The Housemates

Fantasy or Reality?

Chapter Five

Fantasy or Reality?

Not. Again, was Eliza’s first thought when a scream woke her up at three o’clock in the freaking morning. Instinctively, she lunged for the window and found herself in the woods before her actions could even register in her mind. Her body ran, moving away from the awful noise at a nearly inhuman speed.

Shift, shift, shift, shiftshift, shiftshiftshift, the wolf in her barked out. She silenced it with one harsh, ‘NO!’ and continued sprinting until her eardrums were no longer in danger of rupturing. Once that was no longer a concern, she paused to catch her breath, panting in a very doglike manner to her annoyance. That was a pace that werewolves weren’t meant to run at while in human form. It had depleted her energy far more than it should have. She leaned against a nearby tree, waiting to be able to return.

The downside of having pajamas now was that when these things happened and she woke up in the middle of the night forced to run out of the house, she was running in pajamas. In fact, she was going to need to buy a new set. These were just not as sturdy as jeans. Running through the bushes and branches had torn numerous holes in her pants and even the sleeves on the top were ruined. Damn…

She shook her head. Really? She was thinking about jammies? Seriously? She had bigger concerns right now. Her eyes wandered, searching for the moon. It wasn’t there; the night of the new moon had arrived, the one she had been worried about. Her weird feeling that someone would die tonight seemed accurate enough. She didn’t really want to go investigate. Actually, she wanted to head home.

The scream stopped and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or concerned. It felt like a weird combination of the two. Deciding not to dwell on it, she navigated her way home as quickly as possible. Home was safety and that was what she wanted right now. Her bed felt the comfiest it had since she moved in and she was out cold as soon as she was back in it.

Sunlight streamed into the room, waking her up. She had forgotten to shut the curtains after climbing back in the window. Rolling over to face the nightstand, her hand groped about its surface, searching for her cell phone so that she could check the time. The screen informed her she had an unread message. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, wondering a) who texted her and b) why she hadn’t heard the phone go off. It was another text from her brother, sent twenty minutes ago.

“Stopped by a small town coffee shop in WA. Your scent’s here. Guess I just missed you.”

She briefly stared at it before jumping out of bed, throwing on some clothing, and rushing out the front door. Maybe, just maybe, she could still catch her brother at the shop. Seeing him, even for a few seconds, would be wonderful.

It wasn’t a long run to the little building, maybe ten minutes. She opened the door, catching a strong whiff of his scent, and stepped inside. Eyes roaming around the room, she sighed in disappointment. He was already gone. That was when she realized just how badly she wanted to see him. It had been what? Three years? Three and a half? Who knew anymore? It didn’t really matter; whatever the time frame, it had been far too long. She really needed her big brother right now.

He was gone though, always gone, so instead of crying she sucked it up and pushed aside the sadness. Since she was here, she bought a cup of coffee with some overpriced, little fruit pastry type thing and sat down at a table. How close had she been to seeing him? His scent was still really strong, but that didn’t exactly narrow down the time frame. Maybe he had left two minutes ago, maybe he had left when he sent the text. It didn’t matter; either way he was already gone.

She picked up the local newspaper in order to distract herself as she ate. It helped, but not in a good way. The front page story was about a second stabbing, about two miles from the house. The dead person was an elderly gentleman and a John Doe. He was probably just passing through; Black Wood wasn’t exactly a vacation hotspot. The murder was identical to the last one in method, implying that the vampire was still in town. Today was not starting out on the right foot.