The last few years have not been kind to Rose Litchford. She has lost her husband, and is currently residing with an abusive boyfriend. What's more, a creepy, but very handsome man is stalking her. Ultimately, she finds that he is a supernatural being from heaven; or perhaps he emerged from the depths of hell itself... Regardless, from his pointed teeth, to his blood-kissed lips, Stefan is indeed a vampire; a creature Rose once thought merely existed in folklore. He has emerged from the sinister darkness, and come to claim her as his own...
Prologue
The city of St. Louis sat astride the border between Missouri and Illinois. On the Missouri side of the borderline, a quaint town was nestled several miles from the city; its peaceful, serene environment not giving away the dark secrets of a few of its inhabitants.
The town was named Huston, similar to the city in Texas, and pronounced the same.
Twenty-four-year-old Rose Litchford resided here, along with her young son. Rose bravely fought the demons of her past and present, but never considered the possibility of fighting them in the imminent future.
Chapter One
Moments after purchasing a pint of ice cream from the convenience store, Rose sauntered outside into the vast darkness toward her vehicle; which was parked mere yards away near the concrete curb. A lengthy row of monstrous buildings surrounded the street next to her, and each stretched upward toward the night sky above. A sprinkling of glinting stars etched the gloominess of the night sky as she neared the shadowy figure of her metallic sports car.
Instinctively, she raised her fingers toward her neck to ensure the locket remained safely near her throat. Instead, her fingers merely brushed against the golden skin of her neck, for the locket was abruptly gone. She hastily turned around in the darkness, and peered into the inky distance behind her. She wondered what had happened to the locket, which had previously hung around her neck upon a golden chain only seconds before.
After her green eyes briefly roamed around the darkness during a futile attempt at discerning the whereabouts of her necklace, she slowly turned in the other direction.
"Looking for this?" the young man muttered from behind her, after she had glanced in that precise direction only a moment before. She gasped in fear, as he had definitely startled her. She hesitantly turned once more behind her, and glimpsed the eerie presence of a man standing only inches away, as he grasped a subtly glinting, golden chain in his hand. He was quite tall, and he towered nearly a foot over her petite frame.
He was dressed peculiarly from head to toe in solid ebony, which blended perfectly with the unnerving darkness which surrounded him. Although he seemed immensely peculiar as he stood mere inches away, he also appeared darkly attractive. His eyes were tinged the very palest of blue; an impossibly ashen shade that seemed to glow translucently in the dark. Additionally, thick wisps of dark blonde framed the upper part of his handsome face, and a few unruly pieces tumbled attractively downward across the translucent skin of his forehead. His eyes were piercing, and seemed to stare straight through to her soul.
"I think you dropped this back there," he added through slightly full lips, which were nearly crimson in color; as though marred by blood. He spoke using an unusual foreign accent.
"Y--yeah, I must have. Thank you; it's odd, I just noticed it was missing from my neck," she partially faltered, as she shyly struggled to hold his piercing gaze. Finally, the odd man handed the necklace over to her, and she grasped it in appreciation as their fingers briefly touched. With the chain grasped inside her fist, she carefully placed the plastic bag with her purchase down onto the concrete walkway. Then she turned to the side and futilely attempted to clasp it around her neck once more.
"Wait--allow me to help," he suddenly offered, as he edged his hand toward the golden chain that she presently gripped in her palm. As she stared at him in moderate disbelief, she tentatively brushed her hair to the side as the perfect stranger encircled his arms around her from behind, then clasped the edges of the chain together with his nimble fingers.
"Uh--thanks," she muttered in discomfit after he was finished.
"No problem; glad to help," he muttered with a slight grin, then abruptly turned to leave without any further word.
Feeling somewhat perplexed, she turned toward the adjacent vehicle. Before advancing further, however, she ventured one more glance behind her; more from sheer curiosity than anything else. Instead of glimpsing the stranger as he hastily walked off, the darkness was heavily devoid of anything; as though he had suddenly disappeared, after so oddly appearing behind her. Eerie swirls of mist hovered in the gloomy space in front of her.
That night, as she lay tensely in bed, she thought of the peculiar stranger whom had so gallantly helped her with the locket and chain. With a sudden thought, she edged out of the bed and slowly proceeded through the darkness toward the nearby bureau. She peered across the bureau’s surface, and glimpsed the locket. The thick, golden hart glinted marvelously in the filtering moonlight from the adjacent window.
Her fingers gradually edged toward the hart, then she gingerly grasped the pendant between her thumb and forefinger. Gently, she pried open the front of the pendant and subsequently gasped. Its interior was completely empty, when a tiny photo of she and her late husband had been rooted firmly inside only moments before it was briefly lost; not unlike the way in which he had so suddenly and inexplicably died...
Moments later, she collapsed into bed once more and fell into a fitful, confused sleep.
~~~
"Rose," came the initially soft-spoken male voice. "Rose," the whisper gradually became louder. "Rose!" the chanting finally escalated into a crescendo.
She finally began to stir in her sleep as she groaned, "what? Leave me alone!" Bright vestiges of morning sunlight permeated the bedroom from the adjacent window, and bathed the delicate visage of Rose's youthful face. Long waves of shimmering raven hair framed her face and beautifully etched her pillow.
"Get up; you have to get ready for work. You overslept, and Jacob needs fed," he impatiently muttered next to her ear. She stirred once more, then slowly arose to a sitting position upon the ebony draped mattress.
"What--what time is it?" she groaned as she briskly rubbed her weary eyes.
"It's almost ten o'clock," he answered, as he hovered aimlessly next to the bed.
"God; I feel like I took a sleeping pill last night," she moaned, then stared upward at him through bleary, pale green eyes.
"Well, can you feed Jacob real quick before you leave? I have to get ready for work myself," he edgily snapped, then spun around and left the room.
Rose briefly watched him as he stormed off past the threshold and into the minuscule hallway beyond. Before averting her gaze, she swiftly flashed him a contemptuous sneer. Then she gradually maneuvered her slender body to the edge of the bed.
Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from the tiny corridor into the kitchen area freshly showered and dressed immaculately in executive attire. The tiny figure of her four-year-old son sat impatiently at the circular breakfast table awaiting a bowl of cereal.
"You could've fed him, you know," Rose scolded her boyfriend, as he stood near a row of overhead cedar cabinets. She shuffled around the interior of the dishwasher for a clean bowl.
"He's your son, not mine," he muttered callously as he pulled a coffee mug from the adjacent cabinet. Then he prepared to pour freshly brewed coffee into the mug from the coffeemaker perched upon the laminate countertop. Rose averted her gaze toward her son as he remained rigidly seated at the table only feet away, and she prayed that he did not overhear Shane's icy mutterings. Jacob was softly mouthing words while using his small hands to talk; therefore, she doubted that he'd heard one word that Shane had uttered. While emitting a deep sigh of relief, Rose grabbed the nearest box of cereal from the cabinet.
"Shane, can you drop Jacob off at pre-school today? I'm already late as it is," Rose asked him as she hastily poured the corn flakes into Jacob's cerulean cereal bowl.
"Yeah; sure," he muttered in between sips of his coffee, as he stood against a row of lower kitchen cabinetry.
"Thanks," she mumbled in reply, then grabbed the gallon of milk from the nearby refrigerator.
"Mom, hurry! I'm starving," Jacob whined from his spot at the breakfast table.
"Damnit, I'm doing the best I can," she snapped as she approached him with the cerulean bowl. In her hastiness to deliver the cereal, small chunks of flakes and milk splattered onto the pale floor below. "Sh**," she cursed in sheer exasperation.
Moments after passing through the outer threshold of the modest residence, Rose noticed the Daily Gazette newspaper lying at her feet upon the stone porch. She paused as an inexplicable feeling of curiosity abruptly assaulted her senses, then she kneeled down to retrieve the newspaper.
Rose scrutinized the front page headlines, and skimmed over the main article below. Then she shuddered over the article's disturbing contents. She quickly replaced the newspaper upon the porch once more, then hurried off toward the small, onyx vehicle parked near the curb. Moments later, the tiny car sped off down the street in between two rows of modest suburban homes; arranged like enormous white boxes against carpeting of deep green. Flourishing trees in various shades of fiery orange densely framed the areas around each property, as each individual leaf seemed to sway in the gentle autumn breeze.
~~~
Since Rose had arrived at the real estate office an hour or so late, her supervisor promptly forced her to work over an hour past her usual shift. He had assigned her various tasks to catch up on, including paperwork. As the hands of the overhead clock hastily approached seven, the autumn sun had already dissipated below the metropolitan landscape.
Her greenish-tinged gaze gradually wavered from the task upon the computer screen toward the plexiglass doors of the diminutive office. She paused from typing on the keyboard, then noticed the towering figure of a male approaching the building from the exterior darkness; despite the center's imminent closing time.
He gradually materialized from the darkness which surrounded him, then noisily shuffled in through the double doors. He strolled into the front office where her desk was situated, and immediately plopped down onto the chair in front of her desk with a distinct air of arrogance. Rose stared across at him in stunned disbelief, her sea-green eyes extensively widened. He was the very same man who'd so valiantly helped her with the locket only one evening prior. Finally, she spoke.
"Uh--g--good evening," she heavily faltered as she remained rigidly seated across from him. Meanwhile, he was slightly slouched in the seat before her and appeared quite relaxed.
"Good evening to you. Nice to see you again. I see you're still wearing the locket?" he uttered with a deeply smooth and handsome voice; an attractive tone that perfectly matched his face.
As she continued to stare at him with a slightly perplexed conveyance, she instinctively rose her hand upward to pinch the locket between her thumb and forefinger to ensure its presence. Although the photo was missing from the pendant, she had chosen to wear the necklace that day out of sheer habit. She knew that eventually she would replace the photo with another.
"Yes; I'm still wearing it. Thank you for--finding it the other night," she breathed as he briefly nodded in reply. After finally recovering from her astonished reverie, she spoke once more, but used a newly professional manner.
"Sir, m--may I help you with something?"
"Yes; I'm looking for a home with at least four-thousand-square-feet of living space," he smiled arrogantly. Rose scoffed at his suggestion, but he did not seem to notice or else blatantly ignored it.
"Do you have any preference as to location?" she inquired.
"Yes," he smiled enigmatically, and exposed attractively white teeth.
Rose sighed somewhat impatiently, then she inquired once more, "what location are you interested in?"
"Anywhere near Willow Drive," he smiled once more, and conveyed almost a seductive mannerism as he spoke. Rose's eyes widened in response to his preferred location, considering it was the exact street where she lived. Her pale green eyes swiftly flickered across his intriguingly handsome face for any clues behind the possible reasoning for his preference. Then she recovered from her initial astonishment once again.
"Uh, if you prefer to live near Willow Drive, I don't think you're going to find anything over two-thousand-square-feet. I'm sorry," she evenly divulged.
"Do you know this for a fact? How can you be so sure?" he asked as a smile remained firmly etched upon his oddly translucent face, which contrasted sharply with his outfit of solid ebony. Thick wisps of blonde framed his face and glistened luminously in the filtering moonlight from an adjacent window. Reminiscent of the night before, he stared almost icily at her through eyes of impossibly pale topaz.
"Because I--" she began, but hastily decided not to finish her statement. "Because I just know; that's my job as a realtor," she opted to divulge instead. In return to her negative reply, he curtly reached over her desk to grasp a pen. Then he retrieved a brochure from the edge of her desk and proceeded to scrawl his name and number upon the front. He subsequently nudged the brochure in front of her. She gazed downward in slight perplexity and read the brief message: Stefan Hansen, 555-2662. "If you find anything available in the future near Willow Drive, just call and let me know," he softly told her as the luminous smile remained upon his face. Without awaiting her answer, he abruptly arose from the chair and proceeded toward the front doors.
"Uh; have a nice evening, sir," she suddenly called out before he exited through the doors. He paused in front of the doors, then turned to briefly face her once more.
"Thank you, I will. I think I'll grab a bite to eat before heading home, though. I suddenly feel quite ravenous," he muttered with a grin that could only be described as devious. Then he shuffled out the doors as noisily as he had entered them.
After he left the office, Rose glanced upward at the overhead clock and noted that it was nearly ten minutes past closing time. Before closing the office for the evening, she marveled in puzzlement over her oddly repetitious chance meetings with the mysterious stranger.
Chapter Two
Justin Litchford had been nearly five years older than she. Rose met him at the tender age of seventeen. After a whirlwind courtship of one year, the two became married during a sentimental ceremony before the justice of the peace. During the following year, she became pregnant with their son, Jacob. In actuality, she discovered Justin was dead the very night after the two conceived Jacob.
The images of that fateful evening played repetitiously in her mind like the merciless reels of a film projector. Justin was nearly three hours late in returning home that night. She remembered sitting rigidly upon the hunter green sofa of the minuscule living area of their apartment, anxiously awaiting his arrival from work. Justin was a police officer, and she distinctly recalled his attractive image as he was dressed handsomely in his crisp uniform of varied blue, along with the tiny, glinting shield upon his shirt. The impressive visage of his firearm jutted near his hip from its ebony holster... And why he did not attempt to use it that night she'll never know...
She could not help but recall the unnerving rap upon the door as Justin's colleagues arrived at her residence... Inexplicably arriving before he did. She bolted from the sofa to answer the door. After pulling it open, she glimpsed two officers before her dressed handsomely similar to her missing husband, and wearing the type of hats usually sported by cowboys.
"Ma'am," one of the officers muttered as he slightly tipped his hat to her presence. Suddenly an obtrusive lump began to form in her throat as her gaze flickered nervously between the two men. As he struggled to hold her gaze through piercing blue eyes, the officer to the left spoke once more.
"I--I'm sorry to have to tell you this... But Justin--has been found dead," he faltered drastically. As she stood near the exterior threshold before the two men, Rose abruptly found herself screaming...
Rose firmly shoved the uncomfortable thoughts from her mind as she lay in bed that night. Then she tried to remember her husband as he was... How handsome he was, and how she had utterly worshipped the very ground where he trod upon. Thick waves of chocolate brown hair softly framed the youthful visage of his face, and sporadically flanked the area above his soulful brown eyes; brown eyes that blended perfectly with the tone of his hair... Justin's dark eyes seemed to reflect a distinctive naiveté; a naiveté that ultimately killed him.
Although she had once worshipped the ground Justin had walked upon, now she could only speak to him as he lay beneath the ground below his glinting headstone. Justin was buried at the local cemetery, in which the vast necropolis was nestled only blocks away from Willow Drive, where she lived.
Rose turned her head in the darkness, then gazed at Shane as he lay next to her asleep. His chest rose to and fro through subtle movements as he breathed softly in his sleep. Her green eyes barely discerned the darkened silhouette of his profile. Soft remnants of moonlight permeated the wisps of his sepia hair, and caused a few of the strands to glisten like the edges of copper pennies.
Rose met Shane Owens when Jacob was merely a few months old. She had recently acquired an entry-level position at the local realtor's office; where she was presently employed. Shane was looking to buy a small, two-bedroom home in the neighborhood in which the two currently lived. He was twenty years old at the time, same as she. His attractive looks and deeply brown hair reminded her of Justin, and she promptly fell profoundly in love. After several months of dating, he allowed Rose to move into the modest home in which she'd helped him find. Shortly thereafter, he began to exhibit intermittent episodes of verbal abuse, as his previously shrouded darker side finally began to emerge...
Four years later, she remained with him in spite of his callousness; although their relationship had gradually transitioned into a heavily empty, loveless one. Although he would be the only father that Jacob would ever know, he wasn't much of a father. At best, Jacob was ignored by Shane; at worst, Jacob was verbally abused by Shane... She knew she should leave him, but she could never seem to muster up the courage; particularly since he'd threatened to kill her if she ever left him. It wasn't as though he truly loved her, he merely did not wish to suffer the humiliation of such.
Rose's troubling reverie was abruptly disturbed by a subtle, yet intrusive sound; a slight scraping noise which seemed to emanate from the single window situated mere feet from the bed. A brief moment later, the sound abruptly ceased. Shane slightly stirred next to her, and she turned toward him once more. The eerie scraping sound suddenly resumed, and she immediately turned her head toward the window; yet too terrified to sit upright and look. It sounded as though fingernails were intermittently scratching against the filth-encrusted glass of the window pane.
As the subtle scraping continued in disturbing repetition, Rose attempted to squeeze her eyelids shut; as though the gesture would also shut out the distressing noise. After several moments elapsed where she had futilely struggled to ignore the sound, she finally slid out of bed during a moment of sudden courageousness. Then she slowly maneuvered her way through the inky darkness toward the dimly lit window. A thin gleam of moonlight filtered through the glass, and softly bathed a small area of the pale carpeting.
Suddenly the noise ceased once more, as Rose stood mere inches in front of the window. She reluctantly averted her gaze downward. Her eyes strained to discern the tiny figure of something lying upon the ground, just on the other side of the glass. She continued to gaze downward with an expression of puzzlement, as the object seemed to oddly glow with a subtly reddish tinge. Quietly, she unlatched the lock near the center of the window, then slowly nudged the pane upward. Suddenly the soft chirpings of crickets reverberated from the exterior and filled the bedroom with their whimsical music. Rose hesitantly extended her arm through the gap in the window, and found the appendage nearly swallowed up by the surrounding darkness beyond. She edged her hand toward the small object below, as it lay conspicuously upon the ground.
Gingerly, she intertwined her fingers around the fullest portion of the object and elevated it toward the shimmer of moonlight. When the object was softly bathed in light and fully discernable, Rose's green eyes widened in astonishment. Cradled lightly in her palm was the flowery section of a single scarlet rose, its thorn-adorned stem jutting extensively below it and enveloped in darkness. She stared at the rose in disbelief, then brought it closer toward her for inspection. She scrutinized each flourishing, fragile petal of the rose, then abruptly gasped. A few drops of crimson were sporadically scattered across the petals, and barely distinguishable from its scarlet hue. She dropped the rose in horror, and the crimson blossom tumbled to the earth below, where it returned to its original spot upon the ground. Tiny droplets of blood exploded from the blossom as it struck the soil.
Rose initially stood in front of the agape window in disbelief, then finally recovered long enough to shove the window closed. As her heart thundered deafeningly behind her breast, she hastily latched the lock. Afterward, she wondered in incomprehension where the bloody rose had originated from. Nevertheless, she quietly proceeded back toward the bed, all the while praying to herself for the earlier scraping sound not to return.
Meanwhile, Stefan Hansen stalked through the vast darkness of the night, in search for the next victim who would sate his ravenous hunger. While dressed furtively in a flowing obsidian trenchcoat, he surreptitiously snaked toward an extensive row of vintage shops on the opposite side of the street. A pallid beam of moonlight flowed downward and immersed a portion of the concrete in front of him. When he passed through a filtering sliver of moonlight, the luminescent blonde of his hair glimmered in vivid brilliance, along with the eerily ashen tone of his eyes; his eyes, which glowed with an unnatural translucence in the darkness, not unlike the eyes of a fierce animal.
The longer his hunger lingered deeply inside him, the further his fangs seemed to elongate behind his full, attractive lips.
Stefan sauntered toward the only shop that appeared to remain open at that late hour. Then he hovered menacingly next to the front doors, as the interior light brightly emanated onto the adjacent concrete. His glowing, animalistic eyes stared ahead into the gloomy darkness, and his onyx pupils erratically contracted from the tiniest dots into enormous, abysmal blots as each focused upon the rural landscape several miles into the distance. Finally, the petite visage of a woman swiftly exited out of the store with a small shopping bag grasped in one hand. Stefan immediately began to follow her.
While the long waves of her pale hair flowed gracefully behind her, she carefully approached her ebony sedan in the darkness. As the passenger side door was partially obscured by thick shadows, she reached toward the handle to open the door. Before her diminutive hand could reach the lever, however, the figure of a masculine hand reached around her face and abruptly covered her lips. As his hand stifled her screams, Stefan used his thumb and forefinger to pinch her nostrils closed until she passed out. Then he effortlessly tugged her into an adjacent alley, in which its substantial darkness was even deeper than the aforementioned street.
Once she began to slightly stir once more, Stefan widely parted his lips and exposed the vicious figures of his fangs. As he stood behind her and supported her upright with one arm wrapped around her torso, he used his other hand to gently smooth the strands of blonde away from her neck. Then he brutally pierced the skin of her neck using his lengthy fangs. As he did so, ribbons of crimson began to glide down her neck toward her chest. She struggled once more as she instantly emerged from unconsciousness, only to gradually die as the lifeblood was slowly drained from her body. Stefan cruelly lingered his teeth below the surface of her skin, as he ravenously sucked the blood from her neck. Subtle sounds of pleasure emitted from his throat as the sweet essence of blood touched his tongue and inched its way into his stomach, filling the icy coldness of his body with the welcoming traces of warmth.
When he was finally finished with her, nearly all of her blood had been drained... And less than an hour earlier, Stefan had already gluttonously fed on another victim. His voracious desire for blood seemed to be increasingly insatiable. Perhaps it was another insatiable desire that was helping to drive his appetite... A desire which could only be satisfied once he captured the object of his eternal obsession.
~~~
"Look, Rose; they found another body last night near your favorite convenience store," Lillian chirped in subdued enthusiasm, as she slapped the newspaper down onto Rose's desk. Against her will, Rose peered downward to briefly skim over the column.
"So do you think a vampire's responsible or what?" Lillian blurted once more, as she meandered toward her own desk in the realty office.
"All the blood was drained from her body; who would do such a thing? And it's not funny, Lillian. Far be it from vampires, only a sadistic sicko would do such a thing," Rose angrily muttered, as she continued to read over the article; then she folded up the newspaper in disgust and nudged it to the edge of her desk. She subsequently cringed as a disturbing memory invaded its way into her mind; triggered by the disconcerting article.
"Please don't show me any more news articles of this," Rose firmly added, as she glided the mouse across the desk in front of the computer.
"What's wrong, Rose? Don't you believe in vampires?" Lillian insolently remarked from her desk. Cascades of raven framed her face, while widened eyes of azure peered at Rose with defiance.
"Do you?" Rose replied as she hastily typed on the keyboard, and spoke in a tone that closely matched her friend's sarcasm. Then she surreptitiously moved one hand underneath the desk, and jutted her middle finger toward Lillian.
Seconds later, Rose resumed typing.
"Either way, if I were you, I'd buy a crucifix; if you don't already own one," Lillian muttered from her desk; then she switched on her own computer.
"Lillian, are you serious?" Rose jeered as she paused from typing, and averted her perplexed gaze toward her friend.
"This is the fourth body found this week alone; I don't know about you, but I'm not taking any chances," Lillian replied with a grave expression, as she firmly returned Rose's perusal.
Instead of responding, Rose only scoffed once more as she returned her attention to the brightly lit computer screen. Then her gaze inexplicably averted to a brochure that was partially jutting from the bottom drawer of her desk. The name 'Stefan Hansen' was sloppily scrawled near the top, with his phone number printed underneath. Rose shuddered once more, but did not know quite why.
Mere minutes after leaving the realty office for the evening, Rose pushed the shopping cart forward as she strolled through the gaping department store. Nearly filled to its rim with a varied assortment of groceries, Rose struggled somewhat in lunging the metallic monstrosity forward. Meanwhile, the soft sound of shopping music whimsically emanated from the surrounding sound system.
As she forged through the main aisle of the store, the overhead beams of light showered downward and bathed the adjacent jewelry department in a surreal sea of refracted, iridescent light. Rose nudged the cart forward as she averted her gaze toward the vast jewelry department nestled next to her. Her eyes immediately caught sight of a caddy displaying a shimmering array of crucifix pendants. As her friend's odd words echoed in her mind, she paused to stare at each glinting cross nestled against a backdrop of white silk.
"May I help you with something?" the young woman politely uttered from the other side of the counter, as she stared at Rose through piercing indigo eyes, framed by lengthy waves of auburn.
"Uh--sure; may I see this pendant?" Rose quietly replied as she hesitantly pointed to a small, silver crucifix in the glass caddy. In return, the woman pulled a tiny key from her dark trousers and proceeded to unlock the case. She subsequently pulled open the front and gingerly retrieved the pendant.
"My goodness; it's--it's so beautiful," Rose muttered in fascination, while she gazed at the crucifix as it twinkled magically in her palm. "How much is it?" she added, as she shifted her gaze toward the saleswoman.
"Twenty-four-ninety-nine," she slightly smiled in return.
"I'll take it," Rose offered, eagerly returning the smile. Meanwhile, she shoved the intrusive thoughts of Lillian's statement out of her mind; telling herself that she bought the pendant for its attractive ornamental quality, rather than as a supposed safety measure against vampires.
As the full moon hovered luminously in the nighttime sky, four-year-old Jacob Litchford remained fitfully asleep in his bed... Until an unsettling scraping sound began to emanate from his window.
Jacob stirred in his bed, and the pale wisps of his golden hair began to flutter against his blue-tinged pillow. As the eerie scratching intermittently continued, Jacob's eyelids abruptly snapped open in fear; for the old, familiar sound seemed to be transitioning into a nighttime ritual of sorts. The disturbing incident had occurred for the fourth night in a row, but he had not yet mentioned it to his mother, for he knew Shane would cruelly berate him for his cowardice. Thus, he awaited the moment when he could catch his mother alone to divulge the late-night incidents.
As though compelled to do so, Jacob stiffly averted his gaze toward the window that hovered near the foot of his bed. He barely moved his neck as he did so, for he felt too petrified to move at all. Through the darkness of his bedroom, his eyes focused upon a figure standing directly outside his window. The silhouette of a man stood against the overhead moonlight as he gazed into Jacob's room through eerily glowing eyes. Jacob gasped in sheer fright, then he watched in terror as the man extended his claws toward the glass of the window. He spread his fingers, then a shrill sound immediately ensued as each pointed nail firmly scraped against the glass in a gradual downward motion, leaving long, distinguishable trails against the surface. Then he ceased, and tapped each nail sardonically against the window as though attempting to tease the child.
After finally growing weary of the man's frightening presence, Jacob leaned over his mattress and retrieved an object from the floor. He subsequently held a small, plastic ball in his hand, and he swiftly lunged the toy toward the window. The scarlet ball bounced against the surface of the window pane, then smacked against the hardwood floor below. Then it rolled across the floor and returned to Jacob's bedside. The man on the other side of the window remained unfazed.
Jacob sat upright upon the mattress, and stared through the window in disbelief. The man on the other side fixated his piercing gaze upon the boy, in which his irises were the very palest of azure and barely distinguishable from the whites of his lustrous eyes. The pupils had contracted into the tiniest of dots. Stefan rose his hand up toward the window again, but this time he used his forefinger to beckon the boy toward the window. As though suddenly mired in a trance, Jacob scooted toward the edge of his bed, then he allowed his tiny, bare feet to touch the floor. Jacob slowly inched his way toward the window, and the strange man beyond.
Once he stood only mere inches from him, the only object that separated the two was a thin pane of glass. Jacob stared upward at him, and Stefan slightly smiled down at him. Then he parted his lips and hissed at the boy, subsequently exposing his extensive fangs. Jacob shrieked in return, then quickly turned and ran from the room. After the boy left, Stefan chuckled as he cruelly mocked the child's fear.
Jacob sprinted through the darkness of the corridor toward his mother's bedroom, as his minute heart thundered noisily in his chest. Jacob abruptly burst through the door to his mother's room, then bounded toward her side of the bed.
"Mommy! Mommy! Wake up!" Jacob hissed as he furiously attempted to nudge his mother awake. "Mommy!"
"What? What is it, Jacob?" Rose groaned as she wearily emerged from her slumber.
"There's a man outside my window! He was looking into my room! He scared me! He has sharp claws, and sharp teeth--and his eyes are like a cat's!" Jacob hastily cried as his lower lip and chin quivered in fear.
"Jacob--just calm down; I--I'm sure it was only a bad dream--"
"No! I wasn't dreaming! It was real, Mommy! It was real! There is a man-"
"Okay, Jacob. Try--try to calm down; I--I'll go check it out, all right?" Rose offered as she futilely attempted to console him. "Quiet down, Sweetheart; I don't want you to wake up Shane," she nervously added, as her green eyes darted toward the sleeping figure of her boyfriend. Finally, her son began to settle down.
"Come on; you can sleep with us tonight," she whispered as she sat near the edge of the bed. Jacob immediately began to crawl onto his mother's side of the bed, as the mattress emitted several squeaks of disapproval. In return, Rose stood and quietly prepared to leave the bedroom.
Once she entered her son's tiny bedroom, Rose hesitantly approached the single window of the room. She gazed toward the window as she lumbered forward through the darkness, but did not glimpse anything outside her son's window. Only the presence of the infinite, murky blackness greeted her beyond the pane's surface. Rose tore her gaze from the window and began to backtrack toward her bedroom. Meanwhile, she attributed her son's frightful visions to nothing more than a child's overactive imagination or night terror.
"He's gone now," Rose whispered to Jacob moments later, as she gradually crawled into bed next to him.
"Are you sure, Mommy?" Jacob whispered in return, as he stared at her through barely discernable, frightened green eyes.
"Yes, I'm sure," she whispered in reply, then cuddled up next to him underneath the ebony comforter.
Outside Rose's bedroom window, Stefan stood and dropped a fresh crimson rose onto the rigid soil below. Tiny droplets of blood leisurely tumbled down from each of the lower scarlet petals.
Check out R. Malone Novels on the web. Also, watch the new book trailer of Crimson Rose on GoodReads.com: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3107774.R_Malone be sure to scroll down the page to almost half-way to find the video. Thanks!
