"The flight was agonizingly long, and that was the positive part of the experience.We had reserved a cab a week before, because we didn't want to drive out there and then try to find parking."
"I could have found a spot."
"Ignore him, he's convinced he a dowsing rod of available parking. Anyway, we had made a reservation for six a.m. At a quarter to seven a car screams to a stop in the driveway. You can still see the skidmarks. We were so angry."
"You were angry. I never even wanted to go."
"I told you to ignore him....
The snow had hardened overnight and was crisp now. It wasn't what you would call a cold day and Fran had left her jacket unbuttoned. She was looking at the children off in the distance.
"I'd forgotten that it was today."
Alan was looking farther away.
"I wasn't looking forward to it or anything."
He reached in his pocket and found and empty packet of cigarettes.
"Dammit."
"When did they start doing it?"
"I don't know, maybe 3 or 4 years ago."
"Do you remember the first one?"
"No. It's just a thing that happens."
She felt very bad then...
"Travel light."
"But take everything with you."
A murmur of confusion ran across the gathered crowd.
"That will only slow us down!" The young man who had been such a cool head through all of their troubles spoke firmly, with an authority far greater than his age would normally have allowed.
"We can't allow them to find anything which they could use against us." The town drunk retaliated. Or at least, that was all he had been, until the shadow began to cross the land and the war drums had begun to beat once more, since then, he had been...
"Psst, Mary," whispered Bishop. "Mmmmm," replied Mary, lost in dreams of debauchery. "Mary!" said Bishop, loudly, causing Jazzmin and Pony to stir. "WHAT?" was the irritated response from Mary, naked on the woven paisley bedspread. "Hey, man, got any dough in your stash box?" "No!" said Mary, rolling over, trying to regain her dream. It involved a barnyard full of chickens and Robert Plant selling hash brownies. "C'mon, babe! Don't bogart all the dough!"
"FUCK!" snapped Mary, forcing herself upright. She rolled off the mattress onto the floor -- a five-inch drop, since the mattress was on the floor. "What...
I heard it again. "It's hell getting old! One, to say this is to show total disregard to the countless lives cut short never having the opportunity to experience all life has to offer living to an old age. Two, to say this is to show little or no realization that a lifelong of memories can only be gathered living to an old age. That's no hell to me. I will savor every moment. It sure beats the alternative.
Morlane hung his head. At times like these, his emotions were torments of conflict. He was grateful, yes; but he was ashamed. He was melancholy, true; but he was jubilant. Every month for the last 4 years he had made the trek; every month he had experienced these emotions again. He couldn't talk to anyone about these feelings. His father, raised on a quiet farm, couldn't know about such things. His fiancee, sophisticated city girl that she was, couldn't be expected to understand. Only his regiment could understand. And he was the only one left. Except for --
"GOD BLESS...
The wolves were out. Howling sounds tingled his ears. The moon, full, glowing, reminded Harold of the night it first happened.
Skin stretching.
Eyes twitching.
Muscles growing.
The transformation didn't take long - his body temperature dropped 25 degrees to a cool 73.6, perfect vampire temperature. Absolutely freezing to a human. Harold hated being a human - he loved the hunt, the chase of his prey. He was like those families in those books, the Cullens... He feasted on animals, not people. A different kind of monster - not a permanent one, one that changed on necessity. A vampire by...
Vanquished, that was how they wanted me to feel as I knelt there on the cold flagstone, my head bowed, my hands clasped.
I could hear the echoes of the crowd marching up the street and knew that they would be upon me soon, their torches ablaze, their spirits hungry for blood.
I was to be renounced as a witch, that most reviled of creatures.
My fate was no longer in my hands, I was to surrender that along with my freedom and my life when the mob broke into my sanctuary.
Because I had dared too love too much,...
They were listetning. I think they might have heard ebery word I was saying. Did I care? Yes, for they were the ones who controlled my mind. It all started when I laid down my head to sleep a few days ago. Not in my bed, but in remote field somewhere in west Texas. What was I doing three, near Odessa but not as far as El Paso? Intersting question, and I;m not even sure I know why. I just drove. Drove for miles and miles. Hours and hours. I was running from soemthing, something I didn't really undertsand. It...
£18000. That's all it would take. But it was more than Charles had, that was certain. He gazed in wonder at that glossy, dog-eared magazine page. Awe, even. He had been looking at that same page every morning for the past fourteen years and with a sigh he would fold the mag shut and let it sit on his lap and lean his head back and rock. The rocking chair had belonged to his father. That was the only thing of his father's that he ever got. The cancer got him, a few years earlier. The rest of the family...