Chapter 6
Haunted Heartbreak
Will approached the dark man he almost tripped over a splintered wooden piece of wood resembling a stake. He looked down and quickly picked it up, “Juss once, I wish I had the perfect piece of wood!” He immediately tossed it. The sharp splinter dropped through the bottom window portal and landed on the basement floor.
Renald wasn’t grimacing this time though. He stood, feet wide apart and hands behind his back
“No smiles this time, eh?” Said Will while picking up another piece of debri, flicking it into a corner pile where Chris would usually deposit it. “So what does he say now?”
Renald, stood grim faced. “He’s not happy. It seems, you’re behind schedule.”
“I understand that, but I’m short a crewman. My right hand man’s out with some kinda flu, got bit by some kind of vermin…” Will continued to ramble on.
* * *
It took some time but Chris was a little proud of himself. He’d finally gotten a hang of pounding the wooden X’s together and the coolness and shade meant that he was out of the sun. Finally, he didn’t have to worry about eyes being on him pointing out his mistakes. For the first time in the job he felt he knew what he was doing. For the first time in the job he felt confident. He felt this because he was competent in his new skill.
His peaceful moment didn’t last though. Time alone, meant time with his thoughts. Most of his thoughts were about Lucia. Somehow the pain would always find him, on the road during a lengthy drive or at night before sleep. Enough! He yelled in his head. Concentrate on what you’re doing, take the pain out on the job.
Suddenly a bit of a shiver ran up his back. He only noticed it because of his newly found focus. This slight distraction felt a little out of the ordinary. Why the slight breeze now?
He spun his head around, shaking the ladder. Nothing.
He went back into the zen moment of pounding nails. The repetitive motion reminded him of when he was in basic training. His drill sergeant had the platoon going from the position of attention to parade rest. Both arms were behind the bottom of his back, hands on top of each other. The drill sergeant had walked around the group of soldiers, checking their form. His steel eyes looked into Chris’s but Chris only looked over the sergeant’s shoulder and through the window, watching the TV in the cafeteria. No other thoughts but moving precisely from attention to parade rest.
During this time, Lucia was probably meeting her boyfriend. The thought seemed forced this time, like a person purposely antagonizing him to go back to the painful subject of missing her.
Ah, all while I was training. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t meet her first. She was a Senior in college while I was a sophomore! He remembered the brief moments they talked. She smiled when he told her she was PHAT (pretty hot and tempting).
Eventually, all the feel good memories would slowly turn into the bad. Her turning him down after he asked her out. It had taken him hours that day, just to work up the courage.
He lined up another two blocks and pounded his nails through.
His thoughts continued to spiral downward…her telling him that she wouldn’t meet him for dinner at the local pizza shop because her ex-boyfriend said no. He remembered when he was called into the office downstairs over wanting to draw her picture. The manager telling him what she wouldn’t.
The same painful night where he pounded the roof of his car with his fist, he roared and water shot from his eyes. That night he stopped believing in love.
That night he stopped being naive about the girls he liked and if they reciprocated that love.
He pounded yet another nail deep into the board, some small splinters shot out.
His heart cried.
It had especially cried when they said their final goodbye’s, when she left on her last day. Down the hallway, leaving him behind. He remembered her soft face touching his right cheek, him trying to smile after they hugged. His future with the opposite of sex severely uncertain.
He pounded another nail.
The Muzak on the speaker blearing out the soft melodic hits of the seventies, eighties and some of the nineties as she walked down the bright sunny tunnel. She walked into her bright heaven, leaving him behind with his newfound pain of longing. His heart was shattered and would never be the same.
Somewhere in deep his heart he would never feel that kind of love, connection and attraction for a women ever again. He couldn’t allow it. The kind of love he gave was only once in a lifetime. There would be other women he would lust for some sure enough, but none that he would love with a pure heart again.
Chris felt an unnatural sense of being watched. The feeling rode up his spinal cord and up to the back of his neck. His instincts told him not to turn around. He had to though, he needed more wood for the bridgework. He turned and Lucia stood smiling looking up at him.
* * *
Will finished pounding a few more boards into place. He made the mistake of letting the new guy do his thing unsupervised and wouldn’t make it twice. He stopped and looked down at his wristwatch. It was about time to check up on Chris’s work.
* * *
Chris was totally silent as he took in her image. His irregular heartbeat pumped three times in rapid succession not really believing what he saw. How was she here? Why was she here? All of those questions washed away as she looked directly into his eyes smiling. Her ocean blue eyes locked onto his brown orbs and all the chemicals were unleashed in him. He stepped down from his ladder putting his hammer on the step.
“I missed you. I thought about what you said and I had to see you.”
Said Lucia.
Chris walked closer to her. She stood completely still.
Lucia motioned with her hands to come closer. He didn’t even noticed her hands because her eyes said it all and he approached.
She put her arms around Chris’s neck. Chris went in for the kiss even though a tiny part in him was suspicious. It didn’t make sense that she was here, not the least bit. How did she know he even worked here? A silent voice washed over the thought as if to say, that doesn’t matter anymore, all that matters is that you’re here with me now…let’s be together now!”
She loved her head to his neck and her mouth stretched open unnaturally wide. Her pupils blazed like two red suns and her top lip rose on both sides. The top two fangs grew even larger as her mouth opened.
* * *
Will came trampled down the steps of the basement, but before he went all the way down he had a feeling to bring his nail gun to expedite the process. He grabbed the gun off the staircase railing. Besides, there might be a critter down there he thought to himself.
To his amazement there was quite a critter indeed hugging his new laborer. He could hardly believe the size of the winged vermin. It was about to sink its teeth into Chris’s neck but Will’s noise tromping down the stairs disturbed it. He quickly observed a red wound on its left wing. It’s nasty pig nosed face turned and glanced at him with red beady eyes, for a second its eyes and face resembled an ugly human snarling like a crazy person in a psychiatric ward.
“Kiss!…back away slowly.” Will said looking at both of them pointing the nail gun.
Will could hardly believe the size of this huge humanoid bat creature about to strike Chris. The brown haired beasts wings were down to its feet. It turned its snouted face at him.
Will didn’t waste too much time looking back into the disgusting face. He barely had time to notice that Chris was smiling face to face with it as if in a lover’s embrace. Will’s body moved before his mind out of pure gut instinct, much like when he pushed his brother out of the way of a fallen 3x6 several months ago.
He shot a nail from the gun. It bounced off the back of its neck. To his disappointment it didn’t work like he wanted to, but it got the creatures attention. Without hesitating he closed the distance by about four feet, he was now almost face to face with the beast. The gun shot once again and this time the nail lodged into the back of its neck. It gave a blood curdling scream.
Chris watched in horror as the nail lodged into Lucia’s neck. His eyes were wide. His boss had harmed the girl he had been in love with, the girl he was still in love with. Why?
Another screw lodged into her back but as she screamed her front teeth turned into horrifying long fangs she had quickly become a creature out of his nightmares.
“Kiss, grab that piece of wood over there! It’s not perfect but it’ll do.”
Chris broke free of her grip and jumped for the shard edged over sized splinter near the wall on his left.
The bat creature took the opportunity to seek vengeance as it leapt at Will. He was able to get off a compressed shot to the things white bubbly stomach before it put its hands around his neck. Its strength was almost immeasurable, like a five-hundred pound man weightlifter.
Chris looked around for a weapon and spotted a sharp piece of wood next to the wall behind him. He grabbed the pointed wood and quickly approached the fiends back. It shook his boss’s head left and right. Somewhere in the back of his head he couldn’t help but feel a sort of catharsis for what he was about to do.
As soon as he lifted the wood weapon above its back and into the air. Lucia’s face turned to stare a him. He dropped the stake. She was screaming and struggling against her attacker. Her blue eyes at a glace seemed to say ‘help’. Deep down, Chris knew this wasn’t the truth but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He half heartedly threw the stake towards Will’s hand.
Meanwhile, the bat creature’s long shiny fangs snapped at Will several times, like a starved wolf attacking its prey. Slobber spewing all over his neck. Sunlight was only three feet up the stairway from his head. He spotted the splintered wood piece on the ground and with some struggle, his thick calloused hand shook as it fumbled on the dirt ground fingers desperately walking themselves in circles.
The beasts grip was like iron. He said a quick prayer to God in his head and made one final burst grabbing onto the wood chunk. He quickly shoved the stake deep into its light, fleshy, brown chest. It was the heart for sure. He then lifted the shaking bat creature above him and into the stairway light. It set to fire and exploded. Chunks it’s flesh and oil-like blood dropped all over him.
Will rotated his right arm and wiped some of the skin, organs and black blood off his face while sitting on the steps. He quickly looked at Chris, then dead ahead. “Like I said Chris. You juss do it!”
“I’m, I’m sorry I couldn’t kill it. It looked like a girl I knew, I swear.” Said Chris.
“…What kind of girls you meeting brotha?” Will smiled and shook his head slowly got to his feet. He walked up the stairs and onto the deck. Ted and Steve looked at Will covered with tar-like blood all over his face and body. “Lunch break. Who’s hungry?”
“Ugh, how can you eat after this?” Chris replied.
“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” Will said smiling with his slightly crooked pearl white teeth showing through the blackness.
Chris was still in shock about everything, including Will’s casual way of dealing with the monstrous supernatural situation. Had he dealt with this sort of thing before? Was he in denial? Things kept getting stranger and stranger, it all became more like a dream at that point. The image of his boss killing Lucia, or what he thought was Lucia, flashed in his head. He had to shake it. She was a monster now. She was an it and that ‘it’ was a vampire.
