was a witch of sorts, we settled on taking her to the lake. Now, usually with witches, you want to drown them to make sure they are good and dead. So we tried to drown Elianore, kept her under that water for a good 20 minutes, but she was still alive so we did the one thing we could think of to make sure she was completely dead; we cut off her head. No one can stay alive after their head is cut off. We also burned the rest of her body, just in case. Some of had our doubts that she was just a witch, so we took all precautions. After that, we tried to kill Valentine, to corner him and burn him, but he was too powerful, killing half of us in his desperate attempt to get away. We knew it was him that had done this to her, who else could have made her that bad? He was the one visiting her every night doing Lord knows what! He claimed that she was the love of his life, that it was not his fault, that it was her choice. But why would Elianore choose a life of killing people? Who would choose a life of killing people? He never wanted it to turn out this way, he said, he never wanted her to kill people or for her to die. He said his heart was broken by what we had done and we would never be rid of him. But of course, we just ignored his warning, letting him escape after he killed half a dozen of us, seemingly without lifting his hands. He destroyed as many buildings on his way out as well, making sure we knew what he was capable of. We drove him out once,  but those of us that survived the ordeal haven’t tried again. This town almost didn’t survive after that and we are trying to now just live peaceful lives, so we ignore him the best we can.

Sweet Torture- Chapter 3

yay next chapter! I am not as happy with this one as I am with the others, but oh well.. I have edited it so much that I think that is why, so I am done and just posting it! so enjoy! =)

            I had no idea where I wanted to go first, just that I wanted to leave. Valentine’s place was basically in the middle of nowhere; hidden behind a forest of redwood trees, at least a two days walk for humans, from any civilization; the closet town being Tamrack.. The people that lived in Tamrack hated Valentine; he had taken a lot of their children. And even though they never saw him do it, he made sure they knew that he was responsible for the missing children every time he went back to Tamrack for another feeding. He made sure he forced an image of himself in their minds every time he was there; bringing their fear to the fore front. Valentine wanted people to fear him so that they wouldn’t try anything to stop him. And if Valentine ever wanted a different “taste”, he went to Tramden. I had been to each of those towns several times to pick out his victims, but was able to cloud enough of their minds enough so that hopefully they wouldn’t recognize me if I went back. He wasn’t in Tramden as much as he was in Tamrack, since he usually just went there when he was bored with Tamrack, so the people of that didn’t hate him as much, they just feared him. They tried their hardest to ignore him and whenever he got off his ass to do his own hunting, they always moved around him, as if his aura were a repellent.

Enough about Valentine, I had to think of where I could go, who would accept me as just another weary traveler, looking for a place to stay. I thought my best move would be to start at Tamrack, if only for the reason that it was the next closest town. I had to see how the general public would react to me, if they could tell I was like Valentine, or if I was powerful enough to cloud enough minds so that they wouldn’t remember me and just accept me as another human. I also had to see if Valentine really would follow me wherever I went. At least in Tamrack the people didn’t like Valentine, so if he fucked up their town they would blame him and not me. I took off at a slow trot, not looking forward to getting to Tamrack; I had a bad feeling someone would recognize me, that I hadn’t been able to cloud enough minds the times I had to visit. I just needed them to not question me, to just let me have a room to sleep in then ignore me for the rest of the time I was there. If I could get them to just forget about me, I would be set.

I stepped into the forest and focused on the sounds around me; I didn’t want to be caught off guard. It was midnight, the night being at it’s darkest and my favorite time of night. This was the time I was at my strongest as well, the dark a being of its own, helping me to gain any strength I needed, the moon looking down upon me, enclosing me with it’s light and power. At this time I always felt a mixture of this dark and light working inside me, the two elements helping me be the strongest I needed to be. I knew that if Valentine tried to attack me now, I still had some chance that I wouldn’t die, or that I could at least take him with me if I did. Going deeper into the forest I embraced the darkness and began to run. Even though the redwoods were close together and the forest was dense, I was able to foresee any obstacles and nothing could slow me down. I avoided bushes, trees, small animals, anything that could have possibly deterred a normal person and I made it to Tamrack in record time. I wasn’t even out of breath when I reached the town, having only taken two hours to get there, so I immediately went to a bar that was still open. As I walked through the door, I felt for sure it was going to be the typical movie scene: a stranger walks into the local bar and everything gets really quiet and everyone turns and stares. In this bar, however, everyone was too drunk to even notice me walk in. Going straight to the bar, I ordered a beer, knowing I couldn’t enjoy the taste, but not wanting to seem out of place in a bar.

“You’re not from around here are you?” I had to smirk when the bartender asked me because that was straight out of a movie. “No. I just got here. I am traveling through but I need a place to stay tonight. Any ideas?”

The bartender eyed me, not sure whether to answer me or to just tell me to go to hell. I sat on the stool, taking a sip every now and then, acting like I enjoyed the taste, not bothering to look at the guy. I was trying to be conspicuous and not let these people know just how different I was. “Where did you say you came from?” I groaned inwardly. From that question, I knew that he suspected something, so I told him the only thing I could think of, “I’m from Tramden, heading through the forest to see what’s on the other side.”

I saw the shock on his face, and he started to shake his head. “You don’t want to be going through that forest. There are evil things out there, and whoever gets to the other side, never comes back. There is a monster that lives out there!” I just looked at him with a smirk. I had to be an outsider; I had to convince him that I knew nothing of this “monster”. “Oh yeah? What kind of monster?” The bartender shook his head again. “I dunno what kind, but I do know that it eats people, and that sometimes you can hear screams at night from it torturing people. It comes here sometimes, as if to remind people who he is and what he can do. No one has ever dared to even go into the forest just in case; we like our lives here. We tried to get rid of it once, we tried cornering him and burning him, but he almost flattened the town after that. Now we are just too afraid of it to try anything else. It is in the shape of a man, but who knows what it really is.” I let out a laugh. I didn’t think I was going to stay here long, so may as well play up the  whole “monster” thing. You’re welcome, Valentine. “Well I am not afraid of any “monster”. I am pretty sure I can take care of this “monster” you are talking about. I doubt it is anything more than some crazy person who likes to torture people.” I downed my beer, trying not to grimace, and got ready to leave.

 “At least stay the night in our hotel! We hear the screams at night; this creature apparently sleeps during the day, or at least doesn’t torture or kill anyone during the day. And we have only seen him once or twice while it was still light out. So if you stay here, you may have a better chance of avoiding it. The hotel is just down the street, not far, just stay there for the night. Then you can’t say I didn’t try to help or warn you. No one has ever survived, but if you are so gung-ho, who am I to stop you? At least get some sleep… and then go to your death.” He started to ramble, muttering the last couple of sentences under his breath, but of course I heard him. I pretended not to hear, however, no need to start any trouble, and just paid for the beer, smirking the whole time pretending I didn’t believe anything he told me. “We will see about this monster in the morning…” I walked out, just happy I had obscured their minds enough that they had not recognized me and that they had told me about the hotel.

Finding the hotel right away, I paid for a couple nights, just in case I decided to stay. I had liked the bartender and who knows; maybe I could make a place like this my home. It didn’t occur to me until it was too late that it was to close to Valentine. I had forgotten about his threat and I should have known better, but I was still elated about having left Valentine finally and about the stories of the “monster” that I had just heard.