Vivienne

Steel glinting from the lights that illuminated the area, Denise swung the heavy instrument repeatedly until she realized pieces of their skulls were both flying through the air as well as stuck on the crowbar itself. Covered in blood, Denise dropped the metal bar on the ground where it clanked on the rock. “Done.  Done.”  She closed her eyes and pulled her spattered hair back and tied it. “Sometimes you have to get dirty to get clean, right Marion?”  Denise looked up and saw her lover.

“That seems to be the case, love.”  Marion commented and knelt down over her parents. “Are you sure there was no other way?”

Shaking her head back and forth, Denise smiled at her partner, “None that I could fathom.  Thank you for staying out of sight until this..”  She pointed at the ground, “...was resolved.”  Purring lightly, Denise sauntered to Marion. “You know I ripped my dress open enough for you to see again, right?”  Denise ran her fingers over the black sailor uniform Marion was wearing. “They also needed to know how much I love you.”  

“I love you as well, Denise.”  Marion studied the scene. “It is grizzly though.  Perhaps a little less violence while I am gone?”

“Is that a request?”  Denise asked and pressed her blood soaked lips to her lover’s.

Nodding slowly, Marion sighed from the center of her chest as Denise kissed her. “Let others see your love in a more…positive light.”  Marion reluctantly pulled away from Denise. “Remember, leave that light on for me, Loved One. One day I will be back.” 

“I love you, Marion.”  Denise cried as she watched her partner begin walking down the driveway. “I won’t move until you are out of my sight.”

With a wink, Marion marched silently and steadily until she was out of sight.

Preserving the promise she’d made, Denise hurriedly ran through her farmhouse and back to the barn where she quickly covered a lightbulb in a thin layer of mixed teal paint and affixed it in light that covered the front porch. “A promise is a promise.”  Denise wiped her paint and blood covered hands on her dress and made her way to the driveway. “Now I have to take care of this mess.”

Gathering up all of her and Marion’s paintings first, Denise walked them back into the loft and hung them where they’d been for the last few days. “Done and Done.”  Tingling started to make her palm itch once again and Denise scratched the green glow and looked around. “Hello?”  She asked and made her way to the car once again. “Odd.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Denise pulled the paintings from the trunk of the car and piled them up in the fire pit that she and her father dug out years before and lined with brick. “Preserving us, my love.”  Denise took a deep breath and fluttered her eyes before setting the entire pile aflame. “Done and Done.”  She commended herself and walked over to the three bodies. 

Crossing her arms, Denise felt the strange sensation in her hand again and looked around.  Spotting what looked to be a set of tiny yellow orbs high in a pine tree, Denise scrubbed her eyes and sighed. “I must be more tired than I thought, now I am seeing things.”

Dragging the bodies one at a time over to the fire pit, Denise found herself out of breath and low on her strength when she considered the prospect of hefting the bodies on top of the pile of burning paintings. “I just need a bit to catch my..” Spotting the yellow objects in the tree again, Denise stopped what she was saying. “An owl perhaps?”  A calm breeze washed over her senses for a moment and she watched as paper thin leaves swirled on the ground forming shapes that she instinctively understood. “Danger.  Caution.  Friend and Fire.”

Blinking out of the temporary trance she was in, Denise thought about the strange ability to move things once again. “Okay, Let me just picture them on the fire and if fire is my friend..”  Waving her hand at the pile of bodies, Denise giggled lightly to herself when the picture in her head seemed to take form right before her.  Silently floating over the pit, Denise lowered the trio of corpses and then concentrated on the flames that had been leaving ash where art once was.  Without knowing what would happen, Denise thought of a huge bonfire akin to ones she and her friends had seen before homecoming football games when she was younger and in high school.

Green light danced from her palm and the small fire erupted into the vision of her past. “Oh my!”  Giggling to herself as the flames consumed the fuel she’d given it, Denise felt a wave of heat and stepped back closing her hand. “Okay, okay.  That is enough.  Right there.”  She pressed her hand to her forehead and kept saying, “Done and Done.  Um..no more?  Stay like that.”  

Satisfied that the flames responded to her request, Denise turned and trudged over to the puddles of blood on the ground and in the trunk of the car.  Sighing lightly, Denise had just made the decision to try and wipe as much blood up as she could with towels and burn them, when she once more spotted the yellow orbs.  This time the yellow dots seemed to be moving through the field of her family’s cows and didn’t have the grace of an owl possibly flying. “Hello?”  Denise inquired and picked up the bloody crowbar once again.

“Hello.”  A deep and gruff voice echoed just before a pale looking man reached the fence that held the cattle in place. “I couldn’t help but notice that the lights were on and you have such a lovely…humm, fire.”  Hopping over the fence in a blur, the man shook his shoulder length black hair behind him. “Something about a nice big bonfire that just makes my blood warm.”  He winked and laughed, “Don't you think?”

Feeling the itch from her palm scale the length of her arm to her spine, Denise suddenly knew that the person before her wasn’t as he seemed. “I am rather busy right now.” She pointed the crowbar to the end of the driveway, “We won’t have any..work, for a few days.”

Putting his hands behind his back, the strange man kept walking towards Denise. “I am not here for work, little lady.”  

Taking a few steps back from the approaching man, words that Denise heard seemed to suddenly connect in her mind with relation to the yellow eyes bearing down on her. “Awaken and shake off the chains..”  She clarified to herself and watched as the pale and gentle illusion faded away.  Gray splotchy skin replaced the smooth and creamy look that the man had just a moment before.  Denise saw the fangs hidden in the upper and lower parts of his jaw, and a hybrid color of mixed red-orange seemed to jump from all points of the man’s body.

“What was that?”  The young vampire asked and slid his fangs into place and he pointed to the ground. “Haven’t you ever learned that blood..”  He wiggled his fingers, “...attracts predators?”  Having made his way to the trunk of the car, he swiped his fingers in the pool of blood, “This is a case where I have not only found blood in mass, but the young lady that was kind enough to deliver it right into my hands.”  He sucked his fingers clean.

Rationalizing that everything happened for a reason, Denise didn’t question the revelation she’d had and quietly whispered one word, “Vampire.”