From the writing prompt challenge…the usual rules, just for fun, no edits.
Prompt Oct. 5, 2024
The cards drawn:
Wish comes true
Wrong side of the tracks
Sucker
Harvey furiously and relentlessly banged on the door at 1015 Wildman Street. He hadn’t talked to his friend in six years. It was two o’clock in the morning on a rainy July night and he never thought he’d end up back in this neighborhood after they had a falling out. Cleve answered the door loaded for bear. Paranoid freak, Harvey thought. But fortunate for him.
“This better be a matter of life and death, asshole,” Cleve stared hard at him. Harvey was soaked to the bone.
“It is, man. Or I wouldn’t be here.” Cleve looked over Harvey’s shoulder to survey the neighborhood.
“You better come on in, then. Sheila’s in the kitchen. She’ll get a towel for you and some dry clothes if you need. Dry off and meet me back in the living room and tell me what’s going on.”
Harvey nervously went to the kitchen where Sheila was waiting with a cup of coffee and mixed expression of worry and anger. “You shouldn’t have come here, Harvey,” was all she could say before a tear rolled down her cheek. That’s when he noticed the bump of her tummy. Looked like she was probably five months along.
“I’m so sorry, Sheila. If I had known…” he trailed off.
“Too late for sorry now. You two stubborn bastards should have mended fences a long time ago. You just make sure you apologize to him. And I’ll make sure he does the same to you. You know where the bathroom is. Grab some of his clothes from the bathroom and I’ll see you in the living room. How much time do we have before whatever hell is on your heels shows up here?”
“Not long.”He wanted to hug her but decided it was best not to. He scampered off to grab a change of clothes and hurried back to meet them.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Cleve said calmly.
He had been meeting a new girl nightly the past week. She was way out of her league. Why would a beautiful sexy woman that drives a Beamer want to date a guy that lived in a one bedroom loft that was scraping by between construction jobs. She was almost like a dream to him, it seemed, when he noticed her in the bar that first night. She had jet black hair and a bit goth. He’d had a fascination with those kind of women since he was in college. And now, this one noticed him and bought him a drink. It was like a wish come true. But you know what they say about wishes.
At first he thought that she was just feeling sorry for him. She listened to his story. Was thrilled that he was a dad and that he actually was excited for the every other weekend he got the chance to hang out with his son. When he got around to talking about her she always seemed to steer it back toward him. Her words and eyes were hypnotic. He knew something was off after the third night of hanging out at the bar. The fourth night she kissed him. Deep! Then she drove him back to his apartment. She didn’t come up even though he invited her. That was his first mistake.
Earlier that evening just at the sun was going down over the city he took a quick shower and got dressed to go to the bar to meet her again. He was craving her attention, he words, her soft touch. She was like a drug and he was completely intoxicated by her. The crazy thing was, something in the back of his mind told him that it was dangerous. That he should never go back there again. That he should leave town, actually. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling that way.
You’re a sucker, he said to himself in the mirror. No woman like that is going to go for a guy like you. This is a set up. Not sure for what, but this is a set up.
When he opened the door earlier tonight to go to the bar she was waiting at his door for him. He smiled at her, shocked and surprised. I was just on my way to meet…was all he got out before she grabbed his throat and threw him back into the apartment. He landed beside the couch with a thud. He tried to get up but the breath had been completely knocked out of him. He laid there looking up as she hovered over him. Literally! She was floated above him, her hair dangling around his face. He wanted to move but felt paralyzed by her gaze. Her eyes…they were different. Smokey.
She tore his shirt open. He couldn’t look away from her but he heard the buttons of his shirt bouncing across the floor. She used her fingernail to slice open his chest and then licked the blood off of him.
“After that I blacked out. When I came to she was in the kitchen. She heard me staggering around. She had her back to me. She said the brain fog would wear off soon. What she didn’t know what that I had a baseball bat in my hand. You know I keep it under the couch. I swung with all my might. I heard her skull crack, Cleve! But she got up, very slowly and very wobbly. I ran out of the place. I grabbed my keys off the rack by the door and hauled ass. I drove around but it’s like she is in my brain now! I see her everywhere. I didn’t know where else to go, man. I’m sorry I called you crazy all those years ago. You were right! I thought you had gone overboard and insane, but you were right.”
“Where did she bite you?”
Harvey pulled up his shirt and showed him the two bite marks on his chest. She had sunk her fangs into him good, Sheila thought. Harvey was already worked up into a cold sweat despite the summer heat and humidity.
“Well, I forgive you, man. And I probably shouldn’t have been such a douche bag to you either. So I’m sorry for that. But I’m going to tell you strait up, you don’t have much time. And you’ve put my Sheila and our baby at risk. I don’t appreciate that much, but you came to the right place. You have about two days before you turn. And if you turn I won’t hesitate to put you down. Just so you know. Let’s get these light out and I’ll take the first watch. Sheila, do you want me to bring a mattress in here? I don’t want your back to start hurting again.”
“I’ll be fine sleeping on the couch if you guys can keep your chatter to a whisper.”
“I can do that,” Harvey said. “I can calm down. But how do you know that I have two days before I turn?”
“How do you think I met Sheila? She came here after she was bitten because she had heard of me. We had to track down the blood sucker that took a bite out of her. She came close to turning but we found him with maybe a few hours to spare. She was in bad shape. But love is a strange beast, my friend. It was fate, maybe. That’s what I keep telling myself.”
“We may have to go hunting this one, too. She’d have to be pretty ballsy to come out here. We’re the wrong side of the tracks for her kind.”
“What do you mean? Why the hell do you live way out here anyway? Why is this the wrong side of the tracks for her kind?”
“You’re about to find out. Sheila, hon. Before you go back to sleep would you mind to put out the call to the neighbors. Let them know we might have a nasty one stepping into our back yard.”
She grabbed her phone and walked into the kitchen.
“We’re all vampire hunters back here. We found each other and formed our own network. If she comes back here we’ll know about it.”