OV: The Original Vampire (Book #1) (16 page)

Josie walked closer, “I have a story to sell, I mean tell, can I, is there someone here I can talk to?”

“just a minute, stay there.” The lady behind the desk walked away.

Josie sat down and watched people and their strange mannerisms. Within fifteen minutes, there were three policemen blocking her view of people watching, asking her questions.

“Do you know Vinnie Faller?”

“Who?”
Josie crossed her arms.

“Vinnie Faller. You two were seen together in Forks on Saturday the 15th of October. Come with us please.” One of the officers went to grab her arms, as she leaned against the back of the bench seat and kicked at them, “Go to hell!” she screamed, as the lobby went silent and all eyes were on her.

The feel of a man’s calloused hands on her arms and legs made her go into a blackout rage.

“Let me go! Let me go!” Josie turned red. Her dreadlocked hair whipped around and made the scene more dramatic. They handcuffed her and led her quickly out the front door to minimize further public disobedience.

They pushed her into the backseat. Her cheek fell flat onto the leather seat, as she tried leaving mentally through the Gateway. The police radio was so loud, Josie couldn’t concentrate, therefore she was stuck in the worst form of reality.

They took her to a waiting room within the jail. She sat with a
drunk Indian woman.

“I’ve seen you.” She said.

“I’m afraid not.” Josie said.

“You’re the Lizard King.”

“That’s funny.” Josie whisked away a lonely tear.

“It’s not so bad. You could be dead.” The Indian stared into Josie’s eyes a second too long.

“Yeah, I could be dead.” Josie said.

“You could be more than dead. You could be stuck in Purgatory.” The Indian’s eyes seemed bluer than before.

“Right.” Josie walked up to the wall with the little window. She looked out and saw nothing but grey sky. A bird flew past, high in the sky, which heightened her loneliness.

“We’re connected, you and I.” The Indian said smiling.

“How so?” Josie turned around to look at her.

“Follow history back to Day One, whatever that may mean to you, and we become one, one unity.”

“Why isn’t my skin dark like yours then?” Josie said in defense.

“Different pigment in our skin, due to how much sun we have experienced.”
The Indian kept smiling, like she knew a secret.

Josie looked back at the sky, “I want dark skin.”

The Indian laughed sweetly, like a grandmother baking cookies, appeasing a granddaughter. “Stay in the sun.” The Indian woman stated it like it was the obvious solution.

“Yes. ‘
Stay in the sun’, that’s what I’m gonna do.” Josie smiled faintly.

The Indian woman began a song, as Josie closed her eyes. She imagined Vinnie making love to her, his stomach muscles flexing with the gyration of his hips. It gave her heart a jolt of warmth thinking about it.

Josie looked at the mattress on her bunk and laughed, “No better than sleeping on the ground. I’m used to that.” She said.

The Indian Woman stopped singing, “You sleep on the ground,
are you homeless dear?”

“I sleep under the stars, like your ancestors.”

“How is that possible?” The woman scoffed. “We all live in wood boxes and concrete blocks.”

“Not myself. If you didn’t drink you would probably be
more free yourself.” Josie said.

“That’s ridiculous. The only way to live in this wicked world is to take away the sting.”

“life stings more with the bottle. You cover up reality when you drink, but when you sober up, life stings more.” Josie bit her bottom lip, hoping she didn’t say too much.

“So, you’re the expert? How did you become Miss Expert?” The woman asked.

“My ex-boyfriend, in fact, all my ex’s were either Alcoholics or addicts.”

“Is that true?”

“Unfortunately. I don’t know what it is. I guess I attract the crazies.” Josie wiggled her foot on the bunk bed.

“My Grandmother attracted the crazy person.” The woman said. “It wasn’t necessarily the man, but the drink in man. She barely survived after her third husband stabbed himself in front of her.”

“That’s tragic. My dad’s in Hell right now and I’m trying to save him.” Josie said.

The Indian woman thought Josie was exaggerating, “I know. It gets pretty bad sometimes.” She said. Josie knew she lost her with that one.

Josie closed her eyes to sleep when the spirals of light appeared. “I’m not ready for this.” She said to herself. Josie usually had control over the gateway and her dreams, but this happened automatically.

She is little. She is walking past a park downtown. She wants to swing with the other girls. Her mom says ‘we don’t have time’, and pulls her hand. As they almost pass the park, Josie turns to see
Daira and Mezrolly playing on the jungle gym. Their eyes sparkle with pure joy. Josie seems to know them, but it’s disguised as a type of Deja-Vu.

“Come on, Josie.” Her mom says. Before the girls are out of sight,
Mezrolly waves at Josie, then blows a kiss, which is peculiar for a child to do. Josie is stunned. She is intrigued by Mezrolly’s promiscuous precociousness. That night Josie had a wet dream. In the morning, her mom mentioned to her that her eyes looked different.

The metal prison door scraped on the concrete floor as it opened. Josie awoke to a beam of light hitting her face.

“Are you Josie?” asked an officer.

“Yeah?”

“You made bail.”

“Bail? I didn’t know there was a price on me.”

“Come on. Get your items and let’s go.”

Josie was led into a locker room where a woman in a closet-sized office handed Josie her clothes in a plastic bag through a window. Josie pulled her clothes, stained with life-in-the-woods, on. She was directed to stay in the waiting room adjacent to the lobby where the public waited to see inmates.

Finally, with the sound of two giant latches opening, Josie was freed into the lobby where the air seemed lighter and cooler. She scanned the room to see a motley group of degenerate white trash, until, she saw a man sharply dressed in a mint 70’s dress coat and slacks. He wore a light brown Fedora with a dark brown stripe. He stared at Josie until she did a double take. She realized it was Bud smiling at her with baby blue eyes.

She ran into his arms, “Daddy. Daddy!”

“Sweetheart!”
He yelled back. The excitement in their voices echoed through the lobby. She held him tight. He smelled like Old bay Rum shaving cream, which greeted her nose like the sweetest summer memory when Bud was sober.

“This is unbelievable, purely unbelievable!” She smiled and laughed and jumped up and down without any adult restraint.

“Let’s go home, pumpkin.” Bud held her close to his side, as they walked out of the stale lobby. The day was unlimited now with possibilities. Everything Josie looked at held a certain positive energy, even seeing the bums bumming change had a certain benevolence.

“Let’s go to the park!” He said.

“Let’s go to the beach!” She said.

He lifted her into his arms and walked down the sidewalk holding her.

“I was so scared Dad, to see you in that place. Don’t ever leave me again!” She smelled his shirt and nuzzled her face into his chest.

“
It’s okay, Josie.” He set her down. His smile faded. The smell of burning onions and beer wafted from an open door. It was dark inside, except for the lights of the jukebox and the keg handles. Course laughter erupted from inside. Bud looked inside.

“No Dad.” Josie stopped smiling.

“It’s okay, Josie.” He said again, obviously distracted. He looked panicky now, like he had to go to the bathroom. Josie knew that look. “No, Dad, no!”

“I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the dark. Josie turned around twice, grabbed her hair, as her knees hit the concrete.

“Hey, are you okay?” A guy with a pool stick came out of the bar.

“Go away!” She yelled. A dog barked from a truck a few feet away. The dog seemed determined to break off his chain and maul her. She was scared enough to go into the bar to look for Bud.

She walked into the darkness and coughed from the cigarette smoke. “Hey lady?” Someone yelled from the corner. She felt her way over there. “Bud?” she asked.

“I got some weed, let’s go out back.” Another man said.

“No, I’m looking for a man named Bud.” Her voice shook.

“Not here.” A man laughed and belched. It reminded her of Purgatory. A demonic face flashed through her vision. She walked quickly towards the back.

“Bud?” She yelled. There was nothing back there, except humming refrigerators. He was gone. As Josie walked back through the bar the television caught her attention: “5,000 dogs freed in Chengdu, China.” Vinnie was behind this, she thought. She walked out into the early night. A cold wind blew down from the North, as Josie felt the emptiness of her world.

She felt like she was in her own Purgatory, the empt
y streets and the cold concrete made her exceptionally lonely. She was isolated from both worlds; the civilized world, and Vinnie’s Gateway. She walked into the night. The only people awake were demented meth users and drunken rednecks. In the middle of the night evil lurked and everything was deconstructed. By morning, the Puritans and farmers awoke and put order back into the day. Life had no meaning without Vinnie.

She awoke from the sound of a newspaper thumping on someone’s front lawn. The lawn was laced with frost, as Josie wondered how she had survived the night. Temperatures around this time of season dropped down into the twenties.

She looked at her hands. They were blue. She shook them until they turned red, then white. She looked at the sky and wondered why she didn’t travel in the Gateway during the night. “Maybe I’m dead. How do I know this is real?” She asked out loud. Someone came out of their house and stared at her. Josie walked down the road until she saw a river go under an overpass. She climbed down the embankment to the water. Water equaled life and gave Josie a little reprieve from the disorder of her life. Maybe she could walk the river until it reached the ocean, then she could find a tire and float into oblivion, maybe to China where Vinnie might be.

She walked the river and watched two sunrises and sunsets before she found the place where Vinnie made her the freshest sushi. She collapsed on a tiny sand barge in the middle of the river and soaked her blistered feet in the icy water.

Then suddenly, the Gateway took her away. She had no control over it, as she had to face the flashbacks of her memory and navigate through it without getting emotionally attached. She saw Bud and ran to him, but it was a carcass of a memory and dissipated like a cloud when she tried grabbing him. Vinnie’s face was in the sky, but it was made of clouds and a geese formation made his mouth, but they flew past and left Vinnie mouthless.

“Fuck you!” Josie yelled to the sky. She wanted to see someone physically that she knew. She screamed, but it left her mouth and wasn’t heard, like yelling off a mountain, the voice has no place to reflect off of.

Suddenly, a trail appeared, as she began walking on it. She noticed a lodge across a lake. It was the lodge at Lake Cresent. “Daira was my best friend.” She said to herself, remembering the place of the trail where they became best friends.

“This is ridiculous. How in the hell did I get here?” She said out loud. The lake was serene, unlike her thoughts. She walked and walked, until she heard yelling. She slowed down around a sharp corner of the trail and came to the Devil’s Punchbowl.

“Oh my god.” Josie stepped back a couple of feet. She had seen two guys on the bridge with their shirts off. “That can’t be.” She looked around the corner again. She heard a giant splash and the guys cheering. She gained courage and walked out onto the trail and stepped onto the bridge. The guys looked over at her. She wanted to be recognized, but they didn’t say anything, just casual smiles.

“Hey guys, remember me?” She smiled.

“Uh, no ma’am.” One said.

“I’m Josie, remember, at the bar?”

“I’m sorry lady.” The other one said.

All of a sudden there was another giant splash. The water shot into the air and rained down on them. Josie inhaled deeply from the ice cold water wetting her shirt. “Crap!” She yelled. Her nipples showed through her shirt.

“Look what they did to me.” She shrieked. Then, she heard a warm voice come from the water.

“Whose they?”

“Vinnie!” Josie yelled, as she jumped into the water. She grabbed his face and planted a huge kiss. He broke free, “Lady, what the hell?!”

“Vinnie, it’s me, Josie!”

“I don’t know you.” He said, as he wiped his mouth.

“Vinnie?”
She looked worried.

The two guys broke in, “Come on Vinnie. Stop playing, you’re scaring her.”

His surprised expression of not knowing her turned into a playful smile, “Just kidding, this is a new memory, huh Josie? Not the first time we met here, is it?”