The moon shone brightly down on a blond head as a girl retrieved the family "just in case" key from underneath the third flower pot along the porch of an old converted church. The town was asleep and the house had no really close neighbors. She quietly slid the key into the front door and carefully pushed it open.
She crept through the doorway of her parents room, intending to wake them up and tell them everything. It had played on her mind for a while. She was so afraid to tell them what she had become, but they needed to know.
As she came around the bed something about her mother's sleeping form made Joanne stop. Something was different, new. A sad smile slid across her face as she realized what had caught her attention. Just beneath the sound of her mothers heart beat was a second, quicker heart beat. Joanne touched her mothers arm and saw the tiny promise of laughter and new beginnings. Her family was going to be okay without her, they would move on.
She retracted her hand. Did she really need to drag them into her own darkness? Joanne left as silent and alone as she had come.
As she walked across the houses dark lawn and into the street she was joined by a tall blond boy in a black leather jacket and straight blue jeans. She walked a little quicker. He lengthened his stride.
"Go away" she said, keeping her eyes on the street in front of her.
"I only did what you asked me to, remember?" He stepped in front of her and searched her face with his dark eyes. "I didn't do anything you didn't want me to."
Joanne pushed him aside
"I said go away!" she hissed.
As she walked off, he stood in the middle of the street looking after her with a pained expression on his pale face.
When out of his sight Joanne began to run. First jogging, then she built up her speed until the yellow road lines beneath her morphed onto one blurry streak in the middle of the street and the air pushed back her blond hair in the deathly calm night.
When she stopped she was out side of the local hospital. The stench of the sick and dieing stung her senses and flashes of the dead and their last moments shook Joanne's consciousness and she quickly blocked them before walking up to the receptionists desk. There was a new receptionist on duty tonight.
"Hello, I'm here for Dr. Austen. I'm Angela; he'll know who I am. Could you alert him please?" Joanne's voice was quiet even in the calmness of the hospital in the late hour.
"Sure sweetie, he'll be with you in a moment." the receptionist smiled sympathetically at her.
"I am so sorry for your loss; I saw the news report on the news about Joanne Scott. Such a shame."
Joanne looked at the large receptionist in shock."What do you mean?"
"Honey, I can tell you're related to her. Goodness, she was a redheaded version of you! If I hadn't seen her in this hospital just two months ago, I would have thought that you were one and the same. You are both very pretty girls. You look about the same age; you must have been close to your sister."
"We were cousins, but thank you, we all miss her." Joanne kept her eyes on her hands in front of her.
"I'd been meaning to give my condolences for a while now, Joanne was a friend of my nieces, Carol, she's been in a terrible state, do you know her?"
Joanne flinched at the name of her best friend. "No, no I don't, sorry. Thank you for alerting Dr Austen Miss," Joanne looked at her name tag, "Trumen."
"No problem sweetheart, he'll be here soon."
"Okay, I'm going to sit over there and wait." Joanne smiled at Miss Trumen and moved to one of the waiting seats along the hospital wall.
In a few moments Dr. Albert Austen walked into the waiting aria and waved to Joanne. She got up and followed him.
When behind the closed door of his office Joanne whispered urgently to Dr. Austen,"Al, your receptionist recognized me!"
"What?"
"Well, she thought I was my sister or something, the only reason she could tell me apart from Joanne Scott was my now blond hair!"
Al looked at her with concerned eyes. "I have told you this before, but this time I expect you to listen. You need to leave this town and even the state. As I said before, I have good contacts in New York, Michigan and Texas. You will be looked after and I will look after your family. You cant stay, and you are no help to them."
Joanne looked down at her hands that had began to fidget in her lap. "I just don't want to leave my life behind, this is my home, my family live here."
"Joanne, you lost your life two months ago, and you have no choice in the matter, you are leaving the state. I should have sent you earlier, before an incident such as the one between the receptionist and yourself happened."
"I don't want to go Al."
Al regarded her without the previous sympathy in his face and leaned towards her. "You don't have a choice. Go or I will make you disappear for good."
Joanne looked up at him with an astounded and angry glare. "You are actually threatening me? You who is meant to be on my side, who is meant to be helping me?"
Al pushed the bags of blood that Joanne had come for across the table. "If that's what it takes."
She snatched up the blood, put it in her bag and swung open his office door.
"Joanne, I will send you somewhere, I will chose for you if I must."
"Tell your guys in New York to expect me." and with that she slammed the door behind her.
Joanne decided to take the long way home, her head was reeling with her mothers pregnancy and now faced with losing her family completely, she was finally understanding what she had done and how naive she had been. Jack should have warned her, but he didn't, he encouraged her. His words drummed on in her head; I only did what you asked.
"I didn't even know what I was asking for!" she cried aloud in the empty park that she had strolled into, lost in thought.
Upon hearing her own voice she realized that she couldn't remember how she had come to find herself at the park that she was standing in. It didn't matter really, she could easily pick up her own trail back, but there was something else, something out of place. She could feel eyes watching her and could hear quiet breathing from the bushes to her left. On the path in front of her was a bench, walking up to it she dropped her bag, sat down and put her head in her hands.
A tall, shadowy figure rose up behind her and reached out to clasp a hand around her throat.
There was a sudden gasp of pain and the man that was the shadowy figure yelped pathetically as his body was thrown forcefully to the ground. Joanne turned around to see Jack on top of the man, shoving his face into the wet grass. She stood up and moved around the bench to where Jack had the man pinned flat to the ground.
"What are you doing?"
Jack looked up at her slightly confused "I'm-"
Joanne cut him short "You and I both know that I don't need your help. Are you following me? Again? When I said go away, I meant that I don't want to have to see you, and I don't want you to see me. So go away."
Jack got off the man and left him to scramble to his feet and high tail it back into the streets, rubbing his bruised wrists and spitting out grass as he ran.
"I heard you're leaving."
"None of your business, go away" Joanne walked towards the park exit.
Before she could hop the locked gate, Jack grabbed her arm. "Yes it is. It is because we are bonded, I created you."
She tore her arm from his grasp. "You created me? You destroyed me! We are not bonded at all, I don't need you! Hell, I don't even want you! You were selfish, so you took my life from me, my friends and my family. I have never hated anyone like I hate you."
He blinked, shocked, then his brows furrowed and he narrowed his eyes "You knew exactly what I was, because I told you. You knew exactly what would happen! How can you put all the blame on me?"
"Easily." Joanne turned her back on him, jumped the gate and left him watching after her for the second time that night.
When Joanne returned to her apartment complex she could smell the morning nearing and paused outside the building, daring herself to wait for sunrise. After a short while she gave up and pushed her key into the apartment complex's security door and acceded the stairs.
Upon walking into her home she found an envelope that had been pushed into her apartment via the crack under her apartment door. It was a plane ticket with her details on it set for tomorrow night at half past eight. She tossed the paperwork onto her kitchen side and headed towards her plain, windowless room which was bare apart from a pile of folded clothes in one corner and a simple single bed with grey sheets in the other.
Joanne closed and locked her door before siting on her bed, staring at one of the blood bags from Al. She had been living off someone else's blood, their life, for two months now, and she was disgusted. Joanne felt like a tick or a flee, lowly and degenerate, when she thought of how she lived off others. Yet as she moved the crimson substance around in the bag she found her entire body aching for it and her eyes fascinated by the many tones of red that seemed shine to her in the pitch-black room. She slowly brought the bag to her mouth and bit into it. She drained two of the four bags given to her before wrapping herself in a sheet and drifting into a deep dreamless slumber.
Joanne awoke with a start. There was some one, or something, in her apartment, she could feel it. She could feel the atmosphere of her dwelling collide with a new, powerful energy. She had no weapons. She had no way out. There was only one thing to do. Joanne slipped out of bed and stood upright at her bedroom door. She placed her hand on the doorknob and twisted. The apartment was in semi darkness, the sun had just about gone down.
Directly ahead of Joanne, who was unmoving in the doorway, sat a pale dark haired man in a black suit and sun glasses. Joanne waited for him to make the first move. She knew that she was out of her depth and she knew that defeating or escaping this man was impossible.
He smiled. "Hello."
Joanne stood still and silent. He had not answered the unspoken question that hung between her and the stranger sitting in her apartment.
His smile widened and his teeth flashed as he spoke in southern tones that contradicted his city slicker's appearance. "You're right, business comes before pleasantries."
"My name is Bryce and I'm going to escort you to New York."
"Escort?" Joanne said the word slowly and kept her eyes on his lest he should show any sign of moving.
Bryce nodded and laced his fingers together on his lap before looking back up at Joanne.
" I am here as requested by a man called Eric who is taking you in as a favor to a man, who I think you know already, called Albert Austen."
Joanne relaxed a little at the mention of Al's name.
"Why do I need to be escorted from my apartment?"
He took off his glasses.
"It is policy that anyone traveling to the Mansion should be escorted. As well as that there are dangers about this," he paused "way of being that you do not understand yet. I am your bodyguard as well as your babysitter. I've got to make sure that you get to the Mansion before 3.30 tonight and that you don't do anything foolish along the way.
"Dangers, like what? What would I do that would be foolish enough warrant a babysitter?"
"Dangers that you will learn about later. Foolish like you getting a little hungry and leaving a body in the plane's restroom."
"I wouldn't do that." She said, offended.
"I don't know you, and we don't want a trail of blood leading up to the Mansion."
Bryce lead Joanne out of her apartment with what little she owned stuffed into a backpack.
His car was sleek and black with dark tinted windows. She found herself wondering whether he had rented the car or not, and if so whether or not the man at the car hire counter grew at all suspicious when the tall, pale man in front of her asked for a car with black tinted windows. Of course he hadn't. Why would he? The adult world was brainwashed to only believe the explainable, even when the unexplainable waltzed before them, mocking their ignorance. Even Joanne had fooled herself into naivety. By the time she had been able to understand that the real world was as abstract as the fictional one, it was too late.
The plane ride was largely uneventful; Bryce had a seat next to Joanne on the isle seat, they hardly looked at one another throughout the flight. Bryce had a few suspicious glances from other passengers as he sat ridged in his seat with his sunglasses for the duration of the journey.
They landed on time at 1:30am, and left the airport with out anything out of the ordinary accruing. As Bryce put Joanne's backpack into the back seat of yet another black car with tinted windows, she began to ask herself what it was that he wasn't telling her. He had said there were dangers. Joanne had assumed that the bulk of these dangers were down to the threat that she posed to people around her, or the danger of not making it to her new residence in time for sun rise, but he was tense and watchful, watchful of something other than her. Also he had called himself her bodyguard. Bodyguard against what?
Joanne slipped into the passenger seat as Bryce started the engine.
"Around what time will we get there?"
Bryce paused and looked at her through his glasses at her as if only just realizing that she was there.
"We should be at the mansion in about three hours."
Joanne could not read his expression due to his glasses, however she could hear the relief in his voice.
"Is it in the middle of the city or something?"
He put the car into gear, "I'm sure you were expecting that when you decided to go to New York, but I hope I don't disappoint you in saying that you will not be living in the city."
"Oh, where is the mansion then?"
"You are just going to have to wait and see."
"Okay, so what is it like in the mansion, does every one live in the same building?"
"You could say that."
"How many live at the mansion?"
"A few."
He was pissing her off. Why would he not give her any useful answers? Was he trying to be mysterious? Maybe he found it funny on some level, keeping her in the dark so obviously. Joanne didn't attempt to speak to Bryce for the rest of the car ride. She contented herself in watching the streets pass by. The passing streets turned into passing trees and the long road ahead of her seemed to stretch forever as the miles went by. Time dragged on.
She thought of her parents, she thought of her sister, Erin, being a big sister to the soon to be new member of the family. Would the baby be a boy or a girl? Would Joanne ever know what he or she looked like? Joanne decided that she would go and find her family again one day, even if it only meant looking through the living room window. Maybe she would go back in a couple years, maybe sooner. Her thoughts were disrupted by Bryce's voice, which was accompanied by the car losing momentum as it rolled to a stop in front of tall black gates that bore in the center the emblem of a lion.
"We're here."
The Mansion was secluded. The nearest town was seven miles north, and aside from the occasional fisher visiting the unnamed lake that resided a few miles away, very little people came near the old place that hid in the darkness of the trees. People of the nearest towns had heard of the mansion. Teenagers dared one another to venture into the woods that were supposed to be haunted by the owner of the mansion, who had built it 300 years ago. Of course most of them turned tails before they even came within sight of the building, but those who didn't were said to never return. All melodrama of course. That had only ever happened once.
As Joanne stood in front of the old mansion that loomed over her, blocking out the moonlight, she felt the urge to run. She felt that it would consume and trap her forever in an eternal undead life. She did not run. This was partly because she was not sure where she would run to, and partly because she knew that she was already trapped. Jack had trapped Joanne and for that she wished him not dead, but ever living, cold and alone, as she felt now. However she knew that he would find a new girl to trap soon, he would not be alone for long, and so Joanne could only wish him dead.
Bryce opened one of the large Oak doors at the entrance of the place, letting yellow light spill on to the bare wood of the porch. He held open the door for Joanne and invited her in.
"Ladies first"
She hesitated, and then with a quiet "thank you" she entered her new home.
From the outside the building seemed harsh with it's dark curtains drawn tightly closed, it's once white outer walls stained brown and the wild and uncut vegetation that surrounded it, save the pathway to the front door. Inside of the house was the complete opposite; it was kept and almost homely with cream walls and polished wooden furniture. The first thing Joanne noticed when she walked into the mansion however was not the warmness of the interior, but the sheer size of the reception, which could have easily fit over 100 bodies in it at one time, and the hallway that lead off from it was at least 45ft wide. The second thing she noticed was the hundreds of mirrors that hung on the hallway walls.
As Bryce led Joanne towards what appeared to be the living room, she was shocked to see people in there. There were nine or so sat on a half circular couch for 20 that was placed before a T.V big enough to be a cinema screen, playing Halo. At one end of the room there was another group of about five standing around a pool table and on the far right a few more stood around a jukebox, laughing and talking. Joanne could not hear any of it. She could hear a pin drop an apartment away, but she could not hear people talking right in front of her? Bryce was still standing behind her. She brushed her hand across her jeans. Joanne heard that well enough.
She turned to Bryce, pointing to the soundless people in the living room; "What the hell is that?"
He grinned. "We had a spell put on each room of the mansion. The spell wont let noise in or out."
"You brought a witch or something here, who cast a spell on that room so, for no reason other than the spell working; I can't hear anything from in there unless I walk into the room?" She asked, not quite believing him.
"You have allot to learn about this world." He said, ushering her towards the living room.
As soon as she stepped over the threshold she jumped in shock as she suddenly heard gunshots and explosions from the T.V, music from the jukebox and chatter from the inhabitants of the room. Upon seeing her everyone stopped what they were doing, some nudging one another, and looked at her, most grinning at her reaction. Bryce spoke up.
"This is the new girl, play nice while I find Eric."
Then he left her alone under the eyes of a room of strangers.