Afterlife (Afterlife Saga) (5 page)

“Yeah, I just moved here, yesterday in fact,” I said trying to disguise my strong, thick northern English accent.

“Wow and you're English!” She replied. Damn it! I was going to have to work on the accent thing.

“Yeah, my sister lives here too.” I indicated towards the door, where Libby was stood waiting for me.

She looked at Libby and did a double take. Not ever imagining us as sisters, but we would have made unlikely looking friends too. We were very different, like chalk and cheese. The only thing we had in common were our figures. We were both five foot three with small frames and slim builds, which we had inherited from our mother along with our curvy top half.

Libby hadn’t minded this so much as she did like to be admired, but not in a vain way. She wasn’t a big head by any means but after a long childhood of being picked on for the way she looked, she finally started to get her confidence back when her body matured. And she was a head turner. I didn’t really mind this either up until recently. I used be quite comfortable with my body, but now I just wanted to hide it away in dark clothes.

The rest was completely different. She had natural curly, fire red hair and instead of the normal fair skin she was naturally tanned with a lightly freckled nose. This she got from our father. She had the most beautiful green eyes that looked more like jade stones or some deep lagoon you just wanted to jump into on a hot day. They gave a lot of insight into her character and her feelings.

I, on the other hand, was naturally blonde and very pale. My eyes were a boring grey/bluish colour that looked more like the sky when there was a storm coming. They were big but the only thing about them was that they were framed with thick eyelashes that Libby would have given her right arm for. But that wasn’t the most outstanding difference between us. It was our clothes, which showed our difference in style.

She was wearing a tight dark brown penc
il skirt with tights and boots,
which made her legs look great and the tight red sweater showed off her beautiful hourglass figure. When she had come down stairs, she had looked ready for a catalogue shoot not just a shopping trip at the local mall. I could see now why it had taken her an hour longer than me to get ready. Even when I used to make an effort it still didn’t take me as long.

I was just wearing my usual comfy fitted jeans, a black long sleeved top and my scruffy flat baseball shoes that had seen better days. And of course no make-up what so ever. Luckily I did have fairly nice skin, even though deadly pale wasn’t the most attractive feature about it. I always looked as if I had just come from my crypt and didn’t care about the sunlight rule. Even the bright lights of the mall didn’t help. If anything they made it worse, reflecting off it. I shied away from the thought, getting embarrassed as this Goth girl studied me.

“My name's Rachel Jane Thomas, but everyone calls me RJ!” She held her hand out waiting for my response.

“I’m Keira...Umm Johnson, but everyone calls me Kaz.” We smiled at each other as we shook hands. I hated telling people my full name, always holding my
breath until it came out right.

“Are you at the college here?” I asked hopefully, as it would be nice to know at least one person before I started.

“Yeah, I’m going to be a freshman in a couple of weeks.” Result! I thought enthusiastically. Ok, I’d better keep this going, just keep talking, maybe she would give me her number.

“Great
, me too,
just wish I knew the area better.” I said hoping she would get my hint.

“
Well
let me give you my number and we could meet up some time. Hey, have you been to club Afterlife yet?”

“No, is that the one on the outskirts of town?”

“Yeah that’s the one, loads of my friends go there, it will be a good place for you to meet some more people.” She was already writing down her number on my receipt as she had put my things in a bag ready for me.

“Give me a ring tomorrow and I’ll let you know which night we're going there. That way I can introduce you to my friends.”

“That will be great. Ok, well I'll ring you tomorrow then.”

“Cool, nice meeting you Kaz.”

“Yeah, you too.” I made my way to the door and turned to wave only to find her already on her mobile phone chatting away. I could have sworn I heard her mention my name.

The rest of the day was more fun than I thought it would have been, and we even got chance to do some food shopping.

I decided to make my famous lasagne. Libby looked lost following me down the aisles as I looked for all the ingredients I needed. I also picked more food for the rest of the week, already having some idea what I was going to cook. Libby just looked happy at the thought of not having to cook
anymore
and I say cook in the loosest sense of the word. 

By the time we got back to the house it was already getting dark, but if anything the falling night seemed to enhance the beauty of the surrounding scenery. I had really wanted to go exploring but that would have to wait until tomorrow. Although I wasn’t scared of the dark, I knew the idea of walking around a place I didn’t know would be a stupid idea. It was just so peaceful. If it hadn’t been freezing cold I could have sat out, staring at the mountains for hours. They fascinated me. Every time I looked, there was something different about them, the colours, the shapes and the smells of the air seemed to change with them. Just then the wind picked up and Libby looked impatient at me while I lingered.

“Sorry, I’m coming,” I said rushing to the door with arms full of shopping bags.

“I'll put the dinner in the oven, you go and relax.” Libby said with a wink.

As we had lost track of time I had agreed to save the lasagne until the next night, and as I hadn’t prevented Libby from buying any frozen meals, that’s what was on the menu tonight.

We had lunch out at the mall so I was still full from my burger and chips, or fries, as they say here. The girl at the counter had looked truly confused when I
ordered;
thankfully Libby had come to my rescue.

“You nearly ended up with a bag of crisps,” she had teased.

After our mammoth shopping adventure, Libby had taken a long detour to show me the town and although it wasn’t big it had taken longer than we had expected, taking the long roads winding in and out of the wilderness. That’s when I gave in to burritos from a packet, Frank’s favourite apparently.

I carried all my bags up the two flights of stairs. I had done well today, ok well everything I had bought was a shade rather than an actual colour but I bought some warm tops, all long sleeved of course. I had bought a new pair of jeans, two sweaters and most importantly, a warm black jacket. It was a long coat down below the knees with a warm interlining and had long sleeves that were more like gloves as they had a hole you could put your thumb into. It had a big hood that hung nicely when down and above all it looked water proof which was a must as Libby had told me how much it rains here.

It was fully dark outside my cosy window by the time I got out of the shower and dried my hair. I pulled on some warm sweat pants and an old t-shirt that I was using for pyjamas and a chunky woollen throw to put round my shoulders. I had put my long fingerless gloves on as soon as my arms were dry. This was mainly for my benefit, along with others. I hated any reminder of the incident, so therefore tried to hide any evidence that would remind me of the hell I had experienced.

My sister’s face, whenever she saw my gloves, was one of deep sorrow and regret. She tried to hide her feelings but I knew her too well although I appreciated it all the same.

I decided that I was tired enough to get some sleep without the fear of dwelling on the past. I had to confess that the shopping trip had taken it out of me, which was always a good thing.

I had already heard Libby and Frank go to bed so I tried to tiptoe downstairs to get a drink before bed. I didn’t want to put the light on in case it woke them, which made getting down to the kitchen all the more difficult in the dark.

I was just about to knock into the cupboard at the bottom of the stairs, when a sudden flash of lightning lit up every window in the massive hall illuminating my way. Of course it also scared the life from my bones and I froze, too terrified to move, with my hands clamped around my mouth so as not to scream. Then it came five seconds after the light, the loudest bang and crack of thunder I had ever heard. I put this down to the location, as it must have echoed off the mountains because it seemed to go on for what seemed like minutes. I remembered something vague from my childhood, about for each second after the lightning strikes, that the waiting for thunder represents a mile. So therefore the storm was five miles away. This was somewhat comforting.

It wasn’t that I was scared of storms normally but being in an unfamiliar house in the middle of what seemed like nowhere didn’t appeal to me. In fa
ct storms kind of fascinated me. T
he power of them was so immense. I used to like to think of them being created in anger by the almighty Zeus, forged by his own hand to be sent to the underworld, ruled by his brother Hades. This was to be a warning of his impending wrath towards his treacherous brother living in the pits of Hell.

I nearly ran into the kitchen and turned on the light before the next angry blast of light could erupt. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge as I noticed that a heavy downpour of rain had now added to the night’s stormy weather and left quickly, trying to glide up the stairs without making any noise. I took two steps at a time. Amazingly I only stumbled once and considering the steep uneven steps to the attic that were consumed by darkness, I thought that I did pretty well not breaking something.

Once inside the comfort of my own room and seeing the warm glow of my bed lamp I felt as if I could finally breathe. I got my cold body into bed just in time before the next eruption. The explosion of light and noise indicated to me that the storm was now right above us. And Zeus was most definitely very angry tonight!  This was by far the worst storm I had ever heard. It seemed to last forever. I didn’t know whether it had finished or not by the time I finally fell asleep but when I awoke suddenly to the strangest sound, I didn’t know if it was thanks to any noise the storm produced. Wide eyed and breathing heavy I lay waiting for the sound again.

It sounded like something was trying to scratch their way out of my window. Half in between sleep and consciousness, I tried to make sense of the noise, coming up with explanations in my mind as to what could be the cause of this irritating noise. My mind led me to a more familiar sound that our family cat used to make when she jumped up to my window ledge. Puddy, our big grey pet cat used to scratch at the frame to get my attention, so I would open the window for her to come into my room, in the hopes that I would share my bed with her.

This thought quickly had me sat in an upright position, frozen, staring out into the darkness. The noise hadn’t been something trying to get out but more importantly, something was trying to get in!

I sat waiting for the noise again hoping to God that it had only been part of my dreamy state and that I had imagined the whole thing. But then I heard it again and nearly jumped out of my skin.  The clawing had become more erratic sounding, more frantic to enter my room and get to me.

My heart raced, it felt as if it would burst through my chest like the thing in the Alien movie. I still couldn’t see what it was and knew that if I put my lamp on it wouldn’t help, the only thing left for me to do was to get out of bed and walk over to my window to get a better look. The problem was I wasn’t sure that I wanted a better look.

It was getting louder now and I did think about waking up Libby and Frank but then what if it had been nothing or was gone by the time I got back to the room. They would think I had finally lost it. And I feared the nut house more than anything else. Well almost anything.

I decided that I had been through worst things and that I would brave it. It was just harder to get my legs to agree with my mind’s decision. My body and mind refused to co-operate with each other.

Finally I got to my feet and stood very still, waiting for the noise to begin again, wondering if I would ever be able to get back to sleep, not knowing what it was. I had to find out even though I was terrified. I still needed to know. But as I crept forward taking a deep breath with every step I took, the vision started to get clearer. The
clawing was so violent that the glass sounded near to shattering at any second. Suddenly I was beyond all fear, and ran over t
o the window as fast as I could
tripping over the clothes I had left on the floor,
then
falling into a heap on the window seat. This put me face to face with the creature trying to get inside.