Vampire Games (21 page)

We sat and talked about the beach and surfing. Lilly did most of the talking. The rest of us just listened.

Brenda leaned over and whispered something to Lilly, who then whispered in Alex’s ear. I had a feeling they were talking about me, so I ducked my head. My face felt hot. I rearranged the napkins. Alex turned to me and said, “Let’s go wash our hands.”

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Diary of a Dead Girl

by C.J. Urban

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Julie stared at Skye in horror. The very thought that her cousin could have died in this house, let alone been murdered, was almost too much to handle.

“
Did they catch the person who killed her?” she asked.

“
Yeah, they did. It was some crazy transient named Jacob Leech. He’s been locked away ever since. That’s a whole story in itself.”

“
Tell me, Skye. My uncle never shared any of this with the family.”

“
Well, many people think that Jacob is actually innocent and that they pinned the murder on him because he was an easy target. He didn’t have any money to get a good lawyer, and he had no one to corroborate his story that he wasn’t there. Jacob is schizophrenic, so it was easy to pin the murder on him, but he was just some pesky homeless man who wandered around our town, asking for money and food. He was never violent toward anyone, though. He was actually really polite.”

“
So, the real killer may still be out there somewhere?”

Skye looked thoughtful, “Yeah, I suppose so, but after ten years, you’d be hard pressed to find whoever did it.”

Julie didn’t reply but stared thoughtfully into her coffee cup.

Skye suddenly felt awkward, and thought it was a good time to leave. “Well, thank you for the coffee. I really enjoyed getting to know you better.”

“
You’re welcome, and I enjoyed getting to know you, too.”

They stood up and walked toward the entryway standing still for a few moments. Skye suddenly opened his mouth as if he was going to ask a question, but then stopped and smiled at Julie, taking a deep breath.

“
Would you like to go out with me sometime?” he finally asked.

“
I would love to,” Julie said smiling.

“
Great. How does Friday night at eight o’clock sound?”

“
Sounds awesome,” she said as Skye stepped outside. “The only thing is, I’m going to need a sitter for Sam, and I don’t know anyone I can trust.”

“
My mom can probably do it, if you’re comfortable with her. I’ll call you and let you know.”

“
I’m sure Sam would be all right with that.”

“
Perfect. Well, I’ll see you Friday,” he said and walked to his truck.

Julie shut the door and walked back into the living room to relax in her recliner and enjoy the wonderful feeling of being desired. She hadn’t been on a date in over a year, and part of her worried that she might be a little rusty in the romance department.

The silence in the house was suddenly extinguished by a strange soft thump from upstairs. Julie sat forward so quickly she nearly fell out of the chair.
You need to relax
, she told herself.

“
Sammy, did you make that noise?”

Sam suddenly came running down the stairs looking scared.

“
What was that?” he asked.

“
I don’t know, Sammy, but we’re going to figure it out, okay?”

There came another thump from upstairs, and this time Julie felt she had every right to be a little frightened.

“
I’m going upstairs to check things out. Stay down here, okay?”

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Whispered Lies

by Lindsey Stiles

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I didn’t mean to kill him—it was an accident.

Even though it was an accident, I knew I could still go to prison unless some expensive lawyer got me off on self-defense. That wasn’t going to happen, though. My grandfather had many friends in high places these days, and it was likely that I would be convicted of murder or second-degree manslaughter, which was still a prison sentence. I knew I had to get away as fast as I could.
Disappear.

I grabbed a suitcase from the hallway closet, and ran to my room to pack my things. I threw in a few pairs of jeans, blouses, tee shirts, socks, undergarments, a couple of dresses, and two pairs of shoes. I made my way to the bathroom and packed my toiletries.

I was out of there and intended to never look back. The hell that I knew all too well over the past eighteen years was finally over. I could finally start my life. I could finally live my life not terrified of my grandfather. I could do this because I had killed him. I had ended my torture. It was a freeing feeling.

My paternal grandfather had been an alcoholic and I had a sickening childhood memory of his liquored-up breath. I had lived with Grandpa since I was two years old. That’s when my parents were killed in a plane crash and he was discovered as my only living relative. He adopted me shortly after their death, playing the jilted hero, as he had been abusive to my dad as a child and once he was of age, Dad had wanted nothing to do with Grandpa.
Ever.
The truth was, Grandpa was after the vast fortune that my mom left to me from her royalties of her drug patents. Grandpa became the gleeful benefactor of my vast trust fund, finding ways to pull money out of it for himself and denying me the control of my own funds, even after I was in college.

On my twenty-first birthday, which I hoped to live to see, I would get full control of the trust. As time marched on toward that birthday, he made my life more and more miserable, as he realized that I would depart from his control with most of my mom’s fortune, the part that the lawyers wouldn’t let him access. Everything had to go through a lawyer and every month, he snatched that check from the mail with glee. I would have been better off if I would have been a passenger on that plane. Sometimes, I daydreamed that I had been on that plane with my parents and was with them in Heaven.

After he adopted me, and the social workers stopped coming, once he bought a house in a gated community and showed up temporarily sober for every one of their meetings, my next several years were filled with physical and mental abuse. He had so much rage at my father’s rejection of him that I know he took it out on me, and I became my dad’s whipping girl for every single thing that my grandfather perceived that he had to beat out of me, too. He often told me before he beat me or whipped me that I was just like my father. But this last time that Grandpa had hit me, I had taken his beatings one too many times—my courage rose up for the first time and I fought back. He was beating me so severely that I was fighting back for my life—it really
was
self-defense!

I had never done anything like this this before and I was amazed at myself when I did it. It was like I was watching somebody else in slow motion: a much braver person, a person who was invincible, a person who wouldn’t have put up with his crap for so long. That person was me, the
new
me. I would come into a fortune on my next birthday and flee from my grandfather, as his son had done, years before. My dad had never talked much about his mother, only that she had died, and from the sorrow in his voice, I assumed that she had either committed suicide, or that my grandfather had somehow contributed to her death. Now, I would never know what happened to my grandmother. Because my parents were dead and now, my grandfather was dead…
by my hand
.

The second I stabbed him in the chest with the kitchen knife, I knew that I was a free woman.

When he fell to the ground and didn’t move, I wasn’t really sure if he was dead.

I squatted down to feel his pulse. No pulse. He wasn’t breathing either. He was
dead
.

I hadn’t planned on this and I knew I had to get out of there fast before Greg, the butler, came in for work. He arrived at 6:00 a.m. every morning and it was already a quarter past five. Sickened, I carefully drew the knife out of Grandpa’s chest and knew I had to take it with me and dispose of it because my fingerprints were on it.
Evidence.

I managed to collect my belongings and get out of the house in five minutes, the knife in a plastic zipper bag from the kitchen, together with the bloody hand towel that I had wiped my hands on, after I washed them.

I climbed into my BMW and headed west. I was going to stay with my friend, Brooke, who lived three states over, in California. We had met some years ago while skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and struck up a friendship that we kept going by email and phone. She had just graduated from college and was now living in a small beach city. Knowing my terrible living situation, she had invited me on numerous occasions to come and live with her. My grandfather wouldn’t let me leave, I was almost a prisoner in his house. But not anymore. He was dead and gone and it was my time to live.

I decided not to tell Brooke about what had happened. She would definitely freak out and tell her mom, who would call the cops. She was a good daughter and told her mom everything. So, I decided to keep my secret to myself. It would be best that way. I couldn’t afford for this to get out, what I had done. Killed my blood kin.

I would have to change my name. Well, at least my last name, so the police couldn’t find me. 

I had planned on moving in with Brooke in a couple of months anyway, after I turned twenty-one and my trust fund could be released from my grandfather’s iron grip. It was not a secret from me that should anything happen to me, he was the sole beneficiary. It was frightening to think about. My plan was to sneak off when my grandfather was asleep, but now this had happened. He didn’t know Brooke and I knew I would be safe at her house.

I already purchased a fake I.D. from some guy that I met through a friend of a friend. I meant business, I just wished I wasn’t carrying such heavy baggage.

Before I left town, I stopped for gas. I pulled out my debit card and my fake identification card fell out of my wallet. Everything was the same, except that I was no longer Melanie Maynard. I was now Melanie Hathaway.

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About the Author:

J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who now writes full-time in the Pacific Northwest. He lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than Robin Williams. Please visit him at
www.jrrain.com
.