She tried the car door and it opened easily.
Alec always locked his car.
Kathrina slid into the driver’s seat and felt above the visor for the keys. They weren’t there.
Just as she was ready to give up and get out of the car, she glanced down and saw the keys dangling in the ignition.
Finding the keys should have made her feel better, but instead she was even more perplexed. No way would he have just left the keys in the car unless something was wrong.
Taking a deep breath, Kathrina turned the key and the engine came alive. After a quick glance over her shoulder, she eased the car out of the driveway. Once she was on the road, she put the car in gear and started driving. She wasn’t even sure where she was going.
The Quarter was the logical choice. If they had decided to go to a club, that’s where they’d be.
As she drove into the city, Kathrina’s confusion began to turn to terror. There was not a soul in sight. The streets were completely deserted. Her mind flirted with the idea of an apocalypse - 2012. It was as if someone had come down and lifted all of the people from the face of the earth, except for her.
On the next block she saw the lights of a gas station and sped up. Kathrina pulled the car next to the building and got out. Walking around the front, she peered through the windows.
It too looked deserted.
When Kathrina pulled on the door it opened. The bell that was fastened at the top of the door jingled to alert the attendant that there was a customer in the store. She stood there and waited, but no one emerged from the back of the store like she thought they would, or at least hoped.
A small portable TV was on the back counter behind the cash register, its screen filled with white snow, the speakers emitted fuzzy static. On the counter was a button and below it was a sign.
Ring For Service
Kathrina stepped to the counter and hit the button hard. She waited, but didn’t really expect anyone to come and help her.
Though her head was a jumbled mass of confusion, she was thinking straight enough to realize that she was in a lot of trouble. The entire city had vanished and she’d been left alone to figure out what was going on. Even if she knew what had happened to everyone, she doubted it would do her a lot of good.
Kathrina saw a phone sitting next to the cash register and picked it up. She wasn’t too surprised when there was no dial tone.
“Hello Kathrina.”
The sound of the male voice nearly made her heart stop beating, and for just an instant, she thought it might have.
Kathrina swung around to see who was there and her heart jumped into her throat. She felt frozen in time - unable to scream - incapable of uttering a single word. She was trembling so violently that she was forced to grab the counter to stay on her feet.
The creature stood only a few feet away. It was smiling at her with rows of sharp - jagged teeth. She wasn’t even sure what the creature was, but it most closely resembled a court jester, if a somewhat grotesque one. Kathrina couldn’t make out its features; they were hidden by red and black face paint. It wore a purple and gold suit that looked as if it came right out of the Middle Ages.
A costume you’d see during Mardi Gras. That’s what it was, she decided.
“Now don’t be frightened of me Kathrina,” it said in a deceptively soothing voice. “I won’t hurt you.”
The jester took a step toward her. “You’re all that I need … all that I want.” It was singing the words as if they were the lyrics to a love song. The song was followed by manic laughter.
“Where is everyone? What have you done with them?” Kathrina yelled. She was absolutely certain that this creature was responsible for everyone being gone.
“Nothing angel … nothing at all,” he said in a singsong voice.
“You’re lying!” Kathrina’s voice shook.
The jester moved closer to her and Kathrina stepped back, ready to flee out the door at the first opportunity.
“Not so,” he hissed. As he spoke, the air between them was filled with a putrid odor that reminded her of a rotting corpse.
“What do you want?” Kathrina’s fear was so devastating that she was in danger of falling into complete hysteria.
“Why you silly girl … you know what I want.”
Kathrina shook her head violently.
He giggled. “You’re not so innocent are you? You let him touch you in your no no places … didn’t you Kathrina.”
“Shut up!
The jester was leaning so close to her that she could feel the heat coming from his mouth. “You even want him to do it again, but I can do it better.” He smiled, showing her his gnarly teeth.
Kathrina’s face twisted in disgust. “Get away from me.”
She’d finally figured it out. This was some kind of nightmare. She must have fallen asleep at some point and now she was dreaming. It was the only explanation that made sense.
The room filled with malevolent laughter. Kathrina’s hands flew to her ears in a futile effort to block it out.
“You’re not dreaming you stupid girl. This is real.”
Though she was covering her ears, she could still hear the jester’s words. Then it dawned on her that she wasn’t hearing him with her ears. His voice was in her head.
The jester’s hand shot out to grip her wrist, his touch so hot that she was sure her skin was on fire. It was then that Kathrina saw the long claws on the thing’s fingers. They were dirty - yellow claws that were at least four inches long. Whatever the jester was, he wasn’t human.
“Do you know what he really is … your vampire lover?”
Kathrina whimpered as pain shot through her arm and up into her head.
“Look,” he snarled. “Look at what he is.”
He forced her to turn around and look at the little television screen. She saw Luciano. He was baring his fangs and his mouth was full of blood. The scene changed; now he was in a bed with red satin sheets.
No, her eyes had played tricks on her - the sheets where white, but they were covered with blood. There were two women on the bed with him, their bodies tangled in the ancient dance of mating. He was biting at their necks, and then their breasts. Blood seeped from their wounds.
Kathrina wanted to close her eyes, but her body had a will of its own. She could not look away or shut her eyes to block out the macabre images on the screen. Luciano held his hand above the head of one of the women and Kathrina saw a vapor seep from his victim’s nose and mouth.
“He is stealing their souls,” the jester laughed. “That is what your lover is.”
“This isn’t real!” Kathrina was finally able to take control of her body and she jerked away from the monster.
The jester placed one of his long claws above her breast and slowly ran it down her bosom. The fabric of her shirt parted as if it were made of paper.
Kathrina yelped when she felt his rough hands cup the tender flesh of her breast.
The jester’s mouth spread wide in what passed for a grin.
* * *
She heard screams - piercing unrelenting screaming. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the screams were hers. The bright fluorescent lights were like needles plunging into her eyes. There were hands on her arms, holdings her down as she tried in vain to fight against the aggressor.
“Calm down … please. No one is going to hurt you.”
The voice she was hearing wasn’t the jester’s voice, but still the mind numbing terror would not recede.
“Did somebody call an ambulance?”
This voice belonged to someone else. It wasn’t the same person she’d heard a second before. That voice also didn’t belong to the monster, though she could still hear the jester’s sinister laughter echoing through her head.
“Kathrina!” Nicole cried out.
The room was swaying back and forth. She could see several figures standing around her, but they appeared to be like shadows.
“Kathrina … it�
�s Nicole. You’re okay now.”
The sound of her sister’s voice was comforting, but Kathrina could not stop trembling. Suddenly her body began to convulse.
“Call an ambulance! Please!” Nicole screamed.
“They’re on their way.”
Kathrina wanted to tell Nicole that she was okay, even if it were a lie. She hated hearing that fear in her sister’s voice, but she couldn’t make her mouth work. Her tongue felt swollen and dry.
A moment before the heat had been stifling, almost to the point that she could not breathe, but now she could feel a cool breeze against her skin. It was like getting splashed with icy water.
The shadows were gone and she could now see Nicole’s concerned face near hers. Kathrina stopped fighting against the hands that were attempting to hold her down. Looking around, she saw that she was still at the gas station, but there were several people standing around her.
She saw that she was sitting on the cold - dirty linoleum of the gas station’s floor. Standing directly behind Nicole was a young man that Kathrina guessed to be in his early 20s. He was wearing a gray shirt with the name Ted embroidered on it. He had curly blond hair and gray eyes that reminded her of storm clouds. The boy would have been handsome if it weren’t for the pimples that marred his face.
The gas station attendant stared at her as if he were looking at a freak in the sideshow of some traveling circus. But he wasn’t the only one. The hands that held her down belonged to two police officers that were standing to each side of her. There were a couple of other people near the door, they stood frozen in place, dumbfounded by what they were seeing.
Sarah was standing next to Nicole, staring at Kathrina in disbelief. Her sister was still wearing her pajamas and slippers.
“Where were you guys?” Kathrina gasped. “I was looking for you.”
“We’ve been home all night,” Nicole told her.
Kathrina shook her head. “No … I was there. No one was home.”
Alarmed, Nicole looked over at Sarah. A silent message seemed to pass between the two sisters.
Nicole turned back to Kathrina. “What happened to you? How did you get hurt?”
At first Kathrina didn’t know what she was talking about, but she followed Nicole’s eyes and saw long - bleeding scratches down her arms. Someone had thrown a jacket over her front. Kathrina lifted it and saw that her blouse was torn open and full of blood. She had deep scratches across her breasts.
“I was attacked,” Kathrina whispered.
Just then two ambulance attendants came through the door, pushing a gurney.
“Aren’t you going to do something about this?” Nicole directed her question to one of the police officers that was now kneeling down next to Kathrina.
“We’ll talk with her to see if we can find out what happened, but not until she has received medical attention,” he answered.
One of the attendants was trying to check her pulse, but Kathrina pulled her hand away.
“Miss … we have to check you before we transport you to the hospital,” he told her.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
Nicole’s face twisted into a scowl. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re hurt.”
“I’m just scratched up.” Kathrina insisted.
Nicole leaned over to whisper in her ear. “You might have been sexually assaulted.
Kathrina shook her head. “It was a monster … or something.”
“Well no doubt about that.” Sarah frowned.
“Just do it for me,” Nicole insisted. “Go to the hospital and see what they say.”
Kathrina relented and let the attendant take her pulse. She could no longer endure the curious stares from all of the people in the room so she closed her eyes.
“I’ll drive Alec’s car and meet you at home, and then we’ll head to the hospital.” Sarah spoke to Nicole in hushed tones.
“Will you be okay to ride up there alone?” Nicole asked.
Kathrina nodded.
The ambulance attendant helped her to scoot onto the collapsed stretcher. Then the two men lifted it up so that the wheels were beneath it. As they were wheeling her out of the store, Kathrina looked back. The pimply-faced gas station employee had a malicious smile on his face. When he raised his hand to wave at her, there were long claws on his fingers.
Kathrina gasped and began to hyperventilate. She had to tell them about that guy and how he was really a monster. But before she could utter a word, the ambulance attendant had placed an oxygen mask over her face.
Then she heard him again. The jester’s voice was squirming around in her head like poisonous worms eating away at her brain.
“Be careful Kathrina,” he laughed. “They already think you’re crazy.”
The gas station attendant was still staring at her. She was sure that when she saw him run his tongue across his lips that it was the tongue of a serpent.
Chapter Twelve
Kathrina lay in the hospital bed, still trembling. The warm blanket that a nurse had covered her with helped, but didn’t stop her shaking entirely. It was shock. The shaking would subside soon; at least that’s what the doctor had told her.
At first she’d been worried that they would find the weird blotches on her skin and begin asking too many questions, but there was no cause for concern. The doctor attributed the skin discoloration to bruising sustained during the assault. Kathrina could tell that the doctor hadn’t been entirely convinced, but for the moment he appeared to have shrugged off his doubts, as he hadn’t commented further.
After the nurses cleaned her up, the police had come in to question her. They thought that she’d been raped. Kathrina told them that she hadn’t, but the officer that she talked to acted like he didn’t believe her.
Of course she couldn’t tell the police what had actually happened; they’d never believe her. But she did tell Nicole, and even she had stared at her in disbelief.
Was she crazy?
Had the gas station attendant raped her, and now her mind was refusing to accept that. Was that why she was imagining him to be a monster?
She was still in the hospital emergency room. They were not going to keep her overnight, but wanted her to stay a couple of hours so that they could be sure there would be no more convulsions.
Nicole and Sarah were in the hall talking with the police. Her father was there also, which was extremely odd. Donavan hated to go into public, aware of the fact that he didn’t fit in. He was too pale - too gothic.
Kathrina could hear their hushed voices, and if she listened closely, she could make out what they were saying.
“It’s a real possibility that she was sexually assaulted and that she is repressing the memory.”
It was the voice of the officer that had questioned her. He was talking with her father.
“What was she doing at that gas station to begin with?” Donavan asked.
“We don’t know yet,” the officer told him.
“So far all we know is that she took Alec’s car and was driving around. The gas station attendant said that she came into the station screaming. She was covered with blood,” Nicole was telling their father.
“If we come up with anything, we’ll be in touch. In the meantime … you might want to encourage her get some counseling.”
Kathrina watched the officer walk away and disappear from sight. Donavan and her sisters stepped inside her room.
“How are you feeling?” Sarah smiled.
“I’m all right, but I want to get out of here,” Kathrina told them.
“As soon as the doctor gives us the okay … we’ll take you home,” Donavan reassured her.
Nicole pulled up a chair and sat next to her bed. “Kathrina … you have to tell us what really happened so that we can help you.”
Kathrina felt her heart sink. Not even Nicole believed her. “I did.”
“So you were attacked by a clown at the gas station? Think about it Kathrina … if that were true then w
hy didn’t the guy working at the gas station see the clown?” Though Nicole’s eyes were sympathetic, it was obvious that her sister couldn’t wrap her head around what Kathrina had told her.
“It wasn’t a clown … it was a jester,” Kathrina corrected Nicole. “And besides, the gas station guy was the jester. I didn’t know it until we were leaving. That’s when I saw his claws.”
Nicole’s face was a mask of shock. She cleared her throat. “I didn’t see any claws.”
Donavan stepped forward. “Let her rest and we’ll talk about this later.”
She was thankful to her father for coming to her rescue. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. That thing had been right; they all thought she was crazy.
Kathrina closed her eyes. Right now she wanted nothing more than to just rest and forget everything that had happened to her since coming to New Orleans. After a few minutes, she heard her family leave the room.
She wasn’t sure if she drifted off to sleep, but she was startled by the sound of a nurse yelling.
“Sir! You can’t go in. It’s family only. If you go in there I’ll have to call security.”
She heard a male’s voice and then the nurse screamed. There was a loud thud as someone hit the floor.
Kathrina held her breath, waiting for whoever was out there to come into her room. The jester had found her and now that her family had left her alone, he’d come back to finish her off.
And then he was there, his large frame filling the doorway to her room. He was a sight with his long dark hair hanging around his shoulders and that dangerous glint in his black eyes. He wore a long black coat and leather gloves to cover his hands.
“Luciano,” she croaked.
He stepped into the room and stood next to her bed.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“Darrien … your sister’s lover paid me a visit. I guess they thought I did this to you.” Luciano pulled his glove off and lightly touched the scratches on her arm.
“Who did do it?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“It was a monster. He looked like a clown or a jester,” she told him, certain that he wouldn’t believe her.
Kathrina was a little surprised when she didn’t see the shock and disbelief in his eyes, like she had with everyone else. What she did see was murderous rage.
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