00:41 Feb 14 2016
Times Read: 974
Susan woke up screaming; the woman who stayed with her while her father worked nights came to her, rubbing her back, trying to calm her. But it was her father walking into the room, to get her to calm down. “Daddy!” She held out her arms and he came to her as the woman left them to prepare to leave. “It is fine Susan. What did you dream of?” “A clown… I don’t like clowns…” “Oh Susan there is much to fear in the world- but that clown at the pizza place isn’t one of them.” She looked up at him, her brown eyes filled with tears. “I don’t have to go back?” “No- we will not return to the pizza place.” He held his girl, unsure of what to do. He wished his wife, his child’s mother was here. He held her and rocked her to calm a child nightmare away.
She ran to him, a rare night of him being home so he let her stay up. She clung to his leg, yawning. He smiled down at her, reaching for her, putting her on his leg. “Look- doggie.” She pointed at the page in his book. He smiled, corrected her. “That is more then a doggie. In the old world, they believe an evil spirit would…” She leaned against his chest, enjoying the story he told her. From that night forward- she left princess, prince, happy every after stories behind.
Susan lay in the bed, the sun just sitting as the older woman who stayed with her during the nights fussed at her blanket. “Daddy!” she cried out as he walked in, his backpack and black duffle bag telling her he was getting ready to leave. “Hey baby girl. Ready for a story?” The older woman walked out and he pulled out a thick book, the cover worn. It came to sit beside her on the bed. “Yes.” She pulled the blankets lose the woman had tucked in, turning to lay against her Daddy’s side. “Tell me about a monster.” He looked to make sure the baby sitter wasn’t in the hallway, listening. “Ok- a short one tonight. I need to get to the slayer before she starts her nightly hunt.” “Ok.” She knew the slayer was her Daddy’s job. “The native Indians believe the werewolf was a cursed man…” she looked at the drawing, pointing at his fangs. James smiled, his child his world.
Susan legs lead her to the window, pulling back the curtain as she watched the neighbor hood kids get on the school bus. “Daddy Daddy! Bus!” She turned to her father, her only parent as he mother died giving her life. “I know Susan. Come, eat your cereal.” She ran back to the little table, taking the only other chair at the table. He drank his coffee, trying to stay awake. It had been a long night, the slayer taking on a three vampires. He needed to add to his books, her fighting skill unlike any he had seen before. But first he had to give his daughter his time. “When you finish we will start on your math first. Then we will work on your reading.” She nodded, enjoying her time with her daddy. She was 6 years old.
Age 10. She looked out the window, seeing the kids playing on the playground as the sun set. Her Daddy was getting ready to go out, the baby sitter who was only a few years older then she was sitting on the couch, cell phone to her ear. “Daddy, can’t I go outside? Just to play?” “No. We have talked about this.” “But this town is so small, the cows know each other.” “Susan!” She let the drape fall back down to cover the window of the apartment they lived in. She couldn’t count how many homes, apartments, towns they had lived in. Slayers life span wasn’t long, they moved every few years. And that meant she had no friends, couldn’t be in a normal school. But her father did his best. “Susan come here.”
She went to her Daddy, and he hugs her to him. That was when he notices she had gain weight, her clothing tight. “How about we train some? We can start with boxing?” She smiled, happy. “Yes, please Daddy.” He didn’t realize his little baby girl was growing up, needed to have physical as well as mental teaching. “Then when you wake up we will spend two hours on school, and two hours on working out.” “Everyday Daddy?” “Everyday Susan.” She smiled, happy.
Age 12 and he had a hard time keeping up with her. He caught her strike against his chest, stun at just how much of a punch she had. Tall for her age, he stood rubbing his chest, as she worried about him. “I am fine Susan. But that is not a move I taught you.” She lowered her head, caught. “You have been reading my books? How the Slayers fight?” A soft whisper was his answer. “Susan.” She lifted her head, and said “Yes Daddy. I have. I am sorry.” He smiled, putting his stick away. “I am not angry with you Susan. You are learning fast, I am pleased.” She smiled, happy he wasn’t angry. “Now- clean up the weapons, sharpen the short blade. I am going to get a hot shower.” She did as he asked, thinking if she had the Slayer speed, strength, ability she could keep the world safe from all evil.
She was left alone. She locked the door behind him, making sure he heard the dead bolt latch. She was 14 years old and excited. She went to the kitchen, getting a soda. But as she walked by the basement door of the home they have lived in for a few months, she decided the movie could wait. She open the door, turned on the light, went down the steps. She put the pop down, put on the black vest that held knifes, picked up the bow and arrow. She went to stand in the middle of the room, and she let her fantasy lose. “I am the Slayer.” A knife hit the center of a target, she spun and the opposite wall target got a knife right in the center. “I am the chosen one…” A arrow hit the center of the target on the same wall. “I am here to save and protect you.” The arrow was off, not in the center.
She went to pull them out of the targets, repeating her role playing. She viewed the Slayer like Wonder Woman, in her child’s mind. She spent her nights playing out being her hero that the Slayer was in her mind. Good vs Evil, honor above all.
Another town, another Slayer. She was sitting at the window as her and her Dad ate lunch together. She still wore her work outfit, he in his sweat pants. “Tonight will be a night home for me Susan. How about a movie out? We can even go out to your favorite restaurant.” She turned to look at her father, seeing the gray at his temples. “I would like that Daddy, if you are up to it?” “Of course. Not every night I get to take my girl out.” “The slayer is not hunting tonight?” “No. It is prom night. I am sure she is going to be too busy being a teenager to do any hunting.”
Susan mind went to the pretty dresses, the young males in tuxes. She had never been on a date, had a boyfriend. And later that night her father notice her looking, watching the couples of teenagers. He frown as a young man glanced at his child, smiled. Susan turned red, dropping her head. What kind of life was this? She was educated, but she should go to collage. She should have a normal life. Collage, dating. But he knew he couldn’t let her go, not all the way. “You know- I have been at my job for many years. I am starting to think it is time for us to make a change. Maybe I can ask for a desk job, more a librarian, researcher.” “Be taken out of the field?” She asked, stun.
“Well… yes. We can move to England. You can get your GED, go to collage. We will still be together but I would work days as you go to collage. Be a lot safer, and we need to look toward our future Susan.” She drop her head and he waited. “Would you like that Susan? Have a place we can call home? A settled life for once that could lead to you having a life outside the home?” She lifted her head, a smile on her face. “Oh yes Daddy. I would like that.” He put a fork of food in his mouth, knowing he would do what it took to give her a normal life for her adulthood.
A year later he packed his precise books in his suitcase. He buckled the leather straps, thinking this was the last time he would refer to the books as he was turning over his watcher job. He was leaving in two days to England. Susan was going to collage, and he would have a desk job. They had already signed a lease on a small flat, easy walking distance to both their daily lives. She came into his room, her book in the travel guild he gave her of England. “Daddy- look. Can we go here?” “Of course Susan. We will have weekends together, nights.” But he expected her to grow up fast now, collage will bring boys and he expected his little Susan life was going to change in many ways now.
A knock at the door had both of them moving toward the living room in the small apartment they lived in at this time. The sounds of yelling from other apartments came thru the thin walls as the city sounds floated in from outside. Her father open the door, and the new watcher step in. He was younger, twenty years younger by her guess. And he was taking over after tonight. She sent them off, hugging her father and telling him to be safe. She closed the door, locking it behind them, looking around this place they had only lived in a month or less. She was so happy to be leaving the Watcher’s life. And that her father was getting away from the danger.
She woke up, her heart racing, sucking in a deep breath, her hand pulling out the knife she hide under her pillow. She looked around the apartment, the dirty painted walls ugly. Sirens sounded outside. She stood, going to the window and looked out on the city. She touched her chest, her heart still racing. Was it a dream? Did someone knock on the door? They had before, calling out for “Dirty Joe” a drug dealer who lived here before they did. She stood a knife in hand, waiting but nothing moved. She lay back down on the bed, knife under the pillow and went back to sleep. Her suitcases at the foot of the bed the last thing she saw before she slept.
She woke, getting up to find her father. But his bed wasn’t slept in. She paced, waiting for them to return. Finally she called his cell phone, last effort as he did not like her to call. As the sun raised high in the sky, she knew something had happen. She grab her coat and went to find her father. She went toward the park, knowing that is where they had been heading the night before. Once there she just didn’t know what to do. She followed her feet which took her toward the hills. A trail, a path. She knew she was going to right way, just knew… she found the slayer. Her father had told her this one was a red head, a pretty thing. The body parts, once together….she went down on her knees, throwing up.
She knew Slayers died, but this was the first time she had ever seen death. Parts, her face twisted to her back. A wooden stake shoved up …. She turned away, crying. God- they had inflected so much pain. The young girl, her age, killed only a month after gaining her power. Where is the honor, the hero of ending up like this? She stood, wiping her mouth. “Daddy?” Oh god… she looked around the small clearing, seeing footprints. There had been at least six others. “Daddy!” She made herself calm down, think. The hills- they would of set up there, watched her. She looked around, and it was finally seeing the tall grass push down by two sets of foot prints. She ran toward the area, going a little up the hill side and found her father. She collapse, her heart breaking. He was covered in blood, his face swollen. Bites at his neck, torn out, the flesh rip out. He still held the blade in his hand. She sat, rocking back and forth, arms around herself. Flies buzzed his body, the blood adding a copper scent to the air. Hours later she stood and went to his body. She pulled out his cell phone from his front pocket. She saw her own call, her messages.
She scrolled into his listings. And hit the button. She waited for the call to be connected. “This is Susan Jones. I am James Jones daughter. We have a code blue.” She hung up, not willing to address, to answer any questions. She picked up his blade, kissing the dead hand, telling him she loved him. She left his body as she followed the blood drops, the foot prints on up the hill side. Once she climb the hill she found the other watcher. He was beside the car, the door open, the windshield busted. He was dead, his own throat rip out and drunk dry.
She stood on top of the hill, looking down. The Slayer had fought, maybe been lead into a trap of several vampires. Her father had been unable to just stand by, let her be killed. He had run down to help to only have met her same doom. The other watcher had run, like a coward. She took a deep breath, watching the sunset. She walked down the hill, going back to her father. When the Watchers came she was sitting beside his body, the blade in one hand, holding his hand in her other.
She sat in the apartment, in a lumpy chair, watching the men carry out the suitcases. “We will see you are safe. We will put you in a well known collage, see to your needs. And your Dad had money saved. And we will add to it. You will want for nothing, Susan.” She sat, stun, her father buried in a plot of land she would never return to again. “Is there anything else you need to take?” She answer “No.” She stood, making sure her father’s suitcase with the books where included in her luggage. “Sir” The man turned to another. “I don’t see any notes, books.” “Susan- do you know where your father’s books where kept?” “The new watcher had them. Dad gave them to him that night. I guess they where in the car.”
She stood at the window, the England country side below her, not a street light in view. It was to of been so different. Her Daddy was to of been here, they having the life they both wanted. She looked at her reflection, seeing the change. She turned and gathers her clothing, the books she knew so well. It was time to leave this place, this closed off all female collage they put her in. She was being watched, she was being told what to say, how to act. She would not live a lie, her father never made her. She was done with this life. It had killed her father; she would never be part of it again.
She sips her coffee, reading the news on her laptop. The city hides her as much as the hooded coat did. It had only been a few weeks but already she felt normal. She had a job as a clerk in a drug store during the day, only her fourth day. She ate the muffin that was half price before going outside into the night. She needed to save, to get out of England. Maybe she could go to Hawaii. She could live on the beach, find a job… she just had to figure out how to get her money without the Council finding her. She walked along the sidewalks, watching the people as they walked by. They had no clue what was in the world. Her father had, and died trying to fight it. Had he always helped the Slayers he watched? She remembers bruises on his body, face. Pulled muscles he would pamper, time to heal. He had always said it was from practice fighting with the slayers but what if he had… she stop, her lower body having a pain.
She put a hand to the cold wall of the building, the snow blowing about her. She bite her lip, stun by the pain. She hadn’t been eating as she should of but this wasn’t a hunger pain or her period coming on. She heard a scream, but it was stop only a few seconds into it. She turned, back to the wall and found the location of the scream- A dark alleyway across the two lane road from her. She looked around- why had she walked with her mind not on her surroundings? She was… a rustle, a soft moan. She was pulled to the darkness, her hand sliding the short blade sword from behind her back, the one her father had died with in his hands.
She found the two vampires feeding on the woman. One was a woman, the other an older male. She felt a power grow inside her, unlike anything she had ever felt in her life. While her mind screamed at her to stop, to run away, her body was ready. She felt her hand tighten on the blade, knowing the heads had to come off the vampires. She had to use her skill, she could handle these two. The woman lifted her eyes up from where she was sucking blood from the woman’s wrist. She hissed, blood dripping down her chin, and fangs sharp.
Susan braced her body as she rushed her. The vampire hit her before she ever got a swing, and Susan went down, the sword hitting the ground feet away. She felt her hair being yank hard, her head pulled back as the woman stood over her, feet at her hips at she lay on her stomach. “Look what we have- seconds.” She could feel the woman starting to bend down, squatting down to bite. Susan felt the jolt of power, the strength fill her. She shoved her upper body upward, swiftly. She hit the woman with the back of her head, knocking her backward. A quick push up with her arms, bending her knees and she was up, fist raised. “Slayer” the man hissed, dropping the dead woman at his feet, her skin white from the draining of blood.
Susan blocked the woman’s punch, used her forward motion to shove her head first into the brick wall. The older man wrap his arms around her from behind and she used her feet to push back, to run them both into the trash cans, crashing into them. He let her go and she used the few seconds to reach her blade. The woman hit her in the lower back, taking her down. She kicked Susan, who turned with the kick, using her blade to swing at the female vampire. As the woman step back, her leg cut open by the blade, Susan flex her body like she had for many years, popping back up on her feet. She step forward and took the woman’s head.
Ashes, fire in the air. The older man growled an animal sound just before he rushed her. “I will kill you.” Susan stood her ground till the last second, leaned sharply to the right, twist at her waist and took his own head with the help of his speed of his attack. More ashes, fire. She stood, the warmth of the air going away quickly as the ash blew away in the snow. She checked, looking upward into the roof tops, to both ends of the alleyway. No one was there, no other monsters to kill. She slide the blade back into the homemade belt holster she had made, leaving the woman’s dead body as she went back out on the sidewalk. She walked away, her mind clear on what she was now. That night- when her father had died, when she had woken up from what she thought was a bad dream… was when the slayer had been killed.
She let out her own hiss- The Watchers and the Council will never leave her alone now.
9 months later she stops to look into the shop window. It was Christmas time, the lights of Russia cheerful in the snow. She pulled the black hooded coat tighter on her small frame, giving the pretty dresses in the window one last look. She walked on, the shadow following her for the last few nights still holding back. She went across a bridge, the lights fewer here. The fog off the water hides her for a few seconds and the lady waited but lost her when she went over the midway mark.
She slowly went on the bridge, trying to hear the footsteps of the high heels the woman wore. All of a sudden the slayer flip back over from the bridge wall, railing she had been hanging from. The woman, a council member, couldn’t help but give out a small sound of shock. The black hair slayer smiled at her. Then she punched her right in the nose, breaking it. She screamed, holding her nose as it bleeds. “Why are you following me?” Strong hands wrap around her neck, and she held up her hands, trying to stop the killer as she knew the slayer could snap her neck. “Wait Susan. I am a friend. I am here to take you in.” “Watcher?” “No, no. Council.” She was let go, pushed against the bridge railing.
“Then you wasted your time. I am not going in. Nor will I answer to any watcher, or to the Council for that matter.” She reached inside her jacket pocket to only have a sharp knife pushed against her throat by the Slayer. “I am getting hanky, for my nose.” She was turned toward the water, the couple walking by them on the bridge talking of dinner. “Move and I will end you.” She stood still, this slayer a wild card. Once alone again, the slayer put her own hand in the pocket, finding the linen hanky. She pulled it out, held it out to the woman. “Thank you.” She took it, her blood pouring down her chin.
“It really is unnecessary to be so defensive. You know how this works, your father would of…” “Don’t talk of my father.” The knife was back at her neck. She looked into Susan’s eyes, the only photo of her in the file taken just before her father’s death that was left behind when she ran. That 15 year old child was no where in this woman. “How did you find me?” She had hired a hacker, gotten her money. Was that how they found her? “We might not be able to find you, but we still do have the power to track the bad guys. You have left a path of dead during your stay in Russia.” Susan step back, the knife drop to her waist for now. “Is that a bad thing?” “You know we share the same goal. But you need to answer to us, to go where we…” “No.”
Susan turned and the woman made the mistake of reaching out to her. Susan had her bent over the bridge railing, the cold metal at her back. And the cold metal back on her neck. Susan looked at the woman, touched her blond hair. No words where spoken but the woman felt fear. Fear unlike anything she felt before. She had faced a few monsters in her life, face to face. Mostly in labs, or during training. But this woman was like a wild animal. She touched her face, cup her face in her hand as the blade cut into her skin. She felt the blood running down her neck, the blade move closer to a vein. Right before it she stop, smiling at the woman. Then the smile left her face and their was a face of a monster.
A calm, a face of a killer. Cold blooded, clearly uncaring who she killed. They had no evidence she had step over any lines, killing other then monsters. But looking up into that face- the Council member was very afraid. “I see another Watcher, or Council member, and I will kill them. This is the only warning you will get. Send another after me- his or her death is on your shoulders.” She reached down, gave the woman a deep long French kiss, tongues playing. After the kiss, the woman was thrown into the freezing water.
The woman sat in the van, blanket around her as she spoke into the mic, looked at the screen. “I am telling you in my professional opinion that Susan is a threat to the Council. She is a lunatic. She is unstable and can’t be of any use to us as a Slayer. She threw me in freezing water with no care if I would survive or not. She had to be terminated so we can move on to another Slayer.” She reported to the man on the screen.
A few days later-
The plane landed in CA. Susan walked off the plane, only a carry bag with her full of books. She picked up her one case, the weapon hidden inside a hidden lined compartment. She used her fake passport to get into her home country, removing the sunglasses she wore to wink at the male who stamped it. She walked out into the sunlight, glad to be out of the tight containment of the plane. She stood, playing with her hair, giving herself a few minutes before she called on a cab, started her search for more weapons. Then a cheap car, a new town to stay in a few months. She will check out the newspapers in the area, seeing if any things looked fishy, needed checked into.
*Starting point of our newest RP game.
COMMENTS
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GRTR1
14:47 Dec 17 2019
what a great read