applepie
10-31-2007, 11:40 PM
I'm not too sure where I went wrong with this story, but I know something is off about it. I noticed that something seemed odd after I had submitted it for the October elimination of the short story competition. Please leave me any feedback that you can. Criticism is very welcome since the basic story line is actually part of a profile for another story I wish to write.
Thanks,
Meg
An Eternity to Wait
It had been five hundred years since I last came to this place. I had been around the world many times, but I avoided this place like others would avoid the plague. To look at me, you would never know that so much time had passed since I left. I still possessed the same midnight hair, and my eyes still glowed like emeralds in the night. My body was still that of the man I was, but I was no longer the same carefree man who once called this place home. No more did I romp with my sweetheart, Katie, and dream of the days when I would have a child to call my own. Too much had changed over the years, and I had been responsible for too many evil deeds to ever be happy again.
Just being at my old home caused me pain. The buildings had changed, but I could still detect the faint smell of earth and trees that marked this as my home. When I had last seen it, there had been a small town. Dirt roads and a few buildings were all that had marked the surrounding patchwork of ranches as an organized settlement. There had been the general store, owned by my dear Katie’s father, and a five room inn that was run by my family. There had also been a saloon and a mortuary. Now the area was covered by a vast city, but I could still feel the essence of the place it had been. It was here, in this peaceful little spot, that all of my dreams had been stolen by a creature straight from the bowels of hell. In a matter of moments one autumn, everything in my life was altered.
The fall harvest had just been completed, and everyone was gathered in celebration for the bountiful year. Katie and I had just announced our plan to be married at Christmas. Mary, the mortician’s wife, had just birthed a healthy baby boy who they named Samuel. There were many things for our little town to rejoice in. We knew that the coming winter would be harsh for all of us, but we were still optimistic and joyful. We danced and drank well into the darkest hours of the night, and it was then that she came to us.
Drawn by the sound of our music, the lone rider approached atop a palomino guided by the glow of the moon. She came to the clearing where we were all gathered and dismounted. We were unable to distinguish anything more than the rider was a woman, but all eyes still turned to the place where the stranger stood. Pale hands rose to remove her hood, and there was a collective gasp as she was revealed to us. She was stunning. Her hair was the color of honey and it seemed to float around her like a curly halo. Her eyes were the color of cut sapphires and held us all spellbound. Her crimson lips were full and pouting
“Good evening, I am Lilith. Is there somewhere that I may stay the night?”
“We have an inn that you can bed down at. I’ll set you up there right away,” I spoke up from the crowd. My parents were the owners, but I normally ran the place now that they were getting older. “My name is Lucien, but folks just call me Luke. If you will follow me, I’ll set you up with a room, and you can come join us.”
She followed me down the road to the inn, and I was quick to set her up with a room. It only took a few minutes to get her name in the book and start her a tab. I showed her up the stairs to the room she would be staying in. I had decided to give her our finest room. It had a fine, large, canopy bed that was draped in gauzy white curtains. The coverlet had small pink and blue roses embroidered across it. She surveyed the room then turned to me. I thought that she was going to thank me for the room, but that wasn’t what Lilith wanted to do.
I didn’t see the strike coming. One moment I had been watching Lilith come towards me with a smile on her face, and the next moment I was waking up to a darkened room. My neck was sore, but I did not know why it would pain me. I moved to the mirror, and I saw the bloody imprint of teeth where my neck and shoulder met. It was still seeping blood, so I grabbed an old handkerchief to staunch the flow. Panic seized me, and I knew I needed to get back to the others. I had to tell them what had occurred at the inn. I didn’t know what Lilith was, but I knew she was a danger to everyone I cared for.
I raced out of the inn and back to the assembly. The sight that greeted me was something out of my nightmares. There was no longer a fiddler playing. The decorations, so carefully hung, were now in tatters. Some were spattered with blood, and all around the dirt dance floor bodies were scattered. They looked like broken dolls with their limbs sitting at odd angles. I glanced and saw that both my parents and Katie were among the people who were killed. The mortician was spread at my feet. His face was frozen in terror and his eyes were empty with death.
Seeing him made me remember his wife and young Samuel. Surely the baby was unharmed. I began to wade through the carnage looking for any trace of the infant. It was the one vestige of hope that I was clinging to. When I finally located him I wished that I had never done so. Something within me shattered at the sight before me. He was clutched tightly in Mary’s arms, and she was soaked with blood from where her throat had been torn out. Tiny Samuel’s head was sitting in an unusual manner, and I knew, by the angle, that his neck had been broken. My head fell back and I screamed my grief and horror to the heavens. After a while I lapsed into unconsciousness again. I welcomed the oblivion.
While I was steeped in sorrow, Lilith came for me again. She whispered soft words of love to me, and told me that she could take all the pain away. She asked me to trust her, and I felt a sharp sting in the crook of my elbow. I believed that she meant to kill me as well, so I gave my consent to what she wished. On the brink of death, I felt joy at being able to join the others. Then I felt as if something pulled me back from the afterlife denying me peace. I was yanked out of my stupor and awoke to violent retching. Lilith was beside me, and she offered comfort as I was rid of the last of my humanity. She guided me into the soil where we rested for the daylight hours. When I rose that evening, I was like her. I had no conscience, and I thirsted for not only the sweet nectar of blood but violence as well.
I ducked my head in shame at thoughts of what I had done in the first three hundred years of my new existence. I had killed without mercy. Lilith and I had committed worse travesties than what was done to my own town. It was about two centuries ago that I woke from my daytime slumber and found that I was my old self again. I still had the craving for blood that had consumed my existence, but I had my soul again. The desire for violence and tumult had vanished. I had been blessed, or cursed if you will, by a witch whose daughter I had killed the night before. I was consumed with guilt, and to escape my pain I entered the ground to stay. I had intended to stay buried, but I emerged a few decades ago when excavators ventured too close to my resting place. The same agony clawed at me even after more than a century spent at rest.
I decided that the only course I had left to me was to return here. It seemed fitting that the place where my new existence had begun was the same place that it would end. I hadn’t counted on the old wounds of my townspeople’s deaths being as raw as they were, but it only fueled my resolve. I decided to meet the sun in the morning on the day I arrived, and I sat outside my refuge and waited to see the sky turn pink and orange to herald the coming day. I waited for the sun’s rays to burn my skin and flesh putting end to this torture I called life. I sat and waited, and I watched for the coming dawn. It came, as dawn always will, but it didn’t bring with it my death. The sun rose high in the sky and I continued to wait, but still death would not come to claim me. Night fell again, and I began to weep and rage. It seemed that I was to live in torment forever for my crimes. I was unable to die by the light of day.
Unlike Lilith, who I burned before my long rest, I am doomed to walk the world. She, who had thrust this existence upon me, rested in peace. Meanwhile I am forced to live for eternity in hell. I walk each night, killing when necessary, abstaining when not, and I sit each morning at this place of my birth waiting for the sun to rise and end my torment. Each morning I face the day, but I fear that my long wait is in vain. I fear I will never be free of the torturous grip of my life.
Thanks,
Meg
An Eternity to Wait
It had been five hundred years since I last came to this place. I had been around the world many times, but I avoided this place like others would avoid the plague. To look at me, you would never know that so much time had passed since I left. I still possessed the same midnight hair, and my eyes still glowed like emeralds in the night. My body was still that of the man I was, but I was no longer the same carefree man who once called this place home. No more did I romp with my sweetheart, Katie, and dream of the days when I would have a child to call my own. Too much had changed over the years, and I had been responsible for too many evil deeds to ever be happy again.
Just being at my old home caused me pain. The buildings had changed, but I could still detect the faint smell of earth and trees that marked this as my home. When I had last seen it, there had been a small town. Dirt roads and a few buildings were all that had marked the surrounding patchwork of ranches as an organized settlement. There had been the general store, owned by my dear Katie’s father, and a five room inn that was run by my family. There had also been a saloon and a mortuary. Now the area was covered by a vast city, but I could still feel the essence of the place it had been. It was here, in this peaceful little spot, that all of my dreams had been stolen by a creature straight from the bowels of hell. In a matter of moments one autumn, everything in my life was altered.
The fall harvest had just been completed, and everyone was gathered in celebration for the bountiful year. Katie and I had just announced our plan to be married at Christmas. Mary, the mortician’s wife, had just birthed a healthy baby boy who they named Samuel. There were many things for our little town to rejoice in. We knew that the coming winter would be harsh for all of us, but we were still optimistic and joyful. We danced and drank well into the darkest hours of the night, and it was then that she came to us.
Drawn by the sound of our music, the lone rider approached atop a palomino guided by the glow of the moon. She came to the clearing where we were all gathered and dismounted. We were unable to distinguish anything more than the rider was a woman, but all eyes still turned to the place where the stranger stood. Pale hands rose to remove her hood, and there was a collective gasp as she was revealed to us. She was stunning. Her hair was the color of honey and it seemed to float around her like a curly halo. Her eyes were the color of cut sapphires and held us all spellbound. Her crimson lips were full and pouting
“Good evening, I am Lilith. Is there somewhere that I may stay the night?”
“We have an inn that you can bed down at. I’ll set you up there right away,” I spoke up from the crowd. My parents were the owners, but I normally ran the place now that they were getting older. “My name is Lucien, but folks just call me Luke. If you will follow me, I’ll set you up with a room, and you can come join us.”
She followed me down the road to the inn, and I was quick to set her up with a room. It only took a few minutes to get her name in the book and start her a tab. I showed her up the stairs to the room she would be staying in. I had decided to give her our finest room. It had a fine, large, canopy bed that was draped in gauzy white curtains. The coverlet had small pink and blue roses embroidered across it. She surveyed the room then turned to me. I thought that she was going to thank me for the room, but that wasn’t what Lilith wanted to do.
I didn’t see the strike coming. One moment I had been watching Lilith come towards me with a smile on her face, and the next moment I was waking up to a darkened room. My neck was sore, but I did not know why it would pain me. I moved to the mirror, and I saw the bloody imprint of teeth where my neck and shoulder met. It was still seeping blood, so I grabbed an old handkerchief to staunch the flow. Panic seized me, and I knew I needed to get back to the others. I had to tell them what had occurred at the inn. I didn’t know what Lilith was, but I knew she was a danger to everyone I cared for.
I raced out of the inn and back to the assembly. The sight that greeted me was something out of my nightmares. There was no longer a fiddler playing. The decorations, so carefully hung, were now in tatters. Some were spattered with blood, and all around the dirt dance floor bodies were scattered. They looked like broken dolls with their limbs sitting at odd angles. I glanced and saw that both my parents and Katie were among the people who were killed. The mortician was spread at my feet. His face was frozen in terror and his eyes were empty with death.
Seeing him made me remember his wife and young Samuel. Surely the baby was unharmed. I began to wade through the carnage looking for any trace of the infant. It was the one vestige of hope that I was clinging to. When I finally located him I wished that I had never done so. Something within me shattered at the sight before me. He was clutched tightly in Mary’s arms, and she was soaked with blood from where her throat had been torn out. Tiny Samuel’s head was sitting in an unusual manner, and I knew, by the angle, that his neck had been broken. My head fell back and I screamed my grief and horror to the heavens. After a while I lapsed into unconsciousness again. I welcomed the oblivion.
While I was steeped in sorrow, Lilith came for me again. She whispered soft words of love to me, and told me that she could take all the pain away. She asked me to trust her, and I felt a sharp sting in the crook of my elbow. I believed that she meant to kill me as well, so I gave my consent to what she wished. On the brink of death, I felt joy at being able to join the others. Then I felt as if something pulled me back from the afterlife denying me peace. I was yanked out of my stupor and awoke to violent retching. Lilith was beside me, and she offered comfort as I was rid of the last of my humanity. She guided me into the soil where we rested for the daylight hours. When I rose that evening, I was like her. I had no conscience, and I thirsted for not only the sweet nectar of blood but violence as well.
I ducked my head in shame at thoughts of what I had done in the first three hundred years of my new existence. I had killed without mercy. Lilith and I had committed worse travesties than what was done to my own town. It was about two centuries ago that I woke from my daytime slumber and found that I was my old self again. I still had the craving for blood that had consumed my existence, but I had my soul again. The desire for violence and tumult had vanished. I had been blessed, or cursed if you will, by a witch whose daughter I had killed the night before. I was consumed with guilt, and to escape my pain I entered the ground to stay. I had intended to stay buried, but I emerged a few decades ago when excavators ventured too close to my resting place. The same agony clawed at me even after more than a century spent at rest.
I decided that the only course I had left to me was to return here. It seemed fitting that the place where my new existence had begun was the same place that it would end. I hadn’t counted on the old wounds of my townspeople’s deaths being as raw as they were, but it only fueled my resolve. I decided to meet the sun in the morning on the day I arrived, and I sat outside my refuge and waited to see the sky turn pink and orange to herald the coming day. I waited for the sun’s rays to burn my skin and flesh putting end to this torture I called life. I sat and waited, and I watched for the coming dawn. It came, as dawn always will, but it didn’t bring with it my death. The sun rose high in the sky and I continued to wait, but still death would not come to claim me. Night fell again, and I began to weep and rage. It seemed that I was to live in torment forever for my crimes. I was unable to die by the light of day.
Unlike Lilith, who I burned before my long rest, I am doomed to walk the world. She, who had thrust this existence upon me, rested in peace. Meanwhile I am forced to live for eternity in hell. I walk each night, killing when necessary, abstaining when not, and I sit each morning at this place of my birth waiting for the sun to rise and end my torment. Each morning I face the day, but I fear that my long wait is in vain. I fear I will never be free of the torturous grip of my life.