Authors: Shera Eitel-Casey
Tags: #romance, #vampire, #werewolves, #legend, #urban, #1980, #vampire romance, #hour, #werewolves romance, #casey, #romance 1980s, #waking, #317, #317am, #eitel, #shera
I put my hands on my hips “Aren't you guys
done yet! Come on guys hustle up...” I said with a huge smile. Jett
just looked at me wearily like he was so tired from washing the
floor. Nodded his head upward, “What's that in your pocket?” he
asked.
“What?” I touched my pockets, I felt my
folded up note, it was peeking out a bit. My eyes got big, I smiled
ear to ear and said “Ah, that's my grocery list.” I shoved back
into the bottom of my pocket.
Jett said “No it's not.” Declan stood up
“What is it!”
I looked at Jett “Why are you causing trouble
for me crabby butt?” My eyes were wide and I was very giddy. Nic
considered it and shrugged her shoulders. Storm perked up, he came
over to me and said really softly “What's in your pocket?”
I just jogged to the other side where no one
was standing as I was laughing, then stopped cold. I said very
seriously “It's my grocery....” but then I lost it and laughed out
“list.”
Declan darted toward me and I turned and spun
to the right to get away from him. “Jett if he touches me you’re in
deep......” Declan started chasing me. I ran under some evergreens
instead of going around and started running for the dock.
“Jeeeettt....you bett...er st...ooppp....him.......”
I looked back and Nic had followed me, she
darted under the soft evergreen trees like I did. The rest of them
went around. I kept running I knew they'd catch up any minute. I
kicked off my shoes at the sand and headed for the dock I jumped
off it as high as I could and turned in the air so I could see who
was coming. Jett was in the air with me....we both crashed into the
water. He grabbed my waist and we went under water and Jett spun me
so I was closest to the top. We came up and he was smiling again. I
saw Nic crash into the water next, then Declan and Storm right on
his heels....
Jett gave me a kiss on my lips and said
“You're a dork.” I just looked at him and laughed “I know....”
“The water feels good.”
“I know not too cold.”
“But you look cold...” I gave him a weird
look like how would he know.
“White shirt,” he said, my tank underneath
was white.
“Crap” I turned around to button my flannel
and he dunked me playfully, I was able to button it.
Nic grabbed some floats and tossed them in
“Addie I can't believe how fast you can run.”
“Yeah, no shit!” Jett replied. “I barely
caught up to you and I'm fast.”
Declan added “Yeah, Jett has gotten really
fast this year and I bet you could give him a run for his
money.”
We were all lounging in the water when Rae
appeared. Suddenly I recalled the whole reason why we were in the
water, my note but no one else seemed too.....
I got out of the water and Jett pulled me
back in and he kissed me on the neck. We floated for a second and
he released me. As I was getting out of the water again, I checked
all my buttons. “Hey Rae.” I said.
Declan was already by her getting her wet,
she was pushing him away. “Wanna take a quick dip?” He asked
“No...I'm good.” She grumbled, turned and walked to a nearby tree;
dropped an envelope, her purse and kicked off her shoes. She walked
back onto the dock, rolled up her three-quarter pants and sat at
the end of the dock and dangled her feet in the water.I sat next to
her when Jett swam over to us. Rae immediately complained she
didn't want to get wet, but she got splashed anyway. Declan took a
running start from behind us and jumped over us doing a can opener
into the water getting us wetter.
Jett tugged on my legs and back into the
water I went. It was a perfect afternoon. The guys all started
doing all sorts of jumps off the dock. The girls stood at the end
of the dock and held their hands together like a bridge and the
guys jumped over them. Storm ran through them instead. Jett started
getting some amazing height, it was awesome. After a while everyone
eventually ended up lying on the dock or picnic table drying off in
the sun.
I was almost asleep on the
dock when I felt Jett roll onto his side and yanked the wet note
out of my pocket. He hopped up real quick, I sat up fast holding my
pocket which made everyone stir. Jett walked over to the picnic
table and I laid back down.
I tilted my head sideways to
check the scene out and Nic went over and straddled the bench next
to him. The note was wet and folded up on the table, they were both
looking at it. Then Nic stretched her arm over to it and pulled a
corner and Jett assisted like it was major surgery. They opened it
slowly. I laid back and closed my eyes.
The sun felt so good, it was
so simple and care free laying here. I thought of Tori and I in our
yard baking in the sun. Last year we bought our own six foot baby
pool so we had a place to cool off. We would just lay in the sun,
motionless and it warmed you to your core.
The curiosity must have been
too much for Declan because I felt him take a step over me and I
knew he wanted to see what the infamous note was all about. When
they were done reading it Jett and Declan both looked majorly
concerned. As I walked up to them I said “It was just a dream, it
wasn't that scary.”
They both looked at me, “If
this” he held up my letter and shook it, “...is true....” Jett
paused a bit and looked at Declan “and we don't do anything to stop
it, I mean maybe we could have helped Jewel, and maybe we could
help this girl!”
“So that means whoever’s
driving the truck intends to kill and has possibly killed before.”
Nic said to me.
“What, this hasn't already
happened?” Declan was confused. We had to explain the whole dream
thing to him. “Oh this just gets better and better,” he
replied.
There was a silence. Jett
slid the note across the table and pushed it as though it weighed
twenty pounds. The air felt like it weighed more, everything around
me seemed more depressed and weighed heavily on us. Storm pulled
the note over to him, when he was done he pushed it in front of me
– like no one else wanted to touch it.
I noticed myself folding the
note as though it was made of cardboard, hard to fold. I slid it
into my front pocket as I always did and I could feel it sitting
there weighing me down, it felt stiff, uneasy and uncomfortable.
“While we are on uncomfortable subjects, I'd like everyone here to
know that what we talk about here stays here, no one's to breathe a
word of any of this to anyone else, please.” No one said anything.
I said “Alright?” Everyone mumbled in agreement, Storm just staring
at me with his intense eyes, like he was looking into my soul and
reading my every thought.
Declan asked apprehensively
“Should we take a look at the pictures?” As Rae went to get them
Jett traced his thumb over the birthmark on my shoulder. “It looks
like an angel, maybe it's my guardian angel.” He kissed it. Storm
scowled at that.
Rae sat down with the
pictures and passed them around one at a time. They were passed
around in silence. Seeing the proof in your hands was way more
frightening than trying to recall what he looked like the night
before when his emotions were heightened. Seeing these pictures
made the situation all the more surreal and serious. This did not
look like the Jett I know, he looked.... monstrous. I hadn't
recalled that his eyes glowed. Jett looked at my face, dropped the
pictures he had on the table and walked away. No one tried to stop
him, or explain the situation away.... or said a word.
Jett drove me home I felt
like there was iron curtain between us. He pulled down to the
bottom of my driveway and we sat there for a minute. I asked
“What's with the teeth and why did you hide it from me.” He
scrunched his eyebrows at me. I picked up his hand and put my
fingers through his and then stroked the top of his hand with my
other, shifting sideways so I was facing him. “You don't want to
talk about it?”
I wanted Jett to know he could trust me. I
know it's possibly only a high school crush, at least that's what
my mom keeps telling me, but now in this moment, I feel like it's
more. And since I have such an attachment to him, I really wanted
to help him and I was very worried about him, I needed to know else
he might be keeping from me.
“You know I can make you talk.” I said
sweetly with a smile.
“I think Sheila may have more answers for us,
or I'm hoping she does. Why can't I dream what I want to know, that
would be cool. Instead, I get these cryptic dreams never knowing
who or when it's going to happen.”
I walked in the back door of the Richfield
Reading and Speech Center. I always loved the building. It looked
like an old school house, red with white trim, very simple. When
the door closed behind me Sheila jumped – I looked at her with my
eyebrows raised and said “The real questions is if you're really
psychic how come you didn't know I was coming?”
She couldn't help but laugh. “I’m not that
kind of psychic” she said. “That's not quite how it works for me, I
can read people when they are near me and I use tools to read them.
I wish I was telepathic... What can I help you with Addie?”
“Can you look at me and tell?” I asked in a
very subtle voice. I walked over to the counter and put my hands on
the table where she was sitting, then clasped them together. I
could feel the coolness the slate table had to offer. She laid her
hands on mine, they were warm and the contrast between the two was
pleasant, this moment reminded me of my grandma.
“I think our gift obliges us to help those in
need, when we can,” she said.
“I like that.”
She removed her hands from mine “My
relatives, I mean the people I’m tracking and the real reason we
moved.” She said grimly and hesitantly, I was hanging on every word
she said. She continued “They...ah...weren't what I expected. When
I saw them, they seemed... they were different.” She seemed very
nervous and unsure of what she was going to tell me next. “And well
it scared me and I don't know what to do, not sure if there is
something I can do or if anyone will even believe me.“ She stopped
rearranging her books and her eyes began to search the table for
the nothingness it provided. “But” Sheila said and paused “I have
an idea about what's wrong with your friend.”
Sheila and I jumped when Nic came in the
room. We both looked at each other and snickered, “Thank goodness
it's only you.”
“How come you didn’t…” I cut her off “she’s
not that kind of psychic… Good to see you Nic, the plot just
thickened,” I said. I reviewed what Sheila had just revealed to
me.
Nic said “Addie knows a detective that didn't
laugh at the weird stuff she told him.”
I looked down at my shoes a minute and said
“Yeah, Jett's Uncle is a detective I could call Jett and see if he
could get his Uncle to come by.”
“I have no proof of what he's doing...” her
eyes searched the table again then she looked up “Can't hurt to
call him and see if he'll listen.”
I called Jett since I didn't have his Uncle's
phone number on me. His mom answered the phone and I could hear her
call for Jett and although her hand was over the receiver I still
heard her tell Jett “There's another dead animal in our back yard,
make sure you clean it up before you go anywhere.” Jett said
something grumpily back to her.
When he got on the phone he sounded equally
grouchy but seemed to lighten up a bit as I explained everything to
him. “I'll call you back.” Click, he was off the phone.
A few minutes later the phone rang. Sheila
looked at me and shrugged one shoulder so I picked it up. “He's on
his way so am I,” was all the voice said on the other end, “click”
he disconnected with me abruptly again. “Gosh darn it” I said “He
keeps hanging up on me – but Jett and his Uncle are on their
way.”
Sheila went to her locked file cabinet and
took out three old worn boxes and placed them on the counter
carefully, they looked like they would fall apart any minute. They
were only the size of a piece of paper and not very deep, like a
photo box. One was marked “1911 – 1931” the other marked “1941 –
1961”, the last was marked “IMPORTANT”. She made a pot of coffee
nervously, although she was trying to look relaxed, she was uneasy
about something.
I broke the silence “Can you tell us what's
wrong with Jett?” She looked at me in confusion.
“My friend that's been sick,” I
explained.
Twenty minutes later Jett stepped in and
another five behind him was his Uncle. Nic said “You told me there
was a family hotness but I didn't notice it 'til now, you're
right.” I looked at her smiling and blushed a bit “Right, I know –
told ya.” Sheila even gave us a smile of approval.
Grey shook everyone's hand and introduced
himself and then shook Jett's hand and said “What's up?” and
smacked him on the shoulder.
“Crazy stuff,” Jett said and smiled
nervously.
Shelia put cream and sugar out on the table
and poured everyone a cup of coffee. Everyone sat around the table
in silence. When Sheila sat down I took one of the pads of paper
from the middle of the table and a pen and began to doodle. She
started with “…as our history goes vampires and werewolves did
exist but at the end of the 18
th
century one vampire
realized the humans were in jeopardy and killed every last one of
them with the help of our families. And then he killed himself. So
nothing went on for many years and that’s why it was such a scare
for everyone in 1910. Her story that began in the early 1900' the
one I heard before, or at least parts of it. She gave us the name
Dr. Sal Rewtnic a familiar name both her and her daughter had
mentioned before so I wrote it down.
She explained the experiments he was doing
and the diseases he was trying to cure, and then she stated that
they thought he was very close to a cure when his first staged
experiments went crazy and the vampire and werewolf rumors started.
Sheila also assured us that they were just rumors.